2 results
Chapter 9 - A Symposium on The Moral Commonwealth
- Paul van Seters
-
- Book:
- The Anthem Companion to Philip Selznick
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 19 October 2021
- Print publication:
- 17 August 2021, pp 169-188
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
Paul van Seters
Philip Selznick's The Moral Commonwealth was published in 1992. In 1993, the yearly meetings of the American Sociological Association (ASA) took place in Miami Beach, Florida, from August 13 to 17. Seymour Martin Lipset was ASA President and Committee Chair at the time. On August 16, an “Author Meets Critics” session was devoted to Selznick's new book. James S. Coleman (University of Chicago) had organized this session and was its chair. The critics were Douglas Heckathorn (University of Connecticut), Alan Silver (Columbia University), George Steinmetz (University of Chicago), and Alan Wolfe (New School of Social Research).
In 1994, The Newsletter of PEGS published a symposium on The Moral Commonwealth, to which Steinmetz and Heckathorn contributed the reviews they had prepared for the ASA “Author Meets Critics” session of the year before; Charles W. Anderson (University of Wisconsin, Madison) added a review; and Selznick responded to these three reviews. The PEGS Newsletter was published from 1991 to 1995 by Penn State University (PSU) Press, on behalf of the Committee on the Political Economy of the Good Society. In 1996, the name of the journal was changed to The Good Society. It appears biannually, still published by PSU Press.
In this chapter, we present the reviews by Anderson, Steinmetz, and Heckathorn, and the response by Selznick—all as published in the PEGS Newsletter in 1994. The original texts are only adjusted for style consistency (as in the references) and to correct typos and errors.
Philip Selznick's Classic Humanism
Charles W. Anderson
The remarkable thesis of Philip Selznick's The Moral Commonwealth is that we have the materials to resolve our moral uneasiness ready at hand. From the most familiar ideas of our century, the books we have all read, the conventional teachings of the social sciences, we can derive a public philosophy that is consistent with the strongest, most enduring ideals of our civilization. Thus we need not renounce the spirit of the age to return to ancient virtue, nor deconstruct our fabric of thought to achieve authenticity, nor try to prove rightfulness by clever new moves in game theory, a more sublime calculus of self-interest, nor pursue any of the other drastic and implausible strategies now fashionable in academic circles.
6 - A bargaining theory approach to default provisions and disclosure rules in contract law
- from Part II - Consent, choice, and contracts
- Edited by R. G. Frey, Christopher W. Morris
-
- Book:
- Liability and Responsibility
- Published online:
- 12 September 2009
- Print publication:
- 29 March 1991, pp 173-254
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
THE PROBLEM
Legal rules facilitate as well as constrain human freedom. H.L.A. Hart captures the difference between these two functions of law by distinguishing between primary and secondary rules. Primary rules impose obligations and thereby constrain behavior. Secondary rules empower individuals to create relations that confer rights and impose duties. Thus, the criminal law constrains individual liberty; the law of contracts enhances it.
Within this framework, the foundation of contracting is mutual agreement. Contractual duties are self-imposed. They are consequences of individuals authoritatively exercising their autonomy under private enabling rules. Coercive civil authority is justifiably employed to enforce contractual obligations because the parties have agreed so to constrain themselves. Of course, even if the parties to a contract agree to bind themselves to one another, it does not follow that they have agreed thereby to have their obligations to one another enforced by the state (or by any other third party).
The default rule
On the assumption that contracting parties are narrowly rational and fully informed, a contract between them that foresees and responds to all possible contingencies would be efficient, or Pareto optimal. That is the definition of a fully specified contract. Because a fully specified contract is efficient, it puts the parties to it in a position where neither can improve his or her lot except at the other's expense.