Constitutivism and the Authority of Morality

建构主义认为实践理性建立在行为的构成标准之上，是解释实践规范性的主要理论之一。但对于其动机和雄心，以及其基本承诺面临的挑战，各方也存在分歧。鉴于此，我将论证，构成主义既是一个连贯的立场，而且它比竞争对手——尤其是现实主义——更可取，因为它提供了对道德权威的令人信服的解释。注意，当有人承认虐待动物（比如说）是不道德的，但却肆无忌惮地从事这种活动时，我们可能会觉得难以理解。这样的例子支持了这样一种观点，即某种行为不道德的部分含义是，我们总是有理由不去做——而且往往是一个压倒一切的理由。理由是可以引导和激励我们的考虑。在上面的例子中，我们觉得奇怪的是，行为人完全没有受到她认为是她的理由的考虑的影响。她不是不真诚，就是没有道德观念。为什么仅仅认识到一种行为是不道德的就能让我们不去做呢？我认为，如果我们和现实主义者一样，假设我们的理性在概念上独立于我们的欲望，我们就无法在这个问题上取得进展。但现在我们有了一个新的担忧。道德原因似乎适用于所有行为者。如果我们的理由总是建立在我们之前的一些关注之上，这怎么可能呢？科斯加德的“康德式”构成主义（例如，1996年）在这方面很有前途。她认为，独特的道德标准（实际上，所有实践理性的标准）正是行为的构成标准。这就解释了为什么我们总是关心道德行为，也解释了为什么不道德的行为总是不去做的理由：有道德目标是实践思考的条件，因此行动是有理由的。我将以两种方式开发这个框架。首先，我将捍卫行动的构成特征——无论它们是什么——可以是规范性的这一主张。Enoch认为，在构成主义的框架内，即使我们不能理解“为什么要道德”这个问题，当有人想要成为行为人时，我们也可以理解“为什么要成为行为人”这个问题。所以，我们是否有理由成为行为人的问题仍然存在，以及我们如何有道德理由的问题，因为以诺认为只有当我们有理由成为行为人时，我们才有道德理由。我将证明，如果正确理解，构成主义有资源来回应这一反对意见。其次，我将讨论最近的一些尝试，这些尝试表明，行动有一些特别的构成标准——重要的是，这些标准具有独特的道德内容。我将特别关注Korsgaard（1996）被广泛批评的论点，即我们不仅必须关心我们自己的“人性”，而且必须关心所有人的人性，作为我们代理的条件。我将检验，如果有的话，Korsgaard的主要见解可以保留和扩展，作为她最初结论的新论点的一部分。

Constitutivism - the view that practical reasons are grounded in constitutive standards of action - is one of the leading theories in the explanation of practical normativity. But there is also disagreement about its motivations and ambitions, and challenges to its basic commitments. In view of this, I will argue that constitutivism is both a coherent position, and that it is preferable to competitors - especially realism - because it provides a compelling explanation of the authority of morality. Notice, we may find it unintelligible when someone admits that torturing animals (say) is immoral but engages in this activity uninhibited. Examples like this support the view that that part of what it means for an action to be immoral is that we always have a reason not to do it - and often an overriding one. Reasons are considerations that can guide and therefore motivate us. The agent's failure to be affected at all by a consideration which she acknowledges to be her reason is what we find strange in the example above. She is either being insincere, or she does not possess moral concepts. Why expect the mere recognition that an action is immoral to be capable of moving us not to do it? I argue that we cannot make progress with this question if we assume, with realists, that our reasons are conceptually independent of our desires. But now we have a new worry. Moral reasons seem to apply to all agents. How can that be the case if our reasons are always grounded in some antecedent concern of ours? Korsgaard's "Kantian" constitutivism (for example, 1996) is promising here. She argues that distinctively moral standards (indeed, all standards of practical reason) just are constitutive standards of action. This explains why we always care about acting morally, and so why the immorality of an action is always a reason not to do it: having moral aims is a condition of practical deliberation and hence acting for reasons at all.I will develop this framework in two ways. First, I will defend the claim that constitutive features of action - whatever they are - can be normative. Enoch argues that within the constitutivist framework even if we cannot understand the question "Why be moral?" when asked by someone who wants to be an agent, we can understand the question "Why be an agent?". So, the question of whether we have reason to be agents remains - and with it, the question of how we have moral reasons, since Enoch thinks we only have these if we have reason to be agents. I will show that, properly understood, constitutivism has resources to respond to this objection. Second, I will address recent attempts to show that action has some set of constitutive standards in particular - and importantly, standards that have distinctively moral content. I will give particular attention to Korsgaard's (1996) widely criticized argument that we must care about not only our own "humanity", but the the humanity of all, as a condition of our agency. I will examine which, if any, of Korsgaard's main insights can be preserved and extended as part of a new argument for her original conclusion.