The Generality of Normative Thought

Abstract

What is it to think a generic normative thought of the form “Human beings should exercise regularly” or “Human beings must keep promises”? I argue that although such thoughts resemble, in different respects, intentions and evaluative beliefs, they are not, first and foremost, either of those types of states. They instead have a different temporal profile of a settled disposition of the will which grounds specific intentions to acts and specific evaluative beliefs when the subject is in the relevant circumstances for either. Such states provide for a distinct type of practical irrationality, which explains the resemblance to intentions. We also can form evaluative beliefs through reflection on those settled dispositions, which explains how they are the basis for types of a distinct type of evaluative belief.