Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Social meaning: Social meaning refers to the significance or interpretation that individuals and groups attribute to behaviors, symbols, or events within a social context. It encompasses the shared understandings and collective perceptions that inform and guide social interactions. Social meaning helps shape cultural norms, influence communication, and determine the implications of actions within a community or society. See also Community, Society, Behavior, Social behavior, Norms, Social norms._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Lawrence Lessig on Social Meaning - Dictionary of Arguments
Parisi I 473 Social meaning/Lessig/Carbonara: Once individuals are aware of social meaning, they can use it, as they can be “tools - means to a chosen end.” Social meaning can be built and changed through law. An enlightening example is provided by Lessig (1996)(1) and is related to possible techniques used to eliminate dueling. While prohibiting duels in itself is neutral for social meaning, the sanction provided to punish violators does affect it and might improve substantially the efficacy of the prohibition. Consider two possible legal strategies: imprisoning duelers and inflicting a sanction that, in addition to imprisonment, prevents duelers from holding public office. Both techniques have the effect of increasing the cost of dueling but have very different impacts on social meaning. The first type of sanction simply increases the cost of dueling, raising its expected harm. The meaning of the act, however, remains unaltered: duelers are gentlemen defending their honor and that of their community. Disqualifying duelers from public office not only increases the cost for duelers but it also changes the meaning of the act and, more precisely, the meaning of disobeying the law. >Law/Carbonara, >Social Norms. 1. Lessig, Lawrence (1996). “Social Meaning and Social Norms.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 144: 2181–2189. Emanuela Carbonara. “Law and Social Norms”. In: Parisi, Francesco (ed) (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Vol 1: Methodology and Concepts. NY: Oxford University._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Lessig I Lawrence Lessig Code: Version 2.0 New York 2006ff Parisi I Francesco Parisi (Ed) The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts New York 2017 |
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> Counter arguments against Lessig
> Counter arguments in relation to Social Meaning
