Normative claims describe desired world states. To the extent they are coherent and possible, they cannot be argued against. They are merely a shape the world could be. Descriptive statements make neutral claims about features of the world. Toy examples of each mistake:
“Having no legs is not good; I bet that crippled man has invisible legs.”
“That crippled man has no legs; this must be the way of things and so just and right”
In practice, this tends to be done with themes and processes and not at such a crude, silly level. The stereotypical reactionary might identify selective processes, themselves, as ends. The stereotypical liberal might pretend selective processes don’t exist. The reactionary may be right about his values, and then is not making a mistake here. But in many cases I think they are confusing the descriptive for the normative and do not value what they think they value.
At a societal scale, the descriptive is usually the normative, just hidden away in billions of interacting preferences. The reactionary confuses this agglomerated good with their own which is bad if they ever want to change it to align more closely with their own, but they don’t, because they prefer being stupid and making this mistake. It is also good from a stability perspective for most people to be biased towards this kind of mistake, as the individual good becomes subservient to the common good.
“Having no legs is not good; I bet the crippled man has metaphorical legs to stand upon,” said the revolutionary as he crawled up the steps to the capital building, inconveniencing the rest of society for his greater cause.
“That crippled man has no legs; this must be the way of things and so just and right,” said the cripple, and no longer complained.
Normative claims describe desired world states. To the extent they are coherent and possible, they cannot be argued against. They are merely a shape the world could be. Descriptive statements make neutral claims about features of the world. Toy examples of each mistake:
“Having no legs is not good; I bet that crippled man has invisible legs.”
“That crippled man has no legs; this must be the way of things and so just and right”
In practice, this tends to be done with themes and processes and not at such a crude, silly level. The stereotypical reactionary might identify selective processes, themselves, as ends. The stereotypical liberal might pretend selective processes don’t exist. The reactionary may be right about his values, and then is not making a mistake here. But in many cases I think they are confusing the descriptive for the normative and do not value what they think they value.
At a societal scale, the descriptive is usually the normative, just hidden away in billions of interacting preferences. The reactionary confuses this agglomerated good with their own which is bad if they ever want to change it to align more closely with their own, but they don’t, because they prefer being stupid and making this mistake. It is also good from a stability perspective for most people to be biased towards this kind of mistake, as the individual good becomes subservient to the common good.
“Having no legs is not good; I bet the crippled man has metaphorical legs to stand upon,” said the revolutionary as he crawled up the steps to the capital building, inconveniencing the rest of society for his greater cause.
“That crippled man has no legs; this must be the way of things and so just and right,” said the cripple, and no longer complained.