Is Evidence Normative? Frank Hofmann 1 Received: 16 August 2019 /Revised: 16 August 2019 /Accepted: 30 June 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract This paper defends the view that in a certain sense evidence is normative. Neither a bit of evidence nor the fact that it is evidence for a certain proposition is a normative fact, but it is still the case that evidence provides normative reason for belief. An argument for the main thesis will be presented. It will rely on evidentialist norms of belief and a Broomean conception of normative reasons. Two important objections will be discussed, one from A. Steglich-Petersen on whether having evidence is sufficient for having a normative reason for belief and another one from S. Street. Keywords Evidence . Normativity . Reasons for belief . Correctness 1 Introduction This paper is about the normativity of evidence. In order to state the main thesis and argument, however, a lot of unpacking is needed. We need to clarify what ‘normative facts’ are and what it means to ‘provide normative reasons’ for belief. This is the main purpose of this first section. To jump ahead, and very crudely, the main thesis can be stated as follows: neither a bit of evidence nor the fact that it is evidence for a certain proposition is a normative fact, but it is still the case that evidence provides normative reason for belief. In this latter sense, then, evidence is normative. Once the unpacking is done, an argument for the main thesis will be presented (section 2). It will rely on a pair of evidentialist norms of belief (a retrospective and a prospective one) and a Broomean conception of normative reasons. The third and last section will take a look at two important objections, one extracted from the writings of A. Steglich-Petersen and another one from Sharon Street ’s work. The objections will be shown to fail, and in the course of the discussion both the proposed view and its advantages hopefully will become even clearer. Philosophia https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00241-2 * Frank Hofmann frank.hofmann@uni.lu 1 Institute of Philosophy, Department of Humanities, FHSE, University of Luxembourg, 11, Porte des Sciences, 4366 Esch-Belval, Luxembourg