ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a Hegelian view, on which social constructions play vital role in ethical theory but are not an ultimate source for normative truths. The view can be called “mediated realism” or “sublated constructivism.” It overcomes problems of constructivism, related to the gap between nonmoral or descriptive input and the moral or normative output. Closed moralized methods are guaranteed to provide the right output but presuppose what they are meant to generate. It is unclear whether any closed methods of construction do the relevant kind of work. By contrast, open, non-moralized methods are likely to provide non-ideal, criticizable results, and thus cannot be the last word normatively speaking. Social constructions can nonetheless have other functions (epistemic, normative, structural) in ethical theory. The chapter explores further especially the normative functions that social constructions can have, focusing on ways in which autonomous commitments and authentic resonances can (within limits) change the normative landscape. Arguably some moral contents are obligatory or forbidden even in the absence of commitments or resonances, but some contents are such that autonomous commitments or authentic resonances – in both individual and collective forms – make a difference to their role in ethical life.
