The normativity of institutions

Some philosophers have claimed that normativity is an essential feature of social institutions, and have identified the source of normativity in collective intentionality. In this paper I argue that (1) normativity is not essential for social institutions; (2) normativity has many sources and it is unlikely that a single theory is able to account for them all; (3) a powerful conception of institutions – the “rules in equilibrium” account – provides an adequate framework to represent the effects of normativity and to explain its social function; (4) it is a mistake to ask a theory of institutions to do more than that. While normativity is an important element of institutions, we should not build our social ontology on a single, specific conception of normativity.