Normative World Research Articles

The biological foundations of cognitive science

Cognitive Science originated in reactions against behaviorism that were motivated in significant part by the example of the computer. The computer raised the exciting possibility that mind could be understood almost entirely independently of brain: if the operations of the mind are akin to the execution of a program, then almost all the relevant aspects of mind would be captured by that program, independently of whatever was running it, be it transistors or neurons. This presumed independence of cognitive science from biology has waned considerably in recent decades, but in this paper, I argue that there is at least one crucial aspect of biology that has yet to be appreciated for its relevance to mental and other normative processes—the thermodynamics of living systems. In particular, I argue that the emergence of normativity in general—and normative function and representation in particular—depends on special systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium; these form the interface between the factual world of atoms and molecules and the normative world of mind. The nature of that emergence, in turn, imposes strong constraints on how the central nervous system functions, and, therefore, on how cognition is realized.

Babble: A Theater in Justice and Discourse

The world studied by empirical criminal justice research is babble—a congeries of voices whose meanings represent many normative worlds. Our research designs provide a frame for the babble, and our statistics codify and simplify it. We provide analytic portraits of it and, using the substantive language of crime control, give those portraits meaning. Yet, those meanings are located in a crime control discourse that de-legitimizes and destroys those normative worlds. This paper, an interpretive montage, is a collection of fractured narratives assembled to show that interpretation has something to offer the way we think about knowledge production in the field of criminal justice. It is also a cautionary tale to students in criminal justice, to remember that our scientific abstractions are an abstraction from the underlying realities of human life, not a “deeper” or in some way more real understanding. Our aim is to move the babble—the humanity from which the voices emerge—back into the foreground of justice research.

Revisiting the At-Will Employment Doctrine: Imposed Terms, Implied Terms, and the Normative World of the Workplace

This article describes developments that have modified the at-will doctrine in the United States. It argues that the courts are evolving a hybrid type of employment contract which is neither strictly at-will nor a general form of dismissal protection.

Revisiting the At-Will Employment Doctrine: Imposed Terms, Implied Terms, and the Normative World of the Workplace

We are accustomed to think of an at-will employment contract as one that can be terminated at any time by either party for any reason. That is, an at-will contract lasts only from moment to moment, at every moment completed and at every moment renewed. Hence it is a contract that has no temporality or fixed terms. Despite the ephemeral quality of the contract, the federal and state legislature have imposed mandatory terms on the employment relationship such as minimum wage and mandatory safety standards. More recently, courts have upheld employers' attempt to impose other terms onto employment contracts that last beyond the momentary duration of the at-will contract. In particular, courts have found that mandatory arbitration clauses and post-employment restrictive covenants extend beyond the life of the instantaneous at-will contract and bind employees over time. These later developments pose a theoretical problem for the at-will contract. If the contract is truly at-will, how can some terms bind the parties beyond the moment? And if some terms can be binding over time, which ones and why not others? In this paper, I describe developments that have altered and modified the at-will doctrine in the United States. I argue that the courts are evolving a hybrid type of employment contract, in which the contract is moment to moment for purposes of dismissal but on-going for purpose of certain employer-imposed terms. I then argue that this new type of employment contract is neither strictly at-will nor a general form of dismissal protection. Because the changing nature of the contract is not recognized or fully theorized, I argue that it needs a new articulation. I propose that we recognize the current instability in the doctrine and treat it as an opportunity to consider what types of terms we believe should be imposed on the contract of employment. To do so will enable us to design our employment law doctrines around the contingencies, vulnerabilities, and possibilities of work in the modern era.

Vera Philosophia and Law in Montaigne's "De la cruaute"

