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1. Kantian constructivism
According to value realism, the correctness of our ethical judgements is not dependent on our choices or our attitudes. For
example, it is simply a fact that making promises that you do not
intend to keep is morally wrong.
According to Kantian constructivism, values are not part of the
fabric of the world. Instead, rational agents construct values
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value: the theory that our rational nature, our capacity to set and
pursue ends, is the source of the value of our ends. Korsgaard and
Wood appear to accept the conferral model, and argue that, as
the source of all value, rational nature itself must be valuable,
indeed that it must be more valuable than any of our ends. They
conclude that rational nature is unconditionally valuable, and
that we are required to respect every rational agent as unconditionally valuable. This requirement is expressed by the formula of
humanity and the particular ethical duties that can be derived
from it.
The conferral model is only one possible explanation of nonmoral value. An obvious rival is value realism. Our ends might be
valuable independently of their having been chosen by us. Korsgaard defends the conferral model by arguing that, for a number
of reasons, Kantian constructivism is more appealing than value
realism.
She claims that Kantian constructivism offers an explanation of
why ethical statements are true, namely, in terms of the correctness of the categorical imperative procedure that is used to construct them: making false promises is morally wrong because a
maxim of false promising fails the formula of universal law and
the formula of humanity tests. Realism cannot offer any explanation for why ethical statements are true, for there is no explanation; it is simply a fact that making false promises is wrong. In
response to someone who questions whether it really is wrong to
make a promise you do not intend to keep, or whether she really
has reason not to do so realism can offer only an expression of
confidence, not an adequate answer (Korsgaard 1996b: 39).
In addition, realism is committed to the existence of moral
values: queer intrinsically motivating entities, which we can
know about only through an epistemologically problematic
faculty of intuition (Korsgaard, 1996b: 35, 378). Kantian constructivism is not committed to the existence of these strange
objects; instead, it is merely committed to maxims, formulated
and adopted by rational agents, and to the existence of certain
procedures for testing maxims.
Third, she argues that realism has a problem explaining
why, even if we were to discover these peculiar facts, we should take
them to have any connection to what we have reason to do (Korsgaard 1996b: 44). By contrast, Kantian constructivism explicitly
links what is wrong with what we have reason not to do, because the
procedure for testing maxims at the same time tests whether the
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Journal compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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Regan (2002: 267). See also FitzPatrick (2005) for a very thorough critique of Kantian
constructivism.
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value. But we really need to question one particular interpretation of that claim: the conferral model. The view that objects are
valuable because value is conferred on them when they are
chosen is untenable; but we need to distinguish the view that
rational choice is the source of value, from the different claim,
that rational nature is the source of value. Provided we reject the
former, we can still maintain the latter, by accepting an account
that I call the constitutive model of rational nature as the
source of value.
Suppose that all rational wills, that is, all persons, are valuable.
We should therefore respect all persons and refrain from treating
them as mere means. We can call these our moral ends.
But how can we explain the value of our other, non-moral ends?
In order to function as a rational agent, you need to adopt and
pursue some ends. In some respects, it does not matter which
ends, because in setting and pursuing many different ends, you
can be acting rationally. Non-moral ends are valuable not because
they are chosen by the rational will. Instead, their value depends on
their contribution to the functioning of a rational will.
Suppose that you have been told by your doctor to take up some
kind of sport for the sake of your health. As far as you are concerned, the value of sports like tennis and squash depends on the
fact that if you take them up as a hobby, you will exercise and
benefit your health. Of course, there are important differences
between different sports: tennis will contribute more in this
regard than darts, so tennis is more valuable to you than darts, and
you have more reason to take up tennis.
