Panel on Constitutive Arguments and Kantian Constructivism

Panel on:
Constitutive Arguments and Kantian Constructivism

Panel Chairs: Sorin Baiasu (Keele University/University of Vienna) and
Christoph Hanisch (University of Vienna)

Section: Kant and Kantian Constructivism in Moral and Political Philosophy
(organized by the ECPR Kantian Standing Group)

Section Chairs: Sorin Baiasu (Keele University/University of Vienna) and
Alice Pinheiro Walla (Trinity College Dublin)

Recent work on the nature of normative requirements (both practical and
theoretical) has exhibited a significant turn toward constitutive
arguments. Among others, Christine Korsgaard, J. David Velleman, and
Connie Rosati, have identified this argumentative strategy as a promising
response to skeptical challenges. These philosophers share the view that
certain features (principles, aims, etc.) are constitutive of belief and
action. Since engaging in the activities of believing and acting seems
inescapable, one can generate the normative (some claim, even moral)
bindingness of the aforementioned features for all agents.

This variety of a broadly Kantian constructivism has been criticized by
moral realists, most recently and most prominently by David Enoch. Our
suggestion is to discuss the current state of this debate (especially the
exchange between Velleman and Enoch), firstly, by examining to extent to
which constitutivism is correctly categorized as a form of constructivism
and, secondly, whether or not it is a form of Kantian constructivism. With
regard to the latter, we especially welcome investigations of the claim,
often made but seldom substantiated, that Kant’s works provide the
resources for contemporary constitutivism.

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