Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good People

by Lynn Stout

How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperity

Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly―few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience.

Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues―instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others―have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass.

This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore.

Genres: Law

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Vaidas Balys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teisė nėra man labai artima sritis, tačiau knyga buvo išties įdomi. Autorė oponuoja idėjai ir teorijai, kad teisė yra paprasta paskatų ir nuobaudų sistema, kuri valdo žmonių elgesį tiesiog per kaštų ir naudos balansavimą. Šioje knygoje autorė gana įtikinamai argumentuoja, kad teisė yra sukonstruota ir veikia, taip pat priimdama domėn sąžinę, žmonių prosocialias nuostatas ar altruizmą.

Pagrindinis trūkumas - stilius. Pirmuose keliuose puslapiuose atpažįsti, kad čia bus "amerikoniška" knyga, kur mintis ar teiginys pakartojami daug kartų. Niekaip negaliu prie to priprasti. Nepaisant to, knyga verta dėmesio. Nėra ilga, galima greitai perkrimsti.

[Agnė Domarkaitė-Sugintė · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sudėtinga knyga, tačiau skaityti verta.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

The related research was really interesting, but I was expecting this to be used as a criticism of what we’ve been seeing vs an argument to up the ante on it. There’s not a word about the US having the highest percent of prisoners in the world or how counterproductive that is, nor about how prisons are all about punishment instead of rehabilitation. This argues that most of us have a conscience, as opposed to the dominant theory presumed by economists, but then also seems to argue for more of a police state than we already have, and if anything it’s for more jailing of people. It completely misses the fact that there are so many laws that there’s no way that most people would know/understand the effects of them all let alone be acting rationally based on them. In fact, it seems to be arguing for more if possibly different types of laws. A lot of theory, very little real world examples. I’ll give it that the perspective is for us to consider more about people’s consciences, but also seems to make a case that most of our law already do that.

[Zigmantas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sąžinė - prosocialus nesavanaudiškas elgesys. Teisės ir sąžinės simbiozė skatina mums elgtis sąžiningai. Knygoje glaustai nagrinėjami atlikti ir atliekami tyrimai. Lyginami Ar homo sapiens yra homo economicus (savanaudiškas žmogus) ar priešingai, kaip tas vargšas Gonzalesas radęs piniginę su tūkstančiais atiduoda į policiją. Kas katina žmones nusikalsti arba nenusikalsti? Kaip veikia autoritetai? kaip gali žmogus pasikeisti, pasikeitus socialiniai aplinkai? Išdaužto lango teorija, deliktų ir baudžiamoji teisė ir kiti panašūs klausimai nagrinėjami šioje knygoje. Mokslisškai, kritiškai, aiškiai, suprantamai, paliekant pačiam skaitytojui atrasti kas iš tikrųjų daro mūsų pasaulį geresnį.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a hard time putting this book down, it was really good. There was a lot of discussion of economic and legal concepts and how they can be used (manipulated) to create conscientious citizens.

[John P. Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lynn Stout's Cultivating Conscience is a well written book about how our own collective conscience can affect change in society by how we write, shape, and change laws. I would highly recommend it.