Social Normativity and Social Reasons

In each case, there is a social role—mother, student, teacher, soldier—and a normative concept—ought, should, can, cannot. The social role tells us what individuals qua occupiers of the relevant social position are required or permitted to do To say that mothers ought to care for their children is to impose a certain requirement or obligation on mothers specifically. Similarly, saying that students should do their homework, independently of other contextual features, suggests there is a connection between the obligations of students and their social roles. When one says that teachers can learn from students, and that soldiers cannot be afraid to die, one is not describing metaphysical possibilities or impossibilities; rather, one is characterizing what is permitted or forbidden in light of the roles of being a teacher and soldier. Social role normativity has been the subject of much recent social ontology. Sally Haslanger writes about the ways that social role normativity characterizes gender roles.1 Åsa Burman describes social role normativity in the context of what she calls telic power, the power that comes from living up to a social ideal.2 Laura Valentini explores the moral force of socially constructed norms, where many of these norms appear to be social role norms.3 Charlotte Witt gives a book-length account of the normativity of social norms, crucially appealing to (and naming) social role normativity.4 In her recent book, Witt has sought to give an account of the source of social role normativity. What is responsible for the binding force of social role norms? She contrasts two answers. The internalist believes that social role normativity is derived from facts about what an individual prefers or believes. In contrast, the externalist takes social role normativity to exist independently of the preferences and beliefs of individuals. Witt argues that internalism cannot make sense of cases where an individual is governed by a social role norm yet refuses to recognize it. For this reason, she defends an externalist theory of social role normativity. Specifically, Witt takes the normativity of social role norms to be intrinsic to the activity or work involved in the exercise of skill. I call this view Aristotelian externalism. In this paper, I argue against Aristotelian externalism and provide another externalist alternative. Aristotelian externalism cannot explain the fact that social role norms systematically co-vary with (or supervene upon) facts about our valuing practices. It is hard to imagine social role norms that no agents know about or value, but this is a possibility allowed by Aristotelian externalism. I suggest that we cannot make social role normativity intelligible without identifying an agential source of value. That said, I agree with Witt that individuals are not the appropriate source of value. For these reasons, I defend social perspective externalism, the view that social role normativity depends on the perspective of a group agent. Social perspective externalism has the theoretical benefits of Aristotelian externalism without the downsides. Like Aristotelian externalism, social externalism implies that whether an individual is governed by a social role norm does not depend on facts about what that individual prefers or believes. Unlike Aristotelian externalism, social externalism says that the source of social role normativity is located in a relatively straightforward place—the perspective of a social group. I will proceed as follows: In Section 2, I reconstruct and motivate Witt's Aristotelian externalism. In Section 3, I argue that Aristotelian externalism fails to adequately predict or explain the fact that social role norms depend on our values. In Section 4, I present social perspective externalism as a positive alternative to Aristotelian externalism. The most detailed account of social role normativity has been presented by Charlotte Witt in her book Social Goodness. Whatever one's disagreements with the content of the book, it provides a useful starting point for understanding social role normativity. For this reason, I will summarize Witt's view. Social roles are best viewed as techniques and expertise attached to social positions, and their normativity is grounded in the functions or work they enact. Being a carpenter is a social position that includes mastery of a technique that constitutes expertise (involving tools, materials, and others) that is evaluable in relation to the function of making things out of wood.5 Given the techniques and expertise associated with the role, we can evaluate whether an individual is doing what they ought to do, given the social role. This is ultimately how social normativity is accounted for. Techniques, on the artisanal model, are essentially shared ways of acting and performing. The techniques associated with a social role are those that are characteristic of the social role. Carpenters have shared techniques that enable them to build homes and furniture. Cooks have shared techniques that allow them to cook tasty food. Expertise refers to what happens when technical mastery is accomplished by an individual. A cook becomes an expert cook when they have practical knowledge of the techniques characteristic of cooking. Expertise, on this view, includes both knowing how to do something and knowing why something is done. She gives the example of a baker who knows how to frost a cake and also knows why it should be frosted in a particular way.6 Techniques and expertise are both normatively assessable. Techniques can be better or worse for the social role at hand. There are better and worse ways to build a house. There are better and worse ways to be a mother. Expertise is a matter of being sensitive to better and worse ways to perform one's social role. This leads us to the primary question of this paper: what is the source of social role normativity? In other words: what is responsible for the normative force of the “ought” in “Mothers ought to care for their children”? Witt briefly considers, and rejects, the idea that these normative requirements reduce to prudential or moral normativity. Consider the idea that students ought to do their homework. This is not necessarily a prudential obligation, because there will be cases in which students should do something other than their homework. It is also not a moral obligation; only a strange sort of ethical theory would make homework a moral requirement. Not only do social role norms fail to be moral, but they may even be counter to morality. Thieves ought not get caught. This is clearly not a moral “ought,” but it does seem to flow from the social role of being a thief. Of course, Witt gives a more in-depth argument against prudential and moral reductions of social role normativity. I will not repeat that argument here. Instead, I will that there is a of social normativity that cannot be to moral or prudential this is is the source of social role normativity? It is to that social role normativity depends on the of individual internalism be the view that the normativity of a social role norm is grounded in facts about the preferences or beliefs of individuals. 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