The evaluative categories (goodness, badness, betterness, and the like) and the deontic categories (requiredness, permittedness, forbiddenness, and the like) are separate families of normative categories, each with its own distinctive logic, structure, and basis. The aim of this chapter is to argue that there is a third family of normative categories beyond these familiar two, with its own special logic, structure, and basis, namely the fitting. This family includes properties and relations picked out by terms such as ‘fitting’, ‘apt’, ‘merited’, (...) ‘warranted’, and ‘justified’, as well as certain adjectives ending in ‘-able’ (e.g. ‘admirable’), ‘-ing’ (e.g. ‘annoying’), ‘-ive’ (e.g. ‘persuasive’), ‘-some’ (e.g. ‘fearsome’), and ‘-worthy’ (e.g. ‘blameworthy’). Acknowledging the distinctiveness of fittingness as a type of normative category changes how we think about the foundations of ethics and other normative disciplines. Instead of asking, “Is the good prior to the right, or the right prior to the good?” we should be asking, “What are the priority relations among the right, the good, and the fitting?”. (shrink)

This book has two main aims. First, it develops and defends a constitutive account of normative reasons as premises of good reasoning. This account says, roughly, that to be a normative reason for a response (such as a belief or intention) is to be premise of good reasoning, from fitting responses, to that response. Second, building on the account of reasons, it develops and defends a fittingness-first account of the structure of the normative domain. This account says that there is (...) a single normative property, fittingness, which is normatively basic, and on which all other normative properties depend. On this view, reasons, oughts, value, and other normative phenomena all ultimately depend on fittingness. The account of normative reasons is a part of this general view of the normative domain. The book begins, in Chapter 1, by motivating the account of reasons as premises of good reasoning. Chapter 2 argues that good reasoning is, roughly, reasoning that preserves fittingness. Chapter 3 addresses the question of what fittingness is. Chapter 4 defends constitutive accounts of evaluative properties, like goodness, in terms of fitting attitudes. Chapters 5 and 6 shows how the view provides an attractive account of how reasons determine the deontic status of a response—whether you ought or may so respond. Chapter 7 addresses some challenges concerning certain reasons for belief, the relationship between reasons for action and reasons for intention, and reasons for emotion. (shrink)

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed on (...) some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive0motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and0epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and 'ought', in terms of reasons. (shrink)

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed on (...) some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons. (shrink)

This paper draws on the 'Fitting Attitudes' analysis of value to argue that we should take the concept of fittingness (rather than value) as our normative primitive. I will argue that the fittingness framework enhances the clarity and expressive power of our normative theorising. Along the way, we will see how the fittingness framework illuminates our understanding of various moral theories, and why it casts doubt on the Global Consequentialist idea that acts and (say) eye colours are normatively on a (...) par. We will see why even consequentialists, in taking rightness to be in some sense determined by goodness, should not think that rightness is conceptually reducible to goodness. Finally, I will use the fittingness framework to explicate the distinction between consequentialist and deontological theories, with particular attention to the contentious case of Rule Consequentialism. (shrink)

This paper argues against the correctness of the more popular -first views (fittingness first, reasons first, and value first). The aim of this paper is to argue that there are at least two categories of normative properties that are basic and that one of those categories is value. Although the emphasis of this paper is on reductionist -first accounts, most of the arguments work equally well against weaker views that are only committed to different categories of normative properties' being linked (...) by a necessary bi-conditional. -/- . (shrink)

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues to (...) do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

Brentano is often considered the originator of the fitting-attitudes analysis of value, on which to be valuable is to be that which it’s fitting to value. But there has been comparatively little attention paid to Brentano’s argument for this analysis. That argument advances the stronger claim that fittingness is part of the analysis of normativity. Since the argument rests on an analogy between truth and fittingness, its impact may seem limited by the idiosyncratic features of Brentano’s later notion of truth. (...) I argue, however, that the Brentanian argument is defensible even if fittingness is analogized to a more typical realist account of truth. The result is what I call the worldly Brentanian account of normativity. I defend this account as a form of naturalistic realism. I then show how the account can fare better than prominent alternatives against two kinds of error-theoretic arguments. (shrink)

The normative notion of fittingness figures saliently in the work of a number of ethical theorists writing in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries and has in recent years regained prominence, occupying an important place in the theoretical tool kits of a range of contemporary writers. Yet the notion remains strikingly undertheorized. This article offers a (partial) remedy. I proceed by canvassing a number of attempts to analyze the fittingness relation in other terms, arguing that none is fully adequate. In (...) explaining why various analyses of fittingness fail, I draw into relief certain of the relation’s constitutive features and spotlight some of its interesting and important connections to various other properties. Along the way, I highlight the relation’s relevance to a number of ongoing debates in normative and metanormative philosophy. I conclude by indicating some directions for further research. (shrink)

