Emma Tieffenbach | University of Zurich, Switzerland (original) (raw)
Peer-reviewed articles by Emma Tieffenbach
Journal of Social Ontology, 2017
What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of good... more What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of goods motivated by inverse valuations thereof. As a corollary, the standard approach treats exchanges of services as a subspecies of exchanges of goods. We raise two objections against this standard approach. First, it is incomplete, as it fails to take into account, among other things, the offers and acceptances that lie at the core of even the simplest cases of exchanges. Second, it ultimately fails to generalize to exchanges of services, in which neither inverse preferences nor mutual transfers hold true. We propose an alternative definition of exchanges, which treats exchanges of goods as a special case of exchanges of services and which builds in offers and acceptances. According to this theory: (i) The valuations motivating exchanges are propositional and convergent rather than objectual and inverse; (ii) All exchanges of goods involve exchanges of services/actions, but not the reverse...
Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2010
In Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all instituti... more In Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutional facts. This is because the latter involve the assignment of functions, namely “status functions,” on entities whose physical features do not guarantee their performance, therefore requiring our acceptance that it be performed. One counter-example to that claim can be found in Carl Menger’s individualistic account of the money system. Menger’s commitment to the self-interest assumption, however, prevents him from accounting for the deontic dimensions of institutional facts.
Social Science Information, 2013
The unintendedness of the phenomenon that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the vario... more The unintendedness of the phenomenon that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various applications and clarifications of invisible-hand explanations. The article casts doubt on such a requirement and proposes a revised account. To have a role in an invisible-hand process, it is argued, agents may very well act with a view to contributing to the occurrence of the social outcome that is to be explained, provided they see what they do as an aggregation of their individual actions rather than as something they jointly perform.
International Journal of Wellbeing, Sep 29, 2023
International Journal of Wellbeing, Sep 29, 2023
Routledge Handbook in Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Philanthropy, Giulia Neri-Castracane, Giuseppe Ugazio (ed.), Routledge., 2025
Why do people give their income to philanthropy? An influential hypothesis known as "The Warm Glo... more Why do people give their income to philanthropy? An influential hypothesis known as "The Warm Glow Theory of Giving" is that donors derive pleasure from their own charity donations in the form of a good self-image, apart from their good effects on their recipients (Andreoni 1989, 1990, 2016). I first explain why the hypothesis of the warm glow is a solution to the free-riding problem of charity acts. I then distinguish between two ways of making sense of the claim that donors value their act, apart from their good effects on the recipient. One is to suppose that donors value donations as wholly non-instrumental activities that carry their own reward. Another is to think that a donation is instrumentally valued as evidence of one's moral worth. The plausibility of these two versions is discussed considering Jon Elster's objection to the theory of warm glow as one that turns the aim of giving into what can only come as its by-products (Elster 2006, 2011, 2013). I show that Elster convincingly objects to that desire as one that "does not make sense". Elster is less persuasive, I argue, when he objects to that the desire as a "self-defeating" one.
The unintendedness of the outcome that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various ... more The unintendedness of the outcome that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various applications and clarifications of invisible-hand explanations. The paper casts doubt on such a requirement and proposes a revised account. To have a role in an invisible-hand process, it is argued, agents may very well act with a view to contributing to the occurrence of the social outcome that is to be explained, provided they see what they do as an aggregation of their individual actions rather than as something they jointly perform.
Journal of Social Ontology, 2017
What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of good... more What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of goods motivated by inverse valuations thereof. As a corollary, the standard approach treats exchanges of services as a subspecies of exchanges of goods. We raise two objections against this standard approach. First, it is incomplete, as it fails to take into account, among other things, the offers and acceptances that lie at the core of even the simplest cases of exchanges. Second, it ultimately fails to generalize to exchanges of services, in which neither inverse preferences nor mutual transfers hold true.
