Normativity reduces and why being wrong makes you a bad person

last edited 2024-11-05

The distinction between normative and non-normative is referenced often by good philosophers, including me. There's plenty of reason for the distinction. But surprisingly, *all normative statements can be expressed as non-normative ones*: "X is morally right" = "if one is in this situation, one's conscience will say to do X". (Note that this isn't as specific to my metaphysics as it might sound. Equivalent things could be said for most ethical frameworks, as well as for non-moral kinds of normativity.)

How ethical reasoning works

But this raises a question: if there's no true separation between normative and non-normative truths, why does being wrong about ethics make someone a bad person? Of course, most errors about ethics are not sincere reasoning errors, but irrationality is not a big enough sin to warrant how I treat people who have evil political views.

The answer is that when someone says something like "XYZ drug should be illegal", they're not expressing a belief that their conscience would approve of imprisoning someone for smoking a leaf. They don't think about conscience at all. They're telling you about a choice of allegiance, and more importantly, they are choosing to *strengthen* this allegiance by creating this state of mind and telling you about it. This *choice of allegiance* is not some specter I have conjured out of the ether of language, but a concrete thing with concrete consequences:

If it's about politics, they may vote on it, which is a form of acting on it.

They will encourage other people to act or vote on it.

They are more likely to make friends with others who make the same choice of allegiance and separate from those who don't, causing those who do to gain more social power.

Especially dangerous if they have children to indoctrinate.

Less consequential but more disturbing: they will not feel sympathy for the victims of this injustice nor anger at its perpetrators.

This is like intention.

Notes on choice and intention

When you live in a society, there is no true such thing as a choice that doesn't affect others. This is why being wrong about ethics makes you a bad person, despite it being theoretically a non-normative proposition.