Prejudice from an Epistemological Point of View

Prejudice ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
Endre Begby

The book’s opening chapter begins by providing a working definition of prejudice in terms of negatively charged stereotypes targeting some group of people, and derivatively, the individuals who comprise this group. It then turns to situating this approach in the larger landscape of contemporary epistemological theory. The study of prejudiced belief falls within the ambit of social epistemology. It should also, it is argued, be considered as a form of situated, applied epistemology. As such, it is recognizably a contribution to “non-ideal epistemology” (a notion to be further elaborated in chapter 3): non-ideal epistemology aims to provide normative guidelines for decision-making under uncertainty. Currently popular “externalist” approaches to epistemology are of no help here. But at the same time, non-ideal epistemology is also not “internalist,” since it routinely holds what we are responsible to a broader subset of the total evidence than is currently in our possession.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Fahey

Purpose By clearly mapping the pathway for managing the early stages of any marketplace analysis project, its definition, scope, framing, focus, perspective, context, imagination and data choices – the odds of generating important strategic insight can be greatly increased for executives as well as analysis teams. Design/methodology/approach A marketing analysis team should pay specific attention to how it organizes the analysis context’a process called “Structuring”. Findings A working definition of insight: new marketplace understanding that makes a difference to the organization’s thinking, decision making and action. Practical/implications 10; Nothing constricts the insight structuring process as much as lack of imagination! Originality/value The choice of analysis scope, framing, focus, perspective or methods is a critical part of the marketplace analysis structuring process that increases the possibility of distinctly different strategic inferences emerging. The article is a much needed guide to mastering strategic insight for executives and marketplace analysts.


2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 309 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.I. Mackie ◽  
S.H. Begg ◽  
C. Smith ◽  
M.B. Welsh

Business underperformance in the upstream oil and gas industry, and the failure of many decisions to return expected results, has led to a growing interest over the past few years in understanding the impacts of decisionmaking tools and processes and their relationship to decision outcomes. A primary observation is that different decision types require different decision-making approaches to achieve optimal outcomes.Optimal decision making relies on understanding the types of decisions being made and tailoring the type of decision with the appropriate tools and processes. Yet the industry lacks both a definition of decision types and any guidelines as to what tools and processes should be used for what decisions types. We argue that maximising the chances of a good outcome in real-world decisions requires the implementation of such tailoring.


Author(s):  
Lidia Schapira

Overview: Improving clinician-patient communication, improving clinical decision making, and eliminating mistrust have been identified as three key areas for reducing disparities in care. An important step is the training of cancer professionals to deliver culturally competent care in clinical settings as well as increasing the proportion of underrepresented minorities in the health care workforce. Providing care that is attuned to the patient's cultural preferences begins by talking to the patient about his or her cultural history and identifying the locus of decision making, preferences for disclosure of vital health information, and goals of care. Patients with low literacy and those with poor fluency of the dominant language require additional services. Language interpretation by trained professionals is fundamental to ensure that patients are able to provide informed consent for treatment. A working definition of culture involves multiple dimensions and levels and must be viewed as both dynamic and adaptive, rather than simply as a collection of beliefs and values. Effective cross-cultural education avoids stereotyping and promotes communication and negotiation to solve problems and minimize tension and conflict. Recent research has identified that unconscious biases held by clinicians affect their behavior and recommendations for treatment.


Author(s):  
David A. Welch

For the study of international crisis to yield insights of value to both scholars and policymakers, it is imperative to understand what the term “international crisis” means in the abstract and what qualifies as an international crisis in the real world. It is also important to establish criteria for distinguishing species of the genus. These tasks require clearing up conceptual ambiguities, articulating and justifying a working definition of “international crisis,” demonstrating the utility of that definition for both scholarly analysis and practical policymaking, and exploring potentially fruitful ways in which international crises can be categorized. The working definition proposed is as follows: An international crisis is a decisive encounter between two or more states involving a plausibly elevated danger of imminent war. International crisis so conceived is inherently a decision-making problem and cannot be understood in purely systemic terms, divorced from policymakers’ perceptions of (a) the challenges they face, (b) the stakes involved, (c) the time constraints under which they operate, or (d) the severity of their predicament. While international crisis is not always entirely in the eye of the beholder, it is sufficient to establish that an international crisis is in play if decision makers believe that it is, whether or not their beliefs are well-founded. Without prejudging empirical analysis, it is plausible to suggest that both the analysis and the management of international crises may differ depending upon their genesis, the nature of the stakes involved, their severity, their payoff structure, and whether or not the protagonists have nuclear weapons.


Global Jurist ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Régis Lanneau

Abstract In this paper, I argue that the “expanded” economic theory advocated in Calabresi’s book “The Future of Law and Economics” could be interpreted in at least three different ways, all of which are compatible. First, Calabresi’s book could be interpreted as an attempt to incentivize lawyer-economists to explore laws and regulations from different angles or perspectives rather than merely apply neoclassical theories. Second, it could be considered an attempt to justify the introduction of the notion of moral costs into law and economics to better explain some legal realities. Third, it could be considered an attempt to advocate, in a more normative way, the need to incorporate moral costs into real world analysis to better improve upon decision making. This paper will address and discuss each of these possible interpretations. It will be clear that, from an epistemological point of view, if the first interpretation might be more widely accepted because it is less controversial, the second and third interpretations remain more problematic. Admittedly, the concept of moral costs could obscure and even distort our understanding of some legal realities. Moreover, the introduction of such costs for decision making is raising questions which cannot be answered through economic theory alone.


