Elster's work unstably combines Leibnizian and utilitarian conceptions of action and offers various deconstructions of rationality and individuality. His method ological individualism gives an inadequate account of its privileged object, individual teleologies, and a distorted account of the relational framework of social reproduction and transformation. Elster has not properly conceptualized the relation of the teleological act to patterns of material and social causality, and his rational choice theory proves unable to accommodate the interactions of his postulated monadic individuals. His most (...) recent work dearly illustrates the limits of an individualist approach, while remaining committed to its principles. (shrink)

This paper guides the reader through the use of functions in contemporary legal philosophy: in developing those philosophies and through methodological debates over their proper role. This paper is broken into two sections. In the first I canvass the role of functions in the legal philosophies of several mid to late twentieth century Anglo-American general jurisprudents whose theories are still common topics of discussion: Ronald Dworkin, H.L.A. Hart, Lon L. Fuller, John Finnis, and Joseph Raz. In the second, I examine (...) contemporary arguments over the role of functions in the methodology of legal philosophy. (shrink)