NORMATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE CONCEPTS

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 485.

Normative concepts are often described as ‘values'; they refer to moral principles or ideals, that which should, ought or must be brought about. A wide range of political concepts are value-laden in this sense – ‘liberty', ‘rights', ‘justice', ‘equality', ‘tolerance', and so on. Values or normative concepts therefore advance or prescribe certain forms of conduct rather than describe events or facts. Consequently, it is sometimes difficult to disentangle political values from the moral, philosophical and ideological beliefs of those who advance them. By contrast, descriptive or positive concepts refer to ‘facts' which supposedly have an objective and demonstrable existence: they refer to what is. Concepts such as ‘power', ‘authority', ‘order' and ‘law' are in this sense descriptive rather than normative. It is possible to ask whether they exist or do not exist.

The distinction between facts and values is often regarded as a necessary precondition for clear thinking. Whereas values may be regarded as a matter of opinion, facts can be proved to be either true or false. As a result, descriptive concepts are thought to be ‘neutral' or value-free: they stand up to the rigour of scientific examination. Indeed, under the influence of positivism, the pressure to develop a science of politics meant that in the middle decades of the twentieth century normative concepts were often discarded as ‘metaphysical' and therefore nonsense. However, the problem with political concepts is that facts and values are invariably interlinked, even apparently descriptive concepts being ‘loaded' with a set of moral and ideological implications. This can be seen, for instance, in the case of ‘authority'. If authority is defined as ‘the right to influence the behaviour of others', it is certainly possible to use the concept descriptively to say who possesses authority and who does not, and to examine the basis upon which it is exercised. However, it is impossible completely to divorce the concept from value judgements about when, how and why authority should be exercised. In short, no one is neutral about authority. For example, whereas conservatives, who emphasise the need for order to be imposed from above, tend to regard authority as rightful and healthy, anarchists, who believe government and law to be evil, invariably see authority as nakedly oppressive. All political concepts, descriptive as well as normative, need therefore to be understood in the light of the ideological perspectives of those who use them.

One response to the value-laden character of political concepts that has been particularly influential since the late twentieth century has been the movement to insist upon ‘political correctness' in the use of language. Political correctness, sometimes simply known as PC, has been advocated by feminists, civil rights activists and representatives of minority groups generally, who wish to purge language of racist, sexist and other derogatory or disparaging implications. It is based upon the belief that language invariably reflects the power structure in society at large, and so discriminates in favour of dominant groups and against subordinate ones. Obvious examples include the use of ‘Man' or ‘mankind' to refer to the human race, references to ethnic minorities as ‘negroes' or ‘coloureds', and the description of developing world countries as ‘third world' or ‘underdeveloped' (although ‘developing world' is also attacked for implying that the Western model of development is applicable throughout the world). The goal of political correctness is to develop bias-free terminology that enables political argument to be conducted in non-discriminatory language. The difficulty with this position, however, is that the hope of an unbiased and objective language of political discourse is illusory. At best, ‘negative' terms can be replaced by ‘positive' ones; for example, the ‘disabled' can be referred to as the ‘differently abled', and ‘negroes' can be described as ‘black'. Critics of political correctness argue, moreover, that it imposes an ideological straitjacket upon language that both impoverishes its descriptive power and denies expression to ‘incorrect' views.