Defeating the Inference from General to Particular Norms*

Abstract

Abstract.The author argues that in order to maintain, with the later Kelsen, that particular norms are not deducible from general norms, it is unnecessary to deny (1) that norms are propositional, (2) that norms have truth value, (3) that there are normative facts, or (4) that norms fall within the compass of logic. It is claimed that general norms, like many generalizations in science, are not, typically, unrestricted universal generalizations, but generalizations of a different kind, which have sometimes been called normic generalizations. Normic generalizations may have truth value and describe facts; and there is no obvious reason for thinking that they fall outside the compass of logic. Yet they do not deductively imply the instances which fall under them. Exceptions to a generalization of this sort need not constitute falsifying instances; in some cases, at least, they serve rather to qualify the scope or power of the generalization. The logic of such generalizations is thus not deductive. Granting that general norms are typically of this kind, we may accept Kelsen's conclusion about the non‐deducibility of particular from general norms without accepting the grounds upon which he accounted for this fact.