Online research in philosophy

A naturalistic project descended from Hume seeks to explain „ought‟ and normativity as a product of motivational states such as desires and aversions.2 Following Kant, rationalists reject this thesis, holding that „ought‟ rather expresses a command of reason or intellect independent of desires. On Hume‟s view the only genuine form of practical reason is theoretical reason operating in the service of desire, as in calculation of means to ends. Reason at most discovers normative requirements, which exist through the interrelation of subjective desires and objective world. The Humean desiredependence view of the source of normativity is commonly associated with instrumentalism, an influential theory of normative content according to which agents ought always and only to act so as to optimize satisfaction of their own desires. But rationalists (including Thomas Nagel, Jean Hampton, and Christine Korsgaard) have recently argued that proponents of desire-dependence are not entitled even to this instrumentalist „ought.‟3 Instrumentalism holds that all normativity derives from the instrumental norm: approximately, the principle that one ought to take the means to one‟s ends, or..

A naturalistic project descended from Hume seeks to explain „ought‟ and normativity as a product of motivational states such as desires and aversions.2 Following Kant, rationalists reject this thesis, holding that „ought‟ rather expresses a command of reason or intellect independent of desires. On Hume‟s view the only genuine form of practical reason is theoretical reason operating in the service of desire, as in calculation of means to ends. Reason at most discovers normative requirements, which exist through the interrelation of subjective desires and objective world. The Humean desiredependence view of the source of normativity is commonly associated with instrumentalism, an influential theory of normative content according to which agents ought always and only to act so as to optimize satisfaction of their own desires. But rationalists (including Thomas Nagel, Jean Hampton, and Christine Korsgaard) have recently argued that proponents of desire-dependence are not entitled even to this instrumentalist „ought.‟3 Instrumentalism holds that all normativity derives from the instrumental norm: approximately, the principle that one ought to take the means to one‟s ends, or..

normativity are also exceptionally widespread. In addition to the subjects traditionally considered ‘normative’—ethics, practical reason, political and legal philosophy and epistemology—it is increasingly common for philosophers to maintain that normativity is essential in the analysis of subjects as diverse as truth, meaning, probability and psychological attitudes like belief. This article is therefore unavoidably selective and idiosyncratic in the issues and literature it addresses, focusing on some recent developments in metaethics on the nature of normativity.

In “Vindicating the Normativity of Rationality,” Nicholas Southwood proposes that rational requirements are best understood as demands of one’s “first-personal standpoint.” Southwood argues that this view can “explain the normativity or reason-giving force” of rationality by showing that they “are the kinds of thing that are, by their very nature, normative.” We argue that the proposal fails on three counts: First, we explain why demands of one’s first-personal standpoint cannot be both reason-giving and resemble requirements of rationality. Second, the proposal runs headlong into the now familiar “bootstrapping” objection that helped illuminate the need to vindicate the normativity of rationality in the first place. Lastly, even if Southwood is right—the demands of rationality just are the demands or our first-personal standpoints—the explanation as to why our standpoints generate reasons will entail that we sometimes have no reason at all to be rational.

In this paper, I consider an argument of Harvey Siegel's according to which there can be no hypothetical normativity anywhere unless there is categorical normativity in epistemology. The argument fails because it falsely assumes people must be bound by epistemic norms in order to have justified beliefs.

What is one who takes normativity seriously to do if normativity can neither be discovered lurking out there in the world independently of us nor can it be sufficiently grasped from a merely explanatory perspective? One option is to accept that the normative challenge cannot be met and to retreat to some form of moral skepticism. Another possibility has recently been proposed by Christine Korsgaard in The Sources of Normativity where she aims to develop an account of normativity which is grounded in autonomy. Furthermore, she argues that on her account reasons are "essentially public" and that this captures how it is that we can obligate one another. In this paper I argue that there is a serious tension between her account of normativity and the publicity of reasons-namely, that if reasons are essentially public, then it is not possible for individuals to legislate laws for themselves. However, I then argue that if we revise her conception of normativity such that it is understood to involve collective rather than individual legislation that it may then be possible to account for interpersonal reasons.

What is normativity in perception? The Arguments for Normativity Empirical evidence Kelly’s constitutive claim A Motivation Problem The argument from blurry vision Evaluating the Argument What is Normativity in Perception? Normativity in Perception as Perceptual Confidence What is Perceptual Confidence?

In virtue of what does a consideration provide a practical reason? Suppose the fact that an experience is painful provides you with a reason to avoid it. In virtue of what does the fact that it’s painful have the normativity of a reason – where, in other words, does its normativity come from? As some philosophers put the question, what is the source of a reason’s normativity?

This paper defends the claim that there are — at least — two kinds of normativity in technological practice. The first concerns what engineers ought to do and the second concerns normative statements about artifacts. The claim is controversial, since the standard approach to normativity, namely normative realism, actually denies artifacts any kind of normativity; according to the normative realist, normativity applies exclusively to human agents. In other words, normative realists hold that only “human agent normativity” is a genuine form of normativity.I will argue that normative realism is mistaken on this point. I will mainly draw on material of Daniel Dennett and Philip Pettit to show that it makes sense to talk about artifactual normativity. We claim that this approach can also make sense of human agent normativity — or more specifically “engineer normativity”. Moreover, it avoids some of the problems formulated by opponents of normative realism. Thus I will develop a strategy which: (i) makes sense of artifactual normativity; and (ii) makes sense of “human agent normativity”, specifically “engineer normativity”.

It has frequently been suggested that meaning is, in some important sense, normative. However, precisely what is particularly normative about it is often left without any satisfactory explanation, and the ‘normativity thesis’ has thus, justly, been called into question. That said, it will be argued here that the intuition that meaning is ‘normative’ is on the right track, even if many of the purported explanations for meaning’s normativity are not. In particular, rather that being particularly social, the normativity of meaning may follow from the more logical/epistemic relations between use and meaning. Because of this, some use-based theories we still be able to accommodate the normativity of meaning by allowing that while meaning supervenes upon use, the function from use to meaning is a normative one.