Toury’s notion of norms is a key concept within Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) and has influenced Translation Studies as a whole in the last decades. In this paper, which is of a theoretical nature, Toury’s view of norms as purely descriptive of translational behaviour is called into question, with special reference to the social, cultural and political forces informing their emergence. To this end, a more critical and evaluative view of the concept is suggested to account for the culture-bound motivations at the base of their very formulation.