We propose an alternative definition of exchanges, which treats exchanges of goods as a special case of exchanges of services and which builds in offers and acceptances. According to this theory: (i) The valuations motivating exchanges are propositional and convergent rather than objectual and inverse; (ii) All exchanges of goods involve exchanges of services/actions, but not the reverse; (iii) Offers and acceptances, together with the contractual obligations and claims they bring about, lie at the heart of all cases of exchange.
n Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutio... more n Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutional facts.This is because the latter involve the assignment of functions, namely “status functions,” on entities whose physical features do not guarantee their performance, therefore requiring our acceptance that it be performed. One counter-example to that claim can be found in Carl Menger’s individualistic account of the money system. Menger’s commitment to the self-interest assumption, however, prevents him from accounting for the deontic dimensions of institutional facts.
abstract. Self-centred based explanations like invisible-hand accounts look like constructions in... more abstract. Self-centred based explanations like invisible-hand accounts look like constructions in the armchair with no relevance to the real social outcomes. Whether and how they nonetheless provide an insight into social reality is a puzzling matter. Philip Pettit’s idea of self-interest virtually bearing on choices offers the prospect of a solution. In order to assess the latter we first distinguish between three variants of invisible-hand explanations, namely, a normative, an historical and a theoretical one. We then show that while the model of virtual self-interest is a helpful gloss on each variant, it may not convincingly succeed, Pace Pettit, to reconcile the economic mind with the common mind.
résumé. Les explications qui font l’hypothèse de motivations exclusivement intéressées de la part des agents, comme les explications dites “par la main invisible”, paraissent dénuées de pertinence eu égard au monde social reel. Dans quelle mesure ces explications écclairent tout de même la réalité sociale est une question épineuse. L’idée défendue par Philip Pettit selon laquelle l’intéret personnel influence virtuellement les choix offre la perspective d’une solution. Afin d’évaluer cette dernière, nous distinguons d’abord trois variantes au sein de la catégorie des explications par la main invisible en function des buts respectivement normatifs, historiques et théoriques que poursuivent ceux qui les avancent. Nous montrons ensuite que le modèle de la réalité virtuelle de l’intérêt personnel permet de mieux comprendre chacune de ces variantes sans toutefois parvenir de façon convainquante à réconcilier la psychologie économique et celle du sens commun.
Some thinkers oppose the exchange of money for human organs and tissue, surrogacy services, and w... more Some thinkers oppose the exchange of money for human organs and tissue, surrogacy services, and works of art, and the “commodification” of many areas of cultural life. One source of concern is said to be the alleged “incommensurability” of money with the relevant value-bearers, sometimes put in terms of their “incomparability”, “non-substitutability”, “non-tradability”, “(market)-inalienability”, or “irreplaceability”. Whichever term is used, the objection may be summed up as follows: the fact that value-bearers A and B (e.g. a kidney and $10,000) are incommensurate (or incomparable, non-tradable, and so forth), or that they are perceived as such, provides a sound, powerful reason to ban or at least to refuse trade between them. Let us refer to this type of objection to certain exchanges as the incommensurability objection. This article’s main contention is that the incommensurability objection fails. We believe that even if value bearers A and B are incommensurable (or incomparable, and so forth), or widely perceived as such, that does not provide a sound, powerful reason against trading them for each other. Our argumentative strategy is as follows: We present seven conceptions of incommensurability (and the like), which we call (a) “no betterness and equality”, (b) “no common scale”, (c) “no ground for comparison”, (d) “occasion for reasonable regret”, (e) “betterness regardless of numbers”, (f) incompatibility, and (g) and “status difference”. We then review candidate rationales for banning or avoiding trade of one value bearer for another on grounds of their incommensurability (and the like), and show the failure of these accounts on each of these conceptions of incommensurability (and the like). Our discussion also sheds light on contemporary cultural conservatism. Unlike economic conservatives like Law and Economics thinkers, contemporary cultural conservatives such as some members of the Committee on Social Thought often raise incommensurability objections to extending the market and its logic to various areas of life. We believe that this characterization of contemporary cultural conservatives capturers a deeper feature than a prevalent characterization among philosophers as clinging to a perceived past. We also believe that our case against the incommensurability objection exposes a weakness of contemporary cultural conservatism.
International Journal of Health and Policy Management, 2014
In his editorial, Nir Eyal argues that a nudge can exploit our propensity to feel shame in order ... more In his editorial, Nir Eyal argues that a nudge can exploit our propensity to feel shame in order to steer us toward certain choices. We object that shame is a cost and therefore cannot figure in the apparatus of a nudge.
