PPE online colloquium January 27: Laura Valentini (Munich), Normative Powers and Social Practices
Groningen PPE Centre
Colloquium: Wednesday, January 27, 15.15 - 17.00
Joining
If you wish to join, please send an email to Frank Hindriks to receive the login details.
Normative Powers and Social Practices
Normative powers have been the subject of complex debates in philosophy. There are rich literatures on, e.g., consent, authority, promising, and forgiveness, to name a few. Yet, there is relatively little discussion of normative powers as such, as a general category. My aim in this paper is to fill this gap. Specifically, the paper’s intended contribution is twofold: conceptual (concerning the definition of such powers) and ontological (concerning the existence conditions of such powers). On the conceptual side, I offer a general definition of normative powers—be they legal, conventional, or moral—one that I believe better captures the relevant phenomenon than alternative definitions found in the literature. On the ontological side, I argue that normative powers, including moral powers, cannot exist in the absence of social practices. Social practices conferring them on individuals are necessary existence conditions of those powers.
