How to Be a Constitutivist
Abstract
I defend pluralist metaethical constitutivism: Practical norms governing an agent are grounded in her kind of rational agency. Kinds of rational agency are defined in terms of reasons explanations: To be a given kind of rational agent is for one’s actions to admit of certain forms of reasons explanation. Unlike extant, “monist” constitutivists, pluralists need not say that there are constitutive standards of rational agency as such—just that there are constitutive standards of our kind of agency. They can thus admit the possibility of “minimal” agents whose agency cannot ground any norms, retaining monist constitutivism's virtues without its costs.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education
Philosophical Ethics and Theory
Marxism and Critical Theory
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Ethics
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Volume
- 136
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 463–492
- Publication date
- 23 March 2026
- Language
- EN