Normative Propositions Reconsidered

Abstract

The author discusses and criticizes the idea that normative propositions (i.e., propositions about norms) can be expressed by means of deontic sentences echoing the norms they claim to describe. He argues that such sentences do not contribute in any way to legal cognition, since they do not express normative propositions – rather, they repeat norms and/or apply them. If this is true, the logic of deontic sentences is a logic of norms, not of normative propositions.