A Puzzle for Constructivism and How to Solve It†

The topic of this essay is the metaethics of practical reasons, with special focus on a view I call " constructivism ". Because this term is rather promiscuous , it seems best for me to characterize the view I'm talking about right off the bat. As I understand it, constructivism is characterized by three central tenets. The first of which runs as follows: Truth-Apt: normative judgments are truth-apt. For constructivism, normative judgments can be adequately described as true or false. The second feature of constructivism is: Relational : that which makes a particular normative judgment nj true is nj 's bearing of a favored relation to other normative judgements. Relational offers a substantive truth condition for normative judgments: a normative judgment nj is made true by the fact that nj bears a favored relation to other normative judgments, or some suitably specified subset thereof. Third, constructivism as I use the term accepts: Unrestricted : Relational applies to all normative judgments. Unrestricted holds that all normative judgments permit of the same truth conditions, viz., the bearing of a favored relationship to other normative judgments. Constructivism, so defined, permits of a number of different specifications. One can identify the proper " relation " in many different ways. One † I would like to thank James Lenman, Cory Wright, Jack Bricke, and an anonymous reader for helpful and challenging feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.