What question did this study set out to answer?

The central aim is to defend pluralist metaethical constitutivism and its implications for rational agency.

March 26, 2026

How to Be a Constitutivist

Key Points

The central aim is to defend pluralist metaethical constitutivism and its implications for rational agency.
Defined kinds of rational agency based on reasons explanations.
Contrasted pluralism with monist constitutivism to illustrate differences in normative grounding.
Explored the concept of minimal agents and their implications for constitutive standards.
Established that pluralist constitutivism does not require universal constitutive standards.
Demonstrated the compatibility of pluralist views with the existence of minimal agents.
Highlighted the advantages of pluralism while addressing criticisms of monism.

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.

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