by an independently existing order of values nor by special features
of human psychology. Rather, that substance is best understood as
constructed by free and equal people under fair conditions. This
constructivist interpretation of Kant’s moral thought has had a
decisive influence on Kant scholarship in the Anglo-American tradi-
tion. While many scholars in the continental tradition continue to
view Kant as a rational intuitionist, even “a covert moral realist,”
Kant is firmly established among Anglo-American commentators as an
anti-realist and even a formalist moral thinker.
A particular advantage of Kant’s moral constructivism, in Rawls’s
view, is the clarity that it introduces into the process of assessing
and justifying moral claims. Constructivism aims to clarify the
structure of moral argument in order to ensure that moral reasoning is
accessible and to lay the contents of moral arguments open to critical
assessment. This commitment to clarity in moral reasoning provides
the basis for a moral theory that is potentially sensitive to
pluralist concerns regarding respect for the diversity of moral views.
It is the goal of Kantian constructivism, Rawls argues, “to enable all
members [of society] to make mutually acceptable to one another their
shared institutions and basic arrangements” (305)
.
In Rawls’s interpretation, Kant’s moral constructivism offers a
valuable resource to address the moral disagreement that characterizes
public discourse in pluralistic societies. In particular, Rawls
offers Kantian constructivism as addressed to “an impasse in our
recent political history” (305)—the ongoing controversy regarding the
form of social institutions best designed to respect both the freedom
and the equality of citizens. A number of commentators, however--
including Onora O
=
Neill, Larry Krasnoff, and Barbara Herman--object
that Rawls
=
s interpretation distorts various aspects of Kantian moral
judgment. In this paper, I will first sketch the basic elements of
2
Convention