“We should expect the best and the worst from mankind, as from the weather.” said Marquis De Vauvenargues This is the first statement that author Lynn Stout uses in this book, Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good People. This quote reflects on the power of conscience in a civilized society. What is the best way to get people to behave themselves?
Although many experts assume that humans are selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day people behave unselfishly, few of them mug the elderly or steal the paper from their neighbor's yard, and many of them go out of their way to help strangers. Lynn Stout, a professor of corporate and securities law at the University of California, Los Angeles, with a …show more content…
Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, she contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout refers to Franco Gonzales, a boyish man in his early twenties working as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Los Angeles; who found $203,000 that fell off an armored car as he stood by the street waiting for a bus and turned the money in to the police. His example cuts against the grain modern society thought of homo economicus the selfishly rational man. The homo economicus teachings now pervade law, business, government and education. Conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. In Chapter 3, she gives examples of normative judgments like that cashier was nice, and goes ahead to give magnitude of words to describe unselfish behavior.
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 on benefits to others have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how the legal system can use these social clues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish and ethical behavior in politics and business. For example according to Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience “People tend to do what they are told …show more content…
Evidence shows a vast majority of people are willing to follow ethical rules and help others but only when social conditions are right. This causes people to shift predictably between selfish and unselfish modes of behavior in response to certain social conditions. Examples of self-sacrifice benefiting other species abound in Chapter 9. One has only to see the Humane Society’s televised pleas for money to be reminded that pictures of wounded dogs and cats get people to open their wallets. Seeing images of injured and neglected animals seem to trigger feelings of compassion similar to that which you might expect in reaction to seeing starving or sick children although perhaps to a different degree.
Looking at Jekyll/Hyde syndrome model of human behavior, Stout illustrates how the legal systems use social clues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish and ethical behavior. It also suggests that, rather than leaning on the power of greed to channel human behavior, policymakers often might do better to focus on and promote the force of conscience. This is through applying the three factor model to understanding the tort, contract and criminal
Although many experts assume that humans are selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day people behave unselfishly, few of them mug the elderly or steal the paper from their neighbor's yard, and many of them go out of their way to help strangers. Lynn Stout, a professor of corporate and securities law at the University of California, Los Angeles, with a …show more content…
Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, she contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout refers to Franco Gonzales, a boyish man in his early twenties working as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Los Angeles; who found $203,000 that fell off an armored car as he stood by the street waiting for a bus and turned the money in to the police. His example cuts against the grain modern society thought of homo economicus the selfishly rational man. The homo economicus teachings now pervade law, business, government and education. Conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. In Chapter 3, she gives examples of normative judgments like that cashier was nice, and goes ahead to give magnitude of words to describe unselfish behavior.
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 on benefits to others have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how the legal system can use these social clues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish and ethical behavior in politics and business. For example according to Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience “People tend to do what they are told …show more content…
Evidence shows a vast majority of people are willing to follow ethical rules and help others but only when social conditions are right. This causes people to shift predictably between selfish and unselfish modes of behavior in response to certain social conditions. Examples of self-sacrifice benefiting other species abound in Chapter 9. One has only to see the Humane Society’s televised pleas for money to be reminded that pictures of wounded dogs and cats get people to open their wallets. Seeing images of injured and neglected animals seem to trigger feelings of compassion similar to that which you might expect in reaction to seeing starving or sick children although perhaps to a different degree.
Looking at Jekyll/Hyde syndrome model of human behavior, Stout illustrates how the legal systems use social clues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish and ethical behavior. It also suggests that, rather than leaning on the power of greed to channel human behavior, policymakers often might do better to focus on and promote the force of conscience. This is through applying the three factor model to understanding the tort, contract and criminal