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NoobFade t1_j9299ow wrote

Reads to me like some kind of Kantian constructionism. You might enjoy reading some Korsgaard, who I think articulates a different slant on how morality derives from the nature of rational agents.

Personally, I'm skeptical of these varieties of meta ethics which rely on assumptions about the nature of an abstract rational actor. I think the constitutive nature of the rational actor is where the underlying principles really derive from, because you make all kinds of assumptions about what they want (e.g. not being used as a means to an end) and who is accepted as a rational agent (e.g. animals, slaves).

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contractualist OP t1_j92d657 wrote

Yes meta-ethical constructivism. I've read some of her work. For me, it has been either hit or miss and her focus on identity steers too much into subjectivism.

Here, I try not to make any assumptions, not even about rationality. Only that by valuing freedom and reason can we get moral principles. That's what is good about valuing freedom, you don't have to care about what people want, but only recognize that they have wants.

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bumharmony t1_j92kjsm wrote

Equality does not somehow stem from rational agency into an observable and measurable feature. Even the first premise of ethics seems too difficult to justify.

It requires sort of argument from tradition or ideal theory so that we start from that people already accept atleast the baseline equality as non aggression and equal right to decide about other rules.

That works as long as people agree on them.

But another way Rawls uses is that all knowledge is a communal thing by definition. Science is valid only if the community agrees on the theory at hand. So ethics can be comparable science if there is a viewpoint that detaches from the aposteriori to apriorism that fits the idea of inductive logic (although Rawls speaks paradoxically of aposteriori apriori which he explains away with the ideal theory). And everyone who can do this has an equal vote on ethics, like science has its criterion (although it can lead to fallacy of expertise) So there is no many ethical theories, only peoole who have the virtue for ethics and who don’t.

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