Explaining the Normative

"This book does to the many overblown claims concerning 'normativity' what Turner previously did against fashionable ideas of'social practices': throws cold water on extravagant claims made on behalf of norms as a distinctive and unavoidable basis for social inquiry. The real strength of this analysis is the way that Turner shows that the current debates about norms have a long history, the consideration of which is essential to understanding the current discussion for good or ill. The book is certainly the best of its kind and an important contribution." James Bohman, Saint Louis University "This is the most systematic discussion of normativity by a social theorist and philosopher of the social sciences. The argument is forceful and original throughout. Turner brings together considerations from a variety of different fields ---philosophy of law, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of mind and language, cognitive science --- and these different strands re-enforce and strengthen one another. It is particularly intriguing to see how philosophers defending normativity have in many ways 're-invented the normative wheel' that some social theorists have used for a long time. This book should be obligatory reading for philosophers and social scientists alike." Martin Kusch, Cambridge University Normativity gives reasons their force, makes words meaningful, and rules and laws binding. It is present whenever we use such terms as "correct," "ought," "must," and the language of obligation, responsibility, and logical compulsion. Yet normativists admit that the idea of a non-causal normative realm and a body of normative objects is spooky. Explaining the Normative is the first systematic, historically grounded critique of normativism. It identifies the standard normativist pattern of argument, and shows how this pattern depends on circularities, preferred descriptions, problematic transcendental arguments, and regress arguments ending in mysteries.

The book considers a paradigm case: legal normativity as constructed by Hans Kelsen. This case exemplifies the problems with normativist arguments, but also shows how normativism was constructed as an alternative to ordinary social science explanations. The normativist argument is that social science explantions themselves are forced to rely on normative concepts, on normative rationality, and on a normative view of "concepts" themselves.

Empathic understanding of the reasoning of others can solve the regress problems about meaning and rationality central to the appeal of normativism. This approach has no need of a parallel normative world, and has a surprising and revealing lineage in the history of philosophy, as well as a basis in neuroscience.