This article analyzes the thesis of ethical relativism, as defended by Alchourrón and Bulygin. These authors offer, on the one hand, a suggestive conception according to which the question “what are our obligations?” is equivalent to thinking about what is to be done; on the other hand, they defend a relativist conception of ethics. They present three objections to constructivist accounts of ethics that are not relativist: a) the argument of the burden of the proof; b) a version of the (...) dilemma of Euthyphro, and c) the argument of particularism. This article presents counterarguments to these objections in the attempt to show that they are not conclusive and that a space therefore remains for objectivity in the normative sphere. Keywords: Alchourrón-Bulygin, ethical relativism, ethical constructivism, burden of proof, particularism. (shrink)

New work in the foundations of ethics—extending the fitting attitudes analysis of value to yield a broader notion of normative fittingness as a (or perhaps even the) fundamental normative concept—provides us with the resources to clarify and renew the force of traditional character-based objections to consequentialism. According to these revamped fittingness objections, consequentialism is incompatible with plausible claims about which attitudes are truly fitting. If a theory’s implications regarding the fittingness facts are implausible, then this can be taken to cast (...) doubt on the truth of the theory. After clarifying the general structure of fittingness objections, and establishing how they can make character-based concerns relevant to our assessment of the truth of a moral theory like consequentialism, this chapter surveys some paradigmatic fittingness objections, showing how consequentialism can be defended against them. (shrink)

Conor McHugh and Jonathan Way argue that we should put fittingness rather than reasons first because we can provide an account of the evaluative in terms of the normative only if we put fittingness rather than reasons first. I argue that it is no more difficult to provide an account of the evaluative in terms of the normative if we put reasons rather than fittingness first.

The thesis defended, the “guise of the ought”, is that the formal objects of desires are norms (oughts to be or oughts to do) rather than values (as the “guise of the good” thesis has it). It is impossible, in virtue of the nature of desire, to desire something without it being presented as something that ought to be or that one ought to do. This view is defended by pointing to a key distinction between values and norms: positive and (...) negative norms (obligation and interdiction) are interdefinable through negation; positive and negative values aren’t. This contrast between the norms and values, it is argued, is mirrored, within the psychological realm, by the contrast between the desires and emotions. Positive and negative desires are interdefinable through negation, but positive and negative emotions aren’t. The overall, Meinongian picture suggested is that norms are to desires what values are to emotions. (shrink)

The multiplicity of demands and claims in ultra-pluralistic societies complicates the search for justice. Furthermore, the normative force of competing ideals gives rise to an aporia at the heart of the idea of justice’s federating force. In this article, I argue that exemplary moral and political acts evince these ideals by reason of their fittingness with respect to the demands of the situations to which they respond. As such, these acts lay claim to their normative value by exemplifying the “rule” (...) that each act summons. Drawing upon aesthetic experience’s lateral transposition onto the planes of ethics and politics, I show how imagination is operative in practical judgments. Accordingly, I relate the search for justice to an eschatology of non-violence, which for Paul Ricœur takes the place of the critique of ideology in its opposition to an ontology of lingual understanding. (shrink)

We often assess emotions as appropriate or inappropriate depending on certain evaluative aspects of the world. Often using the term ‘fittingness’ as equivalent to ‘appropriateness’, many philosophers of emotion take fittingness assessments of emotions to be a broadly representational matter. On this sort of view, an emotion is fitting or appropriate just in case there is a kind of representational match between the emotion and the object, a matching analogous to truth for belief. This view provides an account of the (...) relationship between emotion and value that many have found plausible. In this paper, I argue that the fittingness of emotions should not be understood in representational terms. Rather, as is common in the literature on fittingness, we should interpret the notion in normative terms. After providing four arguments against the representational interpretation, and for a normative interpretation, of emotional fittingness, I discuss two ways to develop the normative picture of emotional fittingness. I also clarify the relevant issues that will have to be tackled by philosophers of emotion in the future, issues which cannot be tackled without attending to action theory and the philosophy of normativity. (shrink)

This collection offers a synoptic view of current philosophical debates concerning the relationship between facts and values, bringing together a wide spectrum of contributors committed to testing the validity of this dichotomy, exploring alternatives, and assessing their implications. The assumption that facts and values inhabit distinct, unbridgeable conceptual and experiential domains has long dominated scientific and philosophical discourse, but this separation has been seriously called into question from a number of corners. The original essays here collected offer a diversity of (...) responses to fact-value dichotomy, including contributions from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam who are rightly credited with revitalizing philosophical interest in this alleged opposition. Both they, and many of our contributors, are in agreement that the relationship between epistemic developments and evaluative attitudes cannot be framed as a conflict between descriptive and normative understanding. Each chapter demonstrates how and why contrapositions between science and ethics, between facts and values, and between objective and subjective are false dichotomies. Values cannot simply be separated from reason. _Facts and Values_ will therefore prove essential reading for analytic and continental philosophers alike, for theorists of ethics and meta-ethics, and for philosophers of economics and law. (shrink)

