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Abstract
One of the main reasons for philosophers to have embraced Humean constructivism rather than Kantian constructivism is a negative one: they believe that in the end Kantian constructivism is an unstable position. Their idea is that the Kantian constructivist can either choose to hold on to the idea of categorical reasons for action but in that case she has to be prepared to commit to (robust) moral realism (which both Humean and Kantian constructivists reject) or alternatively, she might reject (robust) moral realism but in that case she has to give up on the idea of categoricity. The aim of this paper is to defend Kantian constructivism against Humean constructivism and more specifically against recent objections raised by Sharon Street. I will do so by arguing that Kantian constructivism follows from formal, normative commitments that pertain to instrumental reasoning that Humean constructivists like Sharon Street themselves accept. More specifically I will argue that categorical reasons for action follow from applying the principle of instrumental rationality to the first-person perspective of an agent, provided that there are certain necessary means for action in general. From this follows, I will argue, that Humean constructivists should either become Kantian constructivists or that they have to become sceptics about normativity.
Notes on contributor
Sem de Maagt is an assistant professor in ethics and political philosophy at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Notes
1 I will not discuss the relation between The Sources and Self-Constitution (Citation2009) in this paper. The reason for this is that the goal of this paper is not to defend Korsgaard’s specific conception of Kantian constructivism, but Kantian constructivism in general. Note also that, in Self-Constitution, Korsgaard claims: “I am always making the same argument” (Citation2009, 76).
2 For a discussion of different ways to reconstruct Korsgaard’s argument see Stern (Citation2011).
3 Discussions about transcendental arguments in theoretical philosophy mainly revolve around the question of whether the conclusion of a transcendental argument is a justified true belief (strong transcendental argument) or “merely” a justified belief (modest transcendental argument). The locus classicus is that of Stroud (Citation1968), who argues that transcendental arguments cannot justify any ontological claim. For a recent overview of transcendental arguments in theoretical philosophy see Stern (Citation2000, Citation2013). In this paper, I focus exclusively on transcendental arguments in ethics and I will not discuss their relation to transcendental arguments in theoretical philosophy. Let me, however, note two important differences between transcendental arguments in these two domains. First, whereas transcendental arguments in theoretical philosophy often try to justify an ontological claim, transcendental arguments in practical philosophy typically do not have this ambition, at least insofar as they are employed by constructivists who either reject or bracket the existence of moral facts (an exception is Enoch [Citation2011, 50–84]). Transcendental arguments in ethics therefore might not be susceptible to Stroudian worries (cf. Robert Stern Citation2013). Second, whereas the explanandum of a transcendental argument in theoretical philosophy is a justified (true) belief (e.g. belief in our existence), the explanandum in practical philosophy is a normative judgement, i.e. a judgement about what one should do (e.g. value one’s humanity).
4 For a discussion of the difference between a third-person and a first-person perspective on agents see Korsgaard (Citation1989, Citation1995).
5 Korsgaard, for instance, puts forward an argument about the publicity of reasons (Citation1996, 131–166). Alan Gewirth, on the other hand, puts forward “the argument from the sufficiency of agency” which states, roughly, that given that agency is a sufficient condition for being committed to valuing the necessary means of agency, one has to value not only the necessary means of one’s own agency but also the necessary means of every agent (on pain of denying that agency is a sufficient condition for valuing the necessary means of agency) (Gewirth Citation1978, 101). For a critical comparison of different Kantian constructivists arguments for interpersonal morality see Beyleveld (Citation2015) and de Maagt (Citation2018, Citationforthcoming).
6 Michael Nance (Citation2015) puts forward an almost identical objection to Fichte’s transcendental argument for the necessity of mutual recognition. He presents the objection in terms of what he calls a “modal dillemma”:
The modal dilemma goes as follows. Fichte understands it to follow from his argument that “I must in all cases recognize the other as a free being, i.e., I must limit my freedom through the concept of the possibility of his freedom” (ibid.: 39). There is an ambiguity concerning the nature of the “must” in this conclusion. The necessity expressed by the “must” is either metaphysical or normative. If the necessity is metaphysical, then Fichte’s conclusion is falsified by empirical reality, since one can evidently be a finite self-positing agent without recognizing the rights of others. […] But if the necessity expressed by the “must” is normative – if his conclusion means “I ought in all cases to recognize the other” – then it does not follow from the premises about self-positing that Fichte establishes in the preceding theorems of his deduction (Nance Citation2015, 615–16).
7 “‘Perhaps,’ Korsgaard’s sceptic may say, ‘I cannot opt out of the game of agency, but I can certainly play it half-heartedly, indeed under protest, without accepting the aims purportedly constitutive of it as mine.’ The kind of necessity the game of agency has to enjoy in order to solve the problem we are now in is normative necessity. Invoking other necessities here will just not do” (Enoch Citation2006, 188; see also Citation2011, 216).
