ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the character of the kind of practical norms responsiveness to which defines the unique nature of human life. It aims to develop the suggestion that the two differences between the way in which humans make a living and the ways in which all other animals make a living are importantly related. In general humans have been able to develop the ability to be responsive to the complex two-dimensional norms that is demonstrated by the existence of the multitude of technai in every human community. Any of the successful occupants of the many human practices that are technai, must be responsive to both the practical norms that institute the technai and the instrumental norms that those technai themselves stand under. Humans are instrumentally rational; Humans are responsive to the norm that people should adopt means that are instrumental to the achievement of their ends.
