Conventions and Constitutive Norms

Manuel García-Carpintero

doi:10.1515/jso-2019-0013

Abstract

Abstract The paper addresses a popular argument that accounts of assertion in terms of constitutive norms are incompatible with conventionalism about assertion. The argument appeals to an alleged modal asymmetry: constitutive rules are essential to the acts they characterize, and therefore the obligations they impose necessarily apply to every instance; conventions are arbitrary, and thus can only contingently regulate the practices they establish. The paper argues that this line of reasoning fails to establish any modal asymmetry, by invoking the distinction between the non-discriminating existence across possible worlds of types (“blueprints”, as Rawls called them) of practices and institutions defined by constitutive rules, and the discriminating existence of those among them that are actually in force, and hence truly normative. The necessity of practices defined by constitutive rules that the argument relies on concerns the former, while conventionalist claims are only about the latter. The paper should thus contribute to get a better understanding of what social constructs conceived as defined by constitutive norms are. It concludes by suggesting considerations that are relevant to deciding whether assertion is in fact conventional.

Highlights

The paper addresses a popular argument that accounts of assertion in terms of constitutive norms are incompatible with conventionalism about assertion
Austin (1962) advocates thinking of them as social practices constituted by social norms, established and maintained by conventions; this is entailed by his proposing a framework for their characterization that assumes that “there must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect”
This situation has been changing in the past years, in part through the deserved impact of Williamson’s (1996/2000) account of assertion, which has brought back into the philosophical landscape normative accounts on which assertion is defined by constitutive norms

Summary

Assertion Conventionalism

36 Manuel García-Carpintero in terms of a peculiar kind of reflexive intention. As a result of Strawson’s (1964) forceful criticism of Austin’s (1962) social account of speech acts, and in spite of the important work of proponents of such accounts like Searle (1969) and Alston (2000), until recently the Gricean psychological account supported by Strawson has been the default in contemporary philosophy; Stalnaker’s own work is a good illustration. In arguing for this, I will emphasize a distinction that is needed to properly understand these issues – to have a clear conception of kinds defined by constitutive rules like games and, perhaps, speech acts: the distinction between Rawlsian blueprints, mere putative normative kinds, and truly normative kinds, whose defining norms have been enforced In this way, and beyond the refutation of the influential modal argument, I hope to contribute to get a better understanding of what social constructs conceived as defined by constitutive norms are. Beyond the refutation of the influential modal argument, I hope to contribute to get a better understanding of what social constructs conceived as defined by constitutive norms are Let me articulate such a sensible form of C(onventionalism) about A(ssertion) that, wrong in my view, remains untouched by Williamson’s argument: CA The practice of assertion exists (so that speakers are bound by its constitutive norms) only because a convention instituting and preserving it is in place. The reason is that the debate takes for granted that the kind at stake (assertion) is already in place, which invites disregarding the issue of how that has come to be

Assertion

The Alleged Modal Disparity between Convention and Assertion

Concluding Remarks