Naturalism and Conceptual Norms

The normative dimensions of concept possession pose a serious problem for naturalistic approaches to the mental. Taking Christopher Peacocke’s recent proposal for a naturalistic accommodation of conceptual normativity as a stalking-horse, I argue that no proposal formulated in terms of law-like generalizations about the judgements which a concept possessor must find primitively compelling or self-evident can capture the crucial distinction between failing to possess a concept and misapplying a concept which one does actually possess.