Normativity

Normativity refers to the standards that govern what counts as correct, acceptable, or required in actions, beliefs, and values. It concerns what one ought to do, what is good or right, and how reasons for judgment are justified rather than merely described.

The term is used across philosophy, law, psychology, and social sciences. Major normative domains include moral normativity (ethical obligations and judgments about right and wrong), epistemic normativity (standards for belief formation and justification), practical normativity (rational constraints on decision making), as well as legal, social, and aesthetic norms that regulate behavior and appraisal.

Central questions concern the grounds and authority of norms: what or who gives norms their force, whether normative claims are objective or relative, and how we relate facts to prescriptions (the is-ought problem). Meta-ethical debates ask whether norms are natural properties, facts about rationality, or expressions of attitudes.

In moral philosophy, theories propose different accounts of normative authority: deontology emphasizes duties and rules; consequentialism emphasizes outcomes; virtue ethics emphasizes character. Meta-ethical positions include non-cognitivism and expressivism (norms as attitudes rather than facts) and realism or constructivism about moral norms.

Normativity informs law, policy, professional codes, and social practices by articulating standards of acceptable conduct, belief justification, and evaluation. The study of normativity thus explores how norms are justified, how they are applied, and how they interact with cultural variation and social change.