Book chapters by Emma Tieffenbach
Reinach and the Foundations of Private Law. Edited by Marietta Auer, Paul, 2024
Speech act theorists take a gift to be among the range of things we can do with words. They also ... more Speech act theorists take a gift to be among the range of things we can do with words. They also disagree regarding the extent of the participation of the giftee in the act. Can a gift be made unbeknownst to its recipient? If not, is the latter required to accept the gift, in addition to hearing and understanding the utterance through which it is made? Because they give their insights about gifts in passing, speech act theorists also leave important aspects of the act in the dark. They hint at the power of gifts to modify the deontic status of its two parties, but leave to one's guess the details of the related changes. The aim of the present chapter is to reflect further on these quandaries and neglected sides of gifts in light of Reinach's theory of social acts. The main result of the present Reinachian inquiry is that the puzzles raised by the illocutionary act of making gifts dissolve once attention is redirected from the thing that is gifted to the ownership over that thing.
The Routledge Handbook of Taxation and Philanthropy, 2021
in Donner de son sang, ouvrage Jean-Daniel Tissot et Philippe Schneider (ed.), Edition Favre, Lausanne-Paris, pp. 223-251., 2020
Depuis que les modalités de ce geste médical, la transfusion sanguine, ont été découvertes il y a... more Depuis que les modalités de ce geste médical, la transfusion sanguine, ont été découvertes il y a une centaine d'année, la nature du sang-ce qu'est le sang-a changé. Le sang était jusque-là un composant organique, une partie fluide de nous-même. Avec la possibilité de le transférer d'un corps à l'autre apparait celle de l'appréhender comme une ressource. Le sang devient un bien, quelque chose dont on reconnait les pouvoirs thérapeutiques, et, surtout, quelque chose que l'on peut redistribuer.
Commentators on invisible-hand explanations often stress their distinctive explanatory virtue. Th... more Commentators on invisible-hand explanations often stress their distinctive explanatory virtue. They claim that one provides a greater insight about the nature of a certain social outcome when one supposes that those who contribute to that outcome do not intend it. But commentators also tend to avoid offering a precise account of the nature of the related explanatory gain. An explication is missing, and it is the goal of the present chapter to supply it. Because the notion of unintended consequences is highly ambiguous, its multiple (often conflated and tacit) meanings are preliminarily distinguished. The chapter then critically reconstructs several arguments in support of the explanatory power of unintended consequences thus disambiguated. It finally points to another understanding of the merit of unintended consequences: the point of re-describing an intended social outcome as an unintended one, I submit, is to acknowledge those social aspects that exist independently from what we or some legal authority, decide, accept or believe to be the case.
Le problème. La forme, la couleur, le poids ou la composition moléculaire d'un billet de banque n... more Le problème. La forme, la couleur, le poids ou la composition moléculaire d'un billet de banque ne disent rien sur la nature de l'argent. Qu'est-ce que donc l'argent si on ne peut pas le définir par ce qu'il est physiquement ? L'argent, répondent certains philosophes, est ce qu'il est parce que nous le croyons. Autrement dit, ces papiers rectangulaires sur lesquels figure le portrait d'Alberto Giacometti ne seraient pas des billets de banque d'une valeur de 100 francs suisses si nous n'entretenions pas à leur égard la croyance qu'il sont des billets de banque d'une telle valeur. Mais si nos croyances jouent un rôle essentiel dans l'existence de l'argent, est-ce à dire que l'argent n'existe que dans nos têtes ? N'y a-t-il aucune différence entre les liasses de billets qu'impriment la Banque Nationale Suisse, d'un côté, et les licornes ou Guillaume Tell, de l'autre ?
Selon Carl Menger, une chose est utile lorsqu'elle est capable de satisfaire un besoin humain. Il... more Selon Carl Menger, une chose est utile lorsqu'elle est capable de satisfaire un besoin humain. Il suffit alors qu'elle ait les propriétés physiques qui lui donnent cette capacité (Menger, 1871). Menger dit que les choses utiles, dans ce sens-là, ne sont pas des « biens » (Nützlichkeiten). Il veut dire par là qu'elles n'ont pas de valeur. Pour accéder au rang de biens, il faut que les capacités de cette chose soient reconnues, et que nous puissions contrôler ces capacités.
L'avantage de cette definition est qu'elle reconnaît la subjectivité de la valeur de l'utilité, sans pour autant y voir le produit d'un accord.
La faiblesse de cette définition est son naturalisme qui ne s'applique pas aux objets sociaux, tels que les passeports, l'argent et les testaments, dont les propriétés physiques ne déterminent pas leur utilité.
