Paying a Price,Facing a Fine,Counting the Cost: The Differences that Make the Difference |
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| Authors: | Mark Migotti |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, CanadaI have a great many people to thank for help with this paper. As always, first and foremost is Susan Haack, who read dozens of drafts over many years, and saved me from more errors, detours, and distractions than it is comfortable to remember. Arthur Ripstein, Noa Latham, Wayne Sumner, Hamish Stewart, Ali Kazmi, and the sorely missed Dennis McKerlie all read drafts at various stages and provided invaluable comments. The reports of two referees for this journal resulted in many significant improvements to the paper, for which I am especially grateful. Audiences at the Western Canadian Philosophical Association, the University of Toronto Centre for Ethics, and the University of Calgary Department of Philosophy Colloquium, and members of the Ethics Research Group at Calgary and the Law and Philosophy Reading Group at Toronto, prompted me to rethink and improve many points, with the contributions of Margaret Schabas, Andrew Stark, Tom Hurka, David Dyzenhaus, and Ernest Weinrib standing out as particularly helpful. Jonette Watson‐Hamilton gave me much (and urgently) needed pointers to articles in law journals ranging from Anglo‐Saxon law to insurance law via recovery amongst tortfeasors and bona fide purchase for value. Jared Craig helped out late in the day on the topic of liquidated damages. Even later in the day Seana Shiffrin made a number of valuable suggestions. Since my article was already in press at the time I received these comments, I have been able to make only minimal improvements in response to them. |
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| Abstract: | In this paper I show that penalties are not prices, and explain why the difference matters. In section one, I set up the problem which the following two sections will solve: namely, that it is easy enough to make certain kinds of penalties look just like prices. In section two, I lay out and dismantle an argument for reducing the former to the latter; and in section three I dismantle an argument for taking penalties and prices to be pragmatically equivalent, on the grounds that the essential function of both is to attach costs to actions. |
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