The Roots of Normativity, by Joseph Raz

Abstract

This book, which sadly is the last we will get from Joseph Raz, contains his final thoughts about normativity. Thanks are owed to Ulrike Heuer who helped see it through the press before Raz’s death and who contributes a very helpful introduction. It displays a Raz who will be familiar to many of us, with his very individual mixture of ferocity and generosity and his eye for the telling detail. Half of the papers included have already been published; the other half are new. Of the latter the one that initially most intrigued me is entitled ‘Can Basic Moral Principles Change?’. Raz starts this paper by suggesting that we tend to think of morality as changeable and changing, because being meant for humans it is dependent on the social conditions of human existence, and humans change; but we also think that morality is independent of us, facing us with demands whether we want them or not, and this makes us think of morality as unchanging. I didn’t think that this was a promising place to start; the supposed contrast is too easily dismantled. Independence is one thing and unchangingness another. Also the distinction between the ways it is right and wrong to behave, which is not much affected by whether we actually want to behave in those ways, is certainly dependent on the social conditions of human existence; for if those were to change, our moral duties would be very likely to change as well.