Norms, Reasons, and the Law

Abstract

Legal philosophers tend to talk about the normativity of law as if it is a central aspect of law that we need to explain, often assuming that there a single underlying question about it. I think that this is a mistake. Part of what I argue in this paper is that there isn't really anything unique to the normativity of law. But this follows from something more fundamental that I explore here, which is the nature of norm following. My aim is to show that different kinds of norms provide reasons for action in different ways. The four kinds of norms that are discussed include norms that function to codify preexisting reasons for action, norms that instantiate or complete reasons for action that underdetermine the modes of conduct which would be responsive to the reasons, norms that constitute various human activities, and finally, authoritative directives. Having explored how these different types of norms bear on our reasons for action, I hope to show that these four kinds of norms are present in law as well, suggesting that the normativity of law is both complex and multifarious, yet not, I argue, essentially different from normativity in other domains.