This paper argues that moral distress is a distinctive category of reactive attitudes that are taken to be part and parcel of the social dynamics for recognition. While moral distress does not demonstrate evidence of wrongdoing, it does emotionally articulate a demand for normative attention that is addressed to others as moral providers. The argument for this characterization of the deontic power of moral distress builds upon two examples in which the cognitive value of the victim’s emotional experience is controversial: (...) the case of micro-aggression, and the case of misplaced distress. In contrast to appraisal and perceptual models of distress, it is argued that its epistemic and normative value is dialogical rather than evidential, in that it presses claims that engage the audience in a normative discussion about the normative standing of the claimant, the proper grounds of the attitude, and the normative standards used to assess them. (shrink)

According to deontic justice theory, individuals often feel principled moral obligations to uphold norms of justice. That is, standards of justice can be valued for their own sake, even apart from serving self-interested goals. While a growing body of evidence in business ethics supports the notion of deontic justice, skepticism remains. This hesitation results, at least in part, from the absence of a coherent framework for explaining how individuals produce and experience deontic justice. To address this need, we argue that (...) a compelling, yet still missing, step is to gain further understanding into the underlying neural and psychological mechanisms of deontic justice. Here, we advance a theoretical model that disentangles three key processes of deontic justice: The use of justice rules to assess events, cognitive empathy, and affective empathy. Together with reviewing neural systems supporting these processes, broader implications of our model for business ethics scholarship are discussed. (shrink)

Whereas geometrical oppositions (logical squares and hexagons) have been so far investigated in many fields of modal logic (both abstract and applied), the oppositional geometrical side of “deontic logic” (the logic of “obligatory”, “forbidden”, “permitted”, . . .) has rather been neglected. Besides the classical “deontic square” (the deontic counterpart of Aristotle’s “logical square”), some interesting attempts have nevertheless been made to deepen the geometrical investigation of the deontic oppositions: Kalinowski (La logique des normes, PUF, Paris, 1972) has proposed a (...) “deontic hexagon” as being the geometrical representation of standard deontic logic, whereas Joerden (jointly with Hruschka, in Archiv für Rechtsund Sozialphilosophie 73:1, 1987), McNamara (Mind 105:419, 1996) and Wessels (Die gute Samariterin. Zur Struktur der Supererogation, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2002) have proposed some new “deontic polygons” for dealing with conservative extensions of standard deontic logic internalising the concept of “supererogation”. Since 2004 a new formal science of the geometrical oppositions inside logic has appeared, that is “ n -opposition theory”, or “NOT”, which relies on the notion of “logical bi-simplex of dimension m ” ( m = n − 1). This theory has received a complete mathematical foundation in 2008, and since then several extensions. In this paper, by using it, we show that in standard deontic logic there are in fact many more oppositional deontic figures than Kalinowski’s unique “hexagon of norms” (more ones, and more complex ones, geometrically speaking: “deontic squares”, “deontic hexagons”, “deontic cubes”, . . ., “deontic tetraicosahedra”, . . .): the real geometry of the oppositions between deontic modalities is composed by the aforementioned structures (squares, hexagons, cubes, . . ., tetraicosahedra and hyper-tetraicosahedra), whose complete mathematical closure happens in fact to be a “deontic 5-dimensional hyper-tetraicosahedron” (an oppositional very regular solid). (shrink)

Standard deontic logic (SDL) is defined on the basis of possible world semantics and is a logic of alethic-deontic modalities rather than deontic modalities alone. The interpretation of the concepts of obligation and permission comes down exclusively to the logical value that a sentence adopts for the accessible deontic alternatives. Here, we set forth a different approach, this being a logic which additionally takes into consideration whether sentences stand in relation to the normative system or to the system of values (...) under which we predicate the deontic qualifications. By taking this aspect into account, we arrive at a logical system which preserves laws proper to a deontic logic but where the standard paradoxes of deontic logic do not arise. It is a logic of strictly-deontic modalities DR. (shrink)

