The Fragmentation of Authoritative Normativity

Abstract

Abstract A prominent theme in recent work in metaethics has been an increasingly explicit focus on normativity. Much of this work has been focused on “authoritative” or “robust” normativity: put roughly, the kind of normativity, that, were it to exist, would settle what agents “really and truly” or “genuinely” should do (or think, feel, etc.). This chapter explores the idea that thought and talk about authoritative normativity is discordant in the following sense: (i) there are multiple, equally optimally apt candidate notions of “authoritativeness”, and (ii) the norms picked out by different optimally apt candidates for “authoritativeness” can conflict with each other. We think that this thesis is important, and deserves sustained attention. To encourage such attention, we offer a prima facie argument for it, and explore its significance for work in metaethics, and for metanormative inquiry more broadly construed.