Normativity, Function & Supervenience
A collection of pages around the paper "Normativity, Function, and the Limits of Physicalist Supervenience."
Pages in this folder
| Page | Audience | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Full submission draft | Academic | Complete 7-section paper with abstract, all arguments, references (~6,400 words) |
| Paper analysis | Informed readers | Summary of the argument with critical assessment and identified weaknesses |
| Layman's explainer | Anyone curious | What is a heart for? Accessible introduction with analogies |
| Stress-test & analysis | Philosophers | Rigorous critique: objections, gaps, overall verdict and scorecard |
The Argument in One Paragraph
Biology talks about functions — the heart's function is to pump blood, not to make sounds (even though it does both). That functional talk is normative: it implies a standard of success and the possibility of failure (malfunction). Standard physicalism says these functional facts are fully grounded in physical and evolutionary history. This paper argues that's wrong: physical history records all a trait's effects equally, and selecting one as "the function" requires an evaluative judgment that physical facts simply can't supply. The selected-effects theory — the best available physicalist response — is shown to presuppose rather than explain the normativity it was meant to naturalize. Biostatistical and causal-role theories fail for related but distinct reasons. The conclusion: physicalists must choose between eliminativism about function or accepting irreducible normativity.
Target Venues
- Biology & Philosophy
- Philosophical Studies
- Synthese
- Australasian Journal of Philosophy