 The basic idea of normative formalism can perhaps be conveyed if we mention that there at least seem to be truths about what one has most reason to do in a game. We pointed this out before, in discussing reasons fundamentalism. There also seem to be truths about what one ought to do in a game. In chess, for instance, one ought to castle early and there is reason to protect one’s queen. One might think, however, that this “ought” and this reason have in themselves no genuine authority over a person’s decisions, not even if she is playing chess. Of course, a person might have a prudential reason to play well, or she might have a moral reason to do so if she promised, but chess reasons in themselves have no authority over her. They are not “robustly” normative in the philosophically most interesting and important sense. Chess reasons have no genuine claim on anyone’s attention in the way that the moral reason to be loyal to friends does. Normative formalism rejects this line of thought. On the formalist view, the idea of normative authority, and the idea of genuine or robustly normative reasons or “oughts”, are empty. There is nothing to normativity beyond the fact that certain rules or norms “call for” certain actions or decisions in certain situations in the way that the rules of chess and considerations of strategy in chess call for castling early.