Non-naturalism Without Alienation or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Constitutivism

Abstract

Non-naturalists claim that normative properties are sui generis , attitude-independent, and irreducible to natural properties. A common objection is that although we shape our lives around normative properties, non-naturalism rules out any plausible explanation of how this is possible. Non-naturalism seems to imply that we are hopelessly alienated from the normative. Our goal here is to better understand this worry and use constitutivist resources to develop a novel response. The basic thought is that we are constituted—as deeply social agents—to be gripped by normative properties. So while our constitution does not ground normativity, it grounds our non-alienation from it.