The Value of MoneyAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
The Value of Money
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Money
When we view the matter from the standpoint of the _objects_ of value,
_differentiae_ also appear. The main type of object of moral value is
modes of conduct; the "type object" of economic value is physical things
which men eat, wear, drink, etc., even though _quantitatively_ the major
part of the sum total of economic values attach to other things,
instrumental goods, lands, labor, and social relations, like franchise
rights, good will, which in the main reflect the values of consumers'
goods;[32] objects of legal value are in large degree the same as
objects of moral value, namely, modes of conduct, but moral values
attach to a wider group of objects, and legal values attach to certain
forms of conduct which are morally indifferent.
It is not so easy to make the differentiation when we view the thing
from the standpoint of the consciousness of men who are at the centre of
the situation, to whose consciousness the social values are presented.
We may put at the very forefront of the economic value of oranges the
gustatory feelings or desires of those who consume them; at the
forefront of the moral value of a heroic rescue by a fireman the thrill
that runs through the onlookers. Qualitatively, these psychological
states are different, as those who have experienced both will know. But
it is difficult indeed to put the difference into words. When it comes
to a legal value, say the legal value of a given contract right which a
man seeks to enforce in court, it is not easy to find any particular
emotion or state of consciousness which is peculiar or appropriate to
it. The value is so highly institutionalized and impersonal, that it
seems to the court and lawyers and even the litigants to be merely a
question of fact to be intellectually analyzed. Its roots are deep in
human emotions, but not in the emotions, primarily, of those who are
handling the transaction. Perhaps the jurist has states of consciousness
we know not of. There may be a distinctively legal emotion. It seems to
crop out at times when one questions, in conversation with a judge or
lawyer, the infallibility of the courts. But the law does not derive its
power therefrom! Rather, the law derives its power from the general
consent and acquiescence and support of the mass of men, who turn over
to experts the details of administering it, and who support The Law in
general, rather than the rule of the _corpus delicti_, with their
emotional sanction.
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