Normative Characterization in Empirical Explanation

Abstract

Normative characterization is a commonplace feature of biological and cognitive explanation. Such language seems to commit the biological and cognitive sciences to the existence of natural norms, but it is also difficult to understand how such normativity fits into a natural world of physical causes and forces. Existing models for how such language can have a legitimate causal-explanatory role in the sciences are, I think, unsatisfactory.  I suggest an alternative model in which normativity is mapped onto systems stabilized by counteractive constraints. Such a mapping, I propose, explains normativity’s causal-explanatory role in biological and cognitive inquiry.