Shaping the normative landscape / David Owens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Owens, David (David J.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social norms--Philosophy.

Social norms.

Social sciences--Philosophy.

Social sciences.

Promises.

Physical Description:

x, 260 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2012]

Summary:

Shaping the Normative Landscape is an investigation of the value of obligations and of rights, of forgiveness, of consent and refusal, and of promise and request. David Owens shows that these are all instruments by which we exercise control over our normative environment. Philosophers from Hume to Scanlon have supposed that when we make promises and give our consent, our real interest is in controlling (or being able to anticipate) what people will actually do and that our interest in rights and obligations is a by-product of this more fundamental interest. In fact, we value for its own sake the ability to decide who is obliged to do what, to determine when blame is appropriate, to settle whether an act wrongs us. Owens explores how we control the rights and obligations of ourselves and of those around us. We do so by making friends and thereby creating the rights and obligations of friendship. We do so by making promises and so binding ourselves to perform. We do so by consenting to medical treatment and thereby giving the doctor the right to go ahead. The normative character of our world matters to us on its own account. To make sense of promise, consent, friendship, and other related phenomena we must acknowledge that normative interests are amongst our fundamental interests. We must also rethink the psychology of agency and the nature of social convention. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Interests

1. Blame and guilt

2. Wronging

3. Obligation

4. Obligation and involvement

Part II: Powers

5. The problem with promising

6. The promissory interest

7. The possibility of consent

Part III: Practices

8. What is a promise?

9. The promissory bond

10. Which promises bind?

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199691500

0199691509

OCLC:

792885845