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

405Paradigms of Lawment of administrative power, that is, through the redistributivemeasures of a welfare state that is becoming active in either apreventative or reactive manner.Using the example of American adjudication on accident law,Steiner has supplied convincing evidence for the paradigm shift tobe observed in the United States: "What this common law changedoes express is not a radical shift in political or legal premises, butrather a trend in liberal thought from the vision and ideology of amore individualist society stressing a facilitative state framework forprivate activity to the vision and ideology of a more managerial,redistributive, and welfare state."31 If we list the combinations offeatures with which cases of liability in business transactions wereonce described-and therewith interpreted-from a liberal viewpointand compare these features with how such cases are described andinterpreted today in view of welfare regulations, we obtain thefollowing table:The Liberal Viewuniqueindividual, personalconcrete, anecdotaloccasional, randomisolated conductunforeseeable (in the particular)wait and see, fatalismToday 's Viewstatisticalcategory, impersonalgeneralized, purged of detailrecurrent, systemicpart of an activitypredictable (in the aggregate)manageable, planning throughinsurance and regulationIf one reads the table in the given sequence (from top to bottom),then the difference in the patterns of interpretation appears as achange in perspective that an observer makes in moving from theaction level to the system level of description: on the left side, theindividual actor in her natural, that is, contingently changingenvironment, provides the point of reference; with her individualliberty, she also has the responsibility for the consequences of herdecisions. On the right side, the statistically described interrelationshipsof a system constitute the point of reference; here thedoubly contingent decisions of the involved parties together withtheir consequences are taken as dependent variables. If, on the