Normativity and naturalism as if nature mattered

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8080919
AutoresAndrew Sayer (0000-0001-5564-5154, Lancaster University, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume18
Fascículo3
Páginas258-273
Data de publicação2019-05-09
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Critical Realism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1476-7430 • E-ISSN: 1572-5138
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14767430.2019.1613852
OpenAlexW2944762119
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14
Referências citadas23

The usual way of discussing normativity and naturalism is by running through a standard range of issues: the relations of fact and value, objectivity, reason and emotion, is and ought, and the so-called ‘naturalistic fallacy’. This is a naturalism that is virtually silent on nature. I outline an alternative approach that relates normativity to our nature as living beings, for whom specific things are good or bad for us. Our nature as evaluative beings is shown to be rooted in and emergent from this biological normativity. There is also significant downward causation, such that our brain-bodies are continually modified by our experience and thoughts. Cultures, as emergent from the affordances of our brain-bodies, create further extensive, irreducible sources of normativity, albeit ones which do not wholly escape biological normativity and can impact back on it

Causation · Epistemology · Naturalism · Objectivity (philosophy · Teleology · Critical Realism in Sociology · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Pragmatism in Philosophy and Education · Philosophy