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Expectations and Property Market
By arlene | May 9, 2008
There is much that the foregoing elaboration of the idea of property, whatever its advantages, does not reveal about property. In particular, it tells little about the psychological and social dimensions of property. It will, however, be convenient to explain one such dimension here, because it will play an important role at various subsequent stages.’ This dimension is a connection between property and expectations. In order to make the connection clear, it is first necessary to analyze expectations.’
An expectation is a disposition to predict that a certain event will occur together with (characteristically) an attitude of desiring and feeling entitled to count on its occurrence. To clarify this definition it will help to distinguish expectations from predictions, hopes, and simply expecting. Expectations involve predictions but for two reasons cannot be identified with them. One reason is that to have an expectation, though not to predict, is “dispositional” (like knowing or aspiring) rather than “occurrent” (like concentrating or listening). It is possible to say that persons have expectations (but not usually to say that they predict) even when they are asleep or, though awake, are not thinking of the event predicted. The other reason is that different vocabularies apply to predictions and expectations. Predictions have a truth- value, and people speak of them as being verified or falsified. Expectations do not have a truth-value. People speak of them as being protected, sheltered, and secured, or shattered, disrupted, and disappointed, rather than being verified or falsified.
Expectations also differ in attitude from hopes. Persons who hope may have some confidence in the predicted event, but the attitude is typically one of simply desiring or wishing for it rather than feeling entitled to count on it. Persons who have expectations, it is true, usually desire the expected event. Yet they typically also feel entitled, to a greater or lesser extent, to count on its occurrence.
The accompanying attitude is such that the phrase “has expectations” is not quite equivalent to the verb “expects.” Having expectations differs slightly from simply expecting. People may “expect” to lose a game or to lose money in the stock market, even though the predicted event is undesired. But the noun “expectations,” certainly in the legal and philosophical literature, usually is confined to cases in which the predicted event is desired. Sometimes, of course, it is desired because it is counted on. Reliance and rearrangement of persons‘ affairs may bring them to desire an event to which they would otherwise have been indifferent. A little room exists, but not much, for unfavorable expectations. As a matter of intellectual history, confining the noun “expectations” mainly to desired events is perhaps due to the strong association in Hume and Bentham of expectations with the stability needed for personal and social well-being (§ 8.2).
The relevant connection between property and expectations is that property, conceived as a legal structure of Hohfeldian normative modalities, makes possible legal expectations with respect to things. This structure is a ground for the disposition to predict, inter alia, the future use and enjoyment of things together with the attitude of feeling entitled to count on them. Moreover, only an attenuated form of property would fail to ground expectations. For it would have to occasion no desire for, no disposition to predict, or no attitude of feeling entitled to count on the future use and enjoyment of things. Such a form of property, if it merits the name at all, would be unstable or bizarre or both. It will emerge later that property-related expectations have deep roots in human agency and the interactions between persons and the world (§ 4.6).
These remarks connect, but do not identify, property and expectations. To identify them would be to subscribe to this sort of analysis: “Property is a set of expectations such that. . . .” One would then have to fill in the ellipsis by specifying those expectations that are property as distinct from those that are something else. Such an analysis would be a mistake. If property is a normative structure, if expectations are dispositions to predict together with a certain attitude, and if the existence of a normative structure requires more than these dispositions-cum-attitudes, then property is not identical with expectations. So Bentham was right, pro tanto, to say that “[p]roperty is nothing but a basis of expectation”‘ with respect to things. The sophisticated or legal conception of property forms the basis. Part of the psychological dimension of property is the set of legal expectations that individuals have. Part of its social dimension is the concordance of most such expectations in efficacious legal systems.
As an illustration of these remarks, consider again the homeowner introduced in § 2.3. Among her many legal incidents it is possible to reckon claim-rights to occupy and use the premises; privileges and powers to exclude others, to mortgage or lease the property, and to transfer it to others; immunity from expropriation of the house by the government without compensation; liability for property taxes; a duty not to use the premises for industrial purposes; and so on. In the United States most owners of residential property would be aware of these various legal advantages and disadvantages — and many more besides. In consequence, they would, if the distinction drawn earlier is adopted, have expectations regarding the advantageous items and would expect certain things regarding the disadvantageous items. Most neighbors would be aware of the owner’s legal position and her expectations. Accordingly, they would have certain expectations of their own. No doubt additional elements must be introduced to explain, say, whatever social status attaches to being a homeowner. All the same, to supplement the Hohfeld—Honore analysis with an account of property- related expectations helps illuminate the psychological and social dimensions of property.
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