Deontic artifacts. Investigating the normativity of objects

ABSTRACT

Since the middle of the last century, normative language has been much studied. In particular, the normative function performed by certain sentences and by certain speech acts has been investigated in depth. Still, the normative function performed by certain physical artifacts designed and built to regulate human behaviors has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We propose to call this specific type of artifacts with normative intent ‘deontic artifacts’. This article aims to investigate this normative phenomenon that is so widespread in our daily reality, but so often forgotten by scholars of norms and normativity.

KEYWORDS:

• Normativity
• artifacts
• traffic signs
• deontology
• deontic reasoning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See e.g. the seminal works of Hare (1949, 1952); García Máynez (1950); Kalinowski (1953); Bobbio (1958); Hart (1961); von Wright (1963).

2 See e.g. Capella (1968); Ross (1968); Searle (1969, 1979); Kurzon (1986); Trosborg (1995).

3 See e.g. Boehme-Neßler (2011); Dudek (2015); Maynard (2017); Moroni and Lorini (2017); Lorini and Moroni (2020a); Searle (2020).

4 On ‘technical function’, see e.g. Vermaas and Houkes (2003, 2006); Hughes (2009); Crilly (2010); and Houkes and Vermaas (2004, 2013).

5 Among these artifacts, Norman (1991) interestingly identified and studied the particular set that he called ‘cognitive artifacts’ (e.g. calendars, to-do lists, calculators, computers). According to Norman (1991, 17), these are ‘artificial devices that maintain, display or operate upon information in order to serve a representational function and that affect human cognitive performance’. For a taxonomy of cognitive artifacts, see Heersmink (2013).

6 Oppenheim (1944), Kelsen (1965), Olivecrona (1971) and Carcaterra (1974) noted that there are norms imposed by artifacts such as traffic lights and road signs. On this, see Lorini (2019).

7 The adjective ‘deontic’ (from the ancient Greek ‘to déon’ meaning what is needful, binding) was introduced independently by Mally (1926) and von Wright (1951). Mally used the German noun ‘Deontik’ (deontics) to signify the ‘logic of willing’. Von Wright (1951) used the adjective ‘deontic’ to denote the ‘deontic modes’; that is, the ‘modes of obligation’ (i.e. obligatory, permitted, forbidden, etc.). Von Wright distinguished deontic modes from alethic modes (i.e. modes of truth) and from epistemic modes (i.e. modes of knowing).

8 See e.g. Thomson (2013, 686): ‘Normativity is a property possessed by propositions’.

9 In fact, deontic artifacts make it possible to regulate behavior within a well-defined physical space, for example, to ensure compliance with social distancing. Compared with verbal rules, deontic artifacts make the imposition of distancing rules easier and more effective. A verbal rule can establish the abstract obligation to maintain a distance of one meter; the deontic artifact – for example, the stickers that appear on the floors of public offices and shops – enable the recipient of the rule to visualize the imposed distance. They establish where s/he must wait for his/her turn, and facilitate respect for social distancing.

10 We started using the expression ‘deontic artifact’ in 2016 after a conversation with Patrick Maynard, whom we thank here.

11 On this, see Kelsen (1965), who states that a norm does not need to be formulated linguistically. He says this in explicit relation to the stop gesture of a traffic police officer. Kelsen (1965, 355) maintains that a legal norm can consist of a simple gesture:

That a legal norm need not be formulated linguistically, is demonstrated […] in the fact that the act, the meaning of which is a legal rule […], can also be a gesture: with a specific movement of their arm, a traffic police officer orders us to stop, and with yet another gesture, tells us to move along.

According to Kelsen (1965, 355), ‘the meaning of these gestures is a mandatory legal norm’. The same applies, according to Kelsen, to traffic lights. For Kelsen, traffic lights can express norms because this feature has been conferred upon them by a general norm expressed in linguistic form.

12 Of especial interest in this regard are Norman (1991), Hilpinen (1992, 1993), Dipert (1993, 1995), Baker (2004), Franssen (2006), Thomasson (2007), Carrara and Vermaas (2009), Hughes (2009), Rosnow and Rosenthal (2009), Crilly (2010), Pols (2013), Okrent (2018), Cosentino (2019), Preston (2019), Hindriks (2020).

