The Challenge of Normativity: An Examination of Three Minimal Models

For a number of perspectives in cognitive science and philosophy, a naturalistic account of normativity has become essential to understanding the capacity for adaptive behavior characteristic of living things. In support of this goal, in this article we work toward a definition of the minimal conditions for normatively guided behavior. We begin with the proposal that normative guidance requires the capacity to discriminate and respond to local differences of favorability so that behavior effectively follows a “value gradient.” The challenge of normativity, therefore, is to understand how this capacity could emerge in a primitive lifeform without consciousness or representational machinery. To clarify this challenge, we examine three minimal models that purportedly describe or exhibit a basic form of normative behavior: (1) the autopoietic model of enactive theory; (2) the thermodynamic model of ecological psychology; and (3) the autogen model of Terrence Deacon. A comparison of the relative strengths and weaknesses of these models leads to the suggestion that a minimal form of norm-following can be achieved by an entity that appropriates preexisting gradients as “proxies” for value, provided that this appropriation is genuinely self-directed or autonomous.