Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules
Zoomicon-zoom-in
Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules

Bound by Convention: Obligation and Social Rules

By
David Owens (Author)  

Hardback

PRE-ORDER released 01 September 2022

Quantity

Also available on eBook for £46.09. Click here to purchase from Rakuten Kobo

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.
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).
  • Contributor: David Owens
  • Imprint: Oxford University Press
  • ISBN13: 9780192896124
  • Number of Pages: 288
  • Packaged Dimensions: 156x234mm
  • Format: Hardback
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • Release Date: 2022-09-01
  • Binding: Hardback
  • Biography: 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).

Delivery Options

Home Delivery

Store Delivery

Free Returns

We hope you are delighted with everything you buy from us. However, if you are not, we will refund or replace your order up to 30 days after purchase. Terms and exclusions apply; find out more from our Returns and Refunds Policy.