Calculating costs or weighing social relations? The basis of the ‘benefactive order’ in interaction

It is well-established that social actions such as suggesting and requesting—and replies to them—involve considerations of costs and benefits. For example, if I ask you a favor, I stand to accrue some amount of benefit at some amount of cost to you. This cost/benefit distribution is a quality of the future action I am requesting. But there are other “benefactive” considerations that instead concern social-relational matters. By asking a favor—and doing so in a certain way—I, for instance, imply how much right I have to benefit at your cost. This article argues that the established conception of “benefactives” as matters pertaining to a course of action should be distinguished from the socio-relational aspect of benefactive rights and obligations. Examples of people negotiating future actions are used to illustrate the argument and the interplay of benefactive and other kinds of (e.g. deontic) rights/obligations. Data are in English.