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Kantian Constructivism and the Moral Problem

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Abstract

According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This paper argues that this objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. The case largely rests on the assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. But for constructivism there is no moral domain of objects prior to and independently of reasoning. The argument attempts to make some progress in the debate by defending a robust conception of construction, which names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative.

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Notes

  1. Kantian constructivism names a rather diversified cluster of theories, which differ as to the scope and aims of construction, see Street 2010; Bagnoli 2011a. I defend a cognitivist and irrealist version of constructivism, which I take to be akin to Kant’s own theory of rational authority, but I will not argue for this interpretation on the basis of exegetical analysis here.

  2. “Apart from the procedures of constructing the principles of justice, there are no moral facts”, Rawls 1980, p. 519; “The procedural moral realist thinks that there are answers to moral questions because there are correct procedures for arriving at them. But the substantive moral realist thinks that there are correct procedures for answering moral questions because there are moral truths or facts”, Korsgaard 1996, pp. 36–37.

  3. See O’Neill 1988, pp.11 ff. Rawls 1993, p. 104; Rawls 2000, pp. 212–214. Critics often take the notion of construction to be equivalent to the notion of creation, Hussain and Shah 2013, p. 290, Hussain and Shah 2006. Equating construction to creation begs the question about the prospects of constructivism because it does not acknowledge its peculiarity.

  4. This is a key point in Korsgaard’s argument for constructivism: “The goodness of rationally chosen ends is a matter of the demands of practical reason rather than a matter of ontology”, Korsgaard 1983, p.183, vs. Hussain and Shah 2013, p. 293.

  5. Some constructivists include among the materials the facts of the matter that determine the circumstances of action, see O’Neill 1996, pp. 99–106. I am reluctant to consider the circumstances of action as “facts of the matter” because I think that describing the circumstances of action is a thoroughly normative affaire, which requires us to assess resources, obstacles, opportunities and other descriptive features of the context of choice. Accounting for the circumstances of action is part of the problem that agents conceptualize as the problem of choice.

  6. The notion of “practical subject” is crucial to the definition of Kantian constructivism, see Bagnoli 2013, pp. 168–169. For reasons O’Neill clarified, it is also important that this profile remains meager and abstract.

  7. The claim is that some norms guide the very activity of reasoning, but this is not to say that they are sufficient to determine moral obligations, or that rational agency is fully in place when reasoners engage in practical reasoning. The interesting contrast with moral realism is that for a constructivist there are no ready-made moral truths out there to be discovered.

  8. That reasons must be universal is not a claim that Kantians leave unjustified, of course. However, Kant’s argument for the categorical imperative is rather brief (Kant 1907, 5:19-30); and there is a wide agreement that it does not account for the complexity of moral reasoning, see e.g. Herman 1993, chapter 4. See also O’Neill 1989, Korsgaard 2008, pp. 207–229. I cannot address the issue here, but I have argued for a dialogical account of universalization as co-legislation, in Bagnoli 2013, pp. 168–174, and also in Bagnoli 2016.

  9. Thus phrased, this argumentative strategy may seem close to Onora O’Neill’s (1989). Differently than O’Neill, I identify the Kantian concept of respect as attention as a structural feature of rational justification and I defend Kantian constructivism as kind of practical cognitivism, see Bagnoli 2013, see also Engstrom 2013.

  10. For this idea of domain, see also Scanlon 2014, p. 19 and p. 19 n. 4.

  11. The relation of reasoning to its objects is one of construction, rather than one of recognition or representation of a special realm of facts, see O’Neill 1996, p. 97.

  12. On this point, I sharply differ from proceduralist and non-cognitivist versions of Kantian constructivism, such as Korsgaard’s or Street’s, see Korsgaard 2003, pp. 110, 118, Korsgaard 2008, pp. 30–31, 55–57, 67–68, 234. Insofar as it is cognitivist, my version of Kantian constructivism is similar to Engstrom’s practical cognitivism, see Engstrom 2002, 2012, 2013; Bagnoli 2013. However, differently than Engstrom, I take respect to be a structural feature of practical reflection, and I do not think practical reflection requires detachment or that these are “two moments of the exercise of the same capacity”, Engstrom 2009, p. 146.

  13. “Abstraction, taken straightforwardly, is a matter of bracketing, but not denying, predicates that are true of the matter under discussion”, O’Neill 1996, p. 40. O’Neill points out that the objections which have been raised against morally arbitrary and problematic forms of idealization do not apply against abstraction.

  14. The qualification “interested” is not meant to make the whole story optional, but to emphasize that the relevant subjects are endowed with the reflective, cognitive and emotional capacities that allow them to take an interest in reasoning together. Such practical subjects do not directly grasp moral truths, but they can take an interest in searching for reasons. The capacity to be interested in reasoning together is what makes such subjects responsive to moral and non moral requirements.

  15. For the same reason, I am also skeptical about Rudder Baker’s view that agents deploy practical reasoning in all forms of rational agency, see Rudder Baker 2011.

  16. I differ from most Kantian constructivists who take practical subjects to be moral agents. I also differ from Rudder Baker who thinks of moral agency in terms of the capacity to respond to specific attitudes such as blame, see Rudder Baker 2011.

  17. I acknowledge that this is a genuine worry, especially considering that the standard Kantian framework respect is deeply embedded in a substantive moral theory. I offer an alternative view of respect in Bagnoli 2011b, and Bagnoli 2015.

  18. For instance, John Skorupski remarks: “what especially matters to Kant is an egalitarianism of pure moral insight. It drives Kant’s insistence that morality is accessible to everyone, that arriving personally at a correct moral judgment is open to the simplest human being. Every human being merits absolute respect, because every human being has absolute moral insight”, Skorupski 2010, p. 175.

  19. I have attempted to provide a more detailed account of the constructivist conception of respect in Bagnoli 2011b, 2013, pp. 174–179, and Bagnoli 2015.

  20. On the equivocation between two forms of practical knowledge and Korsgaard’s argument against “applied knowledge”, see Bagnoli 2013, pp. 156–168.

  21. Self-understanding may have an indirect impact on our motivation to act morally, but it is in itself an epistemic gain. Rawls 2000, p. 201.

  22. I add the qualification “decisive” to allow for cases where the subject legitimately resists the normative status of some reasons because they are overridden, overcome, trumped, or superseded by other stronger reasons.

  23. The thought can be also expressed in terms of self-constitution, but I will put this issue aside. Practical knowledge is internal to persons’ self-conception, “through which persons constitute themselves as persons at all”, Engstrom 2009, p. 148.

  24. “Practical knowledge is always knowledge persons, as practically judging subjects, have of how they themselves are to act, of what they themselves are to do”, p. 146.

  25. See Korsgaard 1996; compare Wood 2002, pp. 157–182.

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Bagnoli, C. Kantian Constructivism and the Moral Problem. Philosophia 44, 1229–1246 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9745-4

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