Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Contracts

The act of assenting to a contract involves only a part of the mind. Yet the law interprets it as an agreement of the person in his entirety. A party to a contract cannot later say, for example, that the part of him that signed the contract is not the part he considers his best part, and try to annul the contract on these grounds. The law recognizes that there are special cases, such as insanity, intoxication and duress, where assent to a contract is not assumed to be authentic. But why does insanity merit such skepticism, when everyday neurosis does not? Why does duress by physical threats merit such skepticism, while duress by psychological manipulation does not? If a person is hypnotized, is his assent to a contract genuine? What about when he is hypnotized by television? The presence of attractive models in advertisements, for example, is a form of psychological manipulation, which, if properly considered, would call into question the validity of all the contracts upon which daily commerce in contemporary society is based.

To make a commitment requires a unity of consciousness that is rare and difficult. To make this an everyday occurrence, as contract law intends to do, is to make something uncommon into something common—both in the sense of making it more frequent than it ought to be, and in the sense of cheapening it.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

The problem with commerce

Commercial society allows those with different views on how to order their lives to peacefully coexist with one another. This is its virtue. But there is no mechanism within commerce that helps us to actually understand one another’s views, rather than merely coexisting with them. The market rationally and effectively equalizes supply and demand, but it never asks us to discuss why we supply what we supply, why we demand what we demand.

In a rational discussion, false opinions are challenged, opposing arguments are brought to bear. In the marketplace, both true and false opinions create demand, so there is really no need to distinguish them. Both are opportunities for sales and profit. No matter how false and irrational the demands of customers are, criticizing them is rarely the path to commercial success.

The market leaves each of us to figure out for himself the path to a virtuous and happy life. It requires each of us to develop independence of mind. And yet it provides no mechanism by which we might help one another in developing that independence.