Constitutivism and the inescapability of agency
| Abstract | How can we account for the categorical force of the norms of rationality and morality? Some philosophers have argued that the grounds of these unconditional oughts are to be found in the nature of agency.2 In a rough outline, their basic claim is that the norms and requirements of practical rationality and morality can be derived from the constitutive features of agency. Hence, a systematic failure to be guided by these requirements amounts to a loss of agency. But there is a sense in which we cannot but be agents. From which it follows that we are necessarily bound by the oughts of rationality and morality, we are bound by them sans phrase. 1.2 The success of this argumentative strategy—which goes under the name of ʻconstitutivismʼ—depends on establishing the following two claims. First, that the norms of rationality and morality can be derived from the constitutive features of agency. Second, that we cannot but be agents, that agency is non-optional. | |||||||||
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