Social science and ‘normative facts’. What's the big deal?

Abstract

Stephen Turner’s Explaining the Normative is probably a puzzling work for the average empirical social scientist. Turner devotes more than two hundred pages and considerable argumentative efforts to build a compelling case against what he calls ‘normativism’. His main thesis is that what ‘normativist’ philosophers call ‘normative facts’ are not special or transcendental in any meaningful sense, but can be fully grasped by social science standard explanations and even by naturalistic ones. I think most social scientists would agree with this thesis, and would in fact consider it as a trivial truth. However, Turner goes further to suggest that ‘normative talk’ and notions as ‘normative correctness’ are just bogus talk or simply the folk way we use to describe some of our cultural practices, but have no explanatory relevance or rational meaning. I think that far fewer social scientists would buy this second claim. In all fairness, it should be acknowledged that Turner’s book is written having in mind a philosophical audience (or perhaps a ‘social theory’ audience) rather than a socialscientific or sociological one. But since the invitation for commenting on his book comes from a sociology journal, I will try to present what in my opinion would be a very usual social-scientific look on the issues Turner is concerned about. I advance that I fully share the general spirit of Turner’s criticism of ‘normativism’, as well as his sympathy for the present naturalistic and anti-metaphysical trends in social science and philosophy. However, I would like to point to some apparent disagreements with the kind of social science I am engaged with.