The Proportionality Puzzle in Contract Law: A Challenge for Private Law Theory?

This article explores the emerging use of the proportionality concept in the contract law of the Anglo-common law world, first to understand its internal logic, and secondly, to situate its invocation within private law theory. What are judges doing when they appeal to “proportionality”?, and what does this say about the ideology of adjudication? I draw insights from the use of proportionality in other domains, in particular public law, to uncover its internal rationality as a means-ends rationality review coupled with a process of balancing competing considerations, which I illustrate with reference to the illegality, penalty, and cost of cure doctrines. I argue that proportionality reflects a method of pragmatic justification, expressing an aspiration towards a structured and transparent mode of argumentation that is anti-formal and anti-ideological, focusing from the bottom-up on contextual considerations, and occupying a distinct space against existing theories in private law driven, for instance, by “top-down”? rights-based ideologies or critical and communitarian perspectives.

ATRATORES SISTÊMICOS E A DIFERENCIAÇÃO INTERNA DO DIREITO NA GESTÃO JURÍDICA DO RISCO BIOTECNOLÓGICO

RESUMOObjetivo: O presente artigo tem como objetivo a análise do desenvolvimento interno de um subsistema comunicativo no interior do Direito. Para tanto, parte-se do reconhecimento da problemática do risco biotecnológico como vetor de condução à formação de uma racionalidade parcial interna, suficientemente complexa para alcançar a possibilidade de gestão jurídica do risco biotecnológico.Metodologia: Trata-se de um estudo amparado na metodologia de observação sistêmica, e em pesquisas bibliográficas.Resultados: A visualização do risco biotecnológico como atrator evolutivo condicionante/condicionado não soluciona a problemática da contingência da distinção geneticamente-aplicável/geneticamente-inaplicável; mas, ao contrário, afirma a possibilidade de que, diante da não solução do problema, existem caminhos passíveis de construção pelo Direito. O risco biotecnológico, quando percebido mediante a distinção Direito/não-Direito, pode ser observado na forma de um atrator juridicamente condicionante, constrangendo o sistema à evolução a partir de situações que não mantém qualquer relação teleológica ou determinística, mas sim com a deriva estrutural presente na história da autopoiese sistêmica.Contribuições: Ao assumir-se a possibilidade de evolução do sistema jurídico, o estudo dá como contribuição a informação de que o risco biotecnológico passa a influenciar nas possíveis trajetórias adotadas pelo sistema, não a condicionando no sentido lato da expressão, mas possibilitando ao sistema utilizar o risco biotecnológico como norteador de suas operações internas (atrator juridicamente condicionante), bem como de sua capacidade de produzir ressonâncias direcionadas em outros sistemas sociais (atrator juridicamente condicionado).PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Evolução; diferenciação; indeterminação; risco biotecnológico. ABSTRACTObjective: To analyze the internal development of a communicative subsystem within the Law. Therefore, it is started by recognizing the problem of biotechnological risk as a driver for the formation of a partial internal rationality, which is complex enough to achieve the possibility of legal management of biotechnological risk.Methodology: This is a study based on the methodology of systemic observation and bibliographic research.Results: The visualization of biotechnological risk as a conditioning/ conditioned evolutionary attractor does not solve the issue of the contingency of genetically-applicable/genetically-inapplicable distinction; but, on the contrary, it affirms the possibility that, given the non-solution of the issue, there are paths that can be built by Law. Biotechnological risk, when perceived through the Legal/non-Legal distinction, can be observed in the form of a legally conditioning attractor, constraining the system to evolution from situations that have no teleological or deterministic relationship, but rather with structural drift present in the history of systemic autopoiesis.Contributions: By assuming the possibility of evolution of the legal system, the study contributes to the information that the biotechnological risk starts to influence the possible trajectories adopted by the system, not conditioning it in the broad sense of the expression, but enabling the system to use biotechnological risk as a guide to its internal operations (legally conditioning attractor), as well as its ability to produce targeted resonances in other social systems (legally conditioned attractor).KEYWORDS: Evolution; differentiation; indeterminacy; biotechnological risk.

Der erstaunliche methodologische Widerspruch zwischen Freuds Metapsychologie und seiner analytischen Technik

Freud’s metapsychology has been interpreted in a number of different ways. Some scholars see him committed to classical scientism, others to genuine hermeneutics. Many Freud philologists suggest that he moved from an early scientism to hermeneutic methods in his later writings, and some think he misunderstood his own angle, thinking himself to be a natural scientist, but actually practising hermeneutics. The article first looks at Freud’s model of the soul and his remarks about psychoanalytic explanations and concludes that there is overwhelming evidence for the contention that he conceived of psychoanalytic explanations in terms of causal explanations and that his metapsychology is, all things considered, scientistic. However, it seems that Freud did not clearly distinguish between causal and rational explanations (i. e. genuine interpretations). The article emphasizes that he could have found this distinction in the writings of Max Weber. In the last two sections, the article turns to a meticulous analysis of two vignettes describing Freud’s own treatment of two cases that he takes to be fine examples of the technique used in psychoanalytic treatment. It turns out that Freud himself looks at these cases and their treatment, throughout, in terms of rationality and irrationality. In particular, he seems to distinguish between an “external” irrationality and an “internal” rationality of neurotic diseases. He also seems to point to functions of neuroses representing certain solutions for mental disturbances. Thus, there is much evidence for assuming that in his psychoanalytic technique, Freud relied on genuine hermeneutic and functional methods; and therefore, Freud’s official metapsychology seems to be methodologically inconsistent with his analytic technique.

Why Does Rationality Matter?

Internalism implies that rationality requires nothing more than what in the broadest sense counts as ‘coherence’. The earlier chapters of this book argue that rationality is in a strong sense normative. But why does coherence matter? The interpretation of this question is clarified. An answer to the question would involve a general characterization of rationality that makes it intuitively less puzzling why rationality is in this strong sense normative. Various approaches to this question are explored: a deflationary approach, the appeal to ‘Dutch book’ theorems, the idea that rationality is constitutive of the nature of mental states. It is argued that none of these approaches solves the problem. An adequate solution will have to appeal to some value that depends partly on how things are in the external world—in effect, an external goal—and some normatively significant connection between internal rationality and this external goal.

Stock Price Booms and Expected Capital Gains

Investors' subjective capital gains expectations are a key element explaining stock price fluctuations. Survey measures of these expectations display excessive optimism (pessimism) at market peaks (troughs). We formally reject the hypothesis that this is compatible with rational expectations. We then incorporate subjective price beliefs with such properties into a standard asset-pricing model with rational agents (internal rationality). The model gives rise to boom-bust cycles that temporarily delink stock prices from fundamentals and quantitatively replicates many asset-pricing moments. In particular, it matches the observed strong positive correlation between the price dividend ratio and survey return expectations, which cannot be matched by rational expectations. (JEL D83, D84, G12, G14)