Norms, Reasons and Values

Norms are motivational drivers, aligning people's behaviour with the reasons and values it is socially supposed to serve. How norms accomplish or fail that task, and how they adapt or fail to adapt to new circumstances, is the subject of this project. It explores the fundamental nature of norms at a meta-level and, in its applications, suggests how to achieve a better fit between norms, reasons and values in the changing circumstances surrounding democracy, security against terrorism, historical justice, sexuality and belief formation. Drawing on resources of analytical philosophy, evolutionary economics, empirical political science, social psychology and sociology, the project offers a deeply multidisciplinary response to that problem.