Abstract: Our normative concepts—theoretical and practical—often seem to function as ways of presenting potential solutions to problems that are characteristic of our shared lives: What to think? What to do? What to feel? How to live and work together? This fits a number of the features of normative concepts, such as their putative thought- and action-guidingness, their projectability into novel situations, their openness with respect to change, and the supervenience of the normative properties they identify upon non-normative properties. Perhaps solutions developed in practice have been a scaffold for the development of normative concepts, which in turn have afforded a framework for prospective responses to one another and to our world. (“Solutions” here should not be read as ultimately successful solutions, or as something we’d endorse—solutions to problems of social stability, for example, have taken many forms through pre-history and history, only some of which any of us might now advocate.) Looking at the history of some central normative concepts, and also their appearance in psychological development, we can see patterns that resemble what we would expect if some such picture of the distinctive role and character of normative concepts held. If so, then reverse-engineering of our normative concepts could be a worthwhile research program in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science—indeed, it has begun in earnest in cognitive science. Reverse-engineering can also be a basis for criticism, and can afford resources for constructive approach to conceptual change.