An arithmetical language, whose words are natural numbers written in hexadecimal numeration system, is defined and its applications for the representation, analysis and decision of formulae of some logical and normative systems are described and illustrated.The formulae, operations and relations of the represented system are associated as follows respectively to the numbers and the arithmetical operations and relations of the proposed language:1. Each well-formed-formula of the system is associated to a number of a set of natural numbers between zero (associated (...) to all tautologies and theses) and the binary supremum Φ of the set (Φ is associated to all contradictions and antitheses and his value is 2n-1, n depending on system’s dimensions and structure).2. Negation of a formula and disjonction and conjonction of t wo other more formulae of the system are associated respectively to the binary complement Φ-N(f) of the number associated to the first and to the binary infimun and supremum of the numbers associated to the last.3. The logical relations “f1 implies f2” (f1 -> f2), “f1 is incompat.ible with f2” (f1|f2), “f1 is the contradictory opposite of f2” (f1wf2) and “f1 is alternative to f2” (f1vf2) are true in the represented system if and only if the associated arithmetical relations, respectively “N(f1) absorbs arithmetically N(f2)”, “binary supremum of N(f1) and N(f2) is equal to Φ”, “sum of of N(f1) and N(f2) is equal to Φ” and “binary infimum of N(f1) and N(f2) is equal to 0”, are true.The applications of the proposed arithmetical language as very rapid and simplified tool of analysis and decision method are shown for the following systems: propositional logic, syllogistic, some deontic and alethic modal systems and some normative systems of statutory law:1. In the propositional logic, after fixing the maximum of variables considered, the numbers associated to these variables and to the contradictions are calculated. On this permanent basis, the evaluation of a farmula (especially in the case of many occurrences of many variables) is performed by the calculation of the associated number faster as in the traditional way.2. In the syllogistic, after the calculation of the number associated to each type of premise or conclusion, an arithmetical table of syllogisms shows that a proposed syllogism is valid if and only if the binary supremum of the numbers associated to the premises absorbs arithmetically the number associated to the conclusion. It is well-known that the search of this sort of arithmetization of syllogistic and the study of its possibilitiy has been a recurrent topic in modern logic, from Leibniz to Łukasiewicz and to-day.3. In a deontic equivalent:ial system who includes Von Wright’s deontic system of 1982 far norms of the first order, the calculation of the numbers associated to an types of permission and obligation sentences allows the im mediate arithmetical verification of an the classical relations between those sentences. The same is shown for an alethic modal system including the modlities of the first order of Lewis’s S5.4. For normative systems of statutory law, the arithmetical verification of the logical and normative relations is shown in precedent author’s papers -especially in recent “The ‘Ars Judicandi.’ Programme”-, though not yet in hexadecimal numeration system but only in binary and decimal ones.In all the represented systems, the arithmetical verification of the metalogical properties of the system -consistency and completeness- is performed in a very easy and rapid manner, after the arithmetic representation of the axiomatic basis of the latter by a system of equations. (shrink)

In this paper, we indicate how Jan Woleński’s non-linguistic concept of the norm allows us to clarify the deontic relationship between sentences and the given normative system. A relationship of this kind constitutes a component of the metalogic of relating deontic logic, which subjects the logical value of the deontic sentence to the logical value of the constituent sentence and its relationship with a given normative system in the accessible possible worlds.

Are things good because we desire them or do we desire them because they are good? Theories that countenance only desire-dependent values are idealist, those that countenance desire-independent values are realist. A value can be either subject-relative or subject-neutral. Subjectivism countenances only subject-relative and desire-dependent values. Subject-neutral idealism countenances at least some subject-neutral values. Realism repudiates the dependence of value on actual desires, but endorses an important relation between value and the fittingness of desires. Normative realism takes normative facts about (...) the fittingness of desires to ground the value facts, while axiological realism takes value facts to ground facts about fittingness. An important variant of axiological realism, namely representational realism, holds that desires are appearances of value, and that the fittingness of a desire is simply a matter of accurate representation. (shrink)

Ethical thought is articulated around normative concepts. Standard examples of normative concepts are good, reason, right, ought, and obligatory. Theorists often treat the normative as an undifferentiated domain. Even so, it is common to distinguish between two kinds of normative concepts: evaluative or axiological concepts, such as good, and deontic concepts, such as ought. This encyclopedia entry discusses the many differences between the two kinds of concepts.

The paper discusses the potential value of a deontic approach to database specification. More specifically, some different types of integrity constraints are considered and a distinction is drawn between necessary (hard) and deontic (soft) constraints.Databases are compared with other normative systems. A deontic logic for database specification is proposed and the problems of how to react to, and of how to correct, or repair, a situation which arises through norm violation are discussed in the context of this logic. The limitations (...) of the proposed logic and possible modifications and extensions of it are analysed. (shrink)

According to the New Angle, any explanation of the Knobe effect must be gradable and asymmetric. It has been argued that only Hindriks’ approach meets both criteria. First, we argue that Holton’s hypothesis also meets the criteria. Second, we show that the authors are not justified in taking the criteria to be empirically justified. We have failed to replicate the asymmetry result in two experiments. Moreover, gradability can be objective or epistemic. We show that the New Angle presupposes objective gradability. (...) In our experiments, the patterns of responses to questions about epistemic and objective gradability are the same, irrespective of whether the feature is objectively gradable (e.g., blameworthiness) or not (e.g., intentionality). Our results thus question the extent to which the New Angle is empirically grounded. Moreover, they raise doubt whether the answers to questions about epistemic and objective gradability can be taken at face value at all. (shrink)

This article contains an overview of the author's long‐standing involvement with deontic logic, both from a technical and from a wider philosophical point of view. As far as the formal aspects of deontic logic are concerned, the author describes his intellectual development from the original discovery of the analogy between modal (and deontic) notions on the one hand, and quantifiers on the other, through the formulation of a systematic theory of dyadic deontic concepts, to the proposal of a formal logic (...) of action as a foundation for deontic logic. In a more philosophical vein, the author discusses such questions as the very possibility of deontic logic if norms have no truth‐value, the relation between the descriptive interpretation of classical deontic logic and the logic of norm‐propositions, the correct representation of conditional or hypothetical norms, the distinction between moral obligation and practical necessity, and the interdefinability of permission and obligation. (shrink)

