THE NORMATIVITY OF KANT’S LOGICAL LAWS

According to received wisdom, Kant takes the laws of logic to be normative laws of thought. This has been challenged by Tolley (2006). In this paper, I defend the received wisdom, but with an important modi cation: Kant's logical laws are constitutive norms for thought. The laws of logic do tell us what thinking is, not because all thoughts are in conformity with logical laws, but because all thoughts are, by nature, subject to the standard of logic. 1 Constitutive and normative laws There are di erent ways a law might govern some state or phenomenon. Laws can be normative, constitutive, or constitutive norms. Laws for F s are normative if they determine what is a good F or a bad F . For example, the laws of a nation determine what actions are legally permissible, legally obligatory, and legally impermissible. But they do not thereby determine what counts as an action: even illegal actions are actions. Laws for Fs are constitutive if they determine what is an F and what isn't an F . For example, the rules for sonnet form determine what counts as a sonnet. If a poem closely follows the right rhyme scheme, but is only 12 lines long, then it isn't a bad sonnet it isn't a sonnet at all. Laws for F s are constitutive norms if evaluability in light of the laws determines what is an F and what isn't an