The thesis that mental content is normative is ambiguous and has many forms. This article deals only with the thesis that normativity is connected to our mental attitudes rather than with the content of the attitudes, and more specifically with the view that it is connected to belief. A number of writers have proposed various versions of a ‘norm of truth’ attached to belief. I examine various v...

Simon Blackburn can be seen as challenging those committed to sui generis moral facts to explain the supervenience of the moral on the descriptive. We (like perhaps Derek Parfit) hold that normative facts in general are sui generis. We also hold that the normative supervenes on the descriptive, and we here endeavour to answer the generalization of Blackburn’s challenge. In the course of pursuin...

In the last three chapters, we have looked at several approaches to thinking about human beings that foundered on problems related to normativity. As a result of work in the biology and psychology, we now understand, better than ever before, how the human mind – as an empirical object in the world – works. Through the study of human history and, more generally, of human diversity, it is increas...

This chapter concerns the normativity of the concepts of paternalism and libertarian paternalism. The first concept is central to evaluation of public health policy, but its meaning is controversial. The second concept is equally controversial and has received much attention recently. It may or may not shape the future evaluation of public health policy. In order to facilitate honest and fruitf...