You believe you can count on her to be in some degree receptive to considerations of a certain kind that I will call "normative," although you can't be sure her decision won't also be affected by other factors. By a normative consideration, I mean one that is explicitly directed to the question of what she rightly ought to do -- some philosophers might say, has strongest reason to do -- taking into account her various commitments, relationships, and other circumstances. To head off any possible misunderstanding by the philosophically trained, I should say right off that I do not confine "normative" considerations to ones about rights and principles as opposed to ones about goals or consequences, or anything along those lines.⁽²⁾ I simply mean considerations directed to your listener's concerns about what she ought or has strongest reason to do, as distinguished from what she just plain wants to do. (I am going here on the everyday understanding that people's decisions and actions are not always strictly controlled by their current beliefs about what they ought or have strongest reason to do, that people sometimes do something that they just want to, even while consciously thinking that they really have stronger or overriding reasons to be doing something else.) Precisely what kinds of considerations may be normative for a particular addressee in a particular setting will depend on the addressee's beliefs about her interests, values, commitments, and obligations in that setting. (Consider: "Because doing it will make you carefree and euphoric for the next few hours," as addressed to (a) a person on a college reunion weekend who has left the kids safely at home, and (b) your tax-return preparer at work on your tax return at 6:00 p.m. on April 15.)

It follows, from what I've been saying, that not everything you might say to someone, by way of trying to get her to act in a particular way, need have the character of normative argument. For example, normative argument does not encompass appeals to feelings and emotions that are not at the same time appeals to reason. But what you specifically believe about the person sitting before you is that, with her, and with regard to matters of the kind in question, it is always possible (even if never certain) that normative considerations can make a crucial difference in what she decides to do. Your sense is that, in this part of her life, at least, she does embrace certain role-based commitments and objectives that she's desirous of enacting and fulfilling. Anyone who can get her attention can therefore reasonably hope to affect her decision by explaining why someone in her position will be doing the right or the suitable thing about this matter by deciding it in a certain way. As it happens, she is prepared just now to listen to whatever you have to say on this topic. You are called upon, then, for a normative argument.