Functions and Norms 101
element of a set is (as an element) just as good as any other—or rather it makes no sense
either to rank elements or to equate them. But if I conceptualize an individual as a token
of a particular type, I expect it to have the typical properties or a typically broad selection
of the typical properties. And these expectations can be met in differing degrees by the
various tokens of the type. Any token may instantiate its type better or worse.
Thus if a type has a function F, then so do the tokens. That is, if I have correctly identi-
fi ed an artifact as a wing, a screwdriver, or legal tender, then I have identifi ed it as some-
thing that is supposed to enable fl ight, drive in screws, or pay my bills. Take an individual
item. Give it a name, say, “Item 14.” Now Item 14 isn’t supposed to do anything—it just
is. However, either it instantiates a cuckoo clock or it doesn’t. If Item 14 is a clock, then
it is supposed to go cuckoo every hour; if not, not. Individual entities are only supposed
to be or do X or Y if they are tokens of a type that typically does that and can be said to
do that better or worse.
With biological function bearers, things are somewhat clearer since they are not so often
classifi ed primarily or exclusively in functional terms. For instance, in pigeons and pen-
guins, I know whether something is a wing or not independent of whether it typically
enables fl ying; this is a question of morphology, anatomy, and homology—not of function.
If a given penguin’s or pigeon’s front limbs are tokens of the type of wing, then they have
whatever functions penguin or pigeon wings happen to have. If an individual pigeon has
wings that do not enable it to fl y, then its wings malfunction. If the wings of a penguin
do not enable fl ight, they do not malfunction, and we still call them wings. The penguin’s
wings are not supposed to enable fl ight, but the pigeon’s wings are. And even where the
name of the organ is functionally determined—we call a bat’s wings “wings” not “remod-
eled paws”—the question of whether an individual item receives the name does not depend
on its actually performing that function. Whether an individual is a token of a type—that
is, whether it adequately instantiates a kind—is already a (technically) normative question.
Tokens are supposed to have the functions of the type they instantiate—if the type has
functions.
This is a third candidate for a source of normativity in function ascriptions. But note
that the type-token relation has no essential connection to functions or function ascriptions.
The type-token distinction can introduce a minimal normativity into any context in which
it is used. However, in the case of the ascription of functions to parts that are integrated
into a whole and contribute to some performance of the whole that is good for the whole,
the type-token distinction reinforces the presupposed normativity of part-whole and means-
ends relations.
References
Hempel, C. G., and Oppenheim, P. (1936). Der Typusbegriff im Lichte der neuen Logik. Leiden: Sijthoff.
Kitcher, P. (1993). Function and design. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 18: 379–397.