Normativity – A Lesson from Aesthetics (original) (raw)
Related papers
The term 'normativity' refers to the principles, standards or rules that guide, constrain, or compel thinking, judgment, or action in a certain domain. Questions about what is right or wrong, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, acceptable or unacceptable, etc., are traditional normative questions in ethics, whereas the norms themselves, which can be explicitly formulated (e.g., written laws or codes of conduct) or implicitly transmitted (e.g., in social customs, traditions, or cultural practices), are standards of evaluation that exert an obliging or motivational authority over individuals and collectives to judge, think, or act in certain ways. While normative questions have been at the heart of philosophical reflections on rationality, ethics, and aesthetics from the onset of the Western philosophical tradition, normativity has become topical again in recent years (for a partial survey, see Baker 2018 and Finlay 2019). Contemporary philosophers inquire how norms of theoretical and practical rationality interact with one another (Wedgwood 2007), in what sense public policy choices are normative and what that means for their legitimacy (Wolff 2020), what standards or norms ought to be applied in the evaluation of artworks (Kubala 2021), how our emotional states motivate us to act and how they influence our perceptions, beliefs, and desires (Tappolet 2016), etc. Phenomenology makes no exception to this general trend. Since Crowell's Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger (2013), phenomenological research on normativity has developed at a frenetic pace (for a start, see the essays compiled in Doyon and Breyer 2015, Burch, Marsh, and McMullin 2019 and Heinämaa, Hartimo, and Hirvonen 2022). What is specific about the phenomenological approach to normativity? From the phenomenological point of view, normativity is grounded in a robust theory of intentionality, which virtually every phenomenologist considers to be the matrix of all experiences. Since there are diverse form of intending, phenomenologists recognize and analyze different kinds and types of norms and related concepts (e.g., goals, values, paradigms, rules, commands, etc.). Given its experiential-analytical methodology, phenomenologists see norms operative in virtually all areas of human experiences (e.g., knowledge, morality, art, agency, perception, etc.) and investigate often neglected aspects of our experiences of these norms (e.g., their temporality, embodiment, subjective character, etc.). As a result, phenomenological analyses of normativity encompass virtually every subfield of philosophy, including logic, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, praxeology, etc. Thanks to its comprehensiveness, the entry centers on Edmund Husserl's contribution to normativity, but provides at the same time indications about how his understanding of norms and normativity has been informed about its context of emergence, and subsequently transformed, criticized, and taken over by other phenomenologists, including contemporary phenomenologists, who have put it back into the center of their investigations. The article is organized systematically by the most important areas in which the question of normativity comes into play in Husserl's view, which are (i) logic and science; (ii) ethics and morality; (iii) and perception.
Normativity and Thick Aesthetic Concepts
2016
Thick aesthetic concepts such as ‘gracious’, ‘delicate’ and ‘virtuous’ are, according to the standard theory, characterised as both descriptive and evaluative. In the first part of this paper (I), I examine Sibley’s study of normativity with regard to his version of thick aesthetic concepts. In the second part (II), I concentrate on Zangwill’s recourse to Grice’s theory of implicature and the normative demands this move makes on the process. Finally (III), I develop a sketch that shows which contextual considerations precede the selection process of thick aesthetic concepts and how normative demands govern eventual selections.
Varieties of normativity: Norms, values, goals
Contemporary Phenomenologies of Normativity: Norms, Goals, Values, eds. Sara Heinämaa, Mirja Hartimo ja Ilpo Hirvonen, London, New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2021/2022, 2021
The chapter begins with an overview of contemporary phenomenological theorization of normativity. In light of phenomenological contributions, the field of norms proves to be both multi-faceted and heavily layered. In order to organize the field, the paper turns to Husserl's classical account, arguing that it provides an elegant and powerful manner of unifying the phenomena of normativity without disregarding or downplaying their plurality and layered character. On this basis, the paper then clarifies the difference between the normativity of the criteria of evaluation and the normativity of the rules of action or conduct. At the same time, it sheds light on the guiding function of values and paragons.
Normativity I – The Dialectical Legacy
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.
The Philosophy of Normativity, or How to Try Clearing Things Up a Little
Dialogue, 2011
Normativity, one of the central themes of philosophy in the last decade, 1 represents a vast and fertile terrain of questions. The normative domain is frequently conceived in opposition to the descriptive, so that saying what ought to be or ought to be done is considered fundamentally different from saying what is. Ought is thus often considered the paradigmatic normative concept. 2 However, in general, it is admitted that the concepts of rule, value and virtue, but also reason, whether about the reason to act or to think, are normative in kind. Among these concepts, it is common to distinguish between, on the one hand, evaluative concepts (such as good and bad, but also admirable and contemptible, just and unjust, benevolent and malevolent, etc.) and, on the other, deontic concepts (such as obligatory, permissible and forbidden). 3 We should
Aesthetic Internalism and two normative puzzles
Studi di estetica, 2016
One of the most discussed views in metaethics is Moral Internalism, according to which there is a conceptually necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation to act. Moral Internalism is regarded to yield the prime argument against Moral Cognitivism and for Moral Non-Cognitivism. In this paper, I investigate the significance of the corresponding claim in metaaesthetics. I pursue two lines of argument. First, I argue that Aesthetic Internalism – the view that there is a conceptually necessary connection between aesthetic value judgments and motivation to act – is mistaken. It follows, I maintain, that the most important argument against Aesthetic Cognitivism, and for Aesthetic Non-Cognitivism, is flawed, and that the latter view presumably is incorrect. Second, I argue that considerations with regard to Aesthetic Internalism give rise to two normative puzzles with relevance for the normative domain in general. The most plausible solution to these puzzles entails, I maintain, that we need to revise the established view about normative judgments. Moreover, I propose a novel externalist account of aesthetic value judgments.
The Normativity of Evaluative Concepts
2011
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.
Doing Moral Philosophy Without ‘Normativity’
Journal of the American Philosophical Association
This essay challenges widespread talk about morality's ‘normativity’. My principal target is not any specific claim or thesis in the burgeoning literature on ‘normativity’, however. Rather, I aim to discourage the use of the word among moral philosophers altogether and to reject a claim to intradisciplinary authority that is both reflected in and reinforced by the role the word has come to play in the discipline. My hope is to persuade other philosophers who, like me, persist in being interested in long-standing questions about our morals to be considerably more suspicious about the word's actual value for us and to see those studying ‘normativity’ itself as having little to offer us when it comes to posing our questions about morals and debating the answers to them.
Aesthetic Normativity in Kant’s Account: A Regulative Model
Con-textos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy, 2020
The notion of normativity has been key to an actualizing reading of the subjective universality that for Kant characterizes the aesthetic judgment. However, in the scholarly literature little discussion is made, somehow unsurprisingly, of what exactly we should understand by normativity when it comes to Kant’s aesthetics. Recent trends show indeed the tendency to take normativity very broadly to the point of nuancing most of its core meaning. Based on how we speak about normativity in aesthetics, we seem indeed to have accepted that every kind of evaluative process is normative. I will argue that the sentimentalist elements of Kant's account call for a revision of its normative interpretations, for a better framing of its subjective universalism, and finally for a reconsideration of aesthetic normativity in favour of regulativity.