Meta-ethical constructivism is the view that what counts as a reason depends on its rational justification. The appeal of this view lies in the promise to explain how reasons are objective and independent of us, while binding in the first person. The general case against Kantian constructivism as a theory of normativity largely depends on the special case of moral obligations. The standard objection is that constructivism grounds moral obligation on the value of humanity, hence tacitly committing to moral realism. Thus far, constructivists have devised two strategies to avoid the standard objection. Some have opted out of the Kantian project of identifying universally authoritative moral obligations, thus admitting some sort of moral relativism. Others have opted out of the constructivist project of building a general account of normativity, thus admitting some sort of moral realism.

The standard objection captures a genuine difficulty of current non-cognitivist versions of Kantian constructivism, which ambiguously characterize the relation between practical reason and moral obligations. I argue that the debate rests on a deflated notion of construction and a misleading characterization of its relevant domain. On the basis of a more robust conception of construction, I defend Kantian constructivism as a variety of practical cognitivism, which vindicates reasoning as autonomous, authoritative, and transformative.

1 Kantian Constructivism: the Basic Claims

Kantian constructivism is the meta-ethical view that there are objective criteria for the rational validity of norms and that such criteria explain also why such norms are subjectively authoritative and universally binding.Footnote 1 What I take to be distinctively “Kantian” about the constructivist theory that I defend is that it takes reason to be autonomous: the activity of reason – namely, reasoning, is in some important sense independent of what reasoning is about, and of what reasoners happen to desire or value, but not independent of who they are. The challenge is to explain how reasoning warrants reasons that are objectively valid and binding in the first person.

The first step toward answering this question is to clarify that reasoning is something that practical subjects do; yet, their activity is governed by criteria of correctness that are objective. The criteria of correctness of reasoning are not determined by its conformity to its objects. There are no “objects of reasoning”, prior to and independently of the very activity of reasoning.Footnote 2 The constructivist account centers on the claim that reasoning is autonomous in the specific sense that it is generative: it does not presuppose its domain as given, but it participates in the making of its objects. Construction is no loose metaphor, but the ontological thesis that the objects of reason are made up through the activity of reasoning. This is not to say that there are no objects of practical reason, and that, as a consequence, reason inevitably leads us astray when we embark in considerations about value and action. The objects of practical reason are the ends of action, which are identified by reasoning. Constructivism purports to provide an account of rational justification that is congruent with ordinary practices, even though such practices do not dictate the criteria of correctness.

To be sure, reasoning does not simply produce its objects out of nothing, but it constructs them out of some materials, which are not themselves constructed.Footnote 3 The selection of the “materials” available is the starting point of the construction. However, the primary task of constructivism is not to determine whether there is an ontology that reason can track down, but to explain how objective reasons are genuinely authoritative for subjects.Footnote 4 Since reasoning is something reasoners do, the construction importantly implies constructors.Footnote 5 The constitutive implication of reasoners in the account of reasoning is a crucial aspect of the constructivist account of rational justification, which purports to show how reasoning is practical and delivers reasons that are not only universally valid but also subjectively authoritative. This is also the most delicate and problematic aspect of construction, because it exposes an intrinsic relation between the profile of reasoners and the standards of reasoning. Such a relation does not make the criteria of reasoning subjective, because they are not determined by whatever the reasoners happen to desire or value. But it is certainly a relation that needs to be clarified.

The structure of rational justification reflects the profile of the subjects that engage in such an activity. The profile of practical subjects refers to the basic cognitive and emotional requisites for the exercise of rational agency.Footnote 6 The norms that constrain the activity of reason should express the sort of rational agency that the relevant practical subjects embody.Footnote 7 The constitutive norm of practical reasoning is universalization because this is the form that best coheres with the profile of the relevant practical subjects.Footnote 8 This is the constructivist argument in support of the claim that practical reflection commits to universalization. The point is that universalization is the norm that guides the correct formation of reasons because it is the only modality of reasoning that allows finite and interdependent practical subjects to exchange reasons that they may find mutually authoritative in justifying their claims to one another. Interestingly, the argument in support of universalization as the basic norm of reasoning concerns its capacity to be authoritative in the first person: this is the only way reasoning can be effective and thus practical for such agents. To this extent, the issue of producing reasons is a relevant problem for persons interested in reaching an agreement (O’Neill 1989, chapter 2. Engstrom 2013, p. 139). Practical subjects are concerned with solving practical problems together because they are in many ways dependent on one another. They can be effective in the world by constructing reasons that have appeal to other relevant agents. This is what Kantian constructivism purports to achieve, in contrast to realism:

So far as judgments as to how we should live and what we should do are in accordance with these procedures, they are warranted, possessing validity that can ground agreement among persons both in judgment and in conduct. Their validity springs not from their tracking an independent reality, but from their reflecting persons’ practical-rational self-conception mirrored in those procedures. Thus, insofar as they express such procedures, they have a validity that would be lacking were they mere expressions of our natural sentimental constitution; yet insofar as the judgments resulting from the procedures reflect our own self-conception, they can determine us to act accordingly. In such fashion, constructivism endeavors to recover both the objectivity and the practicality of moral judgments. (Engstrom 2013, p. 140).

