Normative

The term standard (Latin for " square, guideline, rule" ) is ambiguous. The adjective normative is only used for a portion of the meanings of the term standard:

• Standard as a system of values ​​within a society, social norm
• Standards as ethical values ​​and standards, see standard ethics
• Norm as a legal regulation, rule of law

Between these three areas, there are overlaps and correlations. All three standard ranges imply rules, an should and / or need.

Normativity is a common concept in many fields, which is used, inter alia, in philosophy, in law and in the cultural and social sciences. There are two broad categories of thoughts (eg, theories ), namely descriptive (descriptive ) and normative. This duality is concerned, among other things, the philosophy of science.

Some research approaches a name component is normative (eg, normative- ontological approaches).

In the jurisprudence of the term has several meanings.

Philosophy

Philosophical normativity indicates how something should be (English: ought ). Normative opposite as the description for theories and concepts in philosophy usually the descriptive attribute ( descriptive ). Descriptive statements are propositions about reality and can be checked and possibly also refuted ( falsification ). Normative sentences specify how something is supposed to be, so how something is to be evaluated. In moral philosophy, for example, normative clarified whether something is good or bad or what actions are morally required.

Only in the 18th century David Hume pointed out that there is this logical distinction between evaluative and descriptive sentences ( Hume's Law). Various schools of philosophy concerned with the question of the rationality and objective justifiability of normative sentences. While approaches such as those of Plato, Aristotle and Kant to Habermas out of this option shall deny, among other empirical- analytic working schools (eg, logical empiricism ).

Distinction must be made, especially if the term is used in the context of normative theories, between normative theories and teleological theories. In contrast to teleological theories normative sciences do not try to justify the actual predetermination of a standard or a goal in itself. So Normative theories put a hypothetical norm as given ahead without justifying yourself why you should follow this standard. However, normative theories describe, for example, what conditions must be met or what actions need to be accomplished in order to meet a specific standard can. In this respect, normative theories are self- descriptive. The philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel expresses this fact as follows:

" What is called normative science, is actually only the science of normative. They even normalized nothing, but it explains only standards and their relationships, because science always asks only causally, not teleological, and standards and purposes can probably as good as anything else form the subject of their investigation, but not its own essence. "

Legal

In the jurisprudence two basic meanings are to be distinguished:

First, the adjective refers to the normative rule of law, ie, a measure of a carrier of official authority that an abstract state of affairs in general, ie for a large number of recipients outside of the carrier itself ( visibility ), governs. Thus, normative acts are in corporate law legal provisions that regulate the content of the statutes and legal persons in the labor law, the content of a collective agreement relating to the working conditions of wage -linked as opposed to blame regulations.

Above all, however, a distinction is normative and descriptive constituent elements within legal norms. Their meaning must be completed by judgmental interpretation. This includes, for example, the term alien in § 242 of the Penal Code or good faith in § 242 of the Civil Code.

Social sciences

In the social sciences normatively describes the part of the social and cultural structures that regulates the human social activities. Despite the existence of rule violations (eg crimes in legal norms ), these social norms lead to a homogeneous, relatively stable social order.

In sociology, social behavior is referred to a legislative actions intended to do something socially acceptable to normalize it virtually.

Social psychology explores the normative social influence, those influence exerted by groups on the behavior of individuals, because they do not want to attract negative attention by breach of group norms.