Leeway

Orientation uses leeways. A leeway (allowance, clearance, elbow room, latitude, range, room for maneuver, room to move, scope, tolerance, German Spielraum) is a regulated limit of an unregulated behavior. In everyday life, a leeway is necessary for everything that is to move within a certain frame of something, e.g. a door in its frame. In human orientation, the versatile and multi-faceted leeways of thinking, communicating, and acting specify the freedoms of orientation (chap. 5.6). Depending on the situation, they open alternatives that can and must be decided on.

Instead of blindly following rules and norms, we usually weigh their significance for the respective situation. These leeways in dealing with rules and norms amplify both the efficiency and complexity of orientation. Leeways for action can be legally guaranteed (chap. 12.5), narrowed or extended. They can even be shut down without reservation by moral coercion (chap. 14.1), but can also be restored by perspectivizing the moral coercion (chap. 14.6). Usually one wants to maintain leeways everywhere for one’s own orientations and decisions, even on a global scale (chap. 16.1).

15, 53-54, 57, 65-68, 73-75, 93-109, 119, 129, 132-133, 153, 155, 178-181, 183-185, 195, 202, 208, 220-223, 226, 249, 253, 261-262, 276

 

Glossary

Reinhard Mueller