Happiness and meaning: a plurality of values rather than a conflict of norms.

When Pat Suppes asked if I would be willing to take part in a panel on norms and their conflicts last year, I asked him what he had in mind—what did he mean by a norm, and what kinds of conflicts among norms did he hope the panelists would discuss? Pat said that he preferred to let the panelists interpret the topic as they saw fit. So let me begin by offering an interpretation of the topic—of the idea of a norm and of conflicts among them. Then I shall proceed to give some reasons for scuttling away from that topic or at least from the idea that most of the practical challenges we face are best formulated in those terms. In my field, moral philosophy, reference to norms, or more frequently to normativity, has been ubiquitous since the publication, first, of Allan Gibbard’s book Wise Choices, Apt Feelings in 1990, and then of Christine Korsgaard’s The Sources of Normativity in 1996. Indeed, within moral philosophy these terms are so common that most moral philosophers don’t appear to notice that the words “normative” and “normativity” are not part of most people’s working vocabulary. further, they seem to use “normative” interchangeably with “evaluative,” or at least to treat talk of norms and normativity as exhaustive of all substantive talk on matters relating to value. In my dialect, however, these terms are quite different. A norm, as I understand it, is a rule or a principle or a standard, something one can apply or follow. A value, on the other hand, is a desirable characteristic or property of situations or people or objects. To value something is to cherish it, or at least to judge it good, and worthy of attention, concern, promotion, or respect. Though of course the values one has will be related to the norms one accepts, their relation is not simple or obvious. That a person values