The Normativity Challenge (for Morality, Structural Rationality, and Fit)

The Normativity Challenge holds that certain norms that we might take to be robustly normative are only generically normative. This challenge has been raised about norms of morality, structural rationality, and fit, among others. This paper addresses this challenge by developing a new test for robust normativity. On this ‘metaethics test’, robust normativity is, very roughly, the normativity which raises central questions of metaethics – it is normativity that seems stance-independent, sui generis, and armchair accessible. I argue that this test supports a presumption that norms of morality, structural rationality, and fit are robustly normative. This presumption is not undermined by the more familiar ‘reasons test’, on which robust normativity is that which implies normative reasons. My discussion has more general upshots for theorising about robust normativity, which I touch upon in closing.