C. D. Johnson

This paper examines a recurrent debate about the rationale of contractual liability: whether the central object of contract law is to facilitate human interaction by respecting individual choices, or if it is in large part to redistribute wealth, power, and advantages generally. The debate between defenders of freedom of contract and those who would use contract law to advance schemes of redistribution is connected to the long-standing issues between natural-law theories and legal positivism. This paper is divided into two main sections. In the first, the notion of individual autonomy is examined in light of the classical view, most recently advanced by Fried, that the rationale for enforcing contracts is connected to the respect for individual autonomy as such. There is also an examination of the notion of a collective concern, and what it is, from a libertarian point of view, that makes some social goals objectionably collective. The second part of the paper argues that the use of collective resources for the enforcement of contracts brings with it the authority to limit and shape enforcement in the interest of redistribution

Japan is the world's second most productive economy, but its economic system is intensely controversial. It differs from both the plan-rational systems of the communist world and the market-rational systems of the capitalist world in that it combines elements of both. This configuration directly challenges orthodox capitalist theory as advanced by the United States and the United Kingdom. During the 1990s, when Japan's economy slowed greatly and some other economies of East Asia were besieged by international capital flows, Japan's economy was singled out for a withering ideological critique. Nonetheless, what is wrong in Japan is not its economy but its status as a military satellite of the United States, which causes its political system to be ineffective in serving the country's economic interests

This is a book about moral reasoning: how we actually reason and how we ought to reason. It defends a form of 'rule' utilitarianism whereby we must sometimes judge and act in moral questions in accordance with generally accepted rules, so long as the existence of those rules is justified by the good they bring about. The author opposes the currently more fashionable view that it is always right for the individual to do that which produces the most good. Among the salient topics covered are: an account of the utilitarian function in society of generally accepted moral rules; a discussion of how we interpret existing moral rules and create new ones; and a defence of 'rule' utilitarianism against the charge that it either commits one to irrational rule worship, or collapses into a form of 'act' utilitarianism. This is a book about moral reasoning: how we actually reason and how we ought to reason. It defends a form of 'rule' utilitarianism whereby we must sometimes judge and act in moral questions in accordance with generally accepted rules, so long as the existence of those rules is justified by the good they bring about.