Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

67The Sociology of Law vs. the Philosophy of Justiceexpectations of one another's expectations, reflexively adjusted toeach other so that each participant could make his own decisionsin the expectation of the other actors' anticipated decisions. Nostable social order can emerge from the contingent clashes ofdifferent expected interest-positions and competing calculationsof success. To explain the formation and stability of behaviorpatterns, therefore, Durkheim postulated that in every communitythere exists a preestablished consensus on a set of intersubjectivelyrecognized values, which orient the individual members. In thatcase, of course, it must be explained how actors who are free in theirdecisions bind themselves to norms at all, that is, let themselves beobligated by norms to realize the corresponding values. Howevergentle it may be, the force of normative claims will be experiencedby actors as externally imposed coercion, unless they make it their ·own as moral force, that is, unless they convert this force into theirown motivations. Durkheim concentrated on a sociological translationof the Kantian concept of autonomy. Because this conceptgrounds the obligation to transpersonal imperatives in personalinsight, it is not the same as mere freedom of choice. What isrequired is a symmetrical relationship between the moral authorityof existing social orders and a corresponding self-control anchoredin personality systems. Institutionalized values must, as Parsons willsay, correspond with internalized values. The addressees of a normwill be sufficiently motivated to comply with norms on the averageonly if they have internalized the values incorporated in the norms.The process of internalization that secures a motivational foundationfor actors' value orientations is usually not repression-free;but it does result in an authority of conscience that goes hand inhand with a consciousness of autonomy. Only in this consciousnessdoes the peculiarly obligating character of "existing" social ordersfind an addressee who "binds" himself of his own free will.This corresponds to Weber's view that social orders can only bemaintained in the long run as legitimate orders. "The validity of anorder means more than the mere existence of a uniformity of socialaction determined by custom or self-interest."36 Here "custom"refers to practices based on a dulled, somewhat mechanical habituation,whereas "legitimately ordered action" requires a consciousorientation to a consensus presupposed as valid: "'Consensus'