"The Psychology of Normativity"

I offer a naturalistic account of the source and nature of normativity. My account has four main features. First, I offer a purely psychologistic account of what I call the capacity for normativity. Second I argue that in all likelihood this psychological capacity for normativity is an evolved capacity, designed by natural selection, that makes possible the existence of normative communities among human beings. Third I argue that, even if the capacity for normativity is not the result of selection, we can still see that it is through, and only through, the exercise of the psychological capacity that human beings constitute normative communities of varying scope and duration. Finally, I argue that this psychologistic naturalistic account of the capacity for normativity explains the contingent and typically merely partial character of normative communities. Moreover, it opens the way for a more systematic exploration of the causal factors governing the growth and decay of normative community over historical rather than evolutionary time.