Conclusion

Once the analytical frameworks that can be used to evaluate police uses of force are firmly understood, it is appropriate to question the propriety of those frameworks as they currently exist. In light of the wide variation that can exist between state laws and agency policies, policy makers, police leaders, and academics should take an active approach to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each evaluative standard. The authors conclude by identifying three common flaws and suggesting corresponding corrections. First, the tendency to evaluate a use of force by looking only at the moment in which force was used artificially limits scope of review, omitting from consideration the varied and important ways in which events that precede the use of force can affect the ultimate outcome. Second, the traditional approach of focusing on a subject’s resistance overlooks the fact that such actions are merely a proxy for what actually matters in use-of-force situations: the nature and extent of a threat to a defined governmental interest. Third, while this book is concerned with evaluating individual uses of force, it acknowledges the need for more informed analysis of police violence in the aggregate, which require data that are not currently available.

How Personal and Social Selves Influence the Development of Children and Adolescents at School

How do different aspects of students' self-relate to their development at school? In educational psychology, this question has been examined essentially only in terms of the influence of the ability self-concept, a central part of the personal self. Starting with a literature review on why and how the ability self-concept impacts motivation and student outcomes, we argue that social selves – learners' knowledge about their group memberships and associated evaluations – have an impact, too. Students are more intrinsically motivated and more successful if they experience fit between learning environment and important self-aspects. Accordingly, we suggest a model according to which students try to increase fit by exerting primary control, i. e., by proactively changing the environment, with the self as agent. To that end (i) they mentally project the self as different from the actual self, with the mental self-projection serving as a self-evaluative standard and motiving behaviors aiming at its attainment, (ii) they choose behavioral options that allow for the enactment of important self-aspects, (iii) they choose interaction partners who share important self-aspects or are supportive of their behavioral enactment, and (iv) they switch between or prioritize different values, to best match affordances and constraints of the learning environment. If a student repeatedly fails to achieve fit through primary control, secondary control strategies are deployed, i. e., internal processes aimed at minimizing losses and saving resources for the pursuit of more attainable goals. To that end, students either disidentify with the learning environment or redefine their selves in a reactive manner, with, in many cases, detrimental effects on their academic outcomes. We hope to inspire educational psychologists to more systematically investigate the different self-aspects' impact on social and academic development of learners at school.

Jeremy Bentham’s Dream

This chapter examines Jeremy Bentham's doctrine of utilitarianism and the principle of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” Bentham is known for his radical critique of society, which aimed to test the usefulness of existing institutions, practices and beliefs against an objective evaluative standard, as well as his advocacy of law reform and his utilitarian justification for democracy. The chapter considers Bentham's views on subjects ranging from happiness and pleasure to social reform, “theory of fictions,” and sex and sexuality. It also discusses some of Bentham's writings, including Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (published under the pseudonym Philip Beauchamp), Chrestomathia, Defense of Economy against the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, and An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Finally, the chapter looks at Bentham's proposals for reform of the Poor Laws and his influence on the Poor Law Amendment Act.

Love and Transience in Proust

One strand of recent philosophical attention to Marcel Proust's novel À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, exemplified by Martha Nussbaum and Rae Langton, claims that romantic love is depicted in the text as self-regarding and solipsistic. I aim to challenge this reading. First, I demonstrate that the text contains a different view, overlooked by these recent interpreters, according to which love is directed at the partially knowable reality of another. Second, I argue that a better explanation for Proust's narrator's ultimate renunciation of romantic love appeals not to his impossible epistemic standard for knowledge of another person, but to his demanding evaluative standard for the permanence of love. This interpretation takes into account the broader scope of the novel, connecting with its larger themes of lost time and the desire for stability, and is more charitable, connecting to familiar worries about transience and constancy in loving relationships.

Classification of Sciences in Islamic Thought

The classification of sciences is not a purely descriptive science, for its aim is not limited to providing a statistical survey of existing human knowledge and to arranging the sciences in order to present a report describing what is already there so that it can be built upon in the framework of general epistemological growth. This science, rather, carries under its descriptive appearance an evaluative standard that views the description of existing sciences as a foundation for what should take place in the mind's orientations toward subjects of knowl­edge. This can occur on an educational level, by pointing toward the manner of comprehending and assimilating sciences, or on a creative level. by pointing toward new areas of intellectual discovery in accor­dance with what is necessary for the advancement of human life. Thus. this science bears some similarity to history, in its descriptive appear­ance of what is there in the field of human knowledge, and to logic, in its defining of what should take place in the processes of the intellect. As a result, it is called the "logic of sciences" and is simultaneously descriptive and evaluative. However its descriptive aspect, which likens it to history, and its evaluative aspect. which draws it toward logic, does not mean that it is "objective," as are history and logic. This is because its evaluative aim is not based on the primeval issues of the intellect, as are logic and other objective sciences, but on the existential situation of human­ity, in what the individual perceives of the reality of existence and his/her own position in that reality. Upon this perception is based the formulation of a science classification method that is in harmony with the situation that is subservient to the destiny drawn for itself by humanity ...

The double-edged sword: Emotional regulation for children at risk

The capacity to manage emotion is based on the growth of self-regulatory capacities in the early years, but is also affected by situational demands, influences from other people, and the child's goals for regulating emotion in a particular setting. For most children growing up in supportive contexts, the growth of emotional regulation is associated with enhanced psychosocial well-being and socioemotional competence. But for children who are at risk for the development of psychopathology owing to environmental stresses or intrinsic vulnerability (or their interaction), emotional regulation often entails inherent trade-offs that make nonoptimal strategics of managing emotion expectable, perhaps inevitable, in a context of difficult environmental demands and conflicting emotional goals. This analysis discusses how emotional regulation in children at risk may simultaneously foster both resiliency and vulnerability by considering how emotion is managed when children (a) are living with a parent who is depressed, (b) witness or experience domestic violence, or (c) are temperamentally inhibited when encountering novel challenges. In each case, the child's efforts to manage emotion may simultaneously buffer against certain stresses while also enhancing the child's vulnerability to other risks and demands. This double-edged sword of emotional regulation in conditions of risk for children cautions against using “optimal” emotional regulation as an evaluative standard for such children or assuming that emotional regulation necessarily improves psychosocial well-being. It also suggests how the study of emotional regulation must consider the goals for regulating emotion and the contexts in which those goals are sought.