Journal of Social Ontology, 2017
What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of good... more What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of goods motivated by inverse valuations thereof. As a corollary, the standard approach treats exchanges of services as a subspecies of exchanges of goods. We raise two objections against this standard approach. First, it is incomplete, as it fails to take into account, among other things, the offers and acceptances that lie at the core of even the simplest cases of exchanges. Second, it ultimately fails to generalize to exchanges of services, in which neither inverse preferences nor mutual transfers hold true. We propose an alternative definition of exchanges, which treats exchanges of goods as a special case of exchanges of services and which builds in offers and acceptances. According to this theory: (i) The valuations motivating exchanges are propositional and convergent rather than objectual and inverse; (ii) All exchanges of goods involve exchanges of services/actions, but not the reverse...
Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2010
In Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all instituti... more In Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutional facts. This is because the latter involve the assignment of functions, namely “status functions,” on entities whose physical features do not guarantee their performance, therefore requiring our acceptance that it be performed. One counter-example to that claim can be found in Carl Menger’s individualistic account of the money system. Menger’s commitment to the self-interest assumption, however, prevents him from accounting for the deontic dimensions of institutional facts.
Social Science Information, 2013
The unintendedness of the phenomenon that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the vario... more The unintendedness of the phenomenon that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various applications and clarifications of invisible-hand explanations. The article casts doubt on such a requirement and proposes a revised account. To have a role in an invisible-hand process, it is argued, agents may very well act with a view to contributing to the occurrence of the social outcome that is to be explained, provided they see what they do as an aggregation of their individual actions rather than as something they jointly perform.
International Journal of Wellbeing, Sep 29, 2023
International Journal of Wellbeing, Sep 29, 2023
Routledge Handbook in Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Philanthropy, Giulia Neri-Castracane, Giuseppe Ugazio (ed.), Routledge., 2025
Why do people give their income to philanthropy? An influential hypothesis known as "The Warm Glo... more Why do people give their income to philanthropy? An influential hypothesis known as "The Warm Glow Theory of Giving" is that donors derive pleasure from their own charity donations in the form of a good self-image, apart from their good effects on their recipients (Andreoni 1989, 1990, 2016). I first explain why the hypothesis of the warm glow is a solution to the free-riding problem of charity acts. I then distinguish between two ways of making sense of the claim that donors value their act, apart from their good effects on the recipient. One is to suppose that donors value donations as wholly non-instrumental activities that carry their own reward. Another is to think that a donation is instrumentally valued as evidence of one's moral worth. The plausibility of these two versions is discussed considering Jon Elster's objection to the theory of warm glow as one that turns the aim of giving into what can only come as its by-products (Elster 2006, 2011, 2013). I show that Elster convincingly objects to that desire as one that "does not make sense". Elster is less persuasive, I argue, when he objects to that the desire as a "self-defeating" one.
The unintendedness of the outcome that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various ... more The unintendedness of the outcome that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various applications and clarifications of invisible-hand explanations. The paper casts doubt on such a requirement and proposes a revised account. To have a role in an invisible-hand process, it is argued, agents may very well act with a view to contributing to the occurrence of the social outcome that is to be explained, provided they see what they do as an aggregation of their individual actions rather than as something they jointly perform.
Journal of Social Ontology, 2017
What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of good... more What are economic exchanges? The received view has it that exchanges are mutual transfers of goods motivated by inverse valuations thereof. As a corollary, the standard approach treats exchanges of services as a subspecies of exchanges of goods. We raise two objections against this standard approach. First, it is incomplete, as it fails to take into account, among other things, the offers and acceptances that lie at the core of even the simplest cases of exchanges. Second, it ultimately fails to generalize to exchanges of services, in which neither inverse preferences nor mutual transfers hold true.