Constructivism does not rely on the value of humanity to tie the validity of practical judgments to their authority and efficacy. Rather, it establishes an intrinsic relation between the profile of the relevant subjects and the norms constitutive of rational justification. Critics point to this relation to show that constructivism fails to deliver what it promises.

2 The Standard Objection

The critique typically focuses on the constructivist account of moral obligations, and this is where the meta-ethical debate about the viability of Kantian constructivism meets the normative debate about moral obligations as requirements of practical reason. The objection is that Kantian constructivism achieves its main purpose, that is, to ground moral obligations on structural rationality alone, only because of some unvindicated assumptions about moral value. This objection has been particularly insisted upon and recurring in the critical literature about Kantian constructivism, so that it may be dubbed the standard objection.

The challenge of providing a completely constructivist account of rational justification is combined with and reinforced by skepticism about the Kantian view of moral obligations as rational requirements. Yet, these are two different issues. One issue is whether a thoroughly constructivist account of rational justification is possible. A separate issue is whether a thoroughly constructivist account of practical reasoning can objectively ground moral obligations. The general argument for rejecting Kantian constructivism as a general theory of normativity largely depends on the special case of moral obligations (see e.g. Scanlon 2014, p. 100, Scanlon 2012, 2011; Fitzpatrick 2013; Stern 2013; and Street 2010).

On the basis of this special case, critics have questioned the status of constructivism as a genuine meta-ethical alternative to realism (Hussain and Shah 2006, 2013, and Enoch 2009). Some Kantians have concluded that moral realism about value is a necessary complement of constructivism (Larmore 2008, pp. 85–167). Unconvinced by the Kantian argument that purports to ground moral obligations on structural features of rationality, some constructivists have chosen to strengthen the realist commitments about reasons and narrow the scope of constructivism about individual morality (Scanlon 2014, pp. 96–98, and Scanlon 1998, pp. 11–12, ch. 4 section 7). Instead, Humean constructivists have relinquished the relation between practical reason and morality altogether (Street 2010). Non-Kantian variants of constructivism build upon the alleged failure of Kantian constructivism to stand free of metaphysical commitments about moral agency and value. In sum, it is widely agreed that in order to preserve a freestanding conception of reasoning, constructivism must endorse a completely content-less procedure, which for this very reason renounces to fails to prescribe any morality.

The standard objection captures a genuine difficulty of current versions of Kantian constructivism, which ambiguously characterize the relation between practical reason and moral obligations (see e.g. Korsgaard 1996, pp. 121–123, and Street 2010, p. 371). I propose to reassess the prospect of Kantian constructivism by re-examining the very idea of construction. My contention is that the force of the standard objection rests on some ambiguity about the notion of construction and a problematic definition of its relevant domain. Both parties in this debate share a deflated conception of construction, understood as a loose metaphor, hence underestimating its potentiality as a distinct form of rational justification. By contrast, the Kantian claim about the autonomy of reason proves to be a decisive resource to clear up some confusion about the alleged eminence of the moral domain, characterized by a special importance and sovereignty.Footnote 9

3 The Domain to be Constructed

The most serious difficulty that Kantian constructivism faces arises because of the obscure relation between practical reason and morality. Indeed, it seems incredible that reason alone could provide us with some moral obligations, even if one conceded that reason is not as inert and unproductive as the empiricist tradition would have it. This is a legitimate doubt, which I shall address by clarifying what constructivism is about.

It is noteworthy that constructivism does not start with a specification of the relevant domain. Footnote 10 There is no given domain of objects that represents the scope over which reason ranges. This is because there are no objects of reason that qualify as such before the relevant subjects start reasoning. To say that x is an object of reason is itself a claim of reason. This means that only reason is entitled and equipped to identify its objects; to this extent, it is not determined by any pre-constituted objects and it does not have a subject matter. There is no given, pre-fixed subject matter of reasoning that reason is accessing or representing. Rather, the subject matter is constituted by the activity of reason. Indeed, this is one important sense in which reason is autonomous.Footnote 11 Construction names the thesis that reasoning is prior to its objects (Korsgaard 1996, pp. 38–40). But it also names a specific view of the epistemic relation that practical subjects enter by engaging in reasoning: by reasoning, such subjects acquire normative reasons and thereby acquire knowledge of themselves as subjects capable of and sensitive to reasons. The autonomy of reason reflects in some important sense the autonomy of the relevant practical subjects. When reasoning is directed from outside, from a domain of given objects, its authority is derivative and conditional upon the existence of these objects. Reasoning is genuinely authoritative and thus entitled to guide all relevant subjects’ thinking and acting only when it is governed by internal criteria. The requirement of autonomy excludes all thinking and acting that depend on “the contingent, subjective conditions that distinguish one rational being from another” (Kant 1907, 5: 21). “Reason grants respect only to that which has been able to withstand its free and public examination” (Axi n, see also A738/B766).

