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Mere formalities: fictional normativity and normative authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Daniel Wodak Open the ORCID record for Daniel Wodak [Opens in a new window]
Daniel Wodak*
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
*
Daniel Wodak dwodak@vt.edu
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Abstract

It is commonly said that some standards, such as morality, are ‘normatively authoritative’ in a way that other standards, such as etiquette, are not; standards like etiquette are said to be ‘not really normative’. Skeptics deny the very possibility of normative authority, and take claims like ‘etiquette is not really normative’ to be either empty or confused. I offer a different route to defeat skeptics about authority: instead of focusing on what makes standards like morality special, we should focus on what makes standards like etiquette ‘not really normative’. I defend a fictionalist theory on which etiquette is ‘not really normative’ in roughly the same way that Sherlock is ‘not really a detective’, and show that fictionalism about some normative standards helps us explain the possibility of normative authority.

Keywords

Normativitymerely formal normativityrobust normativitymoralityetiquettelegal reasonsfictionalism
Type
Original Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 6 , September 2019 , pp. 828 - 850
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

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