The Future of Normativity

Abstract The past few decades have witnessed an intense focus on the notion of normativity. We orientate ourselves to think about normativity by asking a range of questions. There are ways we act and think, and ways in which the world is. But as well as what there is and what we do, what should or ought we to do? What reasons are there for acting and thinking? What values do certain ways of being have? What authority is had by the norms and standards that govern our behaviour and thought? These questions have been discussed for several years now. At the heart of these debates are other questions. How should we characterize normative notions such as reason and value? What are the relations between them? Are they all properly normative? Most fundamentally, people have considered what normativity itself is. These questions gain additional colour and point by being considered within different areas of our lives, such as the areas concerned with ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology. Further issues then come to the fore. Reasons and obligations in some areas seem to have more authority than in others, but why and how? Is there a ‘unity of normativity’ across different areas? This is now a time to reflect: to consider familiar questions afresh and to introduce new questions and topics. The Future of Normativity brings together works by a set of leading philosophers to consider what the future of normative thought could and should be.