Constructivism does not deny that there are facts or objects that can be called ‘moral’ or, more broadly, “normative”. What constructivism denies is that such facts and objects are “moral” or “normative” in themselves, prior to and independently of the intervention of reason. This denial preserves the autonomy of reason and it is also meant to explain why reason is effective, that is, practical. The intervention of reason is necessary in order to transform knowledge of some objects into “practical knowledge”, namely, knowledge of normative propositions that are binding in the first person and thus carries importance for us, practical subjects. The intervention of reasoning consists in “making up normative propositions” which is exactly the process that goes under the name of construction. Thus, the claim about the autonomy of rational construction is both ontological and epistemic. From the ontological perspective, it is the claim that the relevant ontology is built up by reasoning. From the epistemic perspective, it is the claim that reasons become normative for practical subjects insofar as they are authorized by reasoning. Subjects relate to facts and objects of the world as to reasons if and insofar as they have entered the practice of rational justification. Before entering such a practice, and quite independently of how such a practice is shaped, there is simply no question about normative facts or normative objects. Consequently, claims about the objects are simply claims of reason, and can be addressed, disputed, and rejected only from the standpoint of reason. One cannot invoke anything prior to reasoning in discussing whether the pretenses of reasoning are legitimate. Reason is a “self-appointed judge” which actively proposes principled accounts of action and devises mental experiments to confirm or disprove them (Kant B viii). There is no higher authority than the authority of reason. This is recognizably the Kantian view of reason as self-authenticating (O’Neill 1992). Finally, the claim that there are internal criteria for the determination of reasons also accounts for the workings of reason itself and for the transformation that practical subjects undertake because of reasoning. Practical knowledge is ultimately self-knowledge, or knowledge that practical subjects have of themselves as capable of acting and thinking on a reason.Footnote 12

4 The Standpoint of Reasoners

The account of reason at work in this picture of rational justification is Kantian in another sense. The capacity for reasoning is supposed to be discerning enough that it captures the basic understanding of rational agency but also general and inclusive enough that it does not discriminate among communities and traditions. The challenge is to sketch a view of practical subjects that avoids the standard objection and yet fully supports the Kantian agenda.

There is a constraint that bears on the plausibility of this agenda, and this is that one should avoid unnecessary metaphysical proliferation. In fact, Kantian constructivists propose a conception of rational agency compatible with the scientific conception of the world (Korsgaard 1996, pp. 29–30). However, constructivism takes at least some first-personal phenomena to be ineliminable, and thus it is incompatible with reductivist conceptions of the world that eliminate first-personal phenomena as illusory and reducible to third person phenomena. This is because constructivism takes agency to be not simply intuitively connected but also necessarily related to the first-personal perspective. Its primary philosophical task is to explain how they are connected.

The key move in this direction is to argue that the relevant conception of agency identifies a practical stance that the reasoners undertake toward themselves and toward others. The profile of relevant agents constitutes the basis and the condition of the possibility for engaging in practical reasoning, but it is neither a hypothesis about the metaphysical underpinning of moral status, nor a substantive moral claim about who deserves moral standing. As such, the relevant conception of rational agency does not tie to any specific position in the metaphysical debate about free agency, and it does not commit to any moral view about how to treat others. It is a rather minimal practical claim that the normative questions arise for self-reflective agents capable of exchanging reasons. Strictly speaking, then, the relevant conception of practical subjects does not play a foundational role; it identifies the subjects in principle interested in rational justification.

The practical problem of how to define the category of relevant subjects of practical reasoning is typically solved by proposing idealizations. This is where constructivism shows its fragility, since idealizations may be objected as arbitrary. The charge of arbitrariness comes in two fashions. First, idealizations may be rejected as arbitrary in the sense that they make sense only against the background of shared values (e.g. the idealization of rational agents as free and equal makes sense on the assumption that freedom and equality are values). The worry here is that constructivism builds rational justification on unvindicated commitments to specific moral values. Secondly, specific idealizations may be rejected as arbitrary in the more substantive sense that they are mistaken (e.g. they misplace the boundaries between relevant and irrelevant agents) or unfair (e.g. they wrongfully exclude some minorities from the scope of relevant agents). The charge here is that rational justification is not morally neutral, but informed by unworthy ideals.

