I guess it's hard for a US citizen to imagine things can and do work differently elsewhere. — Benkei

Like I said, it's not a U.S. invention. It's been around since Christ was a Corporal, and long before that. The essence of contract is that you don't give or get something for nothing.

So even in your own legal system there's recognition of contracts that do not contain consideration. — Benkei

I asked you to give me an example. Gift is the best you can do. Gift is not contract.

A contract is an agreement, even in the Nederlands. Consideration = something. Wait, let me repeat that: "Consideration" = "something."

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Yes, because moral intuition has no role to play in trying to figure out what's actually right and wrong. Good point. We should just consult the law or our own opinions. Good job. I am learning a lot from you.
Now, once more, engage with the arguments in the OP, Barty Baiter

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Great. What is intuition? What is moral intuition? — tim wood

I'm thinking it might be confirmation bias. If you are standing on the bones of victims, one might contort morality to justify it, and call that moral. Just a guess. "Aww shucks! It weren't me what done it!"

Yes, let's make this about basic issues in moral epistemology - which is what you'd do to any debate about anything, right?

But not that it matters, an intuition is a mental state with representative contents. And in the case of a moral intuition, the content in question is an evaluative or normative proposition.

And one appeals to them in making any moral case for anything. And using thought experiments is the method moral philosophers use to elicit them. And when it comes to a controversial issue on which people have strong opinions and much emotional and other investment, applying one's reason (which the faculty that creates intuitions in us) to thought experiments about relevantly similar cases is the most reliable way of making progress.

Thus, if most people's moral intuitions about the pizza case are like mine - that is, if they represent Rodney not to owe anyone anything if he acquired the pizza slice honestly and then destroyed it by eating it - then this is highly significant.

The alternative, when it comes to issues of intergenerational justice and so on, is shout and stamp and scream and bash each other over the head. Identify your tribe, find out what your tribe believes, then scream it.

a gift can be refused, so there's offer and acceptance, which makes it a contract. And no, the doctrine of consideration did not exist before 1500.

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a gift can be refused, so there's offer and acceptance, which makes it a contract. And no, the doctrine of consideration did not exist before 1500. — Benkei

No, if it is refused, there is no contract, by definition. If it is accepted without consideration, it is a gift. There is no contract.

And you must have a misunderstanding regarding the definition of "consideration." The first time a human said "I will give you this for that" and the other human said "okay." You had offer, acceptance and consideration. That occurred thousands of years before 1500.

No, if it is refused, there is no contract, by definition. If it is accepted without consideration, it is a gift. There is no contract. — James Riley

By Anglo-Saxon definitions. If I accept a gift, there was a gift offered and accepted, which results in a valid contract under Dutch law and every other European jurisdiction. In fact, even without acceptance a gift can be enforced as a unilateral contract ("eenzijdige overeenkomst"). It's time for your to stop trying to correct me on Dutch law. You simply don't know what you're talking about.

Another example is an amendment to a contract where the scope of work doesn't change but the contractor simply asks for more money because of underestimated circumstances. No consideration either, valid under any continental jurisdiction as a contractual amendment and therefore a contract. Not so under UK law (barring some exceptions even there under UK law that no consideration is required). It's fine if you don't believe me but repeating the rules of your own jurisdiction is just stupid.

All right, but how normative, how evaluative? Normative and evaluative comprise judgments. How exactly is an intuition a judgement (assuming that judgments and intuitions are not the same thing)? — tim wood

A normative proposition is a proposition about what is to be done - it concerns action - and so it would be about the rightness or wrongness of an action. Evaluative concerns goodness and badness.

Judgements are not the same as intuitions, though they're often based on them. I judge that there is a cup on my desk on the basis of my visual impression of one. The judgement is not a visual impression, though it is based on one.

An intuition is a kind of impression, albeit a rational impression, not a visual one. And we base many of our moral judgements on them. However, one can have a moral intuition that an action is right, yet judge it to be wrong. So the two are not the same.

That's why simply expressing one's opinion - that is, expressing one's judgements - has no value, philosophically speaking. For they have no probative force at all - one's judgements are not evidence for anything. The impressions on which they are based may be, but the judgements themselves are not.

So, simply judging that Rodney owes the original owner of the pizza slice some money and expressing that judgement -as James Riley did above - is of no philosophical value whatsoever.

By contrast, if it is the case that most people's moral intuitions represent Rodney to owe nothing, that is good evidence - though not decisive - that Rodney does indeed owe nothing. There's nowhere else to go for evidence - all appeals to evidence are ultimately appeals to rational impressions of one sort or another, and if they're widely shared and we have no reason (itself supplied by other rational impressions) to doubt that these impressions are tracking reality, then one has made a good case.

If you want to engage philosophically with what I have argued, then you'd need to argue either that our intuitions are not widely shared about such cases, and/or come up with other thought experiments that elicit contrary rational intuitions and that seem no less analogous to the controversial cases about which insight is being sought.

