Norms, Values and Human Conditions: An Introduction

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1 Norms, Values and Human Conditions: An Introduction Journal of Human Values 25(1) vii xi, Management Centre for Human Values Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: / Our lived reality endures through normativity. Much of what we do, think and desire is determined by how we put ourselves vis-à-vis the forces of normativity. Our endorsement of such forces makes us gauge people in a way that warrants certain order and standardization. We claim our share of humanity by constantly evaluating actions, omission and disposition of individuals as well as groups against the backdrop of acceptable demands. We yearn to attain meaningful life and post life, if there is any, by being in the orbit of standard expectation, so much so that at times we make ourselves ready for supreme sacrifices. This ubiquitous presence of normativity in our life baffles not just philosophers but also practitioners of every intellectual discourse. Hence, there is a natural curiosity as to what exactly are these forces. How do they pervade our life so seamlessly? What is it about them that makes us so acutely wanting in every step of our life? And most crucially, how do we understand the peculiarity of our situational existence in the face of the rational basis of normativity? This issue of the Journal of Human Values devotes itself to some of these questions with an aim of bringing together different disciplinary approaches to understand the nature and character of normativity. The framework in which these approaches are undertaken may broadly be understood in moral and ethical terms. The aim of the issue is to bring to light a putative structure of normativity by focusing on a special theme called values, norms and human condition. The essays in this collection together address this theme with a view to appreciate the complexity of our normative life. Some of its essays pay special attention to clashes and conflicts of values that tend to pose threats to the authenticity of such a life. The word normative is an umbrella term used by philosophers and social scientists to denote things that involve norms or standards. Philosophers construe normativity as the characteristic common to everything that appears on the ought sides of the distinction between what is and what ought to be (Dancy, 2000). Ought or should in this sense does not merely refer to the moral oughts alone. It also includes all forms of non-moral standards that we endorse for achieving a desired state of existence. The best way to understand the nature of ought or should is through the notion of reason. When we say you ought to do this or do that that means there is a good reason for you to do the suggestive thing. In an evaluative process, when we tell that you should have realized that X was going to occur in Y situation, what we meant is that X bears a reason that needs to be recognized by you in the Y situation. One of the most intriguing issues in the domain of morality is to understand how and in what sense this reason is made recognizable to people in the way that is desired of them. In most cases, moral disagreements between two parties arise because of the compelling reasons pursued by two different sides of the spectrum with incommensurable values. So if reason is the heart of normativity, it may be argued, values are the causes that give reasons reason. But what are these values and how do they come into being in our social reality? Human society is uniquely different from others in that we constantly think of ways how things could be made better, more perfect and different, from what they presently are (Korsgaard, 1996). We face

2 viii Journal of Human Values 25(1) values in a way that acts as the fulcrum of our moral life. Values give reasons and rationale to improve our everyday life. Our recognition of fundamental values generates sincere aims and commitments in us. By subscribing to certain basic values and aspiring to realize them at the individual as well as collective level, we not only strengthen our cohesiveness but also give a new meaning to our social world. Some values such as love, beauty, peace, harmony, honesty, humanity and well-being are universally valid, and they appeal to us regardless of any situational constraints. Other values that are more embedded in political cultures and societal orders are freedom, dignity, autonomy, gender equality and democracy. There are yet others, for instance, chastity, bodily integrity and privacy, about which we cannot possibly have a rigid claim since they seem to have changed over time depending upon social contexts. Irrespective of what goes into the constitution of these values and how long and in what form they survive among us, there is no denial of the fact that human communities and their members are required to find certain ways and means to realize them. One such means is norms or standards. Norms or standards act as regulative mechanisms for realizing these values (Brennan & Southwood, 2010). They guide and motivate us in a way that is required for the accomplishment of the desired values. Here one could think of two different forms of norms that allegedly operate our agency in the social world. The first is the moral norms. Norms in moral domain work as principles or guidelines that tell us how to behave in a given morally relevant situation. It provides us grounds to pass judgment on action, omission and persons whenever they go off the track. Although moral norms do not say anything specific about punitive measure, the entities responsible for sanctioning such measures are essentially driven by the justification of moral norms. However, it must be noted that unlike other norms, moral norms are not just other-ascriptive but also self-ascriptive. They give us adequate grounds for self-evaluation and selfcorrection. They provide us the base to appropriately feel proud or guilty, graceful or shameful for who we are and what we do. The second form refers to what may be called social norms. Social norms are treated as regularity in the behaviour of a group of people in a given context. The constitution of social norms suggests that there is conformity among the group members that they all approve of conforming to the regularity and disapprove of deviating from it (Pettit, 1990). Since norms are standardly seen as constraining human behaviours, the conceptual distinction between these forms in most social scientific explanations often gets blurred. Such blurred understanding of norms is further compounded by the presence of certain other normative practices such as conventions, customs and ideals. Needless to say, the study of social norms and their roles in determining our values and purposes of life is not a new exercise. Philosophers have done extensive analytical studies with regard to their structure of normativity; cultural anthropologists have analysed the origin or function of norms in different cultural setup; economists have examined how our tendency of norm following influences our market behaviour; similarly, law scholars have explored how and in what sense social norms could be conceived as alternatives to laws. While advocating the significance of norms in our social life, it may be mentioned, many a times we fail to pay attention to the cruelty of situational existence in which a moral subject is assessed. We fail to take note of the fact that we are often conditioned by the forces of externality which are beyond our control. The contingent turn of events in everyday life puts us in an uncertain space that destabilizes not just our moral agency but also our existence as human persons. In such a situation, we feel, as if, we are thrown into a sea of moral uncertainty for no fault of our own. And this poses serious questions to the legitimacy of the moral world, so much so that we start doubting ourselves as if we are nothing but destiny s children. Given this reality of our moral life, one thus wonders how to evaluate the actual status of human agency accurately. How do we assess them without getting trapped into the quagmire of determinism? And most importantly, can or should we subscribe to some extra-rational means so that we could arrive at a more judicious view about ourselves and others?

