Of course, the first reaction to such an apparently naive claim may be that Arendt overestimated the power of thinking or that she held on to a highly normative account of thinking that does not correspond to the various modes of reflection, self-muttering, and silent chatter that goes by that name.
The central task of Habermas's democratic theory is to provide a normative account of legitimate law.
Quine's arguments simply do not show that no other normative account of the evidence-theory relationship is possible.
Therefore, those who defend a primarily normative account of recognition (and humiliation) distance themselves from what they perceive as the problems of overly psychological approaches.
However, when we try to flesh out that simple consequentialist thought into something closer to a full normative account of punishment, problems begin to appear.
For example, Arendt distinguishes power sharply from authority, strength, force, and violence, and offers a normative account in which power is understood as an end in itself (1970).
An empirically rooted approach has a long history: Vitruvius devises his normative account of the virtuous architect on the basis of his familiarity with then-contemporary practice.
Hence, "metaphysical" considerations bleed into his normative account.] But any tension of methodology should not be too quickly associated with a tension in outcomes.
To fill out this proposal one would need to develop a normative account that explains what sorts of group classifications matter for this purpose and on what grounds.
This is relevant to a debate touched upon earlier about whether the CSR construct should be seen as an instrumental, descriptive or normative account of business responsibility.
A society whose morality contains all three of these features may be criticized by philosophers that accept a normative account of morality if in any situation it allows purity or sanctity to override avoiding or preventing harm.
