Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (5):251-252 (2011)
Abstract |
We propose a critique of normativism, defined as the idea that human thinking reflects a normative system against which it
should be measured and judged. We analyze the methodological problems associated with normativism, proposing that it invites the
controversial “is-ought” inference, much contested in the philosophical literature. This problem is triggered when there are
competing normative accounts (the arbitration problem), as empirical evidence can help arbitrate between descriptive theories, but
not between normative systems. Drawing on linguistics as a model, we propose that a clear distinction between normative systems
and competence theories is essential, arguing that equating them invites an “is-ought” inference: to wit, supporting normative
“ought” theories with empirical “is” evidence. We analyze in detail two research programmes with normativist features – Oaksford
and Chater’s rational analysis and Stanovich and West’s individual differences approach – demonstrating how, in each case,
equating norm and competence leads to an is-ought inference. Normativism triggers a host of research biases in the psychology of
reasoning and decision making: focusing on untrained participants and novel problems, analyzing psychological processes in terms
of their normative correlates, and neglecting philosophically significant paradigms when they do not supply clear standards for
normative judgement. For example, in a dual-process framework, normativism can lead to a fallacious “ought-is” inference, in
which normative responses are taken as diagnostic of analytic reasoning. We propose that little can be gained from normativism
that cannot be achieved by descriptivist computational-level analysis, illustrating our position with Hypothetical Thinking Theory
and the theory of the suppositional conditional. We conclude that descriptivism is a viable option, and that theories of higher
mental processing would be better off freed from normative considerations.
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Keywords | Bayesianism competence computational-level analysis descriptivism is-ought inference logicism normative systems normativism rational analysis rationality research bias understanding/acceptance principle |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1017/s0140525x1100001x |
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References found in this work BETA
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism.Ruth Garrett Millikan - 1984 - MIT Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Troubles with Bayesianism: An Introduction to the Psychological Immune System.Eric Mandelbaum - 2019 - Mind and Language 34 (2):141-157.
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Can Quantum Probability Provide a New Direction for Cognitive Modeling?Emmanuel M. Pothos & Jerome R. Busemeyer - 2013 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (3):255-274.
Reflections on Reflection: The Nature and Function of Type 2 Processes in Dual-Process Theories of Reasoning.Jonathan St B. T. Evans - 2019 - Thinking and Reasoning 25 (4):383-415.
A Dialogical, Multi‐Agent Account of the Normativity of Logic.Catarina Dutilh Novaes - 2015 - Dialectica 69 (4):587-609.
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