We propose an alternative definition of exchanges, which treats exchanges of goods as a special case of exchanges of services and which builds in offers and acceptances. According to this theory: (i) The valuations motivating exchanges are propositional and convergent rather than objectual and inverse; (ii) All exchanges of goods involve exchanges of services/actions, but not the reverse; (iii) Offers and acceptances, together with the contractual obligations and claims they bring about, lie at the heart of all cases of exchange.
n Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutio... more n Searle’s social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutional facts.This is because the latter involve the assignment of functions, namely “status functions,” on entities whose physical features do not guarantee their performance, therefore requiring our acceptance that it be performed. One counter-example to that claim can be found in Carl Menger’s individualistic account of the money system. Menger’s commitment to the self-interest assumption, however, prevents him from accounting for the deontic dimensions of institutional facts.
abstract. Self-centred based explanations like invisible-hand accounts look like constructions in... more abstract. Self-centred based explanations like invisible-hand accounts look like constructions in the armchair with no relevance to the real social outcomes. Whether and how they nonetheless provide an insight into social reality is a puzzling matter. Philip Pettit’s idea of self-interest virtually bearing on choices offers the prospect of a solution. In order to assess the latter we first distinguish between three variants of invisible-hand explanations, namely, a normative, an historical and a theoretical one. We then show that while the model of virtual self-interest is a helpful gloss on each variant, it may not convincingly succeed, Pace Pettit, to reconcile the economic mind with the common mind.
résumé. Les explications qui font l’hypothèse de motivations exclusivement intéressées de la part des agents, comme les explications dites “par la main invisible”, paraissent dénuées de pertinence eu égard au monde social reel. Dans quelle mesure ces explications écclairent tout de même la réalité sociale est une question épineuse. L’idée défendue par Philip Pettit selon laquelle l’intéret personnel influence virtuellement les choix offre la perspective d’une solution. Afin d’évaluer cette dernière, nous distinguons d’abord trois variantes au sein de la catégorie des explications par la main invisible en function des buts respectivement normatifs, historiques et théoriques que poursuivent ceux qui les avancent. Nous montrons ensuite que le modèle de la réalité virtuelle de l’intérêt personnel permet de mieux comprendre chacune de ces variantes sans toutefois parvenir de façon convainquante à réconcilier la psychologie économique et celle du sens commun.
Some thinkers oppose the exchange of money for human organs and tissue, surrogacy services, and w... more Some thinkers oppose the exchange of money for human organs and tissue, surrogacy services, and works of art, and the “commodification” of many areas of cultural life. One source of concern is said to be the alleged “incommensurability” of money with the relevant value-bearers, sometimes put in terms of their “incomparability”, “non-substitutability”, “non-tradability”, “(market)-inalienability”, or “irreplaceability”. Whichever term is used, the objection may be summed up as follows: the fact that value-bearers A and B (e.g. a kidney and $10,000) are incommensurate (or incomparable, non-tradable, and so forth), or that they are perceived as such, provides a sound, powerful reason to ban or at least to refuse trade between them. Let us refer to this type of objection to certain exchanges as the incommensurability objection. This article’s main contention is that the incommensurability objection fails. We believe that even if value bearers A and B are incommensurable (or incomparable, and so forth), or widely perceived as such, that does not provide a sound, powerful reason against trading them for each other. Our argumentative strategy is as follows: We present seven conceptions of incommensurability (and the like), which we call (a) “no betterness and equality”, (b) “no common scale”, (c) “no ground for comparison”, (d) “occasion for reasonable regret”, (e) “betterness regardless of numbers”, (f) incompatibility, and (g) and “status difference”. We then review candidate rationales for banning or avoiding trade of one value bearer for another on grounds of their incommensurability (and the like), and show the failure of these accounts on each of these conceptions of incommensurability (and the like). Our discussion also sheds light on contemporary cultural conservatism. Unlike economic conservatives like Law and Economics thinkers, contemporary cultural conservatives such as some members of the Committee on Social Thought often raise incommensurability objections to extending the market and its logic to various areas of life. We believe that this characterization of contemporary cultural conservatives capturers a deeper feature than a prevalent characterization among philosophers as clinging to a perceived past. We also believe that our case against the incommensurability objection exposes a weakness of contemporary cultural conservatism.
International Journal of Health and Policy Management, 2014
In his editorial, Nir Eyal argues that a nudge can exploit our propensity to feel shame in order ... more In his editorial, Nir Eyal argues that a nudge can exploit our propensity to feel shame in order to steer us toward certain choices. We object that shame is a cost and therefore cannot figure in the apparatus of a nudge.