Vera Philosophia and Law in Montaigne's De la cruauté Sue W. Farquhar Montaigne's Essais are rarely included in the curriculum of philosophy outside France. With the exception of the "Apologie de Raimond Sebond," his essays are more readily seen by non-specialists as 'table-talk' than philosophy, recalling Plutarch's aphorisms in the Moralia or the witty, practical wisdom of an amateur like Benjamin Franklin.1 Recently, such an authoritative source as the Oxford Companion to Philosophy conceded that Montaigne's insights were "recognizably philosophical" yet reserved the distinction of "first French philosopher" for Descartes. Montaigne's popularity as a homespun sage stems in part from his conversational 'disorderly' style combined with an unrelenting hostility to all systems of thought, scholastic and ancient. For readers attuned to his diatribes against pedants and dogmatists, his sudden transformation in the "Apologie de Raimond Sebond" (II, 12)into "un philosophe impremedité et fortuite" is somewhatstartling.2 Having discovered by chance his new vocation, he impulsively embraces philosophy, not as a systematic search for universal and unchanging truths, but as a historical project. How, then, does moral philosophy in the Essais coincide with the aims of philosophy seen, not from a post-Cartesian perspective, but through the eyes of a sixteenth-century humanist like Montaigne whose training and professional experience were intimately bound with the law? Assuming that Montaigne's reflections on legal issues, or the rule of law, in private and public life involve more than a topical interest, I shall relate his personal inquiry to the prevailing legal philosophy of his time, acclaimed by leading French jurists as the vera philosophia, or in the words of François Baudouin, "the true and supreme philosophy . . . contained in laws which pertain to public action."3 Montaigne's ethical approach, while profoundly informed by the law, is also in striking ways the antithesis of the legal doctrine which extolled the laws as true philosophy. At stake is a certain conception of nomos, a normative world of law, held together by narratives which offer not only models for behavior and bodies of rules but also problems to be explored and "worlds to be inhabited."4 The aims of vera philosophia will be compared initially with Montaigne's notion of "la vraie philosophie," a term appearing in several essays, to show that his inquiry partly fits sixteenth-century [End Page 39] juridical definitions of a civil science yet differs markedly in tone and emphasis. Attention will then be directed in "De la force de l'imagination" (I, 21) to his theory and use of the fictional example, a key discursive strategy in the Essais, to suggest that he draws on a legal concept of fiction to redefine "vera philosophia." His own articulation of "la vraie philosophie" is of a humbler, more skeptical sort, embedded in ordinary practices and the historicity of events. As such, it opens his discourse in "De la cruauté" (II, 11) to questions of alterity and engages a sharp critique of the juridical ideology informing vera philosophia. In his study of human behaviors, Montaigne admitted that universalist assumptions and methods simply cannot account for the inconstancy of our actions. They seem not to "come from the same shop" so "strangely" do they contradict one other, making any systematic comparison impossible, "car elles se contredisent communément de si estrange façon, qu'il semble impossible qu'elles soient parties de mesme boutique" ("De l'inconstance de nos actions" [II, 1, 331A, 329A]). Instead he drew on a legal mode of reasoning, based on opinion or endoxa rather than apodictic knowledge. As André Tournon, Ian Maclean and others have recently argued, Renaissance jurisprudence served as a training ground for Montaigne's topical approach in the Essais.5 As a non-analytical method used by jurists for studying probable or plausible "truths," it allowed him to pursue a logic of difference. The infinite range of human variability experienced in ordinary lives, especially his own, was found to be irreducible to philosophical definition. Turning his back on classifications that presume a universal human nature, he opted somewhat sardonically for a legal approach based on a logic of distinguo: "Distingo est le plus universel membre de...

Disability Cosmology: The Practice of Making Disability Worlds

The practice of making disability worlds is investigated both theoretically, in the context of developments in disability studies, in particular in the cultural model of disability, and practically in two examples, namely inclusive education environments and public environments. Theoretically, we argue that disability worlds can be better understood by introducing the notion of disability cosmology as the largest possible perspective on the making of disability worlds. A cultural model research perspective of disability consists then of the complementary study of disability identity, culture and cosmology. The practical examples work out the particularities of making and understanding disability worlds. In the making of disability worlds, much attention goes to the ways in which disability worlds relate to the normative world; for example in the formation of boundaries and transgressions, but also fundamentally how disability adds to becoming human.

From nightlife conventions to daytime hidden agendas: Dynamics of urban sexual territories in the south of France

This article focuses on the space‐time dynamics of sexual encounters in city neighborhoods associated with sex work and cruising. The data were collected as part of a multisite, longitudinal ethnographic study conducted in major cities of southern France. The results suggest that there is a continuous interaction between these sexualized public spaces and urban planning. Urban planners, however, are not the only actors shaping the location and the use of the space. Participants create a dialectical movement from night normative worlds to occult practices interwoven with daytime activities. They also create subtle social rules governing actors and their practices.

