III FUNCTIONS AND NORMATIVITY

If an entity has or is ascribed a function, then—whatever kind of entity it belongs to—it
may be said to perform its function well or poorly or not at all (malfunction). So much
seems to be implied by the general notion of function. If a heart has the function to pump
blood, then the performance of this function may be evaluated, whether we are dealing
with a biological heart or an artifi cial one. With the notion of “function” comes the possi-
bility of evaluating the actual performances of functions. Apart from this evaluative dimen-
sion of functions, there appears to be a prescriptive dimension: an entity with a particular
function ought to (or is supposed to) behave in a certain way under suitable circumstances.
Again, a heart, biological or artifi cial, ought to behave in a certain way so as to realize its
function. These evaluative and prescriptive dimensions of functions, grouped under the
heading of the “normativity of functions,” constitute the focus in this part of the book.
Although the normativity associated with functional items does not discriminate between
biological and technical objects, this normativity raises different questions in both domains.
With regard to biological functional items, one of the main issues is whether this norma-
tivity implies that there are somehow values or norms in (biological) nature. If that would
indeed be the case, then that would run counter to the dominant picture of nature underly-
ing the modern natural sciences. The normativity of technical functional items does not
appear at fi rst sight to be so problematic because it may be related to the normativity of
intentional human action. We still need to clarify how the normativity of human actions
in which objects are used can be transposed in an intelligible way to those objects them-
selves. In view of the different questions involved in the normativity of functional items
in the biological and technical domains, it appears highly questionable whether it will be
possible to arrive at a common interpretation of this normativity that may be applied in
both domains. Apart from these problems, there are other problems that must be addressed
in order to clarify the normativity of functional items. For instance, a generally accepted
interpretation of how to interpret the notion of “normativity” as such is still lacking. All
these problems form part of the background and the subject of the following chapters.
This part starts with McLaughlin’s exploration of the nature of the normativity of func-
tions. He asks where this normativity could come from. A brief review of the three main