ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses questions of contingency and necessity in relation to spatial planning and asks, if God plays dice, do spatial planners play dice too? She suggests that planning decision-making engages both contingency and necessity, a key aspect of which is how planners 'play' the 'planning game'. Patsy Healey regards spatial planning as inherently normative. For Healey, the spatial planning idea inevitably 'carries with it a normative orientation'. The author explores issues of normativity and judgement and 'problems' of decision-making in a contingent, ever-changing world. 'Normativity' is a fairly recent term which includes issues of value, good, ought, rationality, obligation and so on. Normativity distinguishes the value side of fact/value distinctions and the 'ought' of is/ought distinctions. The author draws out resonances between Healey's and Deleuze's conceptualisation of ethics and morals, highlighting relation and praxis; the relevance of an immanent ethics grounded in problem contextualisation and critical, reflexive thinking.
