Political morality as convention

Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 2004, Pages

  Barry, Norman ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 3042587978     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0265052504211116     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. See A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (1936; reprint, New York: Dover, 1952); and Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944). Even R. M. Hare, who argued that ethical statements had a logic, conceded that their ultimate foundations were beyond rational demonstration: See R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
2. See A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (1936; reprint, New York: Dover, 1952); and Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944). Even R. M. Hare, who argued that ethical statements had a logic, conceded that their ultimate foundations were beyond rational demonstration: See R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
3. See A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (1936; reprint, New York: Dover, 1952); and Charles L. Stevenson, Ethics and Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944). Even R. M. Hare, who argued that ethical statements had a logic, conceded that their ultimate foundations were beyond rational demonstration: See R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
4. See Norman Barry, An Introduction to Modern Political Theory, 4th ed. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).
5. H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961).
6. See H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty, and Morality (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).
7. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).
8. See S. G. Checkland and E. O. A. Checkland, eds., The Poor Law Report of 1834 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 36. For a summary of the arguments, see Norman Barry, Welfare, 2d ed. (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999).
9. See S. G. Checkland and E. O. A. Checkland, eds., The Poor Law Report of 1834 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 36. For a summary of the arguments, see Norman Barry, Welfare, 2d ed. (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999).
10. Quoted in Robert E. Goodin, Motivating Political Morality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 160-61.
11. Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1705; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924).
12. Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, 24.
13. Ibid., 10.
14. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, eds. (1776; reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 27.
15. See Donald Winch, Adam Smith's Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revisionism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); and Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff, eds., Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
16. See Donald Winch, Adam Smith's Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revisionism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); and Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff, eds., Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
17. Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 456. My emphasis added.
18. Although Hume's and Smith's ethics look similar, they had a different intellectual foundation.
19. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, rev. P. H. Nidditch (1739-40; reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), bk. 2, pt. 3, sec. 3, p. 416.
20. See David Hume, "Of the Original Contract," in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (1777; reprint; Indianapolis, IN: LibertyClassics, 1985). 465-87.
21. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, bk. 3, pt. 2, sec. 3, p. 537.
22. Hume, "The Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth," in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, 514.
23. For an excellent modern theory of ethics as a form of social cooperation, see Leland B. Yeager, Ethics as Social Science (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001).
24. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, bk. 3, pt. 3, sec. 1, pp. 586-91.
25. Ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, sec. 2, p. 495.
26. Ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, secs. 4 and 5, pp. 501-25.
27. Ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, sec. 5, pp. 520-21.
28. Ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, sec. 7, pp. 536-37.
29. Ibid., 538. Hume's example is the draining of a meadow. Each farmer has an incentive to avoid paying his share of the cost of draining, but each grasps the mutual benefit of cooperation, otherwise it would not be done.
30. Ibid., bk. 2, pt. 2, sec. 1, p. 484.
31. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751; reprint, Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1930), sec. 5, p. 66.
32. Ibid., sec. 5, p. 53.
33. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789; reprint, with an intro. by Laurence J. Lafleur, New York: Hafner, 1948).
34. Anatol Rapaport, "The Prisoner's Dilemma," in John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman, eds., The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987), 973-76.
35. Robert Sugden, The Economics of Rights, Co-Operation, and Welfare (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).
36. Ibid., 22.
37. Actually developed by Israel M. Kirzner, Discovery, Capitalism, and Distributive Justice (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989).
38. Sugden, The Economics of Rights, Co-Operation, and Welfare, 43.
39. Ibid. See also Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984), for an extended analysis of the tit-for-tat strategy.
40. Ibid. See also Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984), for an extended analysis of the tit-for-tat strategy.
41. See Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, ed. W. W. Bartley (London: Routledge, 1988), 16-21.
42. Switzerland might be the one exception. There, expenditure by the federal government is still less than that of the cantons.
43. See Norman Barry, "A Classical Liberal's Conception of Political Liberty: America and Europe Compared," The European Journal 9, no. 3 (2001): 13-17.
44. See Mark Tebbit, Philosophy of Law: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2000), chap. 4.
45. Ibid., chap. 3.
46. Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969).
47. Richard Posner presents a normative theory of law based on economic reasoning, and although it is not positive law, it has emphatically nothing to do with morality. See Richard A. Posner, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
48. H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 2d ed. (1961; reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 87-107.
49. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1977).
50. Friedrich A. Hayek, Rules and Order (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973). That Hayek and Dworkin should have opposite social philosophies is a reason for doubting the efficacy of their common jurisprudence. See Norman Barry, "Dworkin's Unbounded Legalism," Ideas on Liberty 52, no. 11 (2002): 35-38.
51. Friedrich A. Hayek, Rules and Order (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973). That Hayek and Dworkin should have opposite social philosophies is a reason for doubting the efficacy of their common jurisprudence. See Norman Barry, "Dworkin's Unbounded Legalism," Ideas on Liberty 52, no. 11 (2002): 35-38.
52. Ronald Dworkin, Law's Empire (London: Fontana, 1986), 90.
53. Riggs v. Palmer, 115 N.Y. 506; 22 N.E. 188 (1889).
54. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, 22-28.
55. Dworkin, Law's Empire, 263.
56. Barry, "Dworkin's Unbounded Legalism," 36-37.
57. There is evidence that the authors of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution were influenced by Hume's political writings. See Douglass Adair, "That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science: David Hume, James Madison, and the Tenth Federalist," in Hume: A Re-Evaluation, Donald W. Livingston and James T. King, eds. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 404-17.
58. For Dworkin's defense of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), see Law's Empire, chap. 6.
59. For Dworkin's defense of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), see Law's Empire, chap. 6.
60. Dworkin, Law's Empire, 178-84.
61. Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897). See Bernard H. Siegan, Economic Liberties and the Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 111.
62. Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897). See Bernard H. Siegan, Economic Liberties and the Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 111.
63. 198 U.S. 45 (1905). See Dworkin, Law's Empire, 398.
64. 198 U.S. 45 (1905). See Dworkin, Law's Empire, 398.
65. United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938). See Siegan, Economic Liberties and the Constitution, 185-88.
66. United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938). See Siegan, Economic Liberties and the Constitution, 185-88.
67. See Bernard H. Siegan, Property and Freedom: The Constitution, the Courts, and Land-Use Regulation (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1997); and Norman Barry, "Constitutional Protection of Economic Liberty," Ideas on Liberty 50, no. 11 (2000): 26-30.
68. See Bernard H. Siegan, Property and Freedom: The Constitution, the Courts, and Land-Use Regulation (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1997); and Norman Barry, "Constitutional Protection of Economic Liberty," Ideas on Liberty 50, no. 11 (2000): 26-30.
69. Hart, The Concept of Law, 204.
70. Barry, An Introduction to Modern Political Theory, 243.
71. Alan Gewirth, "Private Philanthropy and Positive Rights," in Beneficence, Philanthropy, and the Public Good, ed. Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Miller, and Jeffrey Paul (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 68.
72. Robert Hessen, In Defense of the Corporation (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), 43. See also Norman Barry, Business Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1998), 43.
73. Robert Hessen, In Defense of the Corporation (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), 43. See also Norman Barry, Business Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1998), 43.
74. Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 720-58.
75. 'Rent-seeking' is the activity by some of capturing extra market value created by others. Those who argue for economic protection, and many government employees, are rent-seekers.
76. See Thomas Donaldson, Corporations and Morality (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1982).
77. Adolph A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932; reprint, rev. ed., New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967).
78. See Ronald Coase, "The Nature of the Firm," Economica 4, no. 16 (1937): 386-405.
79. See Norman Barry, "The Stakeholder Concept of Corporate Control Is Illogical and Impractical," The Independent Review 6, no. 4 (2002): 541-54.
80. William M. Evan and R. Edward Freeman, "A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation: Kantian Capitalism," in Tom L. Beauchamp and Norman E. Bowie, eds., Ethical Theory and Business, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 82.
81. Barry, Business Ethics, chap. 6.
82. Norman Barry, "What Capitalism Needs Is a New Gordon Gekko," The Business, September 15, 2002. See also Norman Barry, "The Right Morality for Capitalism," Ideas on Liberty 52, no. 12 (2002): 33-37.
83. Norman Barry, "What Capitalism Needs Is a New Gordon Gekko," The Business, September 15, 2002. See also Norman Barry, "The Right Morality for Capitalism," Ideas on Liberty 52, no. 12 (2002): 33-37.