The Normative Significance of Pragmatic Genealogies

Abstract

This chapter examines how pragmatic genealogy can affect the space of reasons by addressing four objections to this idea: normatively ambitious genealogies commit the genetic fallacy; if not, they founder on failures of continuity in the conditions securing their normative import; if not, this must be because they deal with universal needs, which severely restricts their explanatory scope; and what counts as a need is anyway eagerly contested. In answering these objections, the chapter shows two ways around the genetic fallacy and addresses the problem of Rortyan irony; it offers a need-satisfaction account of functions or pointfulness and discusses the strategies by which genealogies can secure continuity; it shows that the method is not restricted to explaining anthropological universals and that the state of nature can also be used to model local problems; finally, it explores how genealogies help us navigate contestations of certain needs and conceptions of human agents.