Norma

NORMA. - In Latin, just as in Greek γνώμων or κανών, it properly means the "square," which, by making it possible to draw a line perpendicular (normal) to another, is the model and measure of the right angle (Pliny, Hist. nat., VII, 56, 57). Hence the figurative sense of n., applied to everything that, in the abstract or in the concrete, is a measure or model of action. Cicero speaks of reason and law as the guiding n. of life (De amicitia, 5, 18); and of nature as the n. of law (De legibus, II, 24, 61).

Only recently (Wundt, Liebmann) have the term n. and its derivative "normative" entered philosophical language, designating the whole range of problems that in earlier philosophy were implicit in the conception of "practical reason." St. Thomas, instead of n., uses the expression "regula et mensura rationis" (Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 90, a. 1) and, in place of "normative," "architectonic." According to Cathrein (v.), the moral n. is "a mark or characteristic that serves to distinguish good from evil." It is not enough to establish "a material n. for knowing what is morally good"; rather, "a formal n. is required, which further shows the intrinsic reason why one action is good and another is not. The formal ethical n. is also often called the moral principle" (La filosofia morale, I, Italian trans., 2nd ed., Florence 1913). Similarly, Sertillanges (v.) regards the ultimate human end, or supreme good, as the n. (La philosophie de st Thomas d'Aquin, II, Paris 1940, p. 232 ff.; La philosophie morale de st Thomas d'Aquin, ibid. 1946, p. 11 ff.). Nevertheless, the more common terminology designates by n. the practical judgments of reason, whether they are directed to acting or to making, imperative or merely evaluative.

The problem of "normativity" has historically had various solutions. Positivism (v.) denies the norm as a law of reason, and therefore reduces ethics (v.) from a normative science to a mere constative or explanatory science of facts (cf. L. Lévy-Bruhl, La morale et la science des moeurs, Paris 1903). In conceptions which, in dependence on Kantian criticism, idealism, romanticism and vitalism, hold the spirit to be pure creative freedom, normativity is an essential moment of the activity of the spirit, which, in positing present ends, limits itself in order to surpass itself through action. Ethics is therefore normative, but not a science; and it is normative only insofar as it is the self-education of the spirit to its own freedom. B. Croce sees this self-education in historiography (history as thought), which places the spirit in the present interest of creative activity (history as action: cf. La storia come pensiero e come azione, 4th ed., Bari 1943). The philosophy of values, in its phenomenological position, considers the normativity of consciousness as an essential moment in the development of the axiological cycle (cf. R. Polin, La création des valeurs, Paris 1944). Some contemporaries, taking up elements already formulated by Wundt and Fouillé (v.), attempt to propose an ethics as a theoretical science, intermediate between the normative, which they exclude, and the science of customs, which they consider insufficient (G. Gurvitch, Morale théorique et science des moeurs, ibid. 1937). Christian thought is unanimous in recognizing in ethics the character both of science and of normativity: the norms indeed which reason establishes do not come from a mechanical determinism with a psycho-social basis, nor are they a pure creation of the spirit; but they derive from an intellectual knowledge of the end, of the value of the end, of the real order for attaining the end, of the concrete present situation with all its pressures and all its possibilities. Ethics is therefore a speculative science, which presupposes, however, the positive sciences of customs; but it is also a practical, that is, normative science, because its end is the perfecting of the practical intellect with a view to the rectitude of human action (cf. J. Maritain, Les degrés du savoir, 3rd ed., ibid. 1948, pp. 618-26; 879-96).

No account can be given of any activity without a final ultimate cause: it is the will of the end that establishes the ordering to the end. "Rationalis est ordinare ad finem, qui est primum principium in agendis" (Sum. Theol., 1st-2nd, q. 90, a. 1): that is, reason is normative only insofar as it is the orderer to the end. God, the first cause, orders every being to the end: his reason is at once supreme normativity and absolute norm. Irrational creatures participate in the divine reason in the physical determinism of their activity. The human person, being spiritual, directs himself to the end, and therefore with his reason participates in the divine reason, becoming himself also normative and a norm, whose absoluteness and value depend essentially on such participation. He is normative (reason in the subjective sense) insofar as with the intellect he possesses the habit of the first moral principles (v. SINDERSI), with ethical science establishes the value and content of the natural order, with political science constructs the positive order ("politica est scientia maxime architectonica": St. Thomas, In I Eth., lect. 2, nn. 24-38), with prudence applies the universal principles, both natural and positive, to the concrete act. He is a norm (reason in the objective sense) insofar as from general principles of the greatest extension, through a compositive process (Johannes a s. Thoma, Log., II, q. 1, a. 4), in which the speculative-practical intellect, experimental induction and philosophical deduction, the will of the end and of the means to the end, and all the intellectual and moral virtues participate (St. Thomas, In I Eth., lect. 3, nn. 32-42), he descends to the fullest comprehension of the judgment of the moral conscience.

Tullio Piacentini