Practical Reason and Norms focuses on three problems: 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? All three questions are answered 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 account of normativity. Rules are a structure of reasons to perform the required act and an exclusionary reason not to follow some competing reasons. Exclusionary reasons are explained, and used to unlock the secrets of orders, promises, and decisions as well as rules. Games are used to exemplify normative systems. Inevitably, the analysis extends to some aspects of normative discourse, which is truth-apt, but with a diminished assertoric force.

Philip Pettit has drawn together here a series of interconnected essays on three subjects to which he has made notable contributions. The first part of the book deals with the rule-following character of thought. The second discusses the many factors to which choice is rationally responsive - and by reference to which choice can be explained - consistently with being under the control of thought. The third examines the implications of this multiple sensitivity for the normative regulation of social affairs. Thus the volume covers a large swathe of territory, ranging from metaphysics to philosophical psychology to the theory of rational regulation. The connections that Pettit makes between these areas are original and illuminating. Each part of the book develops a key theme. The first is that thought succeeds in following rules - and overcomes Wittgenstein's rule-following problem - so far as it is response-dependent; it is a sort of enterprise that is accessible only to creatures like us for whom certain responses are primitive and shared. The second is that while human choice may be sensitive to discursive reasons, as we would expect in a thinking subject, it can at the same time be subject to the control - the virtual control, in the model developed here - of rational self-interest. And the third is that the rational interest of agents in achieving esteem in the eyes of others, and in avoiding disesteem, exercises a virtual form of control that can explain the emergence of norms and various other aspects of social life.

This book assesses the impact of norms on decision-making. It argues that norms influence choices not by being causes for actions, but by providing reasons. Consequently it approaches the problem via an investigation of the reasoning process in which norms play a decisive role. Kratochwil argues that, depending upon the strictness the guidance norms provide in arriving at a decision, different styles of reasoning with norms can be distinguished. While the focus in this book is largely analytical, the argument is developed through the interpretation of the classic thinkers in international law (Grotius, Vattel, Pufendorf, Rousseau, Hume, Habermas).

Social norms are rules that prescribe what people should and should not do given their social surroundings and circumstances. Norms instruct people to keep their promises, to drive on the right, or to abide by the golden rule. They are useful explanatory tools, employed to analyze phenomena as grand as international diplomacy and as mundane as the rules of the road. But our knowledge of norms is scattered across disciplines and research traditions, with no clear consensus on how the term should be used. Research on norms has focused on the content and the consequences of norms, without paying enough attention to their causes. Social Norms reaches across the disciplines of sociology, economics, game theory, and legal studies to provide a well-integrated theoretical and empirical account of how norms emerge, change, persist, or die out. Social Norms opens with a critical review of the many outstanding issues in the research on norms: When are norms simply devices to ease cooperation, and when do they carry intrinsic moral weight? Do norms evolve gradually over time or spring up spontaneously as circumstances change? The volume then turns to case studies on the birth and death of norms in a variety of contexts, from protest movements, to marriage, to mushroom collecting. The authors detail the concrete social processes, such as repeated interactions, social learning, threats and sanctions, that produce, sustain, and enforce norms. One case study explains how it can become normative for citizens to participate in political protests in times of social upheaval. Another case study examines how the norm of objectivity in American journalism emerged: Did it arise by consensus as the professional creed of the press corps, or was it imposed upon journalists by their employers? A third case study examines the emergence of the norm of national self-determination: has it diffused as an element of global culture, or was it imposed by the actions of powerful states? The book concludes with an examination of what we know of norm emergence, highlighting areas of agreement and points of contradiction between the disciplines. Norms may be useful in explaining other phenomena in society, but until we have a coherent theory of their origins we have not truly explained norms themselves. Social Norms moves us closer to a true understanding of this ubiquitous feature of social life.

