Norms and values can be cognitively examined, unlike bare preferences
Evidence
Political discourses deal not only with the truth of descriptive propositions but also with validity claims that we associate with normative and evaluative propositions. Thus the justice of a legal norm can be examined from the moral viewpoint by asking, with regard to a matter in need of regulation, whether it is ‘equally good’ for all concerned; here a principle of universalization comes into play. The members of a political community can, furthermore, examine a decision between competing values by asking which of these values is preferable in the light of the ethos of the community’s shared form of life. By contrast, preferences as such are not in need of justification, because such first-person statements are authorized by each individual’s privileged access to her own desires. Problems of justice are understood as a cognitive task, whereas decisions concerning the priority of some values over others can be regarded as calling for a process of rationally motivated will formation that is in part cognitive and in part volitional. In each case, the participants’ orientation to reaching a consensus follows from the meaning of the respective issues. Unlike preferences, norms and values never concern only a single person. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 61
Categorization
- DEFINE: Lays out the three-tier model — norms (moral universalization), values (ethos-grounded), preferences (first-person, unjustifiable) — the backbone of discourse ethics.
- XREF: connects to: Normative reasons reshape preferences as much as factual information does — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 60; Cognitive accessibility can measure morality shifting indirectly via lexical decision tasks. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2132; The term normative conflates two distinct kinds of evaluation. — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 502 (+1 more)
Related
Broader Connections
- Cognitive accessibility can measure morality shifting indirectly via lexical decision tasks.
#expands(0.82) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2132 - The term normative conflates two distinct kinds of evaluation.
#complicates(0.75) — Philip Chase Bobbitt, Reflections Inspired by My Critics, 502 - Sacred values are inviolable in conviction yet flexible in application due to interpretive ambiguity
#qualifies(0.72) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 549