Observe social distancing. Tip your waiter. Give priority to the elderly. Stop at the red light. Pay your taxes. Do not chew with your mouth open. These are imperatives we face every day, imposed upon us by norms that happen to be generally accepted in our environment. Call these 'socially constructed norms". A constant presence in our lives, these norms elicit mixed feelings. ...(展开全部)

Observe social distancing. Tip your waiter. Give priority to the elderly. Stop at the red light. Pay your taxes. Do not chew with your mouth open. These are imperatives we face every day, imposed upon us by norms that happen to be generally accepted in our environment. Call these 'socially constructed norms". A constant presence in our lives, these norms elicit mixed feelings. ...(展开全部)

Claims about what is metaphysically necessary or possible have long played a central role in metaphysics and other areas of philosophy. Such claims are traditionally thought of as aiming to describe a special kind of modal fact or property, or perhaps facts about other possible worlds. But that assumption leads to difficult ontological, epistemological, and methodological puzzl...(展开全部)

Claims about what is metaphysically necessary or possible have long played a central role in metaphysics and other areas of philosophy. Such claims are traditionally thought of as aiming to describe a special kind of modal fact or property, or perhaps facts about other possible worlds. But that assumption leads to difficult ontological, epistemological, and methodological puzzl...(展开全部)

In what way are rules normative, and how do they differ from ordinary reasons? What makes normative systems systematic? What distinguishes legal systems, and in what consists their normativity? Joseph Raz answers these three questions by taking reasons as the basic normative concept, and showing the distinctive role reasons have in every case, thus paving the way to a unified a...(展开全部)

In what way are rules normative, and how do they differ from ordinary reasons? What makes normative systems systematic? What distinguishes legal systems, and in what consists their normativity? Joseph Raz answers these three questions by taking reasons as the basic normative concept, and showing the distinctive role reasons have in every case, thus paving the way to a unified a...(展开全部)

What is the role of law in a society in which order is maintained mostly through social norms, trust, and non-legal sanctions? Eric Posner argues that social norms are sometimes desirable yet sometimes odious, and that the law is critical to enhancing good social norms and undermining bad ones. But he also argues that the proper regulation of social norms is a delicate and comp...(展开全部)

In this excellent book, Posner (law, Univ. of Chicago) raises such fundamental questions as why people conform to social norms and why they generally refrain from antisocial behavior even when the law is absent. He then proposes a methodology for the systematic analysis of social norms. Posner uses models of nonlegal collective action to show the possibilities underlying cooper...(展开全部)

We struggle daily with the notions of why we do what we do and of assigning values to our actions, although it seems possible through experience to gain knowledge and understanding of such matters. In contrast to the world of facts, values and morality seem insecure, easily influenced by illusion or ideology. How can objectivity and accuracy be applied to values and morality? ...(展开全部)

T. M. Scanlon is one of the world’s leading philosophers, widely known for his contractualist moral theory and his distinctive account of moral responsibility and blame. In these important essays, written between 2001 and 2021, Scanlon reflects on the lines of thinking that led him to these views, considers objections to them, and locates them in relation to the views of others...(展开全部)