3 ix This special issue aims at understanding the normative character of our moral life from the vantage point of different disciplinary approaches. It comprises of five illuminating essays and three wellinformed book reviews by the experts of the respective fields. Each essay attempts to unravel the intricacies of our normative life by examining certain relevant facts and phenomena. The commonality between these essays can be found not just in terms of the theme that they are addressing to but also in their merit to conform to the presence of certain meta-ethical issues in the study of normativity. One of the most pressing issues that seems to have occupied the attention of everyone in this collection is the tension between what can be preached and what can or cannot be practised in reality. The issue that certain things are good in theory but do not work in the real world situation is, however, not new. Kant had to face a gentleman called Grave who constantly criticized his theory on this ground and later on made him concede that a theory merely provides us rules but it cannot always tell us how to apply them in practice (Guyer, 2010). The Jainas, who maintain that one should never harm a living creature irrespective of its size, often encounter this challenge in their philosophy. Even though the Jaina munis are required to carry broom to clean the ground before walking ahead in order to avoid killing of small creatures beneath their feet, strictly speaking they would not be able to meet the strict demand of the ethics of non-violence. So the crucial question is how to bridge this gap? What is it about norms and values that constantly makes us aware of this gap? Perhaps the nature of normativity is such that we can hardly meet them in the real world situation. Plato was quite right in understanding values as austere forms. For him, particular things or practices can at best mimic the forms but they can never achieve their real status. In the Phaedo, Socrates asks an interesting question: why do we say that the sticks are not exactly equal? Rather than seeing two sticks, lying side by side just like the way they are, we generally see them as if they were aiming at achieving what they are presently not. We feel as if there was a pattern a pattern of equality which they were trying to emulate. The peculiarity of the human mind is that it can discover the ideal of equality while observing the sticks together. Plato calls such things forms, the inhabitants of a transcendental world. When we talk about the alleged gap between values and intended human actions, perhaps we tend to invoke the same world and its apparent distinction with the sensory world which we populate. Another important meta-issue that attracts the attention of the authors is moral authority and relativism. The question of who has the ultimate authority about moral truths and assertions who knows what is good, what is permissible and what is not is something that acutely concerns us in the domain of morality. If there are objective moral truths or propositions that can be justified with true beliefs, then it is obvious that the question of moral authority cannot be avoided as easily as one may like to. But what do we mean by moral authority? Can we think of an individual or institution who could authoritatively suggest what is right or virtuous? It is argued that unlike authorities of other domains such as sciences and creative arts, moral matters are too delicate to be left with at somebody s discretion. Individual human beings cannot be coerced to follow other s decision. They should be left to decide on their own what is right and wrong. But does this mean that there can be no authority at all insofar as moral knowledge is concerned? Perhaps not. When we think of an authority, it does not necessarily refer to the presence of any infallible knowledge. Knowledge of a scientist in a given field of research does not guarantee infallibility (Benn, 1998). Many a times the experts do go wrong in explaining scientific truths. And this is a recognizable fact in our intellectual discourse. Similarly, on moral matters, experts can also go wrong. They may get crucial moral matters incorrect. Like the experts of sciences, some moral philosophical explanations can come closer to moral truths while others cannot. Thus, it means the concern of there being an authority in morality is not really related to the necessity of there being infallible moral knowledge. The concern seems to emerge from the demanding nature of normativity found in the structure of moral knowledge. If moral knowledge can be entertained and disseminated to