What is the role of law in a society in which order is maintained mostly through social norms, trust, and nonlegal 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 complex task, and that current understanding of social norms is inadequate for guiding judges and lawmakers. What is needed, and what this book offers, is a model of the relationship between law and social norms. The model shows that people's concern with establishing cooperative relationships leads them to engage in certain kinds of imitative behavior. The resulting behavioral patterns are called social norms. Posner applies the model to several areas of law that involve the regulation of social norms, including laws governing gift-giving and nonprofit organizations; family law; criminal law; laws governing speech, voting, and discrimination; and contract law. Among the engaging questions posed are: Would the legalization of gay marriage harm traditional married couples? Is it beneficial to shame criminals? Why should the law reward those who make charitable contributions? Would people vote more if non-voters were penalized? The author approaches these questions using the tools of game theory, but his arguments are simply stated and make no technical demands on the reader.

We spend a great deal of time learning our vocations and avocations as we work at jobs, participate in home life, and take part in civic activities and politics. In doing so, we engage in practices that consist of complex bodies of norms. These practices themselves are bodies of knowledge-often acquired from others-about what we take to be good ways or right ways to do certain things. As we learn how to solve problems and act on this knowledge, the practice itself changes. In Norms and Practices, James D. Wallace shows that norms of all kinds, including ethical norms, are intensely social constructs learned through constant interaction with others. Wallace suggests that ethical norms have long been misunderstood as practice-independent prescriptions for behavior; he regards them instead as items of practical knowledge that are constituents of practices. We are given the luxury of learning from others' mistakes and successes, often in a very informal way. Such lessons from collective or individual experience often carry more weight than do pronouncements from an external source. Wallace shows that practices and norms, including ethical norms within such spheres as biomedical research, family life, and politics, continually change as practitioners face novel problems.

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 puzzles. Should we accept that there are modal facts or properties, or other possible worlds? If so, what could these things be? How could we come to know what the modal facts or properties are? How can we resolve philosophical debates about what is metaphysically necessary or possible? Norms and Necessity develops a new approach to understanding our claims about metaphysical possibility and necessity: Modal Normativism. The Normativist rejects the assumption that modal claims aim to describe modal features or possible worlds, arguing instead that they serve as useful ways of conveying, reasoning with, and renegotiating semantic rules and their consequences. By dropping the descriptivist assumption, the Normativist is able to unravel the notorious ontological problems of modality, and provide a clear and plausible story about how we can come to know what is metaphysically necessary or possible. Most importantly, this approach helps demystify philosophical methodology. It reveals that resolving metaphysical modal questions does not require a special form of philosophical insight or intuition. Instead, it requires nothing more mysterious than empirical knowledge, conceptual mastery, and an ability to explicitly convey and renegotiate semantic rules.

Large scale behavioral interventions work in some social contexts, but fail in others. The book explains this phenomenon with diverse personal and social behavioral motives, guided by research in economics, psychology, and international consulting done with UNICEF. The book offers tested tools that mobilize mass media, community groups, and autonomous "first movers" (or trendsetters) to alter harmful collective behaviors.

This book proposes the study of norms as a method of explaining human choice and behaviour by introducing a new scientific perspective. The science of norms may here be broadly understood as a social science which includes elements from both the behavioural and legal sciences. It is given that a science of norms is not normative in the sense of prescribing what is right or wrong in various situations. Compared with legal science, sociology of law has an interest in the operational side of legal rules and regulation. This book develops a synthesizing social science approach to better understand societal development in the wake of the increasingly significant digital technology. The underlying idea is that norms as expectations today are not primarily related to social expectations emanating from human interactions but come from systems that mankind has created for fulfilling its needs. Today the economy, via the market, and technology via digitization, generate stronger and more frequent expectations than the social system. By expanding the sociological understanding of norms, the book makes comparisons between different parts of society possible and creates a more holistic understanding of contemporary society. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers in the areas of sociology of law, legal theory, philosophy of law, sociology and social psychology.

This book focuses on the role of norms in the description, explanation, prediction and combat of corruption. It conceives corruption as a ubiquitous problem, constructed by specific traditions, values, norms and institutions. The chapters concentrate on the relationship between corruption and social as well as legal norms, providing comparative perspectives from different academic disciplines, theoretical and methodological backgrounds, and various country-studies. Due to the nature of social norms that are embedded in personal, local, and organizational contexts, the contributions in the volume focus in particular on the individual and institutional level of analysis (micro and meso-mechanisms). The book will be of interest to students and scholars across the fields of political science, public administration, socio-legal studies and psychology.