Conclusion

Abstract

Abstract Recognition of the existence of deontic value and the realization that being bound by convention might be valuable for its own sake has implications both theoretical and practical. Part 1 was largely devoted to outlining the theoretical implications, e.g. for our understanding of how obligation motivates human conduct and of the normative significance of cultural variation. Part 2 expounded three more practical implications. First, both the conduct they require of us and the importance of many of our social institutions are hard to comprehend until we acknowledge the value of the normative situation they create. Second, this value provides those endorsing the preservation of our present social arrangements with an extra resource to defend them against their critics. Third, it should also incline us to be respectful of other cultures which manage to bind their adherents together in a shared normative structure, whether or not it be one we would wish on ourselves. An aim of the present work is to demonstrate how the results of the historical and social sciences might bear directly on normative questions, questions usually taken to be the exclusive province of ethics or political philosophy. Social facts can have an immediate normative significance. On the other hand, they bear that normative significance only in the light of facts about what is good for human beings.