IMO if we specified is_[nothrow_]constructible in terms of a variable declaration whose validity requires destructibility, it is clearly a bug in our specification and a failure to realize the actual original intent. The specification should have been in terms of placement-new.

Daniel:
At the time of the specification this was intended and the solution is not done by removing the destruction semantics of is_constructible.

The design of is_constructible was also impacted by the previous Constructible concept that explicitly contained destruction semantics, because during conceptification of the library it turned out to simplify the constraints in the library because you did not need to add Destructible all the time. It often was implied but never spoken out in C++03.

Pure construction semantics was considered as useful as well, so HasConstructor did also exist and would surely be useful as trait as well.

Another example that is often overlooked: This also affects wrapper types like pair, tuple, array that contain potentially more than one type: This is easy to understand if you think of T1 having a deleted destructor and T2 having a constructor that may throw: Obviously the compiler has potentially need to use the destructor of T1 in the constructor of std::pair<T1, T2> to ensure that the core language requirements are satisfied (All previous fully constructed sub-objects must be destructed).

The core language also honors this fact in [class.copy] p11:

A defaulted copy/move constructor for a class X is defined as deleted ([dcl.fct.def.delete]) if X has:
[…]
— any direct or virtual base class or non-static data member of a type with a destructor that is deleted or inaccessible from the defaulted constructor,
[…]

Dave:
This is about is_nothrow_constructible in particular. The fact that it is foiled by not having a noexcept dtor is a defect.