Their important exegetical and philosophical disagreements notwithstanding, Pauline Kleingeld and Marcus Willaschek, on the one hand, and Alyssa Bernstein, on the other, seem to agree that Kant’s Categorical Imperative transcends the contemporary dichotomy between moral realism and ethical constructivism. My contribution is an attempt to further elaborate on the third, unique, conceptual option that they have identified. I employ the notion of an “enabling condition,” introduced in epistemology and action theory by Jonathan Dancy, in order to show that the Categorical (...) Imperative enables action and is enabled by action. The Categorical Imperative (as distinct from specific categorical imperatives and moral laws) is discussed as a structural, but still normative, coherence and consistence norm of practical reasoning. As such it is two things at the same time, namely, first, the most fundamental normative background condition of practical deliberation, choice, and action. Second, however, the mutual enabler-enablee-relationship between action and Categorical Imperative points in the other – “not-so-Kantian” – direction as well: individual practical deliberation, understood as the mundane phenomenon that penetrates the lives of agents, is the (existence) condition that enables the Categorical Imperative in normatively-structured action. (shrink)

I introduce the topic of the Special Issue and highlight the central themes that the six contributors address in their essays. The moral-philosophical problem of the possibility of bad action is situated within the broader context of its action-theoretical significance, that is, as the most important challenge to the influential idea that an intentional action is necessarily performed under the guise of the good. J. David Velleman’s discussion of the character of Milton’s Satan is mentioned to illustrate the Special Issue’s (...) main question of whether instantiations of individual and collective agency are conceivable that deliberately act for the sake of the bad. (shrink)

The introduction summarizes the main arguments formulated in the six papers of this special issue on Constitutivism and Kantian Constructivism in Ethical Theory. We highlight the unifying theme addressed in the essays, i.e., the question of whether constitutivism is able to fulfill the promise of providing an account of normativity starting from relatively slender assumptions, including the avoidance of realist presuppositions.

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 1 Seiten: 64-88.

An influential strand in recent action-theory employs constitutivist arguments in order to present accounts of individual agency and practical identity. I argue for an extension of this framework into the interpersonal realm, and suggest using it to reassess issues in jurisprudence. A legal system is an instantiation of the solution to the inescapable tasks of self-constituting action and identity-formation in the presence of other agents. Law's validity and normativity can be enlightened when the constitutivist approach considers the external prerequisites of (...) individuals' self-conceptions qua agents. More specifically, this argumentative strategy allows a reassessment of Fuller's “internal morality of law.” Whereas, pace Fuller, morally substantive conclusions cannot be derived from formal criteria of legality, there are unconditional normative requirements that constrain law. (shrink)

A central element of constitutivist accounts of categorical normativity is the claim that the ultimate foundation of the relevant kind of practical authority is sourced in certain tasks, features, and aims that every person inevitably possesses and inescapably has to deal with. We have no choice but to be agents and this fact is responsible for the norms and principles that condition our agency-related activities to have anunconditional normative grip on us. Critics of constitutivism argue that it is exactly because (...) of itsinescapability that agency is a powerless source of normative authority. I investigate why our intuitionsconcerning the appeal to inescapability point into such contrary directions. Why do we feel the attraction ofgrounding categorical normativity in phenomena that not even the skeptic can ignore, on the one hand, butseem to hold dear the principle that “ought implies need not,” on the other? Instead of fully developing thethird, neutral, way of conceptualizing the relationship between inescapability and normativity that theimpasse between constitutivists and their critics suggests, this paper diagnoses the disagreement at hand.That agency is inescapable does neither guarantee nor rule out its status qua source of categoricalnormativity. Both camps of the debate overlook this option and depict their opponents as adhering to animplausible perspective of how appeals to inescapability and unconditional normativity are related. Sincethe debate relies on a false dichotomy it is not surprising that its participants so often talk past each other. (shrink)

Christoph Hanisch | : I discuss and compare Joseph Raz’s and Christine Korsgaard’s accounts of reasons for action. One fundamental disagreement separating the two approaches is the role that they assign to two central features of practical deliberation: Korsgaard assigns priority to identity-constituting practical principles, whereas for Raz reasons are the fundamental normative units. In the course of this comparison, two claims are defended: Taking-up a realist stance vis-à-vis one’s reasons is a non-optional feature of one’s first-personal deliberative standpoint. This (...) remains true even if this renders the workings of an agent’s reasons analogous to a placebo. The motivational aspect of an agent’s reasons should not be conceived along causalist lines. Exploiting a thought by Hegel, I discuss an alternative conception of reasons’ temporal genesis and force—i.e., one that allows reasons for a particular action to emerge at a later point. | : Cet article résume et compare les théories de Joseph Raz et de Christine Korsgaard sur les raisons qui supportent l’action. Un désaccord fondamental séparant ces deux approches tient au rôle qu’elles attribuent à deux caractéristiques essentielles de la délibération pratique : Korsgaard accorde un primat normatif à l’identité constituant les principes pratiques, alors que Raz accorde ce primat aux raisons comme unités normatives. Au fil de cette comparaison, deux revendications sont défendues : 1) L’adoption d’une position réaliste quant aux raisons de quelqu’un est une caractéristique non facultative de son point de vue délibératif à la première personne. Cela reste vrai même si cela rend le fonctionnement des motifs d’un.e agent.e analogue à celui d’un placebo. 2) L’aspect motivationnel des raisons d’un.e agent.e ne doit pas être conçu selon une perspective causaliste. Exploitant une idée de Hegel, je discute d’une autre conception possible de la genèse temporelle et de la force des raisons d’agir, ce qui permet d’envisager qu’elles peuvent aussi apparaître après coup. (shrink)