It is tempting to think that all of normativity, such as our reasons for action, what we ought to do, and the attitudes that it is fitting for us to have, derives from what is valuable. But value-first approaches to normativity have fallen out of favour as the virtues of reasons- and fittingness-first approaches to normativity have become clear. On these views, value is not explanatorily prior to reasons and fit; rather the value of things is understood in terms of (...) the pro-attitudes it is fitting to have, or that we have reasons to have, towards these things. The value-first accounts of reasons and fit that have been proposed have been direct accounts of reasons and fit. On these views, the fittingness of an attitude is explained in terms of the value of having it or the value of the object of that attitude. This chapter details and surveys these problems, explaining which are yet to be overcome, and explaining which problems direct value-first accounts can overcome. This chapter then explores the prospects of an indirect value-first account of reasons and fit. It argues that it avoids the problems that direct value-first accounts face and may be as explanatorily powerful as fittingness- and reasons-first accounts of value and normativity more generally. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss boulesic and deontic logic and the relationship between these branches of logic. By ‘boulesic logic,’ or ‘the logic of the will,’ I mean a new kind of logic that deals with ‘boulesic’ concepts, expressions, sentences, arguments and systems. I will concentrate on two types of boulesic expression: ‘individual x wants it to be the case that’ and ‘individual x accepts that it is the case that.’ These expressions will be symbolised by two sentential operators (...) that take individuals and sentences as arguments and give sentences as values. Deontic logic is a relatively well-established branch of logic. It deals with normative concepts, sentences, arguments and systems. In this paper, I will show how deontic logic can be grounded in boulesic logic. I will develop a set of semantic tableau systems that include boulesic and alethic operators, possibilist quantifiers and the identity predicate; I will then show how these systems can be augmented by a set of deontic operators. I use a kind of possible world semantics to explain the intended meaning of our formal systems. Intuitively, we can think of our semantics as a description of the structure of a perfectly rational will. I mention some interesting theorems that can be proved in our systems, including some versions of the so-called hypothetical imperative. Finally, I show that all systems that are described in this paper are sound and complete with respect to their semantics. (shrink)

What’s the relation between values and reasons for action ? According to some all reasons are grounded in values. If one adds to this the thought that values themselves depend on non-evaluative or factual features of things, one gets what one can call after Jonathan Dancy the “layer-cake conception”. According to others, we should replace the layer-cake picture by what he calls the “buck-passing account of values” (Scanlon 1998). The main characteristic of this conception is that it denies that reasons (...) are grounded in values. This is not because some reasons would not be grounded in values. Rather, Scanlon’s claim is that values cannot ground reasons. I shall argue that Scanlon’s conception does not get things right: his account of values amounts in fact to a normative or deontic definition of the evaluative. (shrink)

Some standards, such as moral and prudential standards, provide genuinely or authoritatively normative reasons for action. Other standards, such as the norms of masculinity and the mafia’s code of omerta, provide reasons but do not provide genuinely normative reasons for action. This paper first explains that there is a similar distinction amongst attitudinal standards: some attitudes (belief, desire) have standards that seem to give rise to genuine normativity; others (boredom, envy) do not. This paper gives a value-based account of which (...) attitudinal standards give rise to genuine normativity. It argues that this account has interesting implications before extending it to provide an account of which action-guiding standards are genuinely normative. It argues that this value-based account of which standards are genuinely normative is more plausible than alternatives suggested in the literature and has interesting implications for genuine normativity in law and aesthetics. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that there are two kinds of normative concepts : evaluative concepts, such as good, and deontic concepts, such as ought. The question that is raised by this distinction is how it is possible to claim that evaluative concepts are normative. Given that deontic concepts appear to be at the heart of normativity, the bigger the gap between evaluative and deontic concepts, the less it appears plausible to say that evaluative concepts are normative. After having presented the (...) main differences between evaluative and deontic concepts, and shown that there is more than a superficial difference between the two kinds, the paper turns to the question of the normativity of evaluative concepts. It will become clear that, even if these concepts have different functions, there are a great many ties between evaluative concepts, on the one hand, and the concepts of ought and of reason, on the other. (shrink)

This article problematizes the way of thinking schooling in discourse of sign system, which involves opposition, and double gesture of inclusion/exclusion. Drawing on two fundamental texts of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu, this article puts forward the seemingly passive Non-Word and Non-Self to resist the hierarchy ordering of conceptions and man, and to undo duality of binary opposition. It links the history of assessment and PISA to the rethinking of evidence and sign in contemporary movements. (...) The second section proposes teaching as wandering (you, 游), the transcendence into Non-Self with response to men’s natural inquiry, but not artificially manipulating and shaping man by privileging certain knowledge, value, and thoughts over other. Instead of making categories of race, gender, and normal/abnormal, Taoist provides a way of reconsider the self operating on assessing, standardizing, normalizing, correcting and predicting others in school accountability. It is built on the ontology of considering individual as belonging to an ultimate sameness, the oneness. The article concludes with underlying assumption that students are subjected to change, and their difference must be eliminated through standard test. It further questions tactics of reason that educational reform face in the current regime of school accountability. (shrink)

