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We now have an account of how some generic propositions are normative on account of their logical form. This has finally made good on the promise of chapters 2 and 3, of finding an account of constitutive norms that can meet the constitutivity and broad normativity conditions. We can now say that the generic analysis of constitutive norms provides such an account. We’ve already seen in the Chapter 3 that the generic account meets the constitutivity condition and avoids the violability

challenge to broad normativity, and we have just established in full the broad normativity of absolute generic propositions. This section will examine several consequences for any metaethics founded on this basis and for constitutivism in particular.

To begin with, we can now better justify logical Footianism on behalf of the neo-Aristotelians. We have just articulated a rationale for the basic claims of this approach. Recall that logical Footianism holds that generic propositions about living things establish a norm with respect to which the parts, operations and environment of members of the species may be evaluated. This is a standard of what Foot calls ‘natural goodness’. Foot does note that some generic propositions (‘Aristotelian categoricals’ in her terminology) are ‘teleological’ and that these are the normative ones. But she does not give an account of why some generics are teleological and how this grounds normativity without importing norms from elsewhere. The account given in this chapter fills in that story.

Having filled in this missing argument for neo-Aristotelianism, we also have reason to think that any attempt to derive normativity from generics will have to do it by way of logical Footianism. This includes our account of constitutive norms in terms of generics. This means constitutivism will also be committed to a controversial feature of logical Footianism that the argument of this paper has shown to be necessary, namely, its life form relativity. This account of normativity makes norms life form relative, as there can be no norms outside the facts about what is normal for a particular life form. Absolute GPs possess normativity in virtue of their integration into a teleological system. This means there cannot be any “free-standing” norms outside of such a system and for any particular norm, it must be possible to specify the teleological system of which it is a part. To put it another way, normative language cannot properly be applied to a feature of a kind that does not play a normal role in the self-maintenance of that kind. Such a feature can be described with relative GPs at best, which we have seen are not normative. So, a relevant self-maintaining kind must be able to be specified if there is to be normativity and a self-maintaining kind is a life form, as we have seen.

Let us call a constitutivism founded on natural normativity via the generic account of constitutive norms NN-Constitutivism. Something that NN-Constitutivism will have to face is the various objections leveled at neo-Aristotelianism. For instance, William Fitzpatrick (2000) objects that closely associating biological functions with what is good, as neo-Aristotelianism does, is scientifically and intuitively untenable. Constitutivism will now be open to this charge too. On the other side of the equation, constitutivism will also stand to benefit from arguments made in favor of neo-Aristotelianism. For instance, Micah Lott provides what I take to be a sufficient rebuttal of Fitzpatrick (Lott 2012a).

NN-Constitutivism is so far limited only to the biological realm. It does not yet give us a constitutivist account of the norms of morality or rationality, which is our ultimate target. In other words, we have shown how constitutive norms can be normative in the broad sense of providing some evaluative standards and directive norms, but not in the narrow sense of providing reasons, or being authoritative for an agent. This is one of the main goals of constitutivism: to provide an account of rational or moral norms. We are also missing an account of constitutive norms of artifacts and social practices. In Chapter 5, I will show how the account of constitutive norms given in this chapter can be developed into a properly practical constitutivism which accounts for norms in the narrow sense. We will also be able to explore the consequences of life form relativity for norms of rational agency. As for artifacts and practices, since these are things that rational agents make or do an account of their norms will once again have to postponed as something downstream of an account of rational norms in general.

In conclusion, this chapter has presented a crucial step in an argument for either constitutivism or neo-Aristotelianism: the derivation of broad normativity from generic propositions. While the task of establishing their strict normativity is a separate step, it depends on the success of this one, and each of these schools of thought will now be able to avail themselves of the innovations of the other and proceed in tandem.