Kant, Constitutivism, and the Shmagency Objection

Abstract Many interpreters have recently defended constitutivist interpretations of Kant's moral theory, but they have largely overlooked the most prominent challenge to constitutivism: the shmagency objection. In this paper, I argue that Kant employs a form of constitutivism in the Groundwork not to vindicate the authority of morality to a sceptic, but rather with the aim of explaining how categorical imperatives can bind rational agents given the nature of practical reason. As such, his view is immune to the challenge posed by the shmagency objection. By distinguishing between normative and explanatory scepticism, this paper shows that the objection only threatens constitutivist views that address the former, thereby shedding light on a fundamental difference between Kant and contemporary constitutivists in terms of their metaethical ambitions.