A General Theory of Normativity

In general, we lack objective foundations for our normative assertions. Some legal scholars - Kaplow and Shavell, for example - argue that aggregate preference satisfaction utilitarianism provides such foundations. Outside the law and economics movement, however, the utilitarian model has largely failed to persuade. The present paper offers a new approach to anchoring normative analysis in objective foundations. It begins with a relatively noncontroversial observation - that our normative world consists of our internalized learned behaviors and their associated memes. Using evolutionary theory, it then explores why our normative world exists at all. The function of internalization, it concludes, is to permit the evolution of learned behaviors whose adaptivity may not be obvious. Sharing, for example, is not self-evidently rational. Over time, however, individuals motivated to share have tended to survive and reproduce more successfully than those not so motivated. As a result, the population has come to be dominated by individuals motivated to share. Similar stories can be told about goodness, commitment to the rule of law, respect for equality, regard for the liberties of others, and, to some extent, democracy. Whether and why behaviors are adaptive are objective questions to which there exist - at least in theory - objective answers. Thus, if I am right, when someone asserts that we ought to do this or that, we should be able to explore her assertion productively by asking whether the proposed behavior is adaptive, and if so, why. Stated another way, an understanding of why we value, for example, equality, should permit us to define better what equality means. Of more immediate concern to legal scholars, if I am right then much of the U.S. Constitution can also be justified in terms of adaptivity: a society that protects adaptive rules from short-term popular challenge is more likely, in the long run, to survive and reproduce. Although this portion of my paper is still a work-in-progress, my theory appears to offer a relatively straightforward justification of judicial review in the protection of constitutional values and, in the process, allows a more objective delineation of those values themselves.

Britains continuing failure to train: the birth pangs of a new policy

This article provides an account of the latest official attempt in the UK to generate both a new analysis of the underlying causes of under-investment in workforce development and a new policy to rectify the weaknesses. The account is based on the participation of the present author who was a member of the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU) Academic Panel on workforce development during 2001. First, the establishment and remit of the PIU are briefly introduced, and the methods and outcomes (so far) from the particular project on workforce development are then described and assessed. At the very least, this article may help to dispel the erroneous speculations about the work of this PIU team (on workforce development), which have already been published in the educational press (e.g. Beckett 2001). The separate normative worlds of policy-makers and researchers are then explored; and finally, some general conclusions are drawn from the author's experience about the competing models of Britain's future, which lie behind the policy debates and which are likely to have relevance beyond the specific field of workforce development.

Britain's continuing failure to train: the birth pangs of a new policy

This article provides an account of the latest official attempt in the UK to generate both a new analysis of the underlying causes of under-investment in workforce development and a new policy to rectify the weaknesses. The account is based on the participation of the present author who was a member of the Performance and Innovation Unit's (PIU) Academic Panel on workforce development during 2001. First, the establishment and remit of the PIU are briefly introduced, and the methods and outcomes (so far) from the particular project on workforce development are then described and assessed. At the very least, this article may help to dispel the erroneous speculations about the work of this PIU team (on workforce development), which have already been published in the educational press (e.g. Beckett 2001). The separate normative worlds of policy-makers and researchers are then explored; and finally, some general conclusions are drawn from the author's experience about the competing models of Britain's future, ...

Evidence-based medicine and power shifts in health care systems.

It is important and urgent to question the relationship between evidence-based medicine and power shifts in health care systems. Although definitions of EBM are phrased as a scientific approach to medicine, EBM is a normative concept: it aims to improve medicine and health care. Both proponents and opponents use a normative concept. More particularly, they provide particular views on positions, responsibilities, possibilities, norms and relationships between professionals, patient groups, governments and other parties in health care and society. From this perspective, we want to analyse the role of EBM in modern western societies. By using citizenship theory, we will argue that the role of EBM is not fixed but depends on the relation between state and society. We will first analyse the fundamental change in western societies during the past decades, from modern to post-modern societies. Then, we will elaborate a fourfold model of possible relationships between state and society, and discuss the issue of how EBM may fit in, by giving some examples of the practice of EBM in different European countries. On this basis, we conclude to consider EBM as a public forum where proponents and opponents of EBM discuss diverse and possibly conflicting ways of changing medicine, health care, and health policy. This requires the incorporation of the perspective of citizens and their social networks, professionals with practical and tacit knowledge, and diverse public views on what is regarded as 'a good life'. Inasmuch as