HOW FACTS BECOME NORMS (PART I)

Abstract

I argue that it is possible to derive norms from facts. First of all, I refute the suggestion (shared by external moral realists and social scientists) that there are no norms but only facts, and consequently the derivation is of no scientific interest. In the second step, I will focus on theories which proclaim that norms can be derived only from specially qualified facts, e.g. institutional facts. I maintain that these theories are tenable only under condition that the special qualifier of norm-producing facts can be described in non-normative terms and I suggest that this condition is met when the qualifier is described as “permanent human behaviour”.