By Anglo-Saxon definitions. If I accept a gift, there was a gift offered and accepted, which results in a valid contract under Dutch law and every other European jurisdiction — Benkei

Help this Anglo-Saxon dummy from America: If you offer to give me a gift and I agree to accept it, then what contract is there to enforce? Unless and until there is detrimental reliance (i.e. consideration) then there is no valid contract. I suspect you don't know what you are talking about. :roll:

Another example is an amendment to a contract where the scope of work doesn't change but the contractor simply asks for more money because of underestimated circumstances. No consideration either, valid under any continental jurisdiction as a contractual amendment and therefore a contract. Not so under UK law (barring some exceptions even there under UK law that no consideration is required). It's fine if you don't believe me but repeating the rules of your own jurisdiction is just stupid. — Benkei

So you can unilaterally amend a contract in Dutch Land, without a provision therefor in the agreement? How's about you just say "Hey, I'm not going to pay. But thanks for building this house for me." Is that how you do it over there? No, it's not. I don't care how long you've practiced law in the Neverlands. You have offer, acceptance and consideration. The Dutch aren't stupid.

Again, here is your argument: "I offer you this for nothing." To which I respond "Cool. I accept that for nothing." That's called a gift. Not a contract.

If there are incidentals, or cost over-runs, or cost-plus clauses in the contract, or provisions for contingent renegotiation or a change in consideration, then there has already been offer, acceptance and consideration. If not, then the contractor can ask until he's blue in the face. Unless and until there is a renegotiation (new offer, acceptance, consideration), then the the old offer, acceptance, consideration will control.

I'm not repeating the laws of my own jurisdiction. I'm now begging you, on bended knee, to show me a contract that lacks consideration and which is not a gift. What is there to enforce? Nothing.

Just draw one up for me. Real simple, because I'm an American and we are notoriously stupid.

Aren't pledges enforceable or unenforceable? A person can make a pledge to a charitable institution then renege on it. No consequence to the donor, except maybe piss off the would-be recipient. But if the donor received a consideration for their pledge -- say, in the form of naming a building after the donor's name -- then it becomes a contract, which is enforceable. (US contract law). Is this right?

The alternative, when it comes to issues of intergenerational justice and so on, is shout and stamp and scream and bash each other over the head. Identify your tribe, find out what your tribe believes, then scream it. — Bartricks

you forgot to also demand ridiculous amounts of money in compensation for all the bad stuff that happened as a result of the initial crime. Because, as the latest perspective has it, had said crime not occurred, Nothing bad would have ever happened to anyone affected by said crime, ever. So everything bad since then is the result of said crime and needs to be compensated for. It does not matter who did the subsequent crimes or bad things, only that someone else first did something bad too. Then it is all the fault of the first cause. Lastly, never mention the regular rates of bad things that happen to everyone else, and certainly do not remove those rates from your complaint and seek recompense for the rates above and beyond general population rates; that would violate the fundamental premise that all bad is based on first cause, nothing more.

Aren't pledges enforceable or unenforceable? A person can make a pledge to a charitable institution then renege on it. No consequence to the donor, except maybe piss off the would-be recipient. But if the donor received a consideration for their pledge -- say, in the form of naming a building after the donor's name -- then it becomes a contract, which is enforceable. (US contract law). Is this right? — Caldwell

Generally it has to do with detrimental reliance. If the recipient reasonably relied upon the pledge to his/her/its detriment, then yes, they can sue for damages.

But if you offer to give me something and I accept, then renege, what are you going to do? Sue me and try to force me to accept the gift? Unless you, as the giver, reasonably relied upon my acceptance, and did so your your detriment, there is no enforceable contract.

If there was consideration (naming the building?), then it's a contract that can be enforced. The issue again: damages.

But apparently where lives, there is an enforceable contract in the first and second instances. If he offers me a gift and I accept it, then reject it, he can force me to accept it, or force me to pay him some money for my failure to accept it. Or if he promises to give me something for nothing and I accept, I can sue him for failing to give it to me, or I can force him to give me something for nothing. I don't know what the damages would be, since I haven't detrimentally relied upon anything. Apparently that doesn't matter.

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you forgot to also demand ridiculous amounts of money in compensation for all the bad stuff that happened as a result of the initial crime. — Book273

Yes, the reasoning behind such claims does seem palpably bad. I think this can be illustrated by focusing on cases where the reverse is true - that is, where it is obvious that a crime has benefitted the victim.

For instance, let's say that someone has cut the brake cables on my motorbike, such that if I was to ride it I would certainly crash and die or be horribly injured. However, someone steals my motorbike on a trailer before I get the chance to ride it. That motorbike is then sold or given to some innocent third party and the original thief dies. Well, it seems clear that I am entitled to the motorbike. No one, I think, would have the intuition that as I was made much better off by the theft, that now the motorbike no longer belongs to me, that my benefitting from the crime somehow operated to reduce right to the motorbike, or taht I am only entitled to the value of the smashed-up motorbike that my actual motorbike would have become had it not been stolen.

