NORMA

NORMA. — In Latin, as in the Greek γνώμοι ο κανών, it properly signifies the “square,” which, by making it possible to draw a perpendicular (normal) line to another, is the model and measure of the right angle (Pliny, Hist. nat., VII, 56, 57). Hence the figurative meaning of n., referring to everything that, abstractly or concretely, is a measure or model of action. Cicero speaks of reason and law as directive norms of life (De amicitia, 5, 18), and of nature as the norm of law (De legibus, II, 24, 61).

Only recently (Wundt, Liebmann) have the term n. and its derivative “normative” entered philosophical language, designating all that problematic which in earlier philosophy was 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.” CATHREIN, VIKTOR (v.) the moral n. is “a mark or characteristic that serves to distinguish good from evil.” It is not sufficient to establish “a material n. in order to know what is morally good”; rather, “a formal n. is required, which also 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 translation, 2nd ed., Florence 1913). Similarly, Sertillanges (v.) considers the human ultimate end, or supreme good, to be the n. (La philosophie de st Thomas d'Aquin, II, Paris 1940, pp. 232 ff.; La philosophie morale de st Thomas d'Aquin, ibid. 1946, pp. 11 ff.). Nevertheless, the most common terminology uses n. to designate the practical judgments of reason, whether they are directed toward action or production, and whether imperative or merely evaluative.

The problem of “normativity” has historically received various solutions. Positivism (v.) denies the norm ethics (v.) from a normative science to a mere science that establishes or explains facts (cf. L. Lévy-Bruhl, La morale et la science des moeurs, Paris 1903). In the conceptions which, under the influence of Kantian criticism, idealism, romanticism, and vitalism, regard the spirit as pure creative freedom, normativity is an essential moment of the activity of the spirit, which, by setting itself actual ends, limits itself in order to transcend itself through action. Ethics is therefore normative, but not a science; and it is normative only insofar as it is the spirit’s self-education toward 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 an essential moment in the development of the axiological cycle (cf. R. Polin, La création des valeurs, Paris 1944). Some contemporaries, taking up elements Fouillée (v.), attempt to propose an ethics as a theoretical science, intermediate between normative science, which they exclude, and the science of customs, which they consider insufficient (G. Gurvitch, Morale théorique et science des moeurs, there 1937). Christian thought is unanimous in recognizing ethics as possessing both the character of a science and that of normativity: the norms established by reason do not in fact arise from a mechanical determinism with a psycho-social basis, nor are they a pure creation of the spirit; rather, they derive from an intellectual knowledge of the end, of the value of the end, of the real order for attaining the end, and of the concrete present situation with all its pressures and all its possibilities. Ethics is therefore a speculative science, which nevertheless presupposes the positive sciences of customs; but it is also a practical, that is, normative, science, because its end is the perfection of the practical intellect with regard to the rectitude of human action (cf. J. Maritain, Les degrés du savoir, 3rd ed., there 1948, pp. 618–26; 879–96).

No activity whatsoever can be accounted for without an ultimate final cause: it is the will of the end that establishes the ordering toward the end. « Rationalis est ordinare ad finem, qui est primum principium in agendis » (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ª, q. 90, a. 1): reason, that is, is normative only insofar as it orders toward the end. God, the first cause, orders every being toward its end: his reason is at once supreme normativity and absolute norm. Irrational creatures participate in divine reason through the physical determinism of their activity. The human person, spiritual in nature, directs himself toward his end and therefore, through his reason, participates in divine reason, becoming himself normative and a norm, whose absoluteness and value depend essentially upon this participation. It is normative (reason in the subjective sense) insofar as, through the intellect, it possesses the habit of the first moral principles (v. SINDERSI); through ethical science, it establishes the value and content of the natural order; through political science, it constructs the positive order (« politica est scientia maxime architectonica »: s. Tommaso, In I Eth., lect. 2, nn. 24–38); and through prudence, it applies universal principles, both natural and positive, to the concrete act. It is a norm (reason in the objective sense) insofar as, from general principles of the widest extension, through a compositional 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 (s. Tommaso, In I Eth., lect. 3, nn. 32–42), it descends to the fullest comprehension of the judgment of the moral conscience.

BIBLI.: N. Kaufmann, La finalité dans l'ordre morale, in Rev. néos. de phil., 6 (1899), pp. 380–99, 352–70; V. CATHREIN, VIKTOR, Filosofia morale, Italian trans., 2nd ed., Florence 1913; H. D. Noble, La vie morale d'après st Thomas d'Aquin. La coscienne morale, Paris 1923; G. Renard, Le droit, l'ordre et la raison, there 1924; S. Deploige, Le conflit de la morale et de la sociologie, there 1925; M. S. Gillet, La morale et les morales, there 1925; E. Elter, Norma moralitatis ad mentem D. Thomas, in Gregorianum, 8 (1927), pp. 337–57; L. Lehu, La raison règle de la moralité d'après st Thomas d'Aquin, Paris 1930; R. Le Senne, Le devoir, 2nd ed., there 1931; Y. Simon, Critique de la connaissance morale, there 1934; J. Maritain, Science et sagesse, there 1935; J. Peghaire, Intellectus et ratio selon st Thomas d'Aquin, there 1936; J. Leclercq, Les grandes lignes de la philosophie morale, Louvain 1946; R. Le Senne, Traité de morale générale, 2nd ed., Paris 1947; various authors, Fondazione della morale (Atti V Convegno di studi fra filosofi cristiani, Gallarate 1949), Padua 1950; A. Lalande, La raison et les normes, Paris 1948. Tullio Piacentini