According to the constitutive model, ends that we set acquire
value in the same way that tennis and darts acquire value from
their contribution to your health. Tennis is a way of exercising: it
is a constitutive means of physical exercise. Similarly, setting a
particular object as your end and pursuing it is not an instrumental means to be a rational agent, it is a way of being a rational
agent. For example, you may choose to read the Critique of Pure
Reason as your end. According to the constitutive model, this
project is valuable as a constitutive means of exercising your rational nature. It, or some similar project, is worth setting as an end,
because it is worthwhile exercising your rational nature.
Many objects are suitable to be set as ends. But some would
contribute more than others to your exercising your rational
agency. Some projects are more complex than others, and require
you to set more than one end; it may be difficult to identify a
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Anyone who rejects Kantian value realism must claim that Kant
chose an exceptionally misleading way of stating his views in these
striking passages. They might try to defend this claim by appealing
to the structure of the Groundwork. Kant begins with ordinary
rational knowledge of morality and in the course of each chapter,
moves to a more philosophically sophisticated theory. Perhaps the
first paragraphs set out a version of value realism that Kant will
later repudiate as philosophically nave. But Kant never suggests
that common sense is substantially mistaken about morality. In
fact, he says that ordinary common sense moral views are substantially correct, and simply need philosophical elucidation.11 In the
rest of Groundwork, he sets out to explain what it means for the
rational will to be supremely valuable, not to criticize that view.
It is obvious that Kant did not reject Kantian value realism later
in the Groundwork in any case, since a particularly clear statement of
the theory can be found in the section on the formula of humanity:
Suppose, however, there were something whose existence has
in itself an absolute value, something which as an end in itself
could be a ground of determinate laws; then in it, and in it
alone, would there be the ground of a possible categorical
imperative- that is, of a practical law.
Now I say that man, and in general every rational being, exists
as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by
this or that will.
(G. 4: 428)
Kant could hardly make his views any clearer: the existence of
rational beings has in itself an absolute value. There are many
other passages in which he makes similar remarks.12
There is good textual evidence that Kant accepted Kantian
value realism. But there are also a number of objections to this
interpretation. First, Kant frequently emphasizes the importance
of principles in ethics rather than values. For example, in the
Critique of Practical Reason, he claims that we cannot understand
what is valuable until we know the correct principles for action.13
11
Human reason can, in matters of morality, be easily brought to a high degree of
accuracy and precision even in the most ordinary intelligence (G. 4: 391).
12
See also G. 4: 396, 4: 397, 4: 429, 4: 462.
13
C.Pr.R. 5: 624.
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In the Groundwork he explicitly considers a theory he calls perfectionism that seems very like value realism, and rejects it.
But in both cases the evidence is misleading, for Kant does not
reject value realism as such, but only particular versions of it. In
the Critique of Practical Reason, it is not value that he rejects in
favour of principle, but conceptions of the good that are based on
happiness or desire.14 In the Groundwork he makes it quite clear
that a formal principle can be based on an objectively valuable
end such as rational nature.15 He rejects perfectionism because
he rejects theories based on the effect of willing, rather than the
nature of willing itself.16 In neither case does he question value
realism as such.
The second reason for doubting whether Kant endorsed
Kantian value realism concerns epistemology. Kant says that it is
possible for all of us to have moral knowledge, for example, he
thinks that we all know that humanity is of supreme value. If we
construct value, then it is fairly easy to see how we can know what
is valuable. But if we do not, if value realism is correct, then our
epistemic access to value is much more puzzling and in need of
explanation. Kant does not seem to find moral knowledge puzzling, and this is some reason to favour a constructivist interpretation of his theory. But nevertheless it is compatible with realism
that we do have epistemic access to truths about value. Kant was
clearly more interested in setting out his moral theory and in
questions about freedom than in discussing moral epistemology,
but this may be simply because he was confident that we actually
have access to values, not because he denied that values are real.
So this is not a decisive reason against interpreting Kant as a value
realist.
The final concern is that the conception of rational nature
required by Kantian value realism is incompatible with that set out
by Kant in the Groundwork. According to Kant, when an agent
decides to act she is free to choose between her desires, to set the
objects of any of them as an end, or indeed to set as an end some
object that she does not desire. Setting an end includes incorporating that end into maxim, which, provided that that maxim
could be a universal law, she may then pursue.
