How to do Applied Ethics Right

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Peter Jaworski ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bridge Principles

Mark Cherry’s Kidney for Sale by Owner is a book that illustrates how to do applied ethics right. Mark Cherry recognizes the important role of empirical facts in bridging a gap between our moral prescriptions, and our public policy or institutional prescriptions. In Kidney for Sale by Owner this method is on full display. While there is nothing the matter with Ideal Theory, we stand in need of what might be called bridge principles between the ideals of justice and some specific set of institutions that, we intend and hope, will actually realize those ideals. The bridge between Ideal and Actual will consist of empirical facts that require the tools of the social scientists.

Value-driven issues throughout the development of sociological theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽  
Valerii Pylypenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social System ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.

scholarly journals A Pattern-Oriented Approach to Fair Use

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J Madison
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Fair Use ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Case Application ◽  
Use Factors ◽  
Oriented Approach

More than 150 years into development of the doctrine of "fair use" in American copyright law, there is no end to legislative, judicial, and academic efforts to rationalize the doctrine. Its codification in the 1976 Copyright Act appears to have contributed to its fragmentation, rather than to its coherence. This Article suggests that fair use is neither badly conceived nor badly applied, but that it is too often badly understood. As did much of copyright law, fair use originated as a judicially-unacknowledged effort via the law to validate certain favored social practices and patterns. In the main, it has continued to be applied as such, though too often courts mask their implicit validation of these patterns in the now-conventional "case-by-case" application of the statutory fair use "factors" to the defendant's use of the copyrighted work in question. A more explicit acknowledgement of the role of these patterns in fair use analysis is consistent with fair use and copyright policy and tradition. Importantly, it helps to bridge the often-difficult conceptual gap between fair use claims asserted by individual defendants and the social implications of accepting or rejecting those claims. Finally, a pattern-oriented approach is normatively appropriate, when viewed in light of recent research by cognitive psychologists and other social scientists on patterns and creativity. In immediate terms, the approach should lead to a more consistent and predictable fair use jurisprudence. In the longer term, it should enhance the ability of copyright law to promote creative expression.

Imagination and Art

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Swedberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the role of imagination and the arts in helping social scientists to theorize well. However deep one's basic knowledge of social theory is, and however many concepts, mechanisms, and theories one knows, unless this knowledge is used in an imaginative way, the result will be dull and noncreative. A good research topic should among other things operate as an analogon—that is, it should be able to set off the theoretical imagination of the social scientist. Then, when a social scientist writes, he or she may want to write in such a way that the reader's theoretical imagination is stirred. Besides imagination, the chapter also discusses the relationship of social theory to art. There are a number of reason for this, including the fact that in modern society, art is perceived as the height of imagination and creativity.

Morality and the Social Sciences

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert O. Hirschman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social

This chapter attempts to identify the tension between morality and the social sciences and recognize its inescapable centrality—and in that way have social scientists think more openly about their commitments. It turns to questions on the role of moral considerations and concerns in economics, and, more generally, to what can be said about the “problem of morality in the social sciences.” This chapter suggests some ways of reconciling the traditional posture of the economist as a “detached scientist” with their role as a morally concerned person, and shows why there is a contemporary increase of concern with moral values, even within the field of economics.

Moral Neighborhoods

2019 ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Karen Stohr
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
The Social

This chapter presents an argument that moral identities are cultivated within shared normative spaces called moral neighborhoods. Moral neighborhoods are constructed through networks of social practices and conventions that are situated in specific physical and social environments. The chapter draws on Confucian ideas about the role of ritual in moral formation, as well Jane Austen’s novels, to argue that these networks of social practices are important for moral improvement. Good moral neighborhoods enable participants to work out and enact shared moral aspirations in the form of jointly constructed narratives. The social practices of good moral neighborhoods create normative spaces in which we enact fictive moral selves. Because moral neighborhoods are constructed in non-ideal conditions, they must be responsive to the underlying social and physical landscape if they are to reflect shared moral aspirations. Creating a good moral neighborhood is thus a practical exercise in non-ideal theory.

