What is affirmative action?

Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

This chapter (1) offers a definition of affirmative action; (2) presents a typology of affirmative action policies; (3) and distinguishes between different kinds of justifications for affirmative action. These are all three useful points. Often when people seemingly disagree about the justifiability of affirmative action, they define it differently; have different kinds in mind even though they define affirmative action in the same way; or have different kinds of justifications of affirmative action in mind, even though they define it in the same way and have the same kinds in mind. Moreover, if we do not know what affirmative action is, we are not in a position to say which non-moral properties it has. If so, we cannot tell whether it is morally justified per se, since presumably if affirmative action per se is (un)justified, it is (un)justified in virtue of non-moral properties that it has by way of definition. The chapter concludes with a thumbnail sketch of the rest of the book.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Jiménez-Buedo

AbstractReactivity, or the phenomenon by which subjects tend to modify their behavior in virtue of their being studied upon, is often cited as one of the most important difficulties involved in social scientific experiments, and yet, there is to date a persistent conceptual muddle when dealing with the many dimensions of reactivity. This paper offers a conceptual framework for reactivity that draws on an interventionist approach to causality. The framework allows us to offer an unambiguous definition of reactivity and distinguishes it from placebo effects. Further, it allows us to distinguish between benign and malignant forms of the phenomenon, depending on whether reactivity constitutes a danger to the validity of the causal inferences drawn from experimental data.


2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Apostoli

Until very recently, it was thought that there couldn't be any current interest in logicism as a philosophy of mathematics. Indeed, there is an old argument one often finds that logicism is a simple nonstarter just in virtue of the fact that if it were a logical truth that there are infinitely many natural numbers, then this would be in conflict with the existence of finite models. It is certainly true that from the perspective of model theory, arithmetic cannot be a part of logic. However, it is equally true that model theory's reliance on a background of axiomatic set theory renders it unable to match Frege's Theorem, the derivation within second order logic of the infinity of the number series from the contextual “definition” of the cardinality operator. Called “Hume's Principle” by Boolos, the contextual definition of the cardinality operator is presented in Section 63 of Grundlagen, as the statement that, for any concepts F and G,the number of F s = the number of G sif, and only if,F is equinumerous with G.The philosophical interest in Frege's Theorem derives from the thesis, defended for example by Crispin Wright, that Hume's principle expresses our pre-analytic conception of assertions of numerical identity. However, Boolos cites the very fact that Hume's principle has only infinite models as grounds for denying that it is logically true: For Boolos, Hume's principle is simply a disguised axiom of infinity.


Author(s):  
Katherine Baber

Chapter 1 looks at Bernstein’s writings on musical meaning, national style, and jazz to reveal the philosophy behind his use of jazz and its significance as a part of his long-term project to define American musical identity. A definition of the jazz idiom, according to Bernstein’s understanding, is interwoven with three important strands of Bernstein’s musical thinking: the primacy of tonality, the value of music as a unique form of human communication, and the formation of national identity in music. The chapter focuses particularly on Bernstein’s Harvard honors thesis, the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (published as The Unanswered Question), and The Joy of Music.


Author(s):  
Lisa Westwood ◽  
Beth Laura O’Leary ◽  
Milford Wayne Donaldson

Chapter 1 introduces the concepts of “importance” and historic preservation at a high-level and explains the biographies of each of the authors. The included chapter outline also provides an overview of the scope and content of the book. This chapter begins with an overview and definition of human culture, and how it has changed over time. The concepts of archaeology and space archaeology are introduced within the context of place-based historic preservation and Apollo culture.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Mukulika Banerjee

Chapter 1 examines the significance of India’s constitution as both a democracy and a republic and the force of B. R. Ambedkar’s ideas on the necessity for “democracy in social life” alongside the institutions of formal democracy. It is the first study that draws attention to India’s credentials as a republic as a way of understanding its democracy. The chapter introduces the site of this study and the linkages between agrarian and democratic values. Methodologically, it shows the importance of using the approaches of the Manchester School in India (hitherto unexplored) and the value this adds to our definition of what constitutes “the political.” Here, “the political” contains both agonistic and competitive tendencies on the one hand, but also reparative and cooperative impulsions. The methodology of this book, of studying electoral and non-electoral social life alongside each other, and the four key “events” of the book are also explained.


Author(s):  
Deborah Roberts

This chapter introduces the underlying principles of decision making. You will be encouraged to consider decision making as a student in university together with decision making as a student nurse (see Chapter 1 ). In 2010, following a review of pre-registration nursing education, the professional body for nursing in the United Kingdom, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), published new Standards for Pre-Registration Nursing Education , including competencies that all students must achieve to qualify as a registered nurse. These competencies have to be met in four broad areas known as ‘domains’. 1. Professional values 2. Communication and interpersonal skills 3. Nursing practice and decision making 4. Leadership, management, and team working You will find reference to these domains throughout the book, and there will be an opportunity to learn how the competencies in each of these that relate to decision making can be linked to your clinical and university-based learning. There are a number of terms that can be found in the literature that are often used interchangeably; you may see terms such as ‘decision making’, ‘problem solving’, ‘clinical reasoning’ or ‘clinical judgement’, and others used when writers are discussing how and why nurses respond to clinical situations in a particular way (see Chapter 1 for more detail). For example, Levett-Jones et al. (2010: 515) provide a helpful definition of clinical reasoning as ‘the process by which nurses collect cues, process the information, come to an understanding of a patient problem or situation, plan and implement interventions, evaluate outcomes, and reflect on and learn from the process’. They also emphasize that a nurse’s ability to develop these clinical reasoning skills depends on what they term as ‘five rights’—that is, the nurse’s ability ‘to collect the right cues and to take the right action for the right patient at the right time and for the right reason’. In the context of ensuring that any patient receives the best possible care, these ‘five rights’ are very appropriate, and indeed if one were to fail to pick up on the right cues and to take the appropriate actions in many clinical situations, the outcome may have serious repercussions for the nurse and the patient.


Author(s):  
Roger A. Hart ◽  
Michael K. Conn

The task we have been set is to review developmental theory concerning how individuals act in real-world environments. To simplify this difficult task we have emphasized the developmental span of childhood, the area of our professional expertise. Before proceeding with the review, a few comments regarding the framework of this book and, within it, the definition of our task will enable us to illuminate some of the assumptions inherent in the structure of this volume and to explain how this has affected our conceptualization of the problem. The stated goal of this book is to look at the separate areas of human relatedness to the environment that are recognized by “most research in environmental psychology”: environmental cognition, environmental appraisal and decision making, and action in environments (see Table 1.1 in Chapter 1 of this volume). We agree that although such a separation of cognition and evaluation from action is a reflection of the dominant tendency of research, it is true of only some theories. To accept this division and to discuss primarily action would prevent us from emphasizing those theorists who have argued that human relatedness to the environment must be thought of holistically and dynamically. Consequently, although we have tried to emphasize action, this chapter actually deals simultaneously with cognition and appraisal. The question of why more integrative and holistic theories have been largely ignored is itself important. We argue that the answer lies in a fear by psychologists of such research because it cannot easily meet the traditional tenets of what constitutes good theory—building through experimental research design. A second problem in the task definition is the use of the word “space.” We should not simply be addressing “spatial decisions and actions” but environmental decisions and actions. In the field of environmental psychology the terms “space” and “environment” are commonly used synonymously. We think of space as just one characteristic of objects in the environment. Unfortunately, space is the characteristic that most environmental cognition research has addressed. This is somewhat understandable, for environmental psychology finds its distinctiveness in the study of the large-scale environment in which space (spatial relatedness) is the most distinguishing variable.


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