Does Critique Already Presuppose Normativity?

Ethics
1

A possible constitutivist response to the is–ought problem may begin from the recognition that critique itself already appears to presuppose normative standards governing thought.

To identify contradiction, arbitrariness, incoherence, or invalid inference as philosophical defects rather than merely contingent preferences seems already to involve standards to which judgment is answerable.

If certain normative conditions are constitutive of intelligible rational activity as such, then normativity may not enter thought externally, but arise from the conditions under which rational judgment becomes possible at all.

The question, then, is whether intelligible judgment itself already presupposes binding normative structure.

2

Can you provide some examples.

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It may well do, but is the implication that because this is so, we have an obligation to engage in normatively correct reasoning? I’m trying to see how the “ought” can get free of being just another hypothetical imperative, albeit one that philosophers would do well to heed.

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I would see the implication as being that obligation, correctness and ‘oughtness’ are internal to normative structures of intelligibility, and if one hopes for a meta-norm one gets stuck in an infinite regress.

5

Of course critique presupposes normatively.

1+1=3 is incorrect.

6

Good. Another term for “meta-norm” here is “categorical imperative,” of course. Kantians don’t think they’re involved in an infinite regress, though they also make an appeal to internal structures of intelligibility. The difference, as I see it, is that their internal structures are not actually normative at all, but rather depend on a particular articulation of the notion of freedom.

But if we stay with non-categorical structures, both you and @Sahin are saying – correctly, I think – that to engage in rational judgment is to adopt certain normative ideas, without which the practice doesn’t make sense. Do you think there’s an obvious bridge to how this would work, ethically? This is where “is-ought” usually presses us.

7

Are you asking if moral norms emerge from commitments already built into practical reasoning, not from an external command? Would an example be: if I think my own suffering matters, it seems inconsistent to say that other people’s suffering does not matter? In that sense, moral “oughts” might come from the standards built into practical reasoning, rather than from facts alone?

8

What would it look like if that was not the case?

9

Yes, basically. The example you offer is a good one (and also quite Kantian in spirit). It shifts the burden of ethical argument from a question of morality to a question of logical consistency – or tries to, at any rate. I don’t think it succeeds, but that’s another story. Or if it does succeed, we need a much more detailed account of the “inconsistency” involved, which would presumably include something about equality and parity – why my suffering and your suffering are conceptually equivalent.

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10

What ‘is’ in an epistemological sense reveals the world in a certain light by arranging its elements according to a particular interpretative perspective. That bias already implies an ‘ought’, which frames the intelligibility of what is established as ethically preferred vs rejected.

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11

I say “yes” and prioritize a recognition of “the presupposed forum” in the ideas I present here. Normativity is irreducible in philosophy, simply because the concept of philosophy “implies” or “includes” a fuzzy normative structure that can be endlessly and contentiously explicated.

For me this means that any philosophy of science that evades the normative is fundamentally incomplete and therefore implausible.

12

It depends on what normativity is. If we accept that normativity can change and vary along different times, cultures and paradigms, then what was intelligible and correct, or acceptable and unacceptable at certain times might not be at other times, cultures, societies, religions, generations countries and paradigms.

These are bound by the law of reasoning and logic, which are different from normativity. Hence the answer is no, it doesn’t necessarily presuppose normativity.

And critique can be based on one’s own personal taste and opinion, which has nothing to do with normativity.

13

Hmm. Well, yes, it frames the intelligibility, but what about the content? Is that up for grabs, as long as the “bias” can be consistently argued for?

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It does, but the Humean will simply say that this normativity is instrumentally ordered to ends that are ultimately dictated by sentiment and sensible desire.

15

Well, is “don’t randomly stick your hand into a blazing fire,” or “don’t make yourself miserable,” a merely hypothetical imperitive?

We can imagine the fairy tale option: the path before us splits. On the left hand side the road leads down into a flaming abyss from which anguished shrieks of torment rise. We are given to know that down this road lies suffering and grief. The other road leads upwards, to a beautiful mountain ascending into celestial light. We are given to know that our true fulfillment rests there.

Now, what forces us to choose between either path? Well, if the left hand “path of darkness” is chosen for any rational reason at all, then it must in some respect be chosen as better than the right hand path. Maybe the chooser doesn’t like being forced into an option by such a stark caricature. In that case, they value freedom and self-assertion as the higher good to be attained by heading down to the left. Or perhaps they think the choice is a trick, and that they will be rewarded for embracing the grim path.

But the choice will be made in service to some end. This will be true even if sub-rational appetite leads the way, since it to is ordered to some end.

Hence, I think we invariably end up choosing what is deemed better over what is deemed worse (internal conflict and weakness of will not withstanding). The question: “why choose the better over the worse?” or: “why choose what is more worthy of choice over what is less?” is to my mind fairly straightforward.

