Norms As Beliefs

Abstract

As was anticipated in Chapter 5, a norm is, on my view, a motive of behaviour: It is the belief (opinio vinculi) that a certain type of action must be performed, in the normative sense of this word, anytime a relevant type of circumstance gets validly instantiated. This must unconditionally be so, regardless of any good or bad consequences that may stem from the performance in question. My concept of norm is deontologically oriented. It presupposes that the believer consciously or unconsciously ascribes a normative character to the deontic modalities (obligatory, permitted, and forbidden) set forth in the norms he or she believes in: What this person believes to be objectively right is the type of action qualified as obligatory, permitted, or forbidden in the norm under the conditions specified in the type of circumstance the type of action is connected with in the norm.¹

Deontic modalities are standardly taken to be interdefinable; I will therefore confine myself—in the definiens of my characterisation of “norm”—to setting down the expression “ought to be (or must be) performed.”