![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
Humean constructivists object to Kantian constructivism that by endorsing the constitutivist strategy, which grounds moral obligations in rational agency, this position discounts the impact of contingency in moral life. In response to these charges, I argue that Humeans misrepresent the challenge of contingency and fail to provide adequate resources to cope with it. In its formalist variety, Humean constructivism fails to make sense of an important category of ethical judgments, which claim universal authority. The substantive varieties of Humean constructivism recognize that some ethical judgments aspire to universality, but fail to fully justify such an aspiration. These versions of constructivism represent a setback in regard to the achievements of Kantian constructivism. In conclusion, I briefly resume the advantages of advocating a Kantian conception of rational authority as a response to contingency.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Carla Bagnoli is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Modena (Italy). She works on Kantian constructivism, moral epistemology and action theory. Bagnoli has published four monographs on moral dilemmas, practical reasoning, moral authority, and responsibility. She has edited Morality and the Emotions (OUP), and Constructivism in Ethics (CUP). Her current research focuses on the temporal aspects of rational agency, deliberative coherence and emotional resonance.
Notes
1 I have encountered the work of Zanele Muholi at Fotografiska, Stockholm, on March 31st, 2018.
2 On the varieties of Kantian constructivism, see Bagnoli (Citation2017a).
3 For instance, Korsgaard (Citation1996, 38–44); Rawls (Citation1980, Citation2000).
4 The term “construction” is a device for representing how finite rational agents undertake rational choice. On the Kantian notion of construction, see Bagnoli (Citation2017b); Bagnoli (Citation2013).
5 Rawls (Citation1980) introduces Kantian constructivism as an alternative to the ontological construals of objectivity.
6 Street (Citation2012, 54). Dorsey recognizes that the critique of Kantian constructivism is a necessary step to establish Humean constructivism, but he does not embark on this venture, Dorsey (Citation2018, 575, 577).
7 “I will argue that Korsgaard’s argument does not ultimately remain true enough to the central constructivist point that there are no facts about normative reasons apart from the standpoint of an agent who is already taking things to be reasons”, Street (Citation2012, 48).
8 For a constructive critique of transcendental arguments and idealization, see O’Neill (Citation1996, 40–44).
9 Despite the names, this is not an intramural dispute between two forms of contructivism since the theories are designed to do different things. Kantian constructivism is designed to account for the authority of moral obligations, while Street talks loosely about values and morality. Kantian constructivism does not enter the meta-ethical debate as a formal analysis of evaluative discourse or valuing as an attitude. Rather, it provides an account of ethical objectivity and of the authority of moral obligations understood as rational requirements (Rawls Citation1980, 519; Korsgaard Citation1996, 36–37). I also doubt that the distinction between “proceduralist” and “perspectival-approaches to constructivism makes sense of Kantian constructivism, (see Street Citation2010, 366; and endorsed by many in the ensuing discussion, including Dorsey Citation2018, 574). Given that the role assigned to construction is so deflated vis à vis the Kantian model to be more akin to projection, perhaps, the position defended by Humeans is best formulated in expressivist terms (see Lenman Citation2010, 181, Citation2012; Bagnoli Citation2002). Street thinks that her rejection of the language of desires is sufficient to distinguish her constructivism from expressivism; but expressivist meta-ethics does not necessarily take desires to be the fundamental element (see e.g. Gibbard Citation1990).
10 This example is introduced by Gibbard (Citation1990). “If Humean metaethical constructivism is correct, then morality does not follow from pure practical reason, understood as the standpoint of a valuer as such. Instead, we must conceive of our relationship with morality as more contingent than that” (Street [Citation2012, 55]). See also Street (Citation2012, 42).
11 Kant (Citation1907, Ak 6: 399).
12 Elsewhere I defended a pluralistic account of responsibility, which identifies several complementary functions of responsibility, including testimonial and reparatory functions.
13 On the Kantian view, such arrogance and self-deceit also implicate lack of self-respect.
14 For a recent interpretation of Hume’s ethics as pervasively social, rather than individualistic, see Taylor (Citation2015).
15 Driver (Citation2017), Dorsey (Citation2018, 578).
16 Driver (Citation2017, 178–79) and Dorsey (Citation2018, 590).
17 “Certain reasons that apply to all social beings are extractable from the practical point of view of such beings— specifically, that feature of their practical point of view involved in evaluating.” (Driver [Citation2017, 47]).
18 On this problem, see Korsgaard (Citation2008, 263–301), and Taylor (Citation2015, 104–106 and 109).
19 “We might argue that it is a feature of human beings that, as they move through the world as social beings, they are guided by certain considerations, such as the consideration that the well-being of another provides one with at least some reason to act. It may be that we can make this case by positing a kind of psychological necessity to this sort of normative commitment, one that is an essential part, or constitutive of, what we consider recognizably moral behavior” (Driver [Citation2017, 176–77]). See also Dorsey (Citation2018, 585).
20 See Taylor (Citation2015). According to Taylor, there are resources in Hume’s treatment of justice for representing morality as a cooperative enterprise.
21 See Hume (Citation2007, 581–582). On the “narrow circle”, see Hume (Citation2007, 582 ff., 602).
22 On these issues, see Taylor (Citation2015, 104–106, 109).
23 Driver (Citation2017, 177–80). “As social beings communicating with each other on moral matters we have a strong interest in being intelligible to each other” (Driver [Citation2017, 180]).
24 See also Dorsey (Citation2018, 580).
25 “In particular, to follow Hume’s considerations, the corrected perspective is the perspective that allows for meaningful communication between different individuals in such a way that critical practices are supported rather than undermined” (Driver [Citation2017, 181]).
26 Cf. Hume (Citation1985, 190, 226–49, 229–30). 26. Ibid., 230–31.
27 “I do not here reject other constraints on what it may mean for one’s evaluative judgments to be in a “sound state”; I only insist, broadly, on an acquaintance requirement” (Dorsey [Citation2018, 587]).
28 Driver seems very optimistic that the problem of circularity could be solved by naturalism, but it seems to me to worsen the problem (Driver [2012, 177]).
29 Driver phrases this claim in realistic terms, saying that the arbitrary “does not reflect real value” (Driver [Citation2017, 184]).
30 Such issues are divisive also among Kantians, insofar as they disagree about the constitutive features of practical rationality, and also about the level of idealization implicit in the attempt to identify the constitutive standard of rationality, Bagnoli (Citation2017a).
31 I leave aside the discussion of how to spell out such a requirement, but see (O’Neill Citation1989, Citation1992, 1006).
32 O’Neill (1988, 10), Bagnoli (Citation2017c).
33 This paper was presented at the III Conference of the European Network for Practical Reason and Normative Psychology, Constitutive Norms and Temporal Agency, at the University of Oslo, Aug. 2018. I would like to thank Caroline Arruda, Luca Ferrero, Christel Fricke, Adrian Haddock, Andrea Kern, Matthias Haase, Erasmus Mayr, Glenn Most, and Caj Strandberg.