Among constructivists, Onora O’Neill proves to be more sensitive than others to the dangers of idealization in profiling the conception of the relevant practical subjects (O’Neill 1996, pp. 40–44).Footnote 13 In contrast to idealization, she advocates abstraction, which brackets some features of concrete practical subjects without denying them. O’Neill also importantly insists that the problem of reasoning arises for mutually dependent and thus reciprocally vulnerable agents, interested and needy practical subjects, who compete for resources, but are also capable of acting together on a principle.Footnote 14 For this sort of agents, reasons are cooperative devices. According to O’Neill, to explain cooperation one should credit agents “only with the capacity to understand and follow some form of social life, and with a commitment to seek some means to any ends (desired or otherwise) to which they are committed” (O’Neill 1988, p. 10). It may seem that this meager and indeterminate view of rational agency cannot be rejected as arbitrary because instrumental reasoning is the most basic form of practical rationality.

At this stage in the argument, however, it is controversial to assume that the normativity of instrumental reasoning can be taken for granted as the only basic feature of agency. It is problematic to explain how subjects that are driven only by instrumental reasons can be sensitive to reasons at all. In other words, to admit that the relevant subjects are sensitive “at least to instrumental reasons” begs the question about the source of rational authority. Furthermore, it is doubtful that the instrumentalist view is sufficient to sustain the meta-ethical project of constructivism about normativity. It seems to me that this project requires a different notion of rational agency organized around the conceptual and emotional capacities for self-reflection. This is because only such capacities explain the phenomena that O’Neill identifies, such as communal normative practices and shared activities guided by norms.

5 An Abstract Profile of Practical Subjects

In what follows, I sketch what I take to be an abstract profile of practical subjects that can adequately support the Kantian project about general normativity while avoiding the charge of arbitrariness illustrated in the previous section. While this view may seem simply more robust than the instrumentalist conception of rational agency, it is in fact of a different kind. What I propose describes practical subjects as capable of practical concerns, but it does not make rational agency coincide with moral agency, hence it does not resolve by fiat the contrast between instrumental and non-instrumental reasons. It allows for further discussion about the authority of instrumental and non-instrumental reasons. The view I advocate is minimalist in the following respects: first, it is practical rather than metaphysical; second, it reserves the title “practical subjects” for rational agents capable of self-reflection, but it does not define practical reasoning in instrumentalist or non-instrumentalist terms and admits of degrees of rational agency; third, it does not characterize practical subjects morally, hence it does not put external moral constraints on practical reasoning.

Firstly, the view is minimalist in that it is not grounded on any cumbersome metaphysics of agency. As for other constructivist theories, the problem of standing is practical not metaphysical (Korsgaard 1996, pp. 29–30; and Rawls 1980, pp. 559–560, 518, 571). The solution neither presupposes nor rests upon any special ontology about personhood and freedom of the will. Such issues are irrelevant for determining the criteria of responsibility and accountability of action, which are taken to be practical issues.

Secondly, and more specifically, the key point of the constructivist agenda is to represent rational justification as a task that practical subjects are equipped to undertake and interested in performing in virtue of the rational and emotional capacities for self-reflection. Not all agents are capable of self-reflection and not all first-personal phenomena are marked by this capacity. Empirical research shows that animals and infants exhibit rudimentary forms of rationality. Their actions are intelligible, even when these agents seem to lack the conceptual tools for self-representation and self-conception. That their behavior can be interpreted as driven by instrumental reasons is no evidence that these agents are guided by norms of reasoning. Displaying rational behavior does not imply that they are capable of means-ends reasoning.

In debates about rational choice, it is widely agreed that the first-personal perspective is the deliberative perspective of deliberators deploying at least instrumental norms of reasoning. I am reluctant to say that agents use norms of instrumental reasoning insofar as they appear to exhibit rudimentary rationality in action.Footnote 15 This position ultimately rests on a deflated characterization of reasoning, which suits a behavioristic account of rational agency. But then to claim that an agent is reasoning adds nothing to the claim that her performance is intelligible from an external, third person perspective. To finely discriminate different phenomena of agency, it seems preferable to distinguish between rationality displayed in action, and the capacity to engage in practical reasoning.

An additional reason to doubt that practical reasoning is in place whenever we can talk of first personal phenomena is the case of routine behavior. Routine actions may be quite complex and certainly are rationally intelligible, but it would be quite misleading to say that they are the result of reasoning. We can rationally justify them by backtracking their rationale or by showing that they are functional to a general plan; but this is no indication that they are the result of practical reasoning in the relevant sense. In fact, this kind of rational actions perform their function in ordinary life, exactly because they are not connected to practical reasoning in the way ordinary rational actions are.

