Practical Rules: When We Need Them and When We Don't

by Alan H. Goldman

• ISBN13: 9780521807296
• ISBN10: 0521807298
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Rules proliferate; some are kept with a bureaucratic stringency bordering on the absurd, while others are manipulated and ignored in ways that injure our sense of justice. Under what conditions should we make exceptions to rules, and when should they be followed despite particular circumstances? The two dominant models in the literature on rules are the particularist account and that which sees the application of rules as normative. Taking a position that falls between these two extremes, Alan Goldman provides a systematic framework to clarify when we need to follow rules in our moral, legal and prudential decisions, and when we ought not to do so. The book distinguishes among various types of rules; it illuminates concepts such as integrity, self-interest and self-deception; and finally, it provides an account of ordinary moral reasoning without rules. This book will be of great interest to advanced students and professionals working in philosophy, law, decision theory and the social sciences.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(9)
Moral Rules	10	(52)
Outline of the Task	10	(3)
Types of Rules: Dispensable and Indispensable	13	(9)
Ordinary Moral Consciousness	22	(10)
Rules as Second-Best Strategies	32	(10)
The Justification of Rules: Strong and Weak	42	(13)
Interpretation of Weak Rules	55	(7)
Prudential Rules	62	(42)
Moral and Prudential Rules Compared	63	(16)
Second-Order Prudential Rules: Optimizing	79	(12)
A Prudential Rule to Be Moral	91	(13)
Legal Rules	104	(45)
Classification	105	(7)
The Descriptive Question: Hart, Dworkin, and Others	112	(7)
The Descriptive Question: Sources of Law	119	(18)
The Normative Question	137	(12)
Moral Reasoning without Rules	149	(36)
The Inadequacy of Particularism	150	(5)
Coherence	155	(13)
The Reasoning Process Reviewed	168	(7)
Objections	175	(10)
Notes	185	(12)
References	197	(6)
Index	203