Reinach and the Foundations of Private Law. Edited by Marietta Auer, Paul, 2024
Speech act theorists take a gift to be among the range of things we can do with words. They also ... more Speech act theorists take a gift to be among the range of things we can do with words. They also disagree regarding the extent of the participation of the giftee in the act. Can a gift be made unbeknownst to its recipient? If not, is the latter required to accept the gift, in addition to hearing and understanding the utterance through which it is made? Because they give their insights about gifts in passing, speech act theorists also leave important aspects of the act in the dark. They hint at the power of gifts to modify the deontic status of its two parties, but leave to one's guess the details of the related changes. The aim of the present chapter is to reflect further on these quandaries and neglected sides of gifts in light of Reinach's theory of social acts. The main result of the present Reinachian inquiry is that the puzzles raised by the illocutionary act of making gifts dissolve once attention is redirected from the thing that is gifted to the ownership over that thing.
The Routledge Handbook of Taxation and Philanthropy, 2021
in Donner de son sang, ouvrage Jean-Daniel Tissot et Philippe Schneider (ed.), Edition Favre, Lausanne-Paris, pp. 223-251., 2020
Depuis que les modalités de ce geste médical, la transfusion sanguine, ont été découvertes il y a... more Depuis que les modalités de ce geste médical, la transfusion sanguine, ont été découvertes il y a une centaine d'année, la nature du sang-ce qu'est le sang-a changé. Le sang était jusque-là un composant organique, une partie fluide de nous-même. Avec la possibilité de le transférer d'un corps à l'autre apparait celle de l'appréhender comme une ressource. Le sang devient un bien, quelque chose dont on reconnait les pouvoirs thérapeutiques, et, surtout, quelque chose que l'on peut redistribuer.
Commentators on invisible-hand explanations often stress their distinctive explanatory virtue. Th... more Commentators on invisible-hand explanations often stress their distinctive explanatory virtue. They claim that one provides a greater insight about the nature of a certain social outcome when one supposes that those who contribute to that outcome do not intend it. But commentators also tend to avoid offering a precise account of the nature of the related explanatory gain. An explication is missing, and it is the goal of the present chapter to supply it. Because the notion of unintended consequences is highly ambiguous, its multiple (often conflated and tacit) meanings are preliminarily distinguished. The chapter then critically reconstructs several arguments in support of the explanatory power of unintended consequences thus disambiguated. It finally points to another understanding of the merit of unintended consequences: the point of re-describing an intended social outcome as an unintended one, I submit, is to acknowledge those social aspects that exist independently from what we or some legal authority, decide, accept or believe to be the case.
Le problème. La forme, la couleur, le poids ou la composition moléculaire d'un billet de banque n... more Le problème. La forme, la couleur, le poids ou la composition moléculaire d'un billet de banque ne disent rien sur la nature de l'argent. Qu'est-ce que donc l'argent si on ne peut pas le définir par ce qu'il est physiquement ? L'argent, répondent certains philosophes, est ce qu'il est parce que nous le croyons. Autrement dit, ces papiers rectangulaires sur lesquels figure le portrait d'Alberto Giacometti ne seraient pas des billets de banque d'une valeur de 100 francs suisses si nous n'entretenions pas à leur égard la croyance qu'il sont des billets de banque d'une telle valeur. Mais si nos croyances jouent un rôle essentiel dans l'existence de l'argent, est-ce à dire que l'argent n'existe que dans nos têtes ? N'y a-t-il aucune différence entre les liasses de billets qu'impriment la Banque Nationale Suisse, d'un côté, et les licornes ou Guillaume Tell, de l'autre ?
Selon Carl Menger, une chose est utile lorsqu'elle est capable de satisfaire un besoin humain. Il... more Selon Carl Menger, une chose est utile lorsqu'elle est capable de satisfaire un besoin humain. Il suffit alors qu'elle ait les propriétés physiques qui lui donnent cette capacité (Menger, 1871). Menger dit que les choses utiles, dans ce sens-là, ne sont pas des « biens » (Nützlichkeiten). Il veut dire par là qu'elles n'ont pas de valeur. Pour accéder au rang de biens, il faut que les capacités de cette chose soient reconnues, et que nous puissions contrôler ces capacités.
L'avantage de cette definition est qu'elle reconnaît la subjectivité de la valeur de l'utilité, sans pour autant y voir le produit d'un accord.
La faiblesse de cette définition est son naturalisme qui ne s'applique pas aux objets sociaux, tels que les passeports, l'argent et les testaments, dont les propriétés physiques ne déterminent pas leur utilité.