13 As we have already stressed, cognitive artifacts instead perform a ‘referential function’ (Norman 1991, 17).

14 See Guala (2009, 248):

When we say that this is a chair, we collectively believe that this object can (and typically should) be used to sit on. An artifact, in Searle’s system, is created by the attribution of ‘agentive functions’ to a physical object. We shall speak of ‘ordinary artifacts’ when dealing with objects whose function can be performed purely in virtue of their physical properties.

However, Guala (2009, 248) continues:

Many interesting social artifacts like money or totem poles … perform their function in virtue of characteristics that have been attributed to them by the relevant community and that go well beyond their physical features. (This is why a piece of paper, metal or a shell can all be used as money in different contexts.) In cases like these, a ‘status-function’ has been imposed on a physical object, leading to the creation of ‘institutional entities’.

15 Deontic artifacts should not be confused with ‘status indicators’ as defined by Searle (1995): e.g. police uniforms, wedding rings. According to Searle (1995, 119), status indicators are mere ‘official representations’ of institutional realities; they are helpful ‘because the existence of institutional facts cannot in general be read off from brute physical facts of the situation’.

16 On Malinowski’s investigation of Trobriand kula, see Semenov (1974).

17 The adjective ‘adeontic’, with alpha privativum, was coined by Conte (1992) in the context of his investigation of different concepts of ‘ought’.

18 On Searle’s concept of ‘deontology’, see Lobo (2015). Lobo defines deontology as ‘a relation or regime of rights and obligations, duties, and powers, however informal or merely cultural these might be’ (Lobo 2015, 357).

19 Undoubtedly, an experienced driver automates his/her reaction to a stop sign, without thinking each time about the ‘deontic meaning’ of the traffic sign. However, the habit of stopping at a stop sign automatically, without further reflection, derives from the fact that at the moment of learning, once a driver has learned to understand the meaning and the function of a particular traffic sign, such reflections have actually taken place. See Kahneman (2011). Deontic artifacts can give rise to automatic habits and behaviors. On the neurophysiology of habits and norms, see Lorini and Marrosu (2018).

20 We thank Barbara Tversky for this example.

21 We could also in abstract conceive the possibility of deontic artifacts that are pure holograms (consider, for example, a roundabout that is a mere hologram image). But also in this case it is essential that the artifact is sensorially perceivable and has a ‘spatial structure’.

22 In the terminology of Joseph Margolis (1983), deontic artifacts would instead be classifiable as ‘cultural entities’. According to Margolis (1983, 13–14), cultural entities ‘depend on the agency of persons’. They are intentional; they are characterized by embodiment; and, finally, they are tokens-of-types.

23 See, for example, the report Fatality Facts 2018. Collisions with fixed objects and animals, where among other things the statistics on deaths due to collisions with ‘traffic sign supports’ are discussed (https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/collisions-with-fixed-objects-and-animals; accessed May 2020). The data are provided by the United States Department of Transportation (https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx; accessed May 2020).

24 See Lorini and Loddo (2017). On the deictic function of material signs and on their symphysical field, see also Mulligan (1997).

25 On Bühler’s investigation of the deictic field of language, see Cambier (2016).

26 In the art world, an original exploration of the deontic spatiality of artifacts has been carried out by Fred Sandbeck, particularly through his works of art consisting of mere strings connecting the ceiling to the floor in various ways – physical structures that may appear as deontic artifacts. See https://www.fredsandbackarchive.org (accessed April 2020). We are grateful to Barbara Tversky for this suggestion.

27 An interesting parallelism can be noted here between the concept of (physical) field, widely used in natural sciences, and the concept of (deontic) field, which we believe warrants more attention in deontic studies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giuseppe Lorini

Giuseppe Lorini is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Law and deputy director of the Department of Law at the University of Cagliari. His research interests include social ontology, philosophy of normativity, legal anthropology, and legal ethology.

Stefano Moroni

Stefano Moroni is Professor of Planning at Milan Polytechnic (Department of Architecture and Urban Studies). He teaches ‘Land use ethics’ and ‘Planning theory’. His research interests include urban studies, ethics, philosophy of law.

Olimpia Giuliana Loddo

Olimpia Giuliana Loddo is Post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cagliari. Her research interests include philosophy of law, social ontology, philosophy of normativity, phenomenology, and legal anthropology.