To explain the varieties of first personal phenomena associated with practical reasoning a capacity for self-reflection needs to be in place. Most likely, even this capacity admits of degrees. Some very basic capacity to get a perspective on our selves may already count as the basis for self-reflection. In order to perform more sophisticated sorts of reasoning, however, it seems necessary that one masters self-representing concepts, hence symbolic and recursive language. This consideration does not exclude that there may be basic forms of rationality which do not require self-conception and self-reflection. To be an agent is simply to do things that can be adequately explained only in reference to one's attitudes. But to qualify as a “practical subject” one needs the capacity to engage in forms of practical reasoning that center on self-representation. It is plausible to reserve the capacity for practical reasoning only to practical subjects, and recognize different varieties of rational agency and associated first-personal phenomena. This conception of rational agency is still very indeterminate and compatible with several varieties of normative accounts of formal and informal reasoning.

There is a third sense in which this view of practical subjects is minimalist: it is not a view of moral agency.Footnote 16 The view intends to capture a distinctive aspect of rational agency that explains the various phenomena of being guided by reasons, such as our capacity to follow orders, act against orders, engage in personal normative relations, and enter normative practices. But the view does not claim that morality constrains what we ought to do rationally. The competences and capacities that allow for practical reasoning are not in any interesting sense “moral”. Furthermore, the view of practical subjects is so abstract that it does not define notions of ethical concerns from the start, e.g. it does not prescribe ways to discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate desires or interests. These concepts are left open and undetermined. In fact, it is the task of particular instances of practical reasoning to determine their boundaries.

In sum, the constructivist theory I advocate identifies the basis of construction with a minimalist view of practical subjects. This view does not characterize such subjects in moral terms. It does not attribute them special moral powers or capacities, and does not attempt to derive a list of legitimate interests from the abstract profile of rational agents. The theory admits changing and varying sorts of capacities involved in practical reflection, and acknowledges degrees of dependence and interdependence among practical subjects. Moralized characterizations of the relevant subjects are unnecessary to explain the normative authority of reasons and they confuse the matter of the source of authority of moral obligation.

6 Respect as the Constitutive Attitude of Reflective Agency

Practical reasoning is associated with a distinctive cluster of first-person phenomena. What kind of first personal phenomena does reasoning generate? By engaging in reasoning, practical subjects get a sense of what they can do on the basis of reasons that their relevant interlocutors might understand, share or challenge. On this basis, practical subjects authorize or disavow the claims that they have taken into considerations as proposals of action. This is the exercise of agential autonomy. The Kantian claim is that autonomy is subjectively experienced, and that this experience plays a crucial role in the explanation of the authoritative efficacy of reasons (Kant 1907, 5.31; see Bagnoli 2011b, 2015).

Retrieving the Kantian conception of respect may seem just the wrong move to make in response to the standard objection, for three reasons. First, respect is the moral feeling par excellence, singled out in contrast to pathological feelings as “the only feeling self-wrought by a rational concept”, which is the moral law (Kant 1907, 4. 401n).Footnote 17 Second, Kant identifies duties of respect for humanity, including duties to oneself and duties to others, which naturally belong in the moral domain. Third, respect expresses a commitment to the value of moral equality, which seems to call for a straightforward realist foundation.Footnote 18

To respond to this worry about the opportunity to deploy the Kantian notion of respect in a constructivist account of general normativity, it is crucial to acknowledge the distinction between two species of respect: respect as reverence for the law-making capacity, and respect due to people insofar as they possess this capacity. Attitudes that accord to others a respectful observance of their ends can be required as duties (Kant 1907, 4.399, 6.449, 467–8). However, reverence for the law-making capacity is in itself a practical capacity, which is not the object of duty (Kant 1907, 5.79–81, 6.401–403). In this sense, respect names a general subjective capacity for the experience of autonomous agency: it defines the practical standpoint subjectively considered and explains how it is that interested and desiderative subjects feel bound by objective reasons. This emotional capacity is not a source of moral justification and adds nothing to the validity of reasons. In fact, this is where the constructivist conception of respect differs from the realist conception, which takes respect to be the perception of and the fit emotional response to the value of others.Footnote 19 On the constructivist interpretation, instead, respect accounts for the practical subjects’ sensitivity to reasons and explains why their normative demands cannot be ignored. Typically, non-cognitivist constructivists situate the role of respect at the motivational level. By contrast, I hold that Kantian respect plays a crucial role at this structural level of rationality. Respect does not merely account for how practical subjects respond to reasons. Rather, it positively participates in the making of such reasons because it makes us sensitive to the legitimate claims and demands of others. While respect for others as having equal standing is implicated in the construction of reasons, it is not grounded on the equality of moral insight, as realist interpretations have it. Rather, respect represents the subjective condition of reasoning with others. Its justification is that it allows for the possibility of mutual intelligibility and coordination among mutually affecting agents. In this capacity, the scope of respect is left indeterminate: it is directed to no object in particular and does not directly generate positive duties toward others.