Searle offers three arguments supporting the view that institutional facts are language dependent... more Searle offers three arguments supporting the view that institutional facts are language dependent. One, institutional thoughts are too complex to be held without language. Two, institutional facts would remain invisible if they were not publicly represented by means of some linguistic symbols. Three, the changes that are brought about each time an institutional fact obtains could not take place if those thoughts were not sub-types of speech acts, namely declarations, the latter being characterized by an external, non-psychological, side in virtue of which uttering them is doing something. The paper reviews these arguments, shows what is wrong with the first two, and proposes a few refinements to the third one.
Expert Focus, 2019
Pourquoi les gens donnent-ils? Une hypothèse influente est qu'ils cherchent à éprouver le plaisir... more Pourquoi les gens donnent-ils? Une hypothèse influente est qu'ils cherchent à éprouver le plaisir de donner (warm glow feeling). Mais les experts semblent s'être fait, chacun de leur côté, une idée intuitive de ce plaisir typiquement philanthropique. La disparité de leurs conceptions autorise à se demander s'ils parlent vraiment de la même chose.
Pourquoi les gens donnent-ils? Une hypothèse influente est qu'ils cherchent à éprouver le plaisir... more Pourquoi les gens donnent-ils? Une hypothèse influente est qu'ils cherchent à éprouver le plaisir de donner (warm glow-feeling). Mais les experts semblent s'être fait, chacun de leur côté, une idée intuitive de ce plaisir typiquement philanthropique. La disparité de leurs conceptions autorise à se demander s'ils parlent vraiment de la même chose.
Le plaisir est-il une valeur ? La vertu requiert-elle l’exercice de la raison ? Le goût est-il ob... more Le plaisir est-il une valeur ? La vertu requiert-elle l’exercice de la raison ? Le goût est-il objectif ? Peut-on mettre un prix à la vie d’une personne ? Une chose peut-elle être drôle si elle ne fait rire personne ? En quoi l’amitié diffère-t-elle de l’amour ? Est-il immoral d’être impartial ? L’esclave est-il libre si son maître bienveillant n’interfère jamais dans ses choix ? Voici quelques unes des questions abordées dans ce Petit Traité des valeurs, composé de trente-cinq essais brefs et originaux consacrés à la présentation d’une notion particulière.
Si nous invoquons sans cesse notre attachement à certaines valeurs, leur existence ne va néanmoins pas de soi. Les valeurs ne sont-elles que le reflet de nos attitudes ? À l’inverse, les choses pourraient-elles être belles, utiles, intéressantes ou plaisantes en l’absence de quiconque pour les apprécier ou en faire l’expérience ?
Chaque valeur retenue fait l’objet d’une étude menée par un philosophe qui s’efforce d’en déployer le sens et les enjeux et de présenter l’attrait des controverses qu’elle soulève.
In Info.clio Das Schweizer Fachportal für die Geschichtswissenschaften 73(1), 2023, S. 50-51., 2024
If one wishes to understand what money is, to whom should one turn as the most reliable source ... more If one wishes to understand what money is, to whom should one turn as the most reliable source of knowledge? Of course, economists propose themselves as the experts on the matter. Who, if not those who study interest rates, prices and exchanges could know more about the nature of money? Yet, with a few exceptions, those philosophers in the burgeoning eld of social ontology who ask ‘what is money?’ (or, for that matter, ‘what is a marriage?, ‘what is ownership?’, ‘what is a cocktail party?’, etc.) tend to ignore what past and present social scientists maintain on these issues. John Searle comes to mind as having such an insulated approach. Since The Construction of Social Reality, Searle has repeatedly claimed to have found no adequate de nition of institutions on the part of those scholars who are the most concerned with them.
Understanding Institutions leaves a different impression about the state of the art. In this elegant book, Francesco Guala shows that social scientists, economists in particular, can actually be trusted in how they under- stand the notions which they apply. Guala finds in game theory the relevant conceptual framework in which to explore the nature of institutions. Following David Hume, David Lewis, and Edna Ullmann-Margalit, he defends a view, termed the rule-in-equilibrium account, which conceives institutions as solutions to coordination problems. For example, to determine what a marriage is, we must look at the range of coordination dilemmas which married couples have resolved: Who cooks? Who picks up the children from school? Who washes the dishes? etc. Likewise, the institution of ownership states who will make use of what. The highway code indicates which side of the road to drive on. Cocktail parties? I gather they specify when to entertain and who to bond with.
