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  • CR_and_Normativity

    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Critical Realism on 09/05/2019, available online: https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767430.2019.1613852

    Accepted author manuscript, 739 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Normativity and naturalism as if nature mattered

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

E-pub ahead of print
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>9/05/2019
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Critical Realism
Volume18
Number of pages16
Publication StatusE-pub ahead of print
Early online date9/05/19
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

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.

Bibliographic note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Critical Realism on 09/05/2019, available online: https://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767430.2019.1613852