Title: Oughts without reasons: a defence of primitive normativity
Abstract: Many philosophers understand the notion of normativity in terms of the notions of reasons or rationality. Talk of what we ought to do, on this conception, is equivalent to talk of what we have reason to do, or what is rational to do. I argue against this conception by appealing to what I call “primitive normativity”: a kind of normativity whose recognition does not depend on antecedent grasp of rules or on the recognition of reasons. I motivate the idea of primitive normativity by considering both language-learning and concept-acquisition in small children and Wittgenstein's discussion of "knowing how to go on" in one's use of a word. I argue that, for both adults and children, grasp of concepts and, a fortiori, grasp of reasons depends on this form of normativity. This speaks against the view that normativity as such is essentially a matter of reasons.