4 x Journal of Human Values 25(1) people without being didactic about them, then there is nothing problematic about the idea of moral authority or expertise. The essays in this collection cover a wide range of things. Starting with serious meta-ethical issues involving institutions of law and politics, the essays delve deeper into the nuanced understanding of classical concepts and critiques of values to analysing the issue of how certain values are actually being preached and practised in the context where technology plays a crucial role. The first essay by S. Swaminathan engages in a philosophically fertile debate between cognitivist and non-cognitivist interpretations of the bindingness of law. The cognitivist picture of morality suggests that normativity or bindingness of law is a function of the objective moral standards. It claims that if normativity is left to the subjective assessment of individual beings, the system of morality would come down crashing. Swaminathan here aims to defend a projectivist model of normativity of law a model that interprets the bindingness of law as the motivational pull. Instead of going with a sword against the popular cognitivist understanding, as the author puts it, the essay chooses to prepare a shield for an unpopular non-cognitivist position. The biggest takeaway of the essay lies in its suggestion that emotional attitudes and feelings, along with other neglected elements of human subjectivity, can and do play a significant role in defining the contours of the moral normativity. The second essay is on the Nietzschean concept of trans-valuation or revaluation of values. The author, Aakash Singh Rathore, here puts up a strong case for the unity of physical and cognitive virtues by going against the received understanding of virtues. Taking the sculpture of Rodin s The Thinker as the case in point as the symbol of the unity of bodily and cognitive virtues, Rathore makes an adventurous attempt to show the significance of Nietzsche s call for trans-valuation of values. Continuing with this critical approach, the third essay by Ankur Barua furthers the discussion by analytically engaging in a particular debate between Gandhi and Ambedkar. The debate is over the concepts of caste and varṇa in the Indian society. Appreciating the significance of the reformist and revisionist project of both Gandhi and Ambedkar, the author highlights their difference of opinion with respect to the kind of polity that they wanted to invoke for social reconstruction. For Ambedkar, the author thinks, the vocabulary of varṇa is hopelessly corrupt and there is no scope for its employment in newer social imagination regardless of how innovatively we tend to construe it. Contrary to this, Gandhi remains optimistic with the ideal of varṇa. He thinks that through an employment of an ideal concept of varṇa, we could achieve a society which is free from conflict, antagonism and discord among different units of the society. Baruah s essay is innovatively intriguing, for it strikes an uncanny balance between the two distinctive projects of rearranging the structure of modern Indian society. After these crucial classical deliberations, Amir Ali s essay, which is the fourth in line, gives us a breadth of fresh air as it takes us to the contemporary political discourse of values. Ali s main aim is to make us aware of the kind of crises that we confront with respect to the value of diversity in the today s world. He makes an illuminating distinction between diversity and difference in order to suggest that the value of difference is now a greater challenge to the democratic ethos of the twenty-first century s political world. Ali s cautious analysis of diversity is a timely concern for the lacunas present in the contemporary liberal political theorizations. The last essay is a joint venture of Vishwambar Nath Prajapati and Saradindu Bhaduri. Their essay empirically probes the status of our changing values with respect to disposing the deceased. This article closely examines the interface between the current of cremation technologies and the value systems surrounding them. The authors mainly focus on the cases of Europe and India. They raise and respond to a number of pertinent questions involving the normative dimensions of cremation technologies. Their findings are an important addition to the practical investigation of the normativity of morality. These five essays, along with the reviews of three fantastic latest books in this area, are a modest attempt to open up a new form of dialogue on norms, values and human contingencies. Although their discussions and suggestions remain inconclusive, taken as a whole, they seem to be quite right in arriving

5 xi at the threshold point of comprehensiveness. In this respect, each essay can be treated as a passionate invitation to furthering in-depth deliberation on the concerned themes. They hold the promise of analytically synthesizing, both individually and collectively, certain neglected aspects of the normative core of our moral life. But how and in what sense they have been successful in their attempts is something that needs to be left to the readers to decide. If after reading them the reader is motivated enough to take up these issues for further exploration, they have aptly made their mark in their respective area. References Benn, P. (1998). Ethics. New York, NY: Routledge. Brennan, M. B. G., & Southwood, R. E. G. N. (Eds.). (2010). Norms and values: The role of social norms as instruments of value realization. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. Dancy, J. (Ed.). (2000). Normativity. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. Guyer, P. (Ed.). (2010). The Cambridge companion to the critique of pure reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, C. M. (1996). The sources of normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pettit, P. (1990). Virtus normativa: Rational choice perspectives. Ethics, 100(4),

What counts as a convincing scientific argument? Are the standards for such evaluation

What counts as a convincing scientific argument? Are the standards for such evaluation Cogent Science in Context: The Science Wars, Argumentation Theory, and Habermas. By William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Pp. 355. Cloth, $40. Paper, $20. Jeffrey Flynn Fordham University Published