constitutiivists

Constitutivists are philosophers who defend constitutivism, the view that certain normative features—such as duties, reasons for action, or moral obligations—are not imposed from outside but are constitutive of the very life of agency. In ethics, constitutivism holds that to be a rational agent is to be governed by normative commitments that arise from the agent’s own form of life. The best-known contemporary advocate is Christine Korsgaard, who argues that moral principles derive from the constitutive conditions of agency: when we act we rely on reasons that we would identify as binding if we were indeed agents. In this view, failing to treat others as ends, or to respect rationally required constraints, would undermine one’s own status as a rational agent.

In political philosophy, constitutivist arguments are used to ground authority and law in the constitutive features of social life, rather than in hypothetical bargains or external moral facts. Proponents contend that legitimate political norms must be compatible with the reasons that rational agents would accept as binding given their own agency.

Variants differ on what precisely is constitutive: some emphasize rationality or agency as the source of normativity; others extend the idea to contract-like frameworks or to the justification of political institutions. Critics challenge constitutivism on grounds of circularity, dependence on contested premises about rationality, and questions about whether it can ground specific duties or accommodate moral pluralism.

Overall, constitutivists seek to locate the source of normative force within the structure of agency itself, offering a framework where norms are not merely imposed but arise from what it means to be an agent capable of reasons and action.