And if that is clear in that case, then I see no reason why the same should not apply to any disadvantages that would accrue to me either. So if, say, the brake cables were fine and I was planning on riding the bike to an important job interview - an interview I would have got if only I'd turned up - then when my bike is found, I am entitled to the bike, but not compensation for having failed to get the job.

And I think that generalizes. Innocent victims and innocent benefactors do not owe each other compensation for the harms that befell them due to the crimes committed by others. So, if Tom stole my motorbike and you bought it from Tom innocently - and I thereby was prevented from attending an interview for a job, whereas you did attend an interview for a job (and got the job), I am entitled to my motorbike back, but I am not entitled to your job - even though you wouldn't have got the job had by bike not been stolen from me and given to you.

So yes, many of these claims for compensation for past injustices - or rather, for the costs that came in their train - are unjust, at least if my intuitions about these sorts of relevantly analogous case are correct.

I reject this. Or if you like, prove it. Nor indeed, if I think about it, can I assent to an intuition being an impression. All these words that you try to reduce to one word or one idea, and it just isn't the case — tim wood

I don't care that you reject it - that's just you expressing yourself, isn't it! Anyway, a debate about what exactly an intuition is - which, no matter what I say about it, you will reject due to the fact I said it - is not on topic. That is a topic in moral epistemology and although I am appealing to moral intuitions, you are not engaging with the topic of this thread if you insist on making this about more general issues in epistemology. That's like insisting that because I am using words to express myself, we need to have a debate about the philosophy of language before we can proceed.

The simple fact is that no matter what moral issue I was discussing here - whether historic injustices, abortion, capital punishment, whatever, you would have made the same points.

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I will take it one level further; relative to benefiting from being the victim of a crime.

You break into my house, wreck it, and steal a bunch of stuff. You are caught, my stuff already disposed of, and admit your guilt, thereby reducing your sentence. I, being so traumatized by this ordeal, then write an international best-seller, based on my horrible experiences of violation from your theft. Following the logic that all that befell me after said crime is your fault, I should be expected to pay you reasonable compensation for my success, because, had you not interceded with your crime, my success would have never occurred, having nothing to write about. Would anyone seriously pursue this line of retroactive compensation? And if not, why are we doing so in the other direction? If the practice cannot be applied universally then it should not be applied at all.

Barty baiting. Tedious. Go away.

Cops don't get to avail themselves of the fruit of a poisonous tree. Neither do criminals or tortfeasors. There is a long litany of moral, ethical, philosophical and legal support behind it. But I'll just let the law works it's magic on anyone stupid enough to try and buck that history in other than a rhetorical pile of BS.

I have a true story to represent the Case you requested of Bartricks. Hopefully you find it sufficient to work with.

I had a friend, many years ago, living in Edmonton. He had recently signed a one year lease with his land lord and the next month purchased, on in store credit account, about $15000.00 worth of furniture, which he put into his apartment. About three weeks after this, he decided to move to Chicago to be with a girl he met online. Rather than admit his change of plans, he told the land lord that he needed to fly to Australia right away because his vacationing parents had been in a car accident and his mother was likely to die from her injuries in the next few days. The landlord believed him, and agreed, furthermore, to provide an $8000.00 emergency loan, with the furniture as collateral, so my friend could leave immediately to see his dying mother. My friend took the money, moved to Chicago, and never looked back.

Should the landlord, who had acted in good faith, but had, arguably, received essentially stolen goods, as no money had ever been paid for the furniture, be held accountable for the cost of the furniture, in addition to already losing $8000?

What if the landlord, realizing he had been taken had sold the furniture for $25,000? Should he then return the $15,000, all of it? None of it? or pass it forward to the people he sold it to, claiming that they were in fact the receivers of stolen goods, and therefore all costs should be fed to them? Additionally, as the $8000 was taken by fraud, anything he purchased with it would then be proceeds of crime, so those people, innocent merchants, too would be considered recipients of proceeds of crime and responsible for such. I trust you see where I am going with this.

I stand that my friend is a douche bag, and solely responsible for both the initial $15000 theft, the next $8000 theft, and the violation of the lease. The landlord should not be held to compensate for the initial theft, nor should anyone who purchased furniture from the landlord as he attempted to recover his lost $8000. Neither party would have any idea that the furniture had not been paid for until months later.

My friend took the money, moved to Chicago, and never looked back. — Book273

Emphasis Added. Wow. I do live in a different world.

I'll just add in for whatever it's worth that there are distinctions from jurisdiction to jurisdiction within the states (under US law) and differences between pizzas and commercial paper (like holders of fraudulent checks). So, it just all depends.

You might recall when Bernie Madoff was handing stolen money from one innocent nvestor to another, they were required to return it to the rightful owner, so being a good faith holder of funds doesn't protect you just because you're in good faith.

:up:


Your friend defaulted on the credit card, if he never paid it back. It's not considered theft. It's a debt that he defaulted on. There's no collateral involved between your friend and the store. The landlord could keep the furniture or sell it and keep the proceeds. But then, that's in Edmonton. Not in the US.

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The credit was with the store, not a credit card. My understanding is that should someone default the store would come collect the furniture.