Norm and Value

Abstract

If a norm stipulates that a certain behaviour “ought” to take place, in the sense of “commanding” the behaviour, the actual behaviour may or may not conform to the norm. The behaviour conforms to the norm if it is such as it ought to be according to an objectively valid norm; it does not conform to the norm if it is not such as it ought to be according to an objectively valid norm because it is the opposite of the behaviour that conforms to the norm. The judgment that an actual behaviour is such as it ought to be according to an objectively valid norm is a value judgment — a positive value judgment. It means that the actual behaviour is “good.” The judgment that an actual behaviour is not such as it ought to be according to an objectively valid norm because it is the opposite of the behaviour that conforms to the norm, is a negative value judgment. It means that the actual conduct is “bad” or “evil”. An objectively valid norm according to which a certain behaviour “ought to be”, constitutes a positive or negative value. The behaviour that conforms to the norm has a positive value, the behaviour that does not conform, a negative value. The norm that is regarded as objectively valid functions as a standard of value applied to actual behaviour. Value judgments affirming that an actual behaviour conforms to an objectively valid norm and is, in this sense, “good”, or does not conform and is, in this sense, “bad”, must be distinguished from judgments about reality that affirm — without reference to a norm regarded as objectively valid — that something is and how it is.

California Law Review 54 (October 1966), No. 4. (Transl. by Max Knight. This article is an adaptation of chapter I, 4e of Knight’s English translation of the author’s Reine Rechtslehre, Vienna 1960: The Pure Theory of Law, Berkeley 1970).