The invisible hand is a theory that shows that legislators, collective agreements and moral conce... more The invisible hand is a theory that shows that legislators, collective agreements and moral concerns are not indispensable to the emergence of social outcomes. It instead describes social outcomes as the unintended consequences of many self-interested actions on the part of individuals.
Invisible-hand explanations however often raise criticisms. They are seen as falling short in two ways. First, they unpersuasively present the outcome they explain as an unintended consequence of agents’ behaviour. Second, they are based on various unrealistic assumptions—that rulers have no impact, that collective agreements do not take place, that agents have no moral concerns —which cast doubt on the explanatory power of their model. The dissertation addresses these two issues.
It begins by elucidating why the class of unintended consequences is likely to fail to fulfil its classificatory role. I then inquire whether invisible-hand explanations require that agents not intend the outcome to be accounted for.
It moves on to explore the explanatory power of invisible-hand explanations. An invisible-hand explanation, according to some of its friends, does not get the facts right because it does not pick out the actual cause of the social outcome. Rather it points out its virtual cause and, hence, explains its resilience.
On an alternative and more promising conception, invisible-hand explanations may well superficially resemble unsubstantiated fiction but they in fact leave aside the accidental features that compose the social realm in favour of its essential elements. It is therefore when one unsuitably expects the invisible hand to fully explain spatio-temporal social facts that one misses its explanatory value.
Expanding on that view, I propose to approach invisible-hand explanations as philosophical explanations, that is, as elucidating the logical structure of social reality. They point out all that is needed for its functioning, neglecting its superfluous elements.
I finally contrast the invisible-hand conception of social reality with Searle's theory of institutional facts. Both understand the institutional reality as one that involves the imposition of functions. But while Searle argues that such imposition needs collective intentionality to be performed, Menger shows how to dispense with the latter. Unlike Searle, however, the relation Menger sees between these functions and the satisfaction of individual interests prevents him from convincingly accounting for the normative dimensions of reality.
« Racine de tous les maux » (Timothée, 6 :10), l’amour de l’argent ne cesse, depuis sa condamnati... more « Racine de tous les maux » (Timothée, 6 :10), l’amour de l’argent ne cesse, depuis sa condamnation biblique, d’être vu comme une grave faute morale. Les critiques fusent de toute part. Le philosophe Franz Brentano dit de l’accumulation de l’argent qu’elle est « une passion idiote » (Foundation and Construction of Ethics, [1952], 2009). John Maynard Keynes y voit « une affection assez répugnante » (Théorie générale de l’emploi, de l’intérêt et de la monnaie, 1930). Et si Margaret Thatcher défend la création de la richesse, elle tient, en revanche, l’amour de l’argent comme « ce qui est mauvais » (Speech to General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 21 mai 1988). Mais en quoi consiste cette affection particulière ? Et de quels vices l’amoureux de l’argent se rend-il précisément coupable ? C’est à l’examen de ces deux questions que la présentation sera consacrée. Nous passerons en revue différentes façons d’aimer l’argent et examinerons si elles méritent la condamnation morale qu’elles soulèvent ordinairement.
La Radio Télévision Suisse consacre une page web au projet Aristote chez les Helvètes (édité... more La Radio Télévision Suisse consacre une page web au projet Aristote chez les Helvètes (édité par Anne Meylan, Olivier Massin), Editions d’Ithaque, Paris (http://www.rts.ch/decouverte/ monde-et-societe/philosophie/ la- philosophie/). L’occasion est donnée aux lecteurs de poser des questions sur les différents chapitres de ce livre. Sur le chapitre “Qu’est-ce que l’argent ?”, la question suivante a été posée: Est-ce qu'on peut imaginer, pour nos sociétés, un système financier qui n'implique pas le marché financier (plus proche d’un système de troc)?
Tieffenbach, 2020
The talk is devided into three parts : Part one outlines 2 rival views of what a gift is. Namely... more The talk is devided into three parts :
Part one outlines 2 rival views of what a gift is. Namely, the thing-minded view and the act-minded view.
Part two shows that that the standard view of gifts, which conceives them as transferables, is a thing-minded view.
Part three shows that the standard view is flawed because it is thing-minded. I argue that not all giftables are transferables. I also argue that even when a giftable is a transferable, transferring it is not the point of gift-giving it.