According to Thomas Christiano, autonomy-centered arguments for democratic rights are not successful. These arguments fail to show that there is anything wrong with citizens who want to trade-off their political rights in exchange for more autonomy regarding their private affairs. The trade-off problem suggests that democratic participation is not necessary for leading a free life. My reply employs recent work in the republican tradition. The republican conception of freedom as non-domination supports the incommensurability of the public and the private aspects (...) of autonomy. Christiano overlooks that trading-off the normative conditions of one’s public autonomy results in agents who are mere subjects to the dominating will of those citizens who retain their democratic rights. Since democratic decisions apply to all citizens, the privatized members end up being dominated, especially with respect to the collective determination of the very border separating the private from the public realm. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with the moral-philosophical dimensions of global poverty and inequality. The first chapter argues in favour of justice-based – contrasted with beneficence-based – obligations asking the wealthy to actively do something about severe poverty abroad. The distinguishing property of justice-based obligations is that they derive their high level of moral stringency from the fact that they ask the obligation-bearer to rectify for past and/or present violations of negative obligations, such as the obligation not to harm anybody. Partly (...) in following and partly in reinterpreting Thomas Pogge the first chapter concludes that the current economic and political order harms the global poor by making it difficult or impossible for them to satisfy their basic needs. To the extent that better-off states uphold such an unjust global order and contribute to the poor’s enduring dire straits they have obligations of justice to secure the basic needs of the poor. This is why the approach introduced and defended in this essay is called “basic needs cosmopolitanism”. The second chapter examines the idea of “basic needs” more detailed. Basic needs cosmopolitanism employs a specific notion of basic needs that is derived from Martha Nussbaum’s list of ten central human functional capabilities. These capabilities are of universal appeal, i.e. they are concerned with activities and states of being that are indispensable features of every human life. After discussing Nussbaum’s justification for the universal applicability of her list and after examining in more detail the list itself the argument distinguishes between basic needs for the material and basic needs for the non-material prerequisites for possessing these central capabilities. Both groups of basic needs have to be satisfied by a sufficient quality and quantity in order for a society to count as being able to meet its citizens basic needs and as being able to secure all its citizens’ central capabilities. The crucial idea is that if Nussbaum’s central capabilities are presented as having universal appeal, the related basic needs are of global applicability as well. The standard of material and non-material prerequisites is applied to a) the question of whether and to what extent the global order harms the poor and b) the question of what and how much material transfers from the wealthy to the poor are required on grounds of justice. Since this dissertation’s topic is global distributive justice the primary focus of this argument lies on the material pre-requisites that have to be available in order to secure central capabilities for all. This does not imply that the non-material basic needs for living in a society ruled by just and stable political and social institutions are less important. A complete version of basic needs cosmopolitanism will have to dedicate equal consideration to obligations of justice related to the global order’s responsibility for poor countries’ lack of the non-material prerequisites. The notion of “potential functionings”, introduced in concluding this essay, is supposed to underline the importance of securing central capabilities for all members of poor societies and expresses again basic needs cosmopolitanism’s commitment to identifying universal minimal standards of social and economic global justice. (shrink)

I develop the recent claim that prioritarianism, and not only its egalitarian competitors, must be committed to an impersonal outcome value (i. e. a value that makes a distribution better even if this does not affect anyone’s welfare). This value, that I label telic priority and that consists in the goodness of benefits going to the worst off recipients, implies implausible judgments that more than compete with ‘pure’ (Parfit) egalitarianism’s applause in leveling down scenarios. ‘Pure prioritarianism’, an axiological theory that (...) would consist in an unqualified commitment to telic priority only, must therefore be developed into a pluralist version of the priority view. Contra Parfit, prioritarianism and egalitarianism are on a par concerning the relationship between their pure (and implausible) formulations and their pluralist (and plausible) versions. The final section explains why telic priority always assigns preference to the worst-off (and not merely to the worse-off). (shrink)