From a phenomenological perspective, there might not be just one unique feeling which counts as the feeling of respect; but this nuanced phenomenological characterization is irrelevant to our purposes. To identify the proper function of respect, we ought to remain at a higher level of generality. In the broad Kantian sense of the term, respect is merely the sensibility that allows subjects to have practical concerns, to legitimately advance requests on the basis of such concerns, to be sensitive to the claims of others, responsive to their legitimate demands, and also vulnerable to failures and subject to sanctions.

Under this characterization respect plays an important role, which is best characterized as “epistemic”, rather than “moral”. That is, respect conveys practical knowledge of oneself as a subject capable of reasoning and sensitive to the constraints that reasoning imposes. While epistemic, this role is not evidential; that is, it is not an emotional mode of perceiving moral objects or moral truths. Its significance is both practical and epistemic, and it is not confined to the moral relations among agents; it concerns the broader domain of reasons.

The practical and epistemic role of respect has been consistently overlooked in the recent accounts of constructivism, which have privileged the motivational aspect of normativity. This neglect is explained by the fact that constructivists have adopted a non-cognitivist meta-ethics and have identified the practical standpoint with the standpoint of deliberation.Footnote 20 However, the achievements of practical reasoning are cognitive achievements. In entering the practical standpoint, practical subjects learn what to do by gaining knowledge of themselves as practical subjects. This knowledge is practical, insofar as it allows us to become practical subjects and engage in practical reasoning with others. It is also discursive, insofar as it is articulated according to self-representing concepts; and, finally, it is subjectively felt through the emotional experience of respect. Respect does not provide an insight into normative truths; and it is not a mode of discernment of properties and facts of the moral domain. The epistemic import of practical reasoning is not evidential but internal, and it concerns the acquisition of agential authority that allows agents to be distinctively effective in the world. The Kantian claim is that by engaging in practical reasoning, practical subjects construct their ends of action and thus become efficacious. They become causes in a distinctive way, i.e. through their own agency. This is also to say that by engaging in practical reasoning, practical subjects enter the business of taking responsibility for their actions. Reflection does not provide knowledge of something else beyond the workings of reasoning; it makes such workings explicit and more transparent. Respect structurally contributes to this sort of self-knowledge and self-understanding of ourselves as practical subjects.Footnote 21

Respect is thus constitutive of the practical standpoint, which is not a perspective from nowhere, but a communal practice that practical subjects enter to solve communal problems. The emotional perception of others and of ourselves are ineliminable features, crucial in responding effectively in the world. To be effective, we need to take into proper consideration that life takes place in a world shared with other people like us, that is, similarly equipped and similarly vulnerable and dependent (O’Neill 1996, pp. 99–106). These are not simply assumptions that figure among the circumstances of action, but rather aspects of the world that become relevant to us insofar as we are endowed with a distinctive sensibility. This sensibility is not “moral” in any interesting sense of the term: first, it is not a moral competence; second, it provides no moral perception; and thirdly, it is directed to no normative object in particular, and it does not directly generate any positive duties. But it is sufficient to explain how normative claims are felt subjectively authoritative, that is, binding in the first person.

7 The (False) Problem of the Moral Domain

Because of these universalist features of reasoning, the Kantian constructivist theory sets very high standards of validity, and thus provides a criterion for rejecting claims that apply only locally because of some local source of authority, and claims that apply universally because their authority is the universal authority of reason. The question is whether moral obligations are universally binding, insofar as they are rational requirements.

The claim that moral obligations are requirements of practical reason is generally taken to be the defining feature of Kantian constructivism, especially in contrast to Humean constructivism. Humean constructivism holds that the reasons a subject has depend on what she herself actually values, together with some formal characterization of the practical standpoint. Sharon Street offers the example of an idealized Caligula, who is not sensitive to and thus not bound by moral obligations (Street 2010, p. 371). In her view, it is possible that Caligula’s normative reasons diverge from moral obligations externally attached to him. Caligula’s reasons are morally objectionable and yet survive his reflective scrutiny and become normative.

Kantian and Humean constructivists disagree as to whether cases such as Caligula’s are excluded simply by undertaking the practical standpoint. How exactly to understand this disagreement is a delicate matter. On the one hand, Kantians and Humeans appear to agree on a formal characterization of practical reasoning, as opposed to any realist characterization that identifies material starting points for practical reasoning. On the other hand, Kantians hold that the formal characterization of practical reasoning expresses the relevant conception of rational agency. Does this move result in moralizing the practical standpoint? If so, it is not at all surprising that constructivism succeeds in grounding moral obligations on rationality, but at the cost of thickening the constitutive norms of reasoning. This would be already a proof that constructivism does not deliver objective moral obligation except on the basis of some unjustified values. Besides Humean doubts about the powers of reasoning, there might be normative concerns against the attempt to ground moral obligations on structural rationality. For instance, one might be reluctant to have norms of structural rationality prescribe specific moral duties out of concern for moral diversity.

