Collective values arise through institutions, not from atomized preference sums

Evidence

Under welfareeconomic analysis, no allowance is made for the possibility of citizens to adapt their preferences in light of changed circumstances, to acknowledge the ethical responsibility created by past actions, to accept as being well and just any newly imposed constraints on their harmful activities, or simply to get on with the project of life by deriving welfare in new— but not necessarily inferior— ways. This lens is unduly narrow: Just as certain attributes and behaviors of complex, adaptive biophysical systems cannot be predicted by examining individual system components alone, certain values and aims of the “social organism” cannot be identifi ed or predicted through the simple aggregation of atomized preferences or interests. Instead, those values and aims in part emerge through the operation of social institutions and procedures themselves. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 312

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s institution-focused Legal Systems course and social-capital/trust material on institutions generating value beyond individual preferences. — connects to: Citizens often lack formed preferences absent forums for collective deliberation — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 313; Welfare maximization self-undermines by denying the collective community’s existence and judgment it depends on — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 59; Collective moral disengagement is an emergent group property, not a sum of individuals — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 686 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Collective moral disengagement is an emergent group property, not a sum of individuals #corroborates (0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 686
• Collective moral disengagement arises from members mutually exonerating each role in a shared system #corroborates (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 685
• Interdependent individual actions produce collective outcomes no one deliberately chose #corroborates (0.85) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 817
• Institutions constitute citizens’ freedom from domination rather than causally producing it #expands (0.80) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 518
• Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 612
• Institutions inherently operate by reproducing homogeneity rather than diversity #qualifies (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Racial State, 20
• Institutionalization enables collective work while codification imposes a false orthodoxy #qualifies (0.72)
• Coercion and interests alone compel cooperation even without shared values #qualifies (0.70)