Cultural Models Are Intrinsically Normative

In this chapter, I argue that “cultural models”, understood as socially shared and action-guiding knowledge, are intrinsically normative. Arguably, the traditional approach to “cultural models” provided initial conceptual and methodological tools to systematize the whole notion of “socially shared information”, and there are occasional references to underlying normativity. But there is no systematic exposition of underlying cognitive and social components and a comprehensive discussion of normativity. Thus, in this chapter, I provide a tentative account of “cultural models” as it pertains to normative cognition, its genesis and its evolution. The goal is to connect the construct of “cultural models” to more recent theorizing in cognitive and evolutionary sciences.