To make some progress in this intricate debate, I propose that we proceed by disambiguating the term “moral” as in contrast to “non-moral” and “immoral”. To begin with, it would be a mistake to think that a Kantian constructivist theory provides a test for distinguishing moral claims from immoral or non-moral claims. In the descriptive sense of “moral”, the constructivist theory does not dispute that there are locally authoritative moral claims. For instance, the practice of prohibiting pre-marital sex can be considered a “moral” practice, which exerts authority within a catholic community. Even though the practice is only locally authoritative, because it would not survive rational scrutiny, it might still be useful to retain the qualification “moral”, to signal the contrast to non-moral practices (e.g. bread recipes). In this case, the qualification does not refer to its grounds, but to the more modest idea of membership in a concrete moral community, defined in terms of habits, traditions, and customs (mores). To admit of moral practices that do not with stand the scrutiny of reason does not clash with the Kantian claim that moral obligations are requirements of reason, since in the case presented the “moral norm” is used in its descriptive sense. The claim is perfectly compatible with the Kantian view that in order to be universally authoritative a norm (whatever its domain) must sustain the scrutiny of reason. In this respect, moral norms do not differ from any other kind of norms. Likewise, moral reasons for action do not differ from reasons for action; moral reasons for believing that p do not differ from reasons for believing that p; moral reasons for feeling guilty do not differ from reasons for feeling guilty. The qualification “moral” in these cases does not add anything that helps elucidate the authority of such reasons. The authority of moral reasons is the very same authority as the authority of reasons. There is no explicative role to play for “morality” understood as an eminent domain of special objects.

8 Normative Status and Special Force

By placing the source of authority of moral reasons in reasoning I do not exclude that moral reasons may have a special kind of appeal, gravity or importance. Yet this observation does not justify the claim that moral reasons are per se reasons that trump all others because they are recognizably more important. In fact, this is hardly true for all moral reasons all the times. For instance, to leave the seat to the elderly on the bus is something I do routinely without thinking that I comply with an especially important, grave or burdensome obligation. While I recognize that this is a binding moral duty, which applies to everyone, it does not have special importance to me. The little significance that this moral duty has for me does not depend on how it severely constrains other interests or desires I have; in fact, it is not especially costly, and it is not hard for me to comply with it. Even when moral reasons are recognizably important to individuals, they do not always enjoy sovereignty or deliberative priority. A moral reason to help a friend carry on her domestic life might be recognizably more important than the desire to see a French movie, and yet less compelling than the duty to respond to an annoying call, and less demanding than the prudential reason to undergo a medical check-up. The overriding or overridden status of claims is determined by reasoning over the circumstances of action. The point is that the normative status of moral reasons is not fixed by the material characterization of their “moral” content.

Nonetheless, some kinds of moral reasons have a special force. Personal relations, loving bonds and family ties often provide reasons that enjoy a special force. But it is not the subjective relevance that explains the special force of moral reasons. The moral reason to relieve famine is more important, serious and pressing than the equally normative reason to solve arithmetic riddles, to believe that it rains or to feel annoyed because it rains. It may be fair to conclude that at least in some cases, this special force sets moral reasons apart from other kinds of reasons. However, the special force of moral reasons is a complex phenomenon, which depends on many factors largely pertaining to moral psychology. There is no one single explanation why at least some moral reasons are felt more important, urgent, and serious than other kinds of normative reasons. My point here is simply that this difference does not depend on a distinct normative status of moral reasons. Moral reasons have no distinct normative authority and no special normative status in respect to other sorts of normative reasons. As for all other kinds of reasons, their normative impact and status is decided by practical reasoning.

On the basis of this account, then, there is nothing odd about the claim that anyone resisting moral reasons is irrational. Caligula is irrational because and insofar as he resists or ignores the decisive normative status of (moral) reasons, not because he is insensitive to the moral domain of reasons.Footnote 22 He is irrational in the very same sense in which he would be irrational to resist the decisive normative status of reasons in any other instance of reasoning about what to do, to feel and to believe. As I hope to have clarified, the diagnosis of irrationality does not commit us to defend the sovereignty of morality over other domains of normativity. At the same time, the consequences of the denial of sovereignty are not debunking. On the contrary, on the basis of the constructivist account sketched above, there is nothing like the phenomenon people worry about, that is, the case where moral reasons trump or undermine other reasons insofar as their content is moral. Moral reasons may override other reasons because of their decisive normative status, but such a normative status is assigned by the activity of reasoning, not by the fact that they belong to an eminent domain of special objects.

