Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules

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David Owens (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, Kings College, London)

Bound by Convention

Obligation and Social Rules

David Owens (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, Kings College, London)

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English

Oxford University Press
24 November 2022

How should we assess the social structures that govern human conduct and settle whether we are bound by their rules? One approach is to ask whether those social arrangements (e.g. our family structures) reflect pre-conventional facts about our nature. If they do, compliance will serve our interests because these rules are not just conventions. Another approach is to ask whether following a convention has desirable consequences. For example, the rule which makes the dollar bill legal tender is a convention and the great usefulness of having a medium of exchange ensures that we should follow that convention by accepting paper money in return for things of real value. This work argues that being bound by a convention can also be valuable for its own sake. People need meaning in their lives and conventions infuse acts and attitudes with normative significance, rendering them right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, required or forbidden. Such rules bind us not just in virtue of their usefulness but also because their absence would impoverish our social world. Appreciating this point is essential to a proper understanding of our cultures of neighbourliness and hospitality, family structures, systems of property rights, conventions around speech, the norms governing how we deport ourselves in public, and even the rules of a game.

By: David Owens (Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy Kings College London)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 163mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 556g
ISBN: 9780192896124
ISBN 10: 0192896121
Pages: 278
Publication Date: 24 November 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

David Owens is Professor of Philosophy at Kings College, London. He has held visiting appointments at All Souls College, Oxford, Yale University, London University, Sydney University, New York University, and the University of Lublin. He is the author of three books: Shaping the Normative Landscape (2012); Reason Without Freedom(2000); Causes and Coincidences (1992); and a collection of papers Normativity and Control (2017).

Reviews for Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules

A strikingly original and philosophically challenging book, both in the sense that it must be read with care and that it challenges much received wisdom in moral theory. * Liam Murphy, Jurisprudence * David Owens's Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules is an original and stimulating defense of the intrinsic value of social convention. * Jeff Kaplan, Ethics * Owens' book undoubtedly constitutes an important contribution to a strangely neglected topic in recent philosophical work, namely the role of conventions in shaping our rights and obligations. * Laura Valentini, Mind *