I've always been skeptical of the genuine normativity of such "constitutive" norms, since there's no guarantee that existing beings' constitutions will be oriented towards genuine goodness. Effective mosquitos--or viruses!--are not a kind of "excellence" worth having in the world. So I think we always need to ask the prior question of …
I've always been skeptical of the genuine normativity of such "constitutive" norms, since there's no guarantee that existing beings' constitutions will be oriented towards genuine goodness. Effective mosquitos--or viruses!--are not a kind of "excellence" worth having in the world. So I think we always need to ask the prior question of whether one's "constitutive capacities" are oriented towards something good, or not. (But it may be that this constrained version of the view could help count at least *many* animal interests appropriately, even if *some* must be rejected as simply bad.)
I've always been skeptical of the genuine normativity of such "constitutive" norms, since there's no guarantee that existing beings' constitutions will be oriented towards genuine goodness. Effective mosquitos--or viruses!--are not a kind of "excellence" worth having in the world. So I think we always need to ask the prior question of whether one's "constitutive capacities" are oriented towards something good, or not. (But it may be that this constrained version of the view could help count at least *many* animal interests appropriately, even if *some* must be rejected as simply bad.)