This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
For a recent attempt to address this question, although not with respect to the objections discussed in this paper, see Mähringer (2022). For evidence of a recent trend to move beyond a narrowly individualistic conception of metaethics, see e.g. Moland (2011), Manne (2013), Walden (2019), Samuel (forthcoming).
The Modal Existence Claim is formulated here using ‘only because’, as opposed to ‘only if’, because it is not being claimed, nor is it being denied, that something classifiable as ‘morality’ could not possibly have come into existence any other way. This latter claim is not an implication of the social constructivist view, although it is consistent with that view. Critics of the social constructivist view might immediately object that as thus formulated the Modal Existence Claim confuses the existence of norms and values understood as evaluative or normative commitments and practices on the one hand, with norms and values as the ‘ontological’ correlates that make those values and norms and ‘correct’ or ‘true’ on the other. Given that it is the reconfiguration of this distinction on which the viability of the social constructivist view depends, this potentially misleading definition will be retained in what follows.
I take the Modal Existence claim to be consistent with the following generic definition of normative constructivism given in Lenman (2012): ‘Constructivist views understand correct normative views as… those which are the upshot of some procedure or criterion, where a) that procedure or criterion is one followable or applicable by human beings, where b) that procedure or criterion is itself characterized in normative terms [my italics]… and c) applying the procedure or criterion is taken as determining or constitutive of that correctness rather than tracking correctness conceived as prior to and independent of it, and d) where the rationale for our taking an interest in what the procedure or criterion in question delivers is conceived of as speaking to distinctively practical as opposed to theoretical concerns.’ (Lenman 2012, 216; c.f. Street 2008, 223; Harman 2000; Prinz 2007; Wong 2007).
On this point there are significant parallels between the social constructivist response to the problem of incoherence for moral thought in particular and some of the Kantian responses to that problem for normativity in general mentioned previously.
In contrast to the moral classification of distant future events, the moral classification distant past events will not materially affect those events themselves (e.g. by making the perpetrators of pre-humanoid massacres feel bad about themselves; become more likely to repent; or try harder to become like their descendants in response to their distantly future acts of retrospective disapproval, and so on).
See e.g. Lillehammer (2002) for an attempt to address some of the issues discussed in this and previous paragraphs. The terms of that discussion would need to be substantially revised in order to be consistent with the social constructivist view as interpreted in this paper, in particular with respect to the substantially normative status of a wide range of apparently meta-ethical claims.
I am grateful to three cohorts of BA and MA students at Birkbeck College, University of London for discussions that convinced me of the value of presenting this material in its present form. I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for some very useful suggestions.
References
Bagnoli, C., ed. 2013. Constructivism in Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blackburn, S. 1985. Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackburn, S. 1993. Essays on Quasi-Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackburn, S. 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cuneo, T., and R. Shafer-Landau. 2014. The Moral Fixed Points: New Directions for Moral Nonnaturalism. Philosophical Studies 171: 399–443.
Davidson, D. 2004. Problems of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dworkin, R. 2011. Justice for Hedgehogs. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Eklund, M. 2014. Choosing Normative Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hacking, S. 2000. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harman, G. 2000. Explaining Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haslanger, S. 2012. Resisting Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hussain, N. 2012. A Problem for Ambitious Metanormative Constructivism. In Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, ed. J. Lenman and J. Shemmer, 180–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Joyce, R. 2001. The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Korsgaard, C. 2008. The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Korsgaard, C. 2009. Self-Constitution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kramer, M. 2010. Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.
Lenman, J. 2012. Expressivism and Constructivism. In Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, ed. J. Lenman and J. Shemmer, 213–225. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lenman, J., and J. Shemmer, eds. 2012. Constructivism in Practical Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, D. 1984. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lillehammer, H. 2002. Moral Realism, Normative Reasons and Rational Intelligibility. Erkenntnis 57: 47–69.
Lillehammer, H. 2013. ‘A Distinction without a Difference? Good Advice for Moral Error Theorists’, Ratio 26: 373–390.
Lillehammer, H. 2018. Projection, Indeterminacy and Moral Skepticism. In Moral Skepticism: New Essays, ed. D. Machuca, 33–48. New York: Routledge.
Mähringer, G. 2022. Social Ontology in Metaethics. Philosophy & Social Criticism. https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537221145626.
Manne, K. 2013. On Being Social in Metaethics. Oxford Studies in Metaethics 8: 50–73.
McDowell, J. 1998. Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Moland, L. 2011. Agency and Practical Identity: A Hegelian Response to Korsgaard. Metaphilosophy 42: 368–375.
Moody-Adams, M. 1997. Fieldwork in Familiar Places. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
O’Neill, O. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Prinz, J. 2007. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Putnam, H. 2004. Ethics without Ontology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, J. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Shafer-Landau, R. 2003. Moral Realism: A Defence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Samuel, J. Forthcoming. Toward a Post-Kantian Constructivism. Ergo.
Shemmer, J. 2012. Constructing Coherence. In Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, ed. J. Lenman and J. Shemmer, 159–179. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Street, S. 2008. Constructivism about Reasons. Oxford Studies in Metaethics 3: 208–245.
Street, S. 2012. Coming to terms with Contingency: Humean Constructivism about Practical Reason. In Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, ed. J. Lenman and J. Shemmer, 40–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walden, K. 2019. Reason and Respect. Oxford Studies in Metaethics 15: 1–23.
Williams, B. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana.
Wong, D. 2007. Natural Moralities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Lillehammer, H. Could Morality be a Social Construction?. J Value Inquiry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09956-3
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09956-3