Luca Ferrero

According to constitutivism, the objective authority of practical reason is to be grounded in the constitutive features of agency. In this paper, I offer a brief survey of the basic structure of constitutive argument about objectivity and consider how constitutivism might dispel the worry that it can only ground a conditional kind of authority. I then consider David Enoch’s original shmagency challenge and the response in terms of the inescapability of agency. In particular, I revisit the appeal to inescapability in light of Enoch’s restatement of the challenge in 'Shmagency Revisited'. I argue that the revised challenge still fails but that it helps clarify: first, the distinction between external and internal challenges to constitutivism, and, second, the existence of at least different kinds of inescapability of agency (metaphysical, psychological, and dialectical). I argue that only dialectical inescapability is helpful to show that constitutivism is a viable metanormative theory. I conclude by claiming that an internal challenge to constitutivism is still possible in principle but that the burden of proof has shifted once again to the critics of constitutivism.

1.1.1 In a recent series of papers, G.A. Cohen has presented an egalitarian interpretation of the Difference Principle (hereafter, DP).1 According to this principle—first introduced by Rawls in A Theory of Justice2—inequalities in the distribution of primary goods3 are legitimate only to the extent that they maximize the prospects of the least advantaged members of society. Cohen argues that, once it is properly applied, DP does not legitimate any departure from equality. According to him, the distribution that maximizes the prospects of the least advantaged is the equal distribution. Cohen has offered two kinds of argument in support of the egalitarian conclusion. According to the first argument, differential incentives are not necessary in order to maximize efficiency. According to the second argument, principles of distributive justice apply not only to the basic structure of society but also to the choices made by individuals within those rules. Therefore, talented people should not seek to maximize the gains they can get on the market, thereby making more social product available for the less well off. 4 In this paper, I focus only on Cohen’s first argument. The interesting feature of this argument is that it is presented as an internal criticism of Rawls’ theory of justice. My present concern is to understand to what extent the DP embodies an idea of equality and it is thus amenable to the egalitarian interpretation. I will argue that the first argument fails and that DP allows for the inequalities generated by the use of incentives. The assessment of the second argument merits a separate discussion that I intend to take up in a sequel to this paper. For the time being, I take not stance on the effect of the refutation of the first egalitarian argument on the success of the second one. In this work, I am rather concerned with articulating a novel..

In this paper, I will discuss the various ways in which intentions can be said to be conditional, with particular attention to the internal conditions on the intentions’ content. I will first consider what it takes to carry out a conditional intention. I will then discuss how the distinctive norms of intention apply to conditional intentions and whether conditional intentions are a weaker sort of commitments than the unconditional ones. This discussion will lead to the idea of what I call the ‘deep structure’ of intentions. Roughly, this is the idea that the conditional nature of our intentions is only partially made explicit in the expressions we use to communicate our intentions and in the explicit form of our thinking about and reasoning with them. Most conditions that qualify our intentions are part of a deep functional structure that can be evinced by observing the actual psychological functioning of intentions and by considering the rational requirements that they engage. I will argue that the deep structure of intentions is characteristically conditional. Genuinely unconditional intentions are only limiting instances of conditional intentions and their contribution to agency can only be understood in light of this fact. I will conclude by showing that the characteristic conditional structure of intentions is intimately related to distinctive features of human agency, especially to its unity over time