Where the challenge lies is that we often don’t know which is which. But there is an additional challenge when it is denied that there is anything to know, or if there is, that it is unknowable. In that case, the judgement must be hypothetical, but that is because it is already assumed that there is no truly better end to order judgement, or that it is unknowable. Kant has the latter problem, although he has a somewhat ingenious solution to it (although I think it ultimately ends up coming of as somewhat solipsistic and sterile, but even moreso, unnecessary).

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The bias instantiated by a normative system can’t be argued for or against. But the distinctions it makes possible can, because cultural norms are not monolithic but involves mutual contestability among partially shared perspectives. The more important question is how we are to understand the genesis of cultural norms.

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I think there is certainly a Kantian proximity here insofar as both approaches attempt to derive normativity from structures internal to rational activity rather than from external preference or empirical desire.

Where I suspect the route differs however, is that my concern is less with autonomy or self-legislating rational will as such, and more with the constitutive conditions under which considerations can function as reasons at all without collapsing into arbitrariness.

The pressure as I currently see it, is not merely that rational agents must universalise maxims, but that the authority of reasons itself appears undermined if justificatory standards depend solely upon standpoint privilege or brute numerical identity absent a relevant normative difference.

So the transition toward ethical constraint would arise not from an independently posited categorical structure, but from the requirements of non-arbitrary justification internal to intelligible rational agency itself. The bridge from normativity to ethics is precisely where the deepest pressure of the is–ought problem remains, and I would not claim the transition is automatic merely from the existence of norms internal to rational judgment.

My thought however, is that once considerations are treated as genuinely justificatory reasons rather than as expressions of brute preference, rational assessment already appears committed to standards of coherence, non-arbitrariness, and justificatory consistency.

For example, if two agents are relevantly similar with respect to the formal conditions under which considerations function as reasons; it becomes unclear how one agent could justify treating its own standpoint as possessing uniquely authoritative status solely because it is its own. Numerical identity alone does not seem sufficient to ground a justificatory difference.

From there, the constitutivist pressure is not merely:
“If you want to reason effectively, follow these norms,”

but rather:
“To treat considerations as reasons at all already seems to commit one to standards of non-arbitrary justification that cannot coherently be restricted to one’s own standpoint without undermining the authority of one’s own reasons.”

If standards governing reasons must apply across relevantly similar agents in the absence of a relevant normative difference, then the permissibility of action increasingly appears dependent upon interpersonal justifiability rather than merely private preference.

On this view, moral constraints would not arise externally to rational agency, but from the constitutive standards governing how agents, as bearers of reasons with equal formal justificatory standing, may permissibly treat one another at all.

I am arguing that the rejection of arbitrary standpoint privilege and the requirement of interpersonal justification are already implicit within the structure of rational agency itself.

18

Yes broadly speaking, that is close to the direction I am trying to think through.

The idea would not be that moral norms emerge from an external command added onto otherwise non-normative reasoning, but rather from constitutive standards already implicit within intelligible rational agency itself.

I also think your example captures part of the pressure involved, though I would probably frame it less in terms of suffering alone and more in terms of justification. My concern is that once considerations are treated as reasons capable of justifying action, it becomes difficult to explain how one agent’s standpoint could retain uniquely privileged justificatory authority solely because it is its own, absent some relevant normative difference.

So the issue is not merely emotional parity or sympathy, but whether rational justification can remain non-arbitrary while excluding other relevantly similar agents from equal formal justificatory standing.

In that sense, the “ought” would emerge not from facts alone, but from the constitutive standards governing reasons, justification, and rational agency itself.

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20

I don’t disagree with you, but isn’t the common response from the “masters of suspicion” going to be: “sure, my reasons are ‘arbitrary’ in the sense that they simply serve to facilitate inchoate desires. So are yours. So are everyone else’s. That’s just how things are.”

They will argue that discourse is instead about agents wielding instrumental reason, and rhetoric, dialectic, etc. all as means to the gratification of desires that are themselves inscrutable.

Whether this constitutes misology, and whether the critic considers misology to be a problem per se, is another matter. They’ll say they just have their eyes opened and are being honest (and even this could just be a “power move” in service to desire).

That is, reason “is and ought only be a slave of the passions.”

On this point from the other post, isn’t this precisely what is often denied? The critic will claim that a “good” argument or “good” evidence is just whatever attains the desired end. We can speak factually, and so instrumentally, about which paths lead to which ends, but at the end of the day ends are themselves selected by desire, which is irrational. And while not all that many thinkers are explicit about this conclusion, it seems to follow inexorably from the idea that reason is inert (without desire), and wholly discursive and calculative (a “tool”).

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My concern is that the space of reasons is left spinning in a void if we dont adequately integrate what Sellars called the manifest image of conceptual normativity and the empirical world of the scientific image. Our intellectual, empirical and ethical norms aren’t simply imposed on the world, they enact and express the ways in which we interact the material and social environment. This is a two-way street.

Concepts are constrained by material realities , but those realities are not raw facts , they are pre-interpreted. We only partially share these environments, so all norms are open to contestation. Furthermore, our very activities within those normative structures change the material and social circumstances, which then feed back into our conceptual structures and lead to transformations in erhical grounds.