The considerations advanced thus far provide at least some resources to reply to the standard objection, by restating the aims of Kantian constructivism: its task is not to rule out immoralism by sheer logic of thought (Gibbard 1999; and Smith 1999). Humeans are right that it is logically possible for Caligula’s judgment to survive reflective scrutiny. While conceivable without contradiction, this case is not practically possible (Engstrom 2009, p. 243, see also III. 7, and Bagnoli 2013). The case is ruled out by practical reflection, and the issue is whether Kantian constructivism can support this conclusion without conceding to realism that moral values are prior to and independent of practical reflection.

The answer I offer is that practical subjects are not indifferent to the claims of their interlocutors; this emotional sensitivity shapes the practical standpoint but it does not imply that we ought to sympathize with the suffering of others or that there are reasons to undertake the point of view of others. This view does not moralize the practical standpoint and yet it differs from the realist view that there are concerns that Caligula could not disregard “because they really are reasons” (Scanlon 2014, p. 37).

9 Reasoning as Transformative

I have argued that Kantian constructivism is a form of cognitivism, which is designed to capture the idea that reasoning is an activity in which practical subjects engage. It is something they do, and it is something they do because they are interested in it. Insofar as such practical subjects are capable of self-reflection they are also capable of assessing their concerns and interests from a standpoint that is not determined by their urgency and gravity. The sense in which reasoning is practical is that it delivers normative reasons, which are both independent of the subjects’ particular desires and interests and binding in the first person. There is an epistemic gain in exercising practical reasoning.Footnote 23 This is how practical subjects acquire practical knowledge of themselves as capable of acting for a reason, and this knowledge is distinctively efficacious.Footnote 24

Furthermore, undertaking reasoning is a transformative experience for practical subjects. Their desires, interests, and concerns are not fixed but change also in virtue of rational deliberation. The reasons practical subjects construct could may be rather different from the ones they thought they had before engaging in reasoning. Subjects may end up with reasons whose content radically differs from the particular interests that they wanted to protect when they entered reasoning, and yet more authoritative than the considerations still arising from such particularities. This transformation crucially depends on having the others in view. Reasoning is a practical enterprise in which we join others, and in virtue of which we transform and broaden our initial conception of what a reason is for us. Practical reasoning is generative in this way. It brings us in places that we have not visited before, by ourselves. Reasoning shapes and specifies the scope of our interests in unpredictable ways.

On the constructivist view, then, the effects of practical reasoning are quite remarkable and cannot be captured solely in terms of performing, bringing about something, realizing an end or producing a string of consequences. On this rich understanding, construction names a mode of reasoning genuinely alternative to classical models. First, it is principled but it does not derive normative conclusions from first principles; its structure is not deductive. Second, it starts from an abstract profile of practical subjects, concerned with others, but neither driven by altruistic concerns nor empowered with a distinctive faculty of moral insight. Third, there are constraints on the rational activities of construction, but they are structural of such activities rather than externally imposed on them. This means that there are criteria of correctness for constructing reasons, but such criteria are not material starting points dictated by reality. The domain of reasoning is built up by the activity of reasoning. This is the sense in which constructivism is not a form of realism. Fourth, the abstract profile of practical subjects includes beings with interests and concerns, responsive to the authority of objective reasons, even though these reasons are in some important respects independent of their pre-reflective desires and not pondered judgments. Constructivism does not represent the reflective agents as self-interested competitors trying to bargain and strike a deal. Its problem is to explain how objective reasons can be authoritative in the first person for subjects capable of practical concerns.

Finally, insofar as constructivism accounts for reasoning as transformative, it does not simply add yet another variety to instrumentalism and non-instrumentalism; nor does it simply introduce a constitutive constraint on a theory of rational choice. According to constructivism, the boundaries between self-regarding and other-regarding concerns are drawn by reasoning. As a consequence, constructivism does not take for granted that practical reasoning conforms to morality; nor does it assume that moral reasons and practical reasons grounded on one’s concerns inevitably compete. This view of construction as a transformative subjective experience is rather different than the proceduralist view typically associated with Kantian constructivism,Footnote 25 according to which any formal decision procedure will do. I take this to be an apparent merit of the view I propose.

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According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. I have argued that the case largely rests on the assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. But there is no moral domain of objects prior to and independently of reasoning. The relevant practical subjects decide what to include in the relevant domain via reasoning. Consequently, moral obligations do not have decisive normative status insofar as they protect real moral values, but only if and to the extent that they are determined by practical reasoning. The argument above attempted to make some progress in the debate by showing that construction names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative.