Normative Approaches

The normative approach to the practice of medicine, based on the definition of thresholds, is a different paradigm from the continuous distribution of most biological parameters and their associated risks, as described by physiologists and epidemiologists (360-362). Blood pressure, cholesterol, and renin have a logarithmic gaussian distribution in populations. Renin dependency, for instance, may be considered as a constant feature of all humans except when they have a positive sodium balance, which more or less mimics schematic animal models such as DOCA hypertension (349). In this extreme situation, cardiac, renal, and vascular damages may be direcdy induced by the excess of salt itself, in the absence of any functional RAS (363). 

Since the demise of Logical Positivism the purely normative approach to philosophy of science has been increasingly challenged. Many philosophers of science now consider themselves as naturalists and it becomes a matter of which particular variety they are willing to support. As is well known, one of the central issues in the debate over naturalism concerns whether philosophy offers a privileged standpoint from which to study the nature of science, or whether science is best studied by studying science itself.1... 

Normative approaches promote high levels of moral and ideological alignment and commitment. 

Whereas belief in the efficacy of technological failures as causes went unchallenged for more than 200 years, a similar belief in the human factor lasted barely a decade. There are two main reasons for this. There was first of all a growing doubt of the idea that health and safety could be ensured by a normative approach, for... 

There is no ideal culture, but there are cultures that are suitable for every situation. This perspective has gradually become established as the only one that can cope with the real situation. All normative approaches to this area have turned out to be counterproductive. We have seen in the paragraphs above that there are several different models of safety rather than just one. It makes sense that these different models of safety, which reflect different trade-offs between flexibility, competitiveness, adaptability and safety performance, should be based on different ways of managing the safety culture. 

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