Mere formalities: fictional normativity and normative authority

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 828-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Wodak
Keyword(s):  
Normative Authority ◽  
Normative Standards

AbstractIt is commonly said that some standards, such as morality, are ‘normatively authoritative’ in a way that other standards, such as etiquette, are not; standards like etiquette are said to be ‘not really normative’. Skeptics deny the very possibility of normative authority, and take claims like ‘etiquette is not really normative’ to be either empty or confused. I offer a different route to defeat skeptics about authority: instead of focusing on what makes standards like morality special, we should focus on what makes standards like etiquette ‘not really normative’. I defend a fictionalist theory on which etiquette is ‘not really normative’ in roughly the same way that Sherlock is ‘not really a detective’, and show that fictionalism about some normative standards helps us explain the possibility of normative authority.

Civil disobedience as transnational disruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Global Dimension ◽  
Routine Activities ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
The Core ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Democratic Societies

Abstract:Civil disobedience has been theorised as an informal guardian of the constitution in democratic societies, but such accounts struggle to accommodate protest that has an international or global dimension. This article addresses this issue through offering a theory of civil disobedience as transnational disruption. Civil disobedience is ‘transnational’ insofar as it is an appeal to a national, international or global public that highlights failures to observe moral, political or legal values that are an appropriate source of normative authority in global contexts. Civil disobedience is ‘disruptive’ insofar as it obstructs the routine activities of relevant parties in order to draw attention to the demands of protesters. The core argument is that civil disobedience can uphold normative standards that have been incorporated into a dense network of treaties, conventions and global regulatory frameworks. It can thus make a modest but valuable contribution to the processes through which publics deliberate about the meaning and interpretation of these contested norms.

Good Reasoning and Evidence-Based Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.D. Trout
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Reasoning Strategies ◽  
Good Reasoning ◽  
Naturalistic Theory ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

In early epistemology, philosophers set standards on how to reason and on what counts as knowledge. These normative standards still form a core of work in contemporary epistemology, but much objectively excellent reasoning still doesn’t meet these epistemological standards, and sometimes these standards lead reasoning astray. Improving decisions about health and happiness may require developing even better reasoning strategies than are now available through contemporary epistemology. One naturalistic theory of good reasoning—Strategic Reliabilism—holds that excellent reasoning efficiently allocates cognitive resources to robustly reliable reasoning strategies, all applied to significant problems. This contrasts with the traditional normative theories in epistemology that drew their inspiration from intuitions.

Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Principal Parts

Nietzsche is one of the most subversive ethical thinkers of the Western canon. This book offers a critical assessment of his ethical thought and its significance for contemporary moral philosophy. It develops a charitable but critical reading of his thought, pushing some claims and arguments as far as seems fruitful while rejecting others. But it also uses Nietzsche in dialogue with, so to contribute to, a range of long-standing issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The book is divided into three principal parts. Part I examines Nietzsche’s critique of morality, arguing that it raises well-motivated challenges to morality’s normative authority and value: his error theory about morality’s categoricity is in a better position than many contemporary versions; and his critique of moral values has bite even against undemanding moral theories, with significant implications not just for rarefied excellent types but also us. Part II turns to moral psychology, attributing to Nietzsche and defending a sentimentalist explanation of action and motivation. Part III considers his non-moral perfectionism, developing models of value and practical normativity that avoid difficulties facing many contemporary accounts and that may therefore be of wider interest. The discussion concludes by considering Nietzsche’s broader significance: as well as calling into question many of moral philosophy’s deepest assumptions, he challenges our usual views of what ethics itself is—and what it, and we, should be doing.

The Institutional Future of the Covenants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felice D Gaer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Body System ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
Treaty Monitoring ◽  
Treaty Body ◽  
International Human ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Individual Petition

Longstanding proposals to strengthen implementation of the international human rights treaties have often focused on procedural reforms such as harmonizing methods of work or consolidating ten treaty monitoring bodies into one. This article reviews past reform efforts and then considers proposals to create stronger individual petition mechanisms—including a ‘world court’—as a way of strengthening human rights implementation. After discussing these proposals, the author offers additional ways to make the system more effective and efficient. She rejects the oft-suggested proposal to create a ‘world court’ for human rights, noting legal, organizational, logistical, and financial obstacles. Rather than rushing to tear down the current treaty body system, the author offers a proposal for determining how consolidation of petition proceedings might affect normative standards.

Linguistic norm in legal language and legislative language – The issue of codification

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-283
Author(s):  
Marta Andruszkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Legal Language ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Legislative Language

AbstractThis article analyses the linguistic norms found within legal and legislative language and their implementation. It attempts to answer the following questions: is there a common scope for the use of linguistic norms in general language and legislative language, what can form the basis for resolving issues of correctness in legal and legislative language and is a codification of the linguistic norms for legislative language necessary? The discrepancies observed between normative standards and linguistic practise raise the issue of the need to codify linguistic norms within legal and legislative language. In this article, I hypothesise the need to elaborate a source for codifying the norms of legal and legislative language.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document