Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T00:22:57.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Habermasian Constructivism: An Alternative to the Constitutivist Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2020

Dafydd Huw Rees
Dafydd Huw Rees*
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory of morality should be understood, in metaethical terms, as a constructivist theory. All constructivist theories face a Euthyphro-like dilemma arising from how they classify the constraints on their metaethical construction procedures: are they moral or non-moral? Many varieties of Kantian constructivism, such as Christine Korsgaard’s, classify the constraints as moral, albeit constitutive of human reason and agency in general. However, this constitutivist strategy is vulnerable to David Enoch’s ‘shmagency’ objection. The discourse theory of morality, by classifying the constraints on the metaethical construction procedure (principles (D) and (U)) as non-moral, can avoid this problem.

Keywords

KantHabermasconstructivismmetaethicsconstitutivist argumentschmagency
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 25 , Special Issue 4: Special Issue on Kant and the Frankfurt School , December 2020 , pp. 675 - 698
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bagnoli, Carla (2013) ‘Constructivism about Practical Knowledge’. In Carla, Bagnoli (ed.), Constructivism in Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 153–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagnoli, Carla (2015) ‘Moral Objectivity: A Kantian Illusion?’ Journal of Value Enquiry, 49 (1–2), 31–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagnoli, Carla (2016) ‘Kantian Constructivism and the Moral Problem’. Philosophia, 44 (4), 1229–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baiasu, Sorin (2016) ‘Constitutivism and Transcendental Practical Philosophy: How to Pull the Rabbit Out of the Hat’. Philosophia, 44 (4), 1185–1208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bratu, Christine, and Moritz, Dittmeyer (2016) ‘Constitutivism about Practical Principles: Its Claims, Goals, Task and Failure’. Philosophia, 44 (4), 1129–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David (2006) ‘Agency, Shmagency: Why Normativity won’t Come from What is Constitutive of Agency’. Philosophical Review, 115 (2), 169–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David (2009) ‘Can there be a Global, Interesting, Coherent Constructivism about Practical Reason?’ Philosophical Explorations, 12 (3), 319–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David (2011) ‘Shmagency Revisited’. In Brady, Michael S. (ed.), New Waves in Metaethics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 208–33.Google Scholar
Ferrero, Luca (2009) ‘Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency’. In Russ Shaffer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 303–34.Google Scholar
Finlayson, James Gordon (2000) ‘Modernity and Morality in Habermas’ Discourse Ethics’. Inquiry, 43, 319–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1979) ‘What is Universal Pragmatics?’ In Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston, MA: Beacon Press), 1–68.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1990a) ‘Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action’. In Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity Press), 116–94.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1990b) ‘Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification’. In Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity Press), 43–115.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1992) ‘Metaphysics After Kant’. In Postmetaphysical Thinking (Cambridge: Polity Press), 10–27.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1993) ‘Remarks on Discourse Ethics’. In Justification and Application (Cambridge: Polity Press), 19–112.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (1996) Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (2008a) ‘Communicative Action and the Detranscendentalized “Use of Reason”’. In Between Naturalism and Religion (Cambridge: Polity Press), 24–76.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (2008b) ‘On the Architectonics of Discursive Differentiation: A Brief Response to a Major Controversy’. In Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion (Cambridge: Polity Press), 77–98.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996) ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’. In Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Mary, J Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 41–108.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1996) Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (2008) The Constitution of Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (2009) Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laitinen, Arto (2016) ‘Hegelian Constructivism in Ethical Theory?’. In Italo, Testa and Luigi, Ruggiu (eds), ‘I that is We and We that is I’. Perspectives on Contemporary Hegel: Social Ontology, Recognition, Naturalism, and the Critique of Kantian Constructivism (Leiden: Brill), 127–46.Google Scholar
LeBar, Mark (2008) ‘Aristotelian Constructivism’. Social Philosophy and Policy, 25 (1), 182–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenman, James (2010) ‘Humean Constructivism in Moral Theory’. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 5, 175–93.Google Scholar
O’Hagan, Emer (2014) ‘Shmagents, Realism and Constitutivism about Rational Norms’. Journal of Value Inquiry, 48 (1), 17–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Neill, Onora (1989) Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Jørgen (2008) ‘Habermas’ Method: Rational Reconstruction’. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 38 (4), 457–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John (1980) ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’. Journal of Philosophy, 77 (9), 515–72.Google Scholar
Rehg, William (1997) Insight and Solidarity: The Discourse Ethics of Jürgen Habermas. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. (2014) Being Realistic about Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafer-Landau, Russ (2003) Moral Realism: A Defense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shemmer, Yonatan (2012) ‘Constructing Coherence’. In James, Lenman and Yonatan, Shemmer (eds), Constructivism in Practical Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 159–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silk, Alex (2015) ‘Nietzschean Constructivism: Ethics and Metaethics for All and None’. Inquiry, 58 (3), 244–80.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Matthew (2012) ‘Inescapability and Normativity’. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 6 (3), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Matthew (2015) ‘The Shmagency Question’. Philosophical Studies, 172, 1127–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael (2015) ‘The Magic of Constitutivism’. American Philosophical Quarterly, 52 (2), 187–200.Google Scholar
Street, Sharon (2012) ‘Coming to Terms with Contingency: Humean Constructivism about Practical Reason’. In James, Lenman and Yonatan, Shemmer (eds), Constructivism in Practical Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 40–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmons, Mark (2003) ‘The Limits of Moral Constructivism’. Ratio, 16 (4), 391–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velleman, J. David (2009) How We Get Along. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. Jay (2006) ‘Scanlon’s Contractualism’. In Normativity and the Will: Selected Essays on Moral, Psychological, and Practical Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 263–99.Google Scholar
Wallace, R. Jay (2012) ‘Constructivism about Normativity: Some Pitfalls’. In James, Lenman and Yonatan, Shemmer (eds), Constructivism in Practical Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 18–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuk, Peter D. (2015) ‘A Third Version of Constructivism: Rethinking Spinoza’s Metaethics’. Philosophical Studies, 172 (10), 2565–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar