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Andrei Marmor

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"This book will be of great philosophical interest, especially to social and legal philosophers. Marmor's view is original and represents an important alternative to the dominant (Lewisian) conception of social conventions. He sketches his theory on a large canvas and applies it to several different areas of social life. He writes with admirable clarity, directness, and simplicity."--Gerald Postema, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"This book develops and applies a general theory of social conventions, then employs it to answer questions about the role of convention in language, morality, and law. Marmor's conclusions are noteworthy not only for the light they shed on the conventions found in these areas, but also for the claim that some linguistic and moral phenomena deemed conventional by other writers do not, in fact, have this status."--Christopher McMahon, University of California, Santa Barbar

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"This book will be of great philosophical interest, especially to social and legal philosophers. Marmor's view is original and represents an important alternative to the dominant (Lewisian) conception of social conventions. He sketches his theory on a large canvas and applies it to several different areas of social life. He writes with admirable clarity, directness, and simplicity."--Gerald Postema, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"This book develops and applies a general theory of social conventions, then employs it to answer questions about the role of convention in language, morality, and law. Marmor's conclusions are noteworthy not only for the light they shed on the conventions found in these areas, but also for the claim that some linguistic and moral phenomena deemed conventional by other writers do not, in fact, have this status."--Christopher McMahon, University of California, Santa Barbar

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SOCIAL CONVENTIONS

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................viiPreface....................................................................ixChapter One A First Look at the Nature of Conventions.....................1Chapter Two Constitutive Conventions......................................31Chapter Three Deep Conventions............................................58Chapter Four Conventions of Language: Semantics...........................79Chapter Five Conventions of Language: Pragmatics..........................106Chapter Six The Morality of Conventions...................................131Chapter Seven The Conventional Foundations of Law.........................155Bibliography...............................................................177Index......................................................................183

Chapter One

I want to begin with an attempt to define what social conventions are. I will start with some intuitive ideas on what seems special about conventional norms, and try to define those features as precisely as possible. If this tack leads us to a single explanation of the point, or function, of conventions in our lives, so be it. But we should not assume in advance that a single explanation is available, and we should certainly not predetermine what it is.

First, conventional rules are, in a specific sense, arbitrary. Roughly, if a rule is a convention, we should be able to point to an alternative rule we could have followed to achieve basically the same purpose. Second, conventional rules normally lose their point if they are not actually followed in the relevant community. The reasons for following a rule that is conventional are tied to the fact that others (in the relevant population) follow it too. To give one familiar example, consider the convention of saying "Hello" when responding to a telephone call. Both features are manifest in this example. The purpose of the convention is to have a recognizable expression that indicates to the caller that someone has answered the phone. But of course, using the particular expression "Hello" is arbitrary; any other similar expression would serve just as well-that is, as long as the expression I use is one that others use too. If the point of the convention is to have an expression that can be quickly recognized, then people have a reason to follow the norm, that is, use the expression, that others in the community follow as well. If, for some reason, people no longer use this expression, I no longer have a reason to use it either.

In fact, both of these intuitive features of conventional rules derive from a single, though complex, feature that I will call "conventionality," defined as follows:

A rule, R, is conventional, if and only if all the following conditions obtain:

1. There is a group of people, a population, P, that normally follow R in circumstances C.

2. There is a reason, or a combination of reasons, call it A, for members of P to follow R in circumstances C.

3. There is at least one other potential rule, S, that if members of P had actually followed in circumstances C, then a would have been a sufficient reason for members of P to follow S instead of R in circumstances C, and at least partly because S is the rule generally followed instead of R. The rules R and S are such that it is impossible (or pointless) to comply with both of them concomitantly in circumstances C.

In this chapter I will explain and defend this definition, showing how it applies to the variety of conventions we are familiar with. I will then present David Lewis's theory of social conventions, arguing that it successfully explains some cases, but that it fails in many others. Finally, I will consider Margaret Gilbert's alternative account of conventions, arguing that it raises more questions than it answers. An alternative to Lewis's theory or, more precisely, a supplement to it, will be presented in the next chapter.

Definition

Let us take up the details of the definition.

1. There is a group of people, a population, P, that normally follow R in circumstances C.

This condition indicates that conventions are social rules: A convention is a rule that is, by and large, followed by a population. Not all rules have to meet this condition. People can formulate rules of action and regard them as binding even if nobody is actually following those rules. Conventions, however, must be practiced, that is, actually followed, by a population in order to exist. Furthermore, I use the term "followed" advisedly. In many contexts people's behavior can conform to a rule without the rule being followed, as such. A rule is followed when it is regarded as binding. Conventions, I assume, must be regarded as binding by the relevant population. To say that a certain behavior is conventional is to assume that, at least upon reflection, people would say that they behave in a certain way because the relevant conduct is required by the convention.

Margaret Gilbert raised some doubts about this, relying on the following counterexample: suppose that it has been a convention in a certain community that people should send thank-you notes after being invited to dinner parties. As it happens, conformity with this convention has dwindled and most people no longer abide by it. Either they tend to express their gratitude in some other way, or not at all. "Does this mean that there is no longer a convention [to send thank-you notes]?" Gilbert asks. "The present author has no such clear sense," she replies. The lack of a clear sense about such cases is understandable. It often happens that a conventional rule gradually ceases to be practiced, and at some point it might become impossible to determine whether the convention still exists or not. In other words, the idea of a practice is rather vague, and borderline cases are not uncommon. As with most distinctions, however, the vagueness of the concepts constituting the distinction does not entail that the distinction itself is problematic. The importance of this first condition pertains to the unique structure of reasons for following rules that are conventional. It is a unique feature of such reasons that they are closely tied to the fact that others generally comply with the rule. This will become clearer as we complete the explanation. Suffice it to say at this point that Gilbert's example is not a counterexample to condition 1; what we face here is precisely what is described, namely, a convention that has dwindled. There used to be such a conventional practice, but now it is no longer clear that there is one. The essential point remains that conventional rules are social rules and that there must be a community that by and large follows the rule for it to be conventional.

Similar considerations apply to the question of what constitutes a community that practices a certain convention. Some conventions are practiced almost universally; others are much more parochial. However, a rule followed by just a few people is typically not a convention, even if the other conditions obtain. As social rules, conventions must be practiced by some significant number of people. Numbers matter here because in small...