Prima Facie Ought. A Logical and Methodological Enquiry

The pressing problem of prima facie validity must be treated on the basis of a differentiation of types of normative rules. Rules stating principles or purposes are always applied as views determining the decision by weighing (but not by subsumption) so that the problem of prima facie validity does not arise. Neither is there a problem of such a restricted form of validity concerning power-conferring rules. The author shows that prima facie validity of rules of behaviour must not be treated as a different kind of validity and that the notion of prima facie validity can be explained in a logically satisfactory way on the basis of traditional norm-logical considerations.