The Problem of Normativity Revisited

What is the Problem of Normativity? Which philosopher from the course do you think has the best response to it?

A normative statement is an opinion or value judgement that, because it is not a statement of fact - such as x + y = y + x —cannot be proved. The Problem of Normativity is that my aunt, for example, might state that I ought to get my hair cut, or vote for candidate X, but she would so state because trimmed hair and voting for party X are norms in my family. My next door neighbor might state that I would look best with a more casual haircut and that I should vote for party Y because those are the norms in her family. Both women would be unable to prove that their specific examples of normativity met the same standard of permanence and validity as 2 + 2 = 4.

I find that I am most comfortable in the company of the Enlightenment philosopher David Hume who stated, “Apart from mathematics we know nothing for certain. But we have to live: and to live is to act. All actions have to be based on assumptions about reality.” Why assumptions? Hume shared the basic premise of the empiricists - Locke, Berkeley — that our knowledge of anything outside ourselves can only be derived from experience - our own or the experience of someone else. We can never know with absolute certainty what exists beyond ourselves. Certainty of the facts, is not available to us. “We can only deal in hopeful probabilities.”

Our actions, Hume thought, are driven by our feelings and our passions. I have found that Hume is right, my reason is slave to my passions. Therefore, my best course is to develop an informed heart. Since what I can experience myself directly is limited, I must depend for guidance mainly on the experience of others - several thousand years of books, novels, music, theatre — the long record of mankind’s quest not for certainty, not for a list of rules or norms, but for an informed heart that acts in hopeful probabilities.

Professor Bonevac stated that in the 1970’s “normativity — ought, should, good, bad, evil, right, wrong, virtuous,vicious, just, and unjust--returned to the center of the philosophical dance floor.” He spends his final lectures discussing the two 20th century politicians, Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher. The discussion is in fact deceptive argument framed in absolute certainties, not hopeful probabilities. He sets up the vague term “Socialism” as a straw dog to defend these two figureheads of heartless conservative politics. This might be an effective strategy to convince a student who believes that Certainty is possible or who is informed only by a limited compassion for humanity.

The straw dog, “Socialism” does not hold. Kindly Sweden plods along. My quality of life is greatly enhanced by Medicare. Bonevac supports his argument with false data, stating that Reagan’s policies created twenty million jobs, when in fact during his terms only 203,486 jobs were created. Reagan and Thatcher’s policies did in fact help give the final push to the already rotting totalitarian Soviet Union, but we must remember also that Stalin aided in the fall of Hitler while murdering millions of his own people. Ronald Reagan halted America’s progress toward racial and economic equality by blessing Racism as a vote getting tool—clearly not the action of an informed heart. Reagan’s racist fear-mongering strategies to gain and hold power are still used daily and completely successfully by the Republican party. Reagan’s influence on Bush and Clinton’s economic policies resulted inevitably in the Great Recession that has destroyed the American middle class and enhanced the power of the rich to control public policy for their private benefit. Thatcher institutionalized economic policies that have greatly weakened Europe’s capacity to recover from the Great Recession. Perhaps most tragically, she redefined compassion in government as a synonym for weakness, a redefinition that has caused much unnecessary suffering throughout Europe.

In his last lecture, Professor Bonevac held up his priced baseball and stated, “does it (my ownership) result from a set of institutions that together respect basic liberties, grant people equal opportunities, and make the poor as well-off as possible. Again, I have no idea how to begin answering that question.” Given Professor Bonevac’s choice of 20th Century heroes, we must assume that statement to be true.