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The Normativity Objection to Normative Reduction

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Abstract

Non-naturalists claim that the nature of normativity precludes the possibility of normative naturalism. In particular, they think that normative reduction amounts to normative elimination. This is because it always leaves out the normative. In this paper, I examine the force that the normativity objection has against Humean reductionism. I argue that the normativity objection has no argumentative force against reductionism. When it is presented as a bare intuition, it begs the question against reduction. A more interesting reading of the argument claims that the normative cannot be explained in terms of the natural because the natural is arbitrary. Yet, this version of the argument fails as well because the natural is not arbitrary in the relevant sense. The natural is contingent, so what has value is contingent. That is not an elimination of the normative though, because contingent reasons are still reasons.

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Notes

  1. See Boyd (1988) and Sturgeon (1988) for Cornell realism and Jackson (1998) for moral functionalism. I thank an anonymous referee for pushing me to make these claims clearer.

  2. For an argument that reasons have been overemphasized in such debates see Broome (2004).

  3. This merely reflects my own ambitions and what I take to be an interesting Humean project. On this way of drawing things Jackson (1998) and Smith (1994) do not count as Humean. That seems fine to me, but nothing important turns on this teeminoligical point.

  4. For an overview of some of the issues see van Riel and Van Gulick (2014).

  5. Schroeder (2007) is the most well-developed and defended version of this basic idea that I know of in the literature.

  6. Parfit’s Agony Argument is, perhaps, the most influential development of this type of argument. See Parfit (2011). See Street (2009) and (2012) for interesting replies to these sorts of worries.

  7. See Tanyi (2009) for a detailed exploration of the triviality objection.

  8. Copp (2012) makes this point. Schroeder (2009) makes this point against Huemer (2005). Also, see his comments in a blog post on PEA Soup on July 16 2007.

  9. Schroeder makes a point like this in comments on the earlier cited blog post.

  10. See Smart (1953) for an argument that Ryle’s account is too broad.

  11. Again see Street (2009) and (2012) for development of these ideas.

  12. It should also be noted that it is not clear why the supposed non-natural facts are not contingent. They are often presented as brute facts that have no explanation. That suggests to me that they just happen to exist. I imagine the non-naturalist would respond that the content of the facts (they concern what must be done) shows that they are not contingent. I thank an anonymous referee for making this point, but I will not further explore that worry here.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jeff Goodman, Oleg Sych, Thomas Le, Katie Martinsen, Connell Rose, and Sydney Hagins for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the editors and referees of Acta Analytica for helpful written comments.

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  1. James Madison University, Philosophy and Religion, Cleveland Hall, MSC 8006, Harrisonburg, VA, 22807, USA

    Patrick Fleming

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Fleming, P. The Normativity Objection to Normative Reduction. Acta Anal 30, 419–427 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-015-0255-y

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