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

This book attempts to systematically clarify when rules should and should not be followed.

Alan H. Goldman (Author)

9780521807296, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 September 2001

224 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.47 kg

"Goldman makes his argument in a clear and convincing manner and successfully provides us with a model for moral reasoning that takes into account the differences between decision-making in the public sphere, in which rule-following is essential, and ordinary individual decision-making, in which rule following is not helpful but in which moral guidance is, nevertheless, still available to moral agents." - Marina P. Banchetti-Robino, Florida Atlantic University

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.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Moral Rules: 1. Outline of the task
2. Types of rules: dispensable and indispensable
3. Ordinary moral consciousness
4. Rules as second-best strategies
5. The justification of rules: strong and weak
6. Interpretation of weak rules
Part II. Prudential Rules: 7. Moral and prudential rules compared
8. Second-order prudential rules: optimizing
9. A prudential rule to be moral
Part III. Legal Rules: 10. Classification
11. The descriptive question: Hart, Dworkin and others
12. The descriptive question: sources of law
13. The normative question
Part IV. Moral Reasoning without Rules: 14. The inadequacy of particularism
15. Coherence
16. The reasoning process reviewed
17. Objections
Notes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: logic [HPL]