Emotions are part of our culture ; particular emotions like resentment andguilt are part of specific cultural heritages. On the other hand, moral judgementsand imperatives have the appearance of objectivity. There lies - or so it seems -a conflict, even a contradiction. Statements like "Slavery is unjust" may beasserted, agreements may be reached concerning what they claim or express,and they may occur as antecedents in conditionals such as "If slavery is unjust,then it must be abolished". When it is claimed that (...) slavery is unjust or that it iswrong to harm others, it is thereby claimed that it is so objectively. We mean bythis (among other things) that it is so independently of the moral emotionsanyone may feel with respect to slavery or the infliction of pain.It will be argued here that there are grounds to believe that emotions must beevaluated cognitively and that they do have cognitive significance, value andcontent. In this cognitive or quasi-cognitive perspective, the appropriatecharacter of an emotion is akin to the truth of a proposition : just as the truth of aproposition may be evaluated in terms of the justifications we are able toprovide in its favour, the correctness of emotions may be evaluated relatively tocognitive bases and classes of available warrants. Some emotions may be ruledout as incorrect or inapproriate, just as some propositions may be rejected asunjustified or in need of a warrant. The parallel relies on the controversial notionof non-propositional forms of moral justification. The notion may be construedin a variety of ways, the most promising construals being, I believe, thoseprovided by the perceptual model.I shall focus on the following point. Moral judgements and imperatives areexpressed with the usual resources of natural languages. These typically includepredicates like "unjust" and "wrong", and deontic sentential operators like"must" and "should". Moral emotions, on the other hand, may be expressed bybodily movements and facial expressions. Although it may be argued thatemotions do not bear the cognitive marks of objectivity when expressed in thisway, there is no reason to think that a reformed language of ethics, i.e. a purelanguage of emotions, free of all the linguistic or symbolic marks of truth,assertability and objectivity, would thereby be free of normative input, or evenbe inadequate to express normative claims. I shall argue that once nonpropositionalforms of justifications are taken into account, the reformingstrategy of emotivists and neo-emotivists is indeed ineffective. (shrink)

This collection offers a synoptic view of current philosophical debates concerning the relationship between facts and values, bringing together a wide spectrum of contributors committed to testing the validity of this dichotomy, exploring alternatives, and assessing their implications. The assumption that facts and values inhabit distinct, unbridgeable conceptual and experiential domains has long dominated scientific and philosophical discourse, but this separation has been seriously called into question from a number of corners. The original essays here collected offer a diversity of (...) responses to fact-value dichotomy, including contributions from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam who are rightly credited with revitalizing philosophical interest in this alleged opposition. Both they, and many of our contributors, are in agreement that the relationship between epistemic developments and evaluative attitudes cannot be framed as a conflict between descriptive and normative understanding. Each chapter demonstrates how and why contrapositions between science and ethics, between facts and values, and between objective and subjective are false dichotomies. Values cannot simply be separated from reason. Facts and Values will therefore prove essential reading for analytic and continental philosophers alike, for theorists of ethics and meta-ethics, and for philosophers of economics and law. (shrink)

According to an attractive and widely held view, all practical reasons are explained in terms of the (instrumental or final) value of the action supported by the reason. I argue that this theory is incompatible with plausible assumptions about the practical reasons that correspond to certain moral rights, including the right to a promised action and the right to an exclusive use of one’s property. The argument is an explanatory rather than extensional one: while the actions supported by the relevant (...) reasons (e.g. keeping a valid promise or respecting property) can be argued to have a certain kind of value, I argue that this value presupposes a moral right, and therefore cannot explain the reason. Reflection on such cases suggest the conclusion that reasons that are subject to normative powers are generally not value-based. This also has important implications for the dialectic between ‘value-first’ and ‘reasons-first’ approaches to normativity. (shrink)

The present article provides a taxonomic analysis of bimodal logics of normative ideality and normative awfulness, two notions whose meaning is here explained in terms of the moral values pursued by a given community. Furthermore, the article addresses the traditional problem of a reduction among deontic concepts: we explore the possibility of defining other relevant normative notions, such as obligation, explicit permission and Hohfeldian relations, in terms of ideality and awfulness. Some proposals in this respect, which have been formulated in (...) the literature over the years, are here improved and discussed with reference to the various logics that we will introduce. (shrink)

Even if the “value-free ideal of science” (VFI) were an unattainable goal, one could ask: can it be a useful fiction, one that is beneficial for the research community and society? This question is particularly crucial for scholars and institutions concerned with research integrity (RI), as one cannot offer normative guidance to researchers without making some assumptions about what ideal scientific research looks like. Despite the insofar little interaction between scholars studying RI and those working on values in science, the (...) overlap of topics and interests make collaboration between the two fields promising for understanding research and its ethics. Here, we identify—for the use of RI scholars—the non-epistemic reasons (societal, political, professional) for and against the VFI considered in the literature. All of these are concerned with the beneficial or detrimental consequences that endorsing the VFI would have on society, policy-making, or the scientific community, with some authors appealing to the same principles to argue for opposite positions. Though most of the reviewed articles do not endorse the VFI, it is generally agreed that some constraints have to be put on the use of non-epistemic values. Disagreement on the utility of the VFI lies both on the different epistemic-descriptive positions taken by different authors, and on the scarcity of relevant empirical studies. Engaging critically with the reasons here identified and more in general with the values in science debate will help the RI community decide whether the VFI should be included in future codes of conduct. (shrink)

