Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.26362/20200204
How should we justify moral principles? A constructivist defense of fact-sensitivity
Adelin-Costin Dumitru
; Faculty of Political Science, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Expoziției Boulevard 30A, Bucharest, Romania
Sažetak
Constructivism is the metaethical position stating that although we cannot have direct access to moral facts, we can still come up with a set of principles that can be justified and that ought to be respected by individuals. The strength of these moral principles derives from the fact that they are the result of a procedure respecting certain desirable conditions. Constructivism concerns the methodology of political philosophy, being preoccupied with the process of generating and justifying moral principles. In this review article I present the main contentions of constructivism (focusing especially on the Kantian constructivism advanced by Rawls and Scanlon), describe its positioning on the realist–antirealist axis, and compare it with its main competitor in the field of metaethical views, intuitionism. I dedicate a separate section to the method of reflective equilibrium, which represents an important part of several metaethical accounts, be they constructivist, realist, or intuitionist. I show how reflective equilibrium represents the main instrument constructivists can employ in order to capture the appeal of relying on intuitions in moral theorizing, without leaning toward intuitionism. Toward the end of the article I present G. A. Cohen’s (2003, 2008) criticism of constructivism. I focus on the replies Ronzoni and Valentini (2008), Hall (2013), de Maagt (2014, 2016) and Rossi (2016) give to Cohen, ending with a criticism of my own.
Ključne riječi
Constructivism; fact-sensitivity; intuitionism; realism and antirealism; reflective equilibrium
Hrčak ID:
247188
URI
Datum izdavanja:
3.12.2020.
Posjeta: 1.256 *