Quiz 1 [Thursday 14 January 1999]
  1. Write down ONE POSITIVE statement


    2. There are an infinite number of possibilities. The example used in class was "there are 122 students registered for this section of this class."
     

  2. Write down ONE NORMATIVE statement.
Again, the possibilities are endless. The example used in class was "there are 122 good students in this class."

3. Why is 1. Positive, 2., Normative?

The key issue is that a positive statement is one that could be shown to be false if it was false, i.e. it is a statement about fact that can be verified or shown to be false by appeal to facts; in short, a statement about "what is." In the example, we can count, and there are formal official definitions of "student" "registered" "section" and "class" so the statement could be shown to be false if it was false.

A normative statement cannot be shown to be false (although we may doubt it) because it involves something that involves an opinion or value-judgement. What is "good"? Your opinion may differ from mine, so the statement cannot be shown to be false. We could doubt the sincerity of somebody else's opinion, but we cannot show it to be "false" if it is an opinion.