A tension is sometimes evident between some philosophical and anthropological approaches to environmental values, in particular between philosophical aspirations for a thin, cosmopolitan moral language that transcends local culture, and anthropological aspirations to uncover a thick normative vocabulary that is local to particular cultures. The potential dangers in the philosophical project of presenting specific local understandings and evaluations of nature as universal are illustrated in other papers in this volume. However at the same time they also highlight a false a (...) ssumption that underpins the apparent conflict between the two disciplinary approaches, the assumption that wider cosmopolitan conversations require abstraction from thick normative vocabulary. Examples of local resistance to the imposition of particular understandings of nature point in the opposite direction, illustrating the way in which it is as one moves to thicker descriptions with greater interpretative depth that the possibility and actuality of shared conversation around values emerges. The project of engaging in more universal ethical reflection is quite compatible with the project of uncovering interpretative depth. The general critical project of philosophy is enriched by engagement with the anthropological project. (shrink)

My dissertation is an exploration of the role of emotion in our moral and social lives. It consists of a series of essays that explore the nature and normativity of emotion structured into two large sections. The first section explores the nature of emotion, where I attempt to provide a philosophical psychology of emotion that explains its centrality to our normative nature. Essentially, I argue that emotions are evaluative perceptions that have a direct modulatory effect on our motivational profile. The (...) second section focuses more on normative questions of emotion. I begin by setting up a framework to approach the question of how to determine when an emotion is fitting. The kinds of emotions and fittingness standards that rightly demand our normative allegiance, I suggest, are those that constitutively secure for us key prudential and moral goods. I then apply some of the lessons gleaned to look at two emotions: shame and disgust. I provide analyses of them and try to elucidate the kind of value that they alert us to and enable. Both shame and disgust, often maligned emotions, play important roles and ought not to be discarded from our moral and social lives. (shrink)

After some preliminaries on the logic of change and the logic of action the author develops an extended theory of norms in this companion volume to his The Varieties of Goodness. Although the book will be of particular interest to deontic logicians, its philosophic value is greatly enhanced by a concern for broader issues, including problems in the ontology of norms. The usefulness of the work is very much decreased by numerous undeveloped suggestions and unanswered questions.—F. W. N.

The rearrangement inequality states that the sum of products of permutations of 2 sequences of real numbers are maximized when the terms are similarly ordered and minimized when the terms are ordered in opposite order. We show that similar inequalities exist in algebras of multi-valued logic when the multiplication and addition operations are replaced with various T-norms and T-conorms respectively. For instance, we show that the rearrangement inequality holds when the T-norms and T-conorms are derived from Archimedean copulas.

IN RECOVERY OF THE MEASURE: INTERPRETATION AND NATURE, Robert Cummings Neville develops a philosophy of nature and theory of interpretation as centerpieces for his projected three-volume Axiology of Thinking. This emerging ontology of value is impressive for both its originality and complexity. Neville's claims about meaning, truth, objectivity, and knowledge are deployed in explicit opposition to the relativism, historicism, and subjectivism currently so popular among philosophers. His critique is formidable because neither polemical nor defensive; it is rather the expression (...) of a coherent metaphysical vision. (shrink)

With Habermas it is important to realize that one has to differentiate between moral and non-moral (a-moral) norms, which is different from what is immoral. However, since the Renaissance reflections on human freedom were caught up in the dialectic of necessity (nature) and freedom. A brief sketch is given of the development of this dialectic within modern philosophy – as it was manifested in the thought of Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkely, Hume, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Comte, Marxism, the Baden school (...) of neo-Kantianism (Windelband, Rickert, Weber) and existentialism (Jaspers, Merleau-Ponty). The influence of the neo-Kantian opposition of facts and values within social thought is briefly highlighted, followed by a brief characterization of the normative inclination of human beings. Then some of the problems entailed in the modern concept of freedom are analyzed in relation to the idea of autonomy. This idea is burdened by the problem that the conditions for being human have to coincide with what meets these conditions, namely the human being. In addition it is difficult to derive collective norms from the autonomy of a single individual. The alternative avenue suggested by the idea of ontic normativity will be investigated in a separate article, exploring the way towards a more integral understanding of normativity. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper was the trial to answer the question if norms can function as premises or conclusions in logical inferences. According to definition of logical inference, the parts of its may be only sentences (in indicative mood) which are true or false. The logic, which accepts that norms are the true and false propositions, can be named the Logic of Norms. Otherwise the logic, which reject that norms are true and false propositions, we name Deontic Logic. (...) The last one, in order to use the logical inference, changes each of norms N into normative sentences: W exists\' or W exists for the sake of set of norms\'. The normative sentences are sentences in indicative mood and thereby are true or false. The whole consideration about two types aforementioned logic is preceded by some remarks about variety of the meanings of the word \'norm\', the linguistic structures of norm and the views of the truth value of norms. (shrink)

