Jean-Daniel REYNAUD
Nathalie RICHEBÉ

Abstract

What does value rationality consist in and how does it relate to instrumental rationality ? Can these problems be elucidated if coordination among social actors in non-market activities is understood to be founded on values, and if values are understood to be what allows for defining the common good ? This article challenges that approach, recently reformulated in the French school known as economies of conventions. Using the same procedures as those developed in that school of thought -close analysis of procedural rationality, analysis of coordination and collective devices - we seek to answer the question more effectively, analyzing how norms and normativity themselves develop. Refusing to separate the field of argumentation (in the sense of Habermas's "communicative action") from that of interests, strategies and power relations, we analyze the aspect of collective action which cannot be reduced to individual action, an approach that allows for understanding the very nature of normativity.

One of the Unes dividing the social sciences has to do with the importance they attribute to calculation and obligation. To use Weber's term, is there such a thing as value rationality ? Does value rationality have to be assimilated to instrumental rationality ? And if we think of them as distinct, how are they related to each other and what is the nature of value rationality ? A récent, collective work in the economies of conventions (Eymard-Duvernay, 2006) has sparked a great deal of debate and offers a good occasion to examine these crucial social science questions on a new basis.