BOOK SYMPOSIUM

Normativity
By JUDITH JARVIS THOMSON
Open Court, 2008. x 272 pp. 23.99

JUDITH JARVIS THOMSON

1. Normative propositions divide into evaluatives (such as propositions to the

effect that such and such is good) and directives (such as propositions to the
effect that so and so ought to do this or that). Normativity offers an account
of what makes propositions at the hearts of those kinds true.

2. Evaluatives
2.1. I argue that there is no property being good: the adjective good either
prefixes a kind-term K (as does big), or appears in such modified-goodness
expressions as good at playing tennis, good for use in making cheese, being
strategically good and being morally good.
I then argue that there is a property being a good K if and only if K is a
goodness-fixing kind, that is, if and only if K is a kind such that what being a
member of K is fixes what the standards are that a K has to meet if it is to be a
good K it does this by fixing what it is for a K to be a paradigm, exemplar,
good specimen of a K. Thus, the kinds umbrella, pancreas, seeing eye dog and
beefsteak tomato are goodness-fixing kinds; the kinds pebble, smudge, cloud
and shade of grey are not.
I then claim that the kinds state of affairs, fact and possible world are not
goodness-fixing kinds. It follows that there is no property being a good
possible world. Similarly, there is no relation being a better possible
world, and Consequentialism, on the most familiar understanding of it, is
unacceptable.
2.2. A person who says Thats a good K may or may not want it, may or
may not have any favourable attitude at all towards Ks. I therefore claim we
should reject Expressivism. However, we can say instead that the speaker
performs a certain speech-act: he praises the thing. That is what marks the
proposition asserted as evaluative.
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Summary

714 | book symposium

That opens the door to there being many other kinds of evaluatives, for
example, ascriptions of

In sum, a great many evaluatives are not merely evaluative propositions, they
are also factual propositions of entirely familiar kinds.
3. Directives
3.1. Two ideas that jointly yield an account of the directives are very popular
nowadays:
(a) that the relation reason for is unanalysable, and
(b) that the following two slogans tell us that, and how, facts about reasons for action make the directives true of people be true of them:
What a person ought to do is what there is, or what he has, most
reason for doing.
I argue that both should be rejected. I claim that (a) should be rejected on the
ground that all reasons-for (whether for being in this or that mental state, or
for acting) are reasons for believing. A very brief discussion of my analysis of
reasons for being in a mental statethus, for example, for trusting Alfred,
admiring Bert and believing that Charles is hungrymay be found in my
Reply To Critics, section 3.
According to my analysis of reasons for action, for Alfred to have a reason
for j-ing is (arguably) for Alfred to believe that there is a reason for him to j;
for there to be a reason for him to j is for there to be a fact that is a reason
for believing that he should j. I claim that (b) should be rejected on several
grounds, among others that the slogans confuse: it is easy to overlook the
difference between the slogans, and therefore to think that the objective
There is a reason for Alfred to j comes to the same as the subjective
Alfred has a reason for j-ing, and therefore to think (falsely) that its
being the case that Alfred ought to j requires Alfreds thinking there is a
reason for him to j.
3.2. There are a great many arguments in the literature to the effect that
ought is ambiguous. I discuss six of them, and reject five. The conclusion
of the one that I recommend accepting ascribes what can be called
the epistemic ought . Thus, when we say Alfred ought to be F at t we

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(a) virtue-kind properties: being an FK is a virtue-kind property just in case

being F is a virtue in a Kfor example, being a sharp carving knife,
being a witty comedy;
(b) some correctness properties: being a correct map of England, being a
correct performing of Mozarts sonata S. But not: being a correct
believing, trusting, admiring, desiring or preferring; and
(c) defectiveness properties: being a defective umbrella or pancreas, being a
physically or mentally defective person and being a defective person.

book symposium | 715

On Normativity
By MICHAEL SMITH

Judith Jarvis Thomsons Normativity (2008) is a formidable book in terms of

both content and style (all otherwise unattributed page references in what
follows are to this book). The structure is modular, as though to encourage
the reader who wants to dip in and out. But as you read, it becomes clear that
dipping in and out would not be a good idea. Questions that occur to you are
sometimes addressed immediately, but sometimes the answers can only be
inferred from whats said elsewhere. Moreover, sometimes the questions
themselves only occur to you after youve reached the end and tried to
figure out how the whole story fits together. Nor should this be surprising.
Thomsons ambition is nothing less than to explain normative thought and
talk in all its diversity and complexity. Her account includes disparate elements that relate to each other in sophisticated ways. My aim in what follows is
to prompt her to say more about how some specific elements fit together.
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may mean that he is under a duty to be F at t, as, for example, if he has

promised that he will be. But we may instead mean (roughly) that he is likely
to be F at t. (Consider Rasputins assassins: we may imagine them to have
said, after feeding him poison, He ought to be dead by now, not for a
moment thinking that he was under a duty to be dead by then.)
By directives I do not mean to include ascriptions of the epistemic ought.
3.3. I argue that the directives are analysable into evaluatives, in particular, to
evaluatives that ascribe defectiveness properties.
I recommend that we approach the directives by attending first to the fact
that they hold of the inanimate. The pancreas ought to secrete enzyme E.
A toaster ought to toast evenly. The valve the plumber just installed ought to
blow when the pressure reaches n. For these to be the case is for it to be the
case that the subject (gland, toaster and valve) is defective if it does not
behave as the directives say.
Human beings are more complex: they are capable of more complex
defectsin particular, defects that rest on knowledge. I suggest, in brief,
that for it to be the case that a person ought to j is for it to be the case
that if he knew what would probably happen if he did and didnt j, then
he would be defective if he didnt. We dont first find out that Alfred ought
to j, and then find out why: we find out that he ought to j by finding
out that if he had the appropriate information, it would be unjust or ungenerous in him not to j.