Norm-attitude accounts of value say that for something to be valuable is for there to be norms that support valuing that thing. For example, according to fitting-attitude accounts, something is of value if it is fitting to value, and according to buck-passing accounts, something is of value if the reasons support valuing it. Norm-attitude accounts face the partiality problem: in cases of partiality, what it is fitting to value, and what the reasons support valuing, may not line up with what’s (...) valuable. Buck-passers have a solution to this problem and may claim that this gives them an advantage over fitting-attitude accounts. In this paper, we show how fitting-attitudes accounts can offer a broadly analogous, and equally attractive, solution to the problem. (shrink)

Desires matter. How are we to understand the intentionality of desire? According to the two classical views, desire is either a positive evaluation or a disposition to act: to desire a state is to positively evaluate it or to be disposed to act to realize it. This Ph.D. Dissertation examines these conceptions of desire and proposes a deontic alternative inspired by Meinong. On this view, desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be or, if one prefers, (...) as what should be. Desire involves a deontic manner of representing: a norm of the ought-to-be type features in desire’s intentional mode, as opposed to content. The dissertation is structured in three parts. In order to defend this conception, I formulate three main desiderata for a promising theory of the intentionality of desire in the introduction (§0). The first concerns desire’s direction of fit, i.e. the intuition that the world should conform to our desires. The second concerns the death of desire principle, i.e. the intuition that one cannot desire what one represents as actual. The last pertains to desire’s role in psychological explanations, i.e. the intuition that desires can explain some mental states and be explained by other mental states. The first part examines the main conceptions of desire in light of these desiderata. I argue that the classical pictures of desire do not adequately meet our desiderata. The first chapter is devoted to the evaluative conception (§1), while the second examines the motivational approach (§2). Following these criticisms, I then present the deontic view of desire (§3). In the second part, I defend this conception with the help of three arguments. The main idea is that appealing to norms of the ought-to-be type can satisfy our chief desiderata: the world should conform to norms (world-to-mind direction of fit, §4), norms are grounded on values and in turn ground obligations (explanation, §5), and norms are about non-actual states of affairs (death of desire principle, §6). In the last part, I develop the deontic view to draw a cartography of the various types of desire. Some desires are correct, while others are inappropriate. This distinction is explained by the deontic conception, as it matches that between states of affairs that ought to obtain and states that should not obtain (§7). Two study cases are examined: caprice and the impermissibility of desire aggregation. Intuitively, hopes, wishes, or urges are types of desire. The next chapter presents a typology inspired by the deontic view and the type of norms there are (§8). The last chapter discusses the main objections to the deontic approach (§9). In conclusion, I show the relevance of the deontic view for several debates in philosophy of mind and ethics. Desires are crucial because they are the ‘eye’ of what should be. (shrink)

It is often argued that belief is partly constituted by a norm of truth. Most recent discussions have assumed that the norm is deontic concerning what may or ought to be believed. I criticize two proposals, one canvassed by Krister Bykvist and Anandi Hattiangadi, and the other defended by Daniel Whiting. Instead, I argue in favour of an evaluative norm, according to which we would do well to believe the truth. I show that an evaluative norm fares better than its (...) deontic competitors with respect to the demandingness of truth, the aim of truth, and epistemic blame. -/- On soutient souvent que la croyance est en partie constituée par une norme de vérité. La plupart des discussions récentes ont supposé que la norme est déontique concernant ce qui peut ou doit être cru. Je critique deux propositions, l’une mise de l’avant par Krister Bykvist et Anandi Hattiangadi, et l’autre défendue par Daniel Whiting. Je plaide plutôt en faveur d’une norme évaluative selon laquelle nous ferions bien de croire la vérité. Je montre qu’une norme évaluative réussit mieux que ses concurrentes déontiques en ce qui a trait au caractère exigeant de la vérité, au but de la vérité et au blâme épistémique. (shrink)

Social enterprises combine activities, processes, structures, and meanings associated with multiple institutional logics that may pose conflicting goals, norms, values, and practices. This in-depth multi-source case study of an ecological social enterprise in Malaysia reveals how the enactment of the family logic interacts with the market and ecological logics not only in conflicting but also in synergetic ways. By drawing attention to the institutional logic of the family in social entrepreneurship, this study highlights the heterogeneity of social enterprises. The findings (...) have implications for research with social enterprises and family-owned firms in relation to the ethical obligations of these organizations and the interactions of multiple logics. (shrink)

One very popular assumption in the epistemological literature is that belief and assertion are governed by one and the same epistemic norm. This paper challenges this claim. Extant arguments in defence of the view are scrutinized and found to rest on value-theoretic inaccuracies. First, the belief-assertion parallel is shown to lack the needed normative strength. Second, I argue that the claim that assertion inherits the norm of belief in virtue of being an expression thereof rests on a failed instance of (...) deontic transmission. Third, the inheritance argument from the norm for action is proven guilty of deontic equivocation. Last but not least, it is argued that, on a functionalist normative picture, assertion and belief are governed by different epistemic norms, in virtue of serving different epistemic functions. (shrink)