scholarly journals Socialities of Nature Beyond Utopia

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constanza Parra ◽  
Casey Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cultural Ideals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Special Symposium

The articles in this section were written by social scientists from different parts of the world doing research on the complex relationship between human beings and the natural environment, and on the role of cultural ideals in shaping environmental history. The interdisciplinary character of the papers generates original insights about the socio-cultural dimensions of the environmental problematic, which have been neglected when compared with economic and political dimensions. This introduction reviews the contents of the proposed special symposium and situates the articles in relation to discussions about the social role of utopias, imagined and real.

Social Scientists and the Point IV Program

1950 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omer Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Social Scientist ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Agricultural Economics ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Department Of Agriculture ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Farm Population ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociological Society

The role of the social scientist in the Point IV Program was discussed at a meeting sponsored jointly by the Society for Applied Anthropology and the American Sociological Society, during the Annual Conference of the Sociological Society in Denver, September 8, 1950. Chairman of the meeting was Carl C. Taylor, Head, Division of Farm Population and Rural Life, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

scholarly journals Religion and Modernization in Southeast Asia (Book Review)

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-73
Author(s):  
Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Negative Role ◽  
Rice University

the book which was written by Fred. R. Vonder Mehden, an Albert Thomas Professor of Political Science, at Rice University, Houston, is actually a result of efforts to understand the nature of th interrelationship of religion and modernization in Southeast Asia in the light of the theoritical assumptions presented by postwar social  scientists. It is no doubt that where as religions like Islam and Buddhism in countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand have acted both as inhibutors and agents of change, the social science literature spoke primarily to the negative role of rligion from the more possitive perspective. Mehden demonstrates the weakness of the theories developed by Social scientists in Western Europe and the U.S. without adequate field research and embodying major biases and misconceptionabout indigenous cultures and religions.

Feminism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Contextual Values ◽  
Second Wave

Feminists have two sorts of interest in the social sciences. With the advent of the second-wave women’s movement, they developed wide-ranging critiques of gender bias in the conceptual framework and methodology, as well as in the goals, institutions and practice of virtually all the social sciences; they argue that the social sciences both reflect and contribute to the sexism of the larger societies in which they are embedded. Alongside these critiques feminist practitioners have established constructive programmes of research that are intended to rectify the inadequacies of existing traditions of research and to address questions of concern to women. In this they are committed both to improving the disciplines in which they participate and to establishing a sound empirical and theoretical basis for feminist activism. This engagement of feminists with social science, as commentators and practitioners, raises a number of philosophical issues that have been addressed by feminist social scientists and philosophers. These include questions about ideals of objectivity and the role of contextual values in social scientific inquiry, the goals of feminist research, the forms of practice appropriate to these goals, and the responsibilities of feminist researchers to the subjects of inquiry and to those who may otherwise be affected by its conduct or results.

Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Fuzzy Set ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Simulation Modelling ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social

The purpose of this edited book is to make the case for why the social sciences are more relevant than ever before in helping governments solve the wicked problems of public policy. It does this through a critical showcase of new forms of discovery for policy-making drawing on the insights of some of the world’s leading authorities in public policy analysis. The authors have brought together an expert group of social scientists who can showcase their chosen method or approach to policy makers and practitioners. These methods include making more use of Systematic Reviews, Random Controlled Trials, the analysis of Big Data, deliberative tools for decision-making, design thinking, qualitative techniques for comparison using Boolean and fuzzy set logic, citizen science, narrative from policy makers and citizens, policy visualisation, spatial mapping, simulation modelling and various forms of statistical analysis that draw from beyond the established tools. Of course some of the methods the book refers to have been on the shelves for a number of decades but the authors would argue that it is only over the last decade or so that increased efforts have been made to apply these methods across a range of policy arenas. Other methods such as the use of analysis of Big Data or new fuzzy set comparative tools are relatively more novel within social science but again they have been selected for attention as there are growing examples of their application in the context of policy making.

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