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Was Kant a ‘Kantian Constructivist’?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2017

Jeremy Schwartz
Jeremy Schwartz*
Affiliation:
Texas Tech University
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Both metaethicists and Kant scholars alike use the phrase ‘Kantian constructivism’ to refer to a kind of austere constructivism that holds that substantive ethical conclusions can be derived from the practical standpoint of rational agency as such. I argue that this widespread understanding of Kant is incompatible with Kant’s claim that the Categorical Imperative is a synthetic a priori practical judgement. Taking this claim about the syntheticity of the Categorical Imperative seriously implies that moral judgements follow from extra-logical but necessary principles. These principles have to do not with the laws of practical thinking but the laws of practical thought about an object. I conclude that historical Kant was not what has come to be called a ‘Kantian constructivist’.

Keywords

Kantconstructivismanalytic–synthetic distinction
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 257 - 280
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2017 

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