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Does this mean that we should all be trying to prove Fermats Last Theorem? Obviously that would be absurd, since most of us could make no progress at all towards doing
so. We would have no idea what to do, and would most likely end up doing nothing.
Instead, we should set and pursue ends that we can at least make some progress towards
achieving, so that we do actually exercise our rational nature.
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For a discussion of constitutive and instrumental means, see Marras (2003).
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G. 4: 4145.
G. 4: 415.
Compare Kants discussion of the South Sea Islanders, G. 4: 423.
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G. 4: 430.
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It is worth noting that value realism in the sense in which I use it here is exclusively
concerned with the relationship between value and practical reason, namely, whether x is
good is constitutively dependent on whether x has been chosen by a rational agent. This
may be compatible with a number of different metaethical theories about the meaning of
statements like X is good or We have reason to promote X. The commitments of value
realism in this sense need not be epistemologically or metaphysically outlandish.
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26
For an attempt to defend the moral status of animals in Kantian ethics, see Korsgaard
(forthcoming).
27
Of course some people do think the environment is valuable only in this way. See
ONeill (1998) and Wood (1998) for a Kant-inspired discussion of the value of the
environment.
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may be right that we should all strive to bring about the kingdom
of ends.28
St Johns College
Oxford OX1 3JP
alison.hills@sjc.ox.ac.uk
References
FitzPatrick, W. J. (2005). The Practical Turn in Ethical Theory: Korsgaards Constructivism, Realism, and the Nature of Normativity Ethics 115, pp. 651691.
Gaut, B. (1997). The Structure of Practical Reason in eds. B. Gaut and G. Cullity Ethics
and Practical Reason. Oxford: OUP.
Guyer, P. (1996). The Value of Agency Ethics 106, pp. 404423.
(1998). The Value of Reason and the Value of Freedom Ethics 109, pp. 2235.
(2000). Kants Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom in his Kant on Freedom, Law
and Happiness. Cambridge: CUP.
Herman, B. (1993). The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP.
Hills, A. (2004). Is Ethics Rationally Required? Inquiry 47.1, pp. 119.
(forthcoming). The Beloved Self: Morality and the challenge from Egoism. Oxford: OUP.
Hurka, T. (1993). Perfectionism. Oxford: OUP.
Kant, Groundwork of a Metaphysic of Morals (G.) trans. H. J. Paton (London: Routledge,
1991). Page references cite the volume and page number of Kants gesammelte Schriften
(published by the Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1902).
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (C.Pr.R.), trans M.J. Gregor, Cambridge: CUP, 1997; page
references cite the volume and page number of Kants gesammelte Schriften (published by
the Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1902),
Korsgaard, C. M. (1996a). Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: CUP.
(1996b). The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: CUP.
(2003). Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth-Century Moral Philosophy. The
Journal of Philosophical Research APA Centenary Supplement: 99122.
Korsgaard, C. M. (forthcoming). Fellow Creature: Kantian Ethics and our duties to
animals in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. by Grethe B. Peterson. Salt Lake
City: Utah University Press, Volume 25/26.
Marras, A. (2003). Audi on Substantive vs Instrumental Rationality Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67, pp. 194201.
ONeill, O. (1989). Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: CUP.
(1998). Kant on duties regarding nonrational nature Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society Supplementary Volume 72, pp. 211228.
Regan, D. H. (2002). The Value of Rational Nature Ethics 112, pp. 267291.
Shafer-Landau, (2004). Moral Realism. Oxford: OUP.
Wood. A. W. (1998). Kant on duties regarding nonrational nature Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 72, pp. 189210,
(1999). Kants Ethical Thought. Cambridge: CUP.
28
I would like to thank the AHRC for an award of research leave, during which time this
paper was written.