The Nature of Normativity: Précis

Abstract

This book presents a comprehensive theory about the nature of normative thought that is, the sort of thought that is concerned with what ought to be the case, or what we ought to do or think. This theory implies a kind of metanormative realism, according to which normative truths or facts are genuinely part of reality. At the same time, the theory aims to provide a substantive account of the nature of these normative facts, and of how it is possible for us to know these facts and to refer to them in language or thought. In providing this account, the theory relies on a version of the idea (which has been much discussed in recent work in the philosophy of mind) of "the normativity of the intentional". This is the idea that there is no way to explain the nature of the various sorts of mental states that have intentionality or representational content (such as beliefs, judgments, desires, decisions, and so on) without stating normative facts. It is suggested that this idea captures a kind of Platonism about the normative. (i) The first part of the book is concerned with the semantic issues: how are we to give an account of the meaning of normative statements, and of the nature of the normative judgments that such statements express? To answer these questions adequately, a theory does not need to be reductive it may use normative terms in the metalanguage in which the theory is given. But it should still be in a sense noncircular: it should not help itself to the idea of a term's meaning "ought" , or the idea of a thought's including the concept ought since that is precisely what has to be explained. In the first chapter, it is argued that normative judgments have a very special feature: they have an essential or "internal" connection to motivation and practical reasoning. Any adequate account of the meaning of normative statement and of the nature of normative judgments must somehow explain why this sort of "internalism" is true.