8 Korsgaard argues that “the instrumental principle cannot stand alone” (Citation1997, 251). Instead, Korsgaard claims that the instrumental principle can only generate normativity if there are already ends that are good. This conception of the role of the instrumental principle is incompatible with the response in this section, because my response claims that (categorical) instrumentality can generate normativity without presupposing anything about the goodness of ends themselves. At the same time, however, Korsgaard also believes that the distinction between the instrumental principle and the categorical imperative might “break down” because “moral or unconditional principles and the instrumental principles are both expressions of the basic requirement of giving oneself a law, and bring out different implications of that requirement” (Citation1997, 250f73). This seems to bring her view closer to my view.
9 The point of this paragraph and the example of a categorical reason to want to be alive is merely to illustrate the formal structure of the Kantian constructivist argument. I will come back to the question of the substance of categorical reasons in the next section.
10 In fact, in other writings, Street acknowledges that the instrumental principle can generate reasons for action while at the same time she claims that the instrumental principle is a conceptual truth (see Street Citation2008, 228f37).
11 Another option for Street would be to retreat to what Bernard Williams (Citation1979) calls the “sub-Humean model” (Citation1979, 102), which states that any desire also constitutes a reason. This, however, also seems to amount to scepticism about normativity insofar as on the sub-Humean model one cannot make a mistake about one’s reasons.
12 See e.g. “willing an end just is committing yourself to realizing the end. Wiling an end, in other words, is an essentially first-personal and normative act. To will an end is to give oneself a law, hence, to govern oneself […] Willing an end is equivalent to committing yourself, first-personally, to taking the means to that end […] What is constitutive of willing the end is not the outward act of actually taking the means but rather the inward, volitional act of prescribing the end along with the means it requires to yourself” (Korsgaard Citation1997, 245). See also (Skidmore Citation2002; Beyleveld and Bos Citation2009).
13 Acknowledging that it is necessary to accept the instrumental principle insofar as one understands oneself as an agent makes clear that although one has a prudential reason for accepting categorical instrumental reasons because they are instrumental to the pursued of your goals (whatever they may be), the judgement that one categorically instrumentally ought to take the necessary means to action is itself not prudential or instrumental but necessary insofar as one understands oneself as agent (cf. Beyleveld Citation2015, 594). Denying that one has to take the necessary means to action is thus not only prudentially or instrumentally irrational, but it also contradicts with the idea that one understands oneself as an agent, insofar as accepting the principle of instrumental rationality is constitutive of agency. This is another way illustrating that Kantian (objective) normative reasons are both instrumental and categorical.
14 Another way to make the same point is to understand transcendental commitments as limiting cases of internal reasons (cf. Williams Citation1995, 220f3). An internal reason is generally understood as a reason which can be derived, via a valid deliberative route, from the existing motivational set of a person, i.e. the existing beliefs, desires and preferences of a person (Williams Citation1979). A transcendental argument is a limiting case of such an internal reason, because although it does not presuppose the existence of any mind-independent reason (contrary to the external reason theories), reasons are not derived from the substantive content of the person’s motivational set (as Humeans, including Street, typically assume), but from the conditions of possibility of having a motivational set at all, independent from its contingent content.
15 Note that there is a certain tension between Street’s emptiness objection and her objection that Kantian constructivism is incoherent. This tension is due to the fact that it seems to me that it only makes sense to say that a theory is empty once it is acknowledged that the theory is at least coherent. Why bother about the emptiness of an incoherent theory? In addition, although Street repeatedly stresses that Kantian constructivism is empty, she does not give an argument for this conclusion. I do not want to try to shift the burden of proof – I do think that the burden of proof is on the Kantian constructivist to show that substantive reasons can be justified. Instead, I merely want to stress that, as it stands, this not a real objection to Kantian constructivism but merely describes an important challenge.
16 This objection to Kantian ethics goes back as far Hegel’s empty objection to the formula of universal of the categorical imperative. Hegel claims that, on the basis of the formula of universal law
no immanent theory of duties is possible. One may indeed bring in material from outside and thereby arrive at particular duties, but it is impossible to make the transition to the determination of particular duties from the above determination of duty as absence of contradiction, as formal correspondence with itself, which is no different from the specification of abstract indeterminacy; and even if such a particular content for action is taken into consideration, there is no criterion within that principle for deciding whether or not this content is a duty. On the contrary, it is possible to justify any wrong or immoral mode of action by this means. (1991, 162;135).
17 For a discussion of why formal principles are not necessarily empty principles see Herman (Citation1996, 217).
18 This project is similar to Alan Gewirth’s (Citation1978) attempt at defining certain “generic features of action,” which he defines as “the invariant features that pertain generically to all actions” (Citation1978, 25). Compare also John Rawls concept of “primary goods,” which are supposed to be “these goods [that] normally have a use whatever a person’s rational plan of life.” (Citation1999, 54).
19 I am thankful to an anonymous reviewer for raising this objection.
20 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Objectivity in Ethics” conference at Utrecht University (2016). I am grateful for the comments and questions I received on this occasion. Special thanks to Rutger Claassen, Marcus Düwell, Fleur Jongepier, Wouter Kalf, Michael Klenk and Ingrid Robeyns for their helpful comments on various earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer for his or her constructive comments and suggestions.