Author(s):  
E. Kay M. Tisdall

A children’s parliament can be defined as a formal structure for children and young people’s participation that meets on a regular or semi-regular basis. This is a working definition, as there is no single definition of children’s parliaments universally agreed upon. Very similar structures can be called different things, such as child councils, child forums, youth councils, and youth parliaments. For this entry, resources are included that refer to these and other terms but excludes structures only at school level. This entry concentrates on resources for children and young people under the age of eighteen, following the definition of the child in Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). However, there are far more resources on youth parliaments than on children’s parliaments, and youth parliaments frequently include young people below and above the age of eighteen. Thus, certain resources are included if the youth parliaments in question extend below the age of eighteen. Research evidence is illuminating but limited. Children’s parliaments can be found throughout the world, across all regions, sometimes championed by nongovernmental organizations (e.g., Ethiopia and India), while others supported by government (e.g., Finland, Ireland, Scotland, and the United States). They tend to involve older children and young people (i.e., over the age of twelve), although there are exceptions. For advocates, they are opportunities for children and young people to engage in democratic practices, influence decision-making, and develop personal skills and leadership qualities; for critics, they are tokenistic and unrepresentative structures that limit rather than further children and young people’s participation to influence decision-making collectively. The growth of children’s parliament was galvanized by the UNCRC and its participation rights. In particular, Article 12 of the UNCRC outlines children’s right “to express their views freely in all matters affecting the child,” and that these views be given “due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.” Children’s parliaments are one response to ensuring children’s views are expressed and given due weight in collective decision-making.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136571272110112
Author(s):  
Andrés Páez

Rules 405(a) and 608(a) of the Federal Rules of Evidence allow the use of testimony about a witness’s reputation to support or undermine his or her credibility in trial. This paper analyses the evidential weight of such testimony from the point of view of social epistemology and the theory of social networks. Together they provide the necessary elements to analyse how reputation is understood in this case, and to assess the epistemic foundation of a reputational attribution. The result of the analysis will be that reputational testimony is extremely weak from an epistemological point of view, and that in many cases there are more reliable substitutes that achieve a similar purpose. The obvious fix, in my view, is to eliminate the use of reputation testimony to support or undermine the credibility, honesty, chastity or peacefulness of a witness


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rima Al-Sager ◽  
Durga Prasad Samontaray

This paper discusses the gender wise investors' awareness of corporate governance concepts and its importance in their investment decision process. It also answers the two questions "do investors depend on information related to corporate governance to make their investment decisions?" and "are the mechanisms of corporate governance important to them?" Books, studies, and research articles are used to enrich this paper. A survey is used as a tool to investigate the opinion of male and female investors, about corporate governance concepts and its importance on investors' decision making process. The survey shows that investors do not have a clear definition of corporate governance but they believe that it is important from companies' point of view. Also, most of investors do not always depend on information or factors that related to corporate governance as a base for their investment decisions. Mainly, Saudi investors care about board committees, disclosure and transparency as mechanisms of corporate governance.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Latimer

I demonstrate that a set of well-known objections defeat John Stuart Mill’s plural voting proposal, but do not defeat plural voting as such. I adopt the following as a working definition of political equality: a voting system is egalitarian if and only if departures from a baseline of equally weighted votes are normatively permissible. I develop an alternative proposal, called procedural plural voting, which allocates plural votes procedurally, via the free choices of the electorate, rather than according to a substantive standard of competence. The alternative avoids standards objections to Mill’s proposal. Moreover, reflection on the alternative plural voting scheme disrupts our intuitions about what counts as an egalitarian voting system. Undue emphasis on Mill’s version of plural voting obscures three important reasons to reject plural voting in favor of strictly egalitarian voting systems: (1) that certain choices that generate inequalities of political power are morally impermissible; (2) that even chosen inequalities may undermine the potential epistemic benefits of democratic decision-making; and (3) that such choices may undermine citizens’ commitments to democracy understood as a joint project.


Fuzzy Systems ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 1553-1575
Author(s):  
Janez Usenik ◽  
Tit Turnsek

This chapter touches the question of how to model conflict. The discussion is limited to inter- and intra- organizational conflicts. The focus is on the behavior of the conflict in time. A working definition of conflict, named starting theory, is given. The presented models are constructed by means of system dynamics tools. A short explanation of system dynamics tools is given. Moreover, fuzzy logic and fuzzy system are introduced. Fuzzy system models human reasoning and decision making, and is integrated in the model of isolated conflict. Three models are presented, namely: the qualitative model, the model of isolated conflict, and, finally, the generic model of isolated conflict with fuzzy system. At the end, the results of a few simulation runs illustrate the use of the model.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document