HOW FACTS BECOME NORMS (PART II)
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Abstract
I argue that it is possible to derive norms from facts. In this second part of my enterprise I suggest that permanent human behaviour as a matter of fact produces norms as a matter of ought. I proceed to defend this suggestion in two steps. Firstly, I use Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance applied in the particular context of judicial decision-making to demonstrate how our behaviour changes our normative
attitudes. Subsequently, I try to prove that normative attitudes which stem from settled inferential practice can be understood as “the genuine ought”. The objectivity of normativity is thus not a matter of reference, but a matter of inference and the meaning of our ought-terms is nothing else but the sum of practical conclusions they usually lead to.
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