On Agreements

Abstract

AbstractMost theories of agreements assume that agreements are conditional promises, or exchanges of conditional promises, and attempt to explain what it is to agree and why agreements may be binding by explaining what it is to promise and why promising may be binding. They also attempt to solve another problem, the treatment of which is important for the general argument of the book: they try to establish how the content of agreements is determined. Three main views are held in this respect. It is maintained either that the content of an agreement is determined by taking into account all the mental states of the parties, such that only if the parties have the same relevant mental states has an agreement been reached (the subjective view), or by considering the mental states that were communicated by one party to the other regardless of whether the party had in effect the relevant states (the objective view), or by considering certain mental states as relevant, but not others (the mixed view). The chapter begins by discussing the standard model of agreements, according to which agreements should be understood in terms of promises. It can be fleshed out in different ways, for there are many different accounts of promising available in the literature. After assessing the main accounts, the standard model is filled in in a particular way. It is then argued that, despite its initial appeal, the standard model so understood should be dismissed because agreements cannot be understood in terms of promises. So an alternative account is sketched. It has implications as to how the content of agreements is determined that show that neither the subjective view, nor the objective view, nor the mixed view is correct.KeywordsNormative PowerConstitutive RuleObjective ViewSubjective ViewPromising PracticeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.