The normative animal? : on the anthropological significance of social, moral, and linguistic norms /

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Bibliographic Details
Imprint:New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]
Description:x, 380 pages ; 25 cm.
Language:English
Series:Foundations of human interaction
Foundations of human interaction.
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11906158
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Varying Form of Title:On the anthropological significance of social, moral, and linguistic norms
Other authors / contributors:Roughley, Neil, editor.
Bayertz, Kurt, editor.
ISBN:9780190846466
0190846461
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Summary:It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions and prohibitions. And, if this is so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behaviour that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form.0This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms-social, moral, and linguistic-and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioural biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have0collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research.
Other form:Online version: Normative animal? New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] 9780190846473
Table of Contents:
  • Foreword
  • List of Contributors
  • Part I. Introductory
  • 1. Might We Be Essentially Normative Animals?
  • 2. On Social, Moral, and Linguistic Norms: The Contributions to This Volume
  • Part II. Social Norms
  • 3. There Ought to Be Roots: Evolutionary Precursors of Social Norms and Conventions in Non-Human Primates
  • 4. On the Human Addiction to Norms: Social Norms and Cultural Universals of Normativity
  • 5. On the Identification and Analysis of Social Norms and the Heuristic Relevance of Deviant Behaviour
  • 6. On the Uniqueness of Human Normative Attitudes
  • Part III. Moral Norms
  • 7. The Evolution of Human Normativity: The Role of Prosociality and Reputation Management
  • 8. The Emergence of Moral Nonnativity
  • 9. Joint Activities and Moral Obligation
  • 10. The Development of Domains of Moral and Conventional Norms, Coordination in Decision-Making, and the Implications of Social Opposition
  • 11. Moral Obligation from the Outside In
  • Part IV. Linguistic Norms?
  • 12. Language Evolution and Linguistic Norms
  • 13. The Normative Nature of Language
  • 14. Can There Be Linguistic Norms?
  • 15. The Normativity of Meaning Revisited
  • Part V. Afterword
  • 16. Normative Guidance, Deontic Statuses, and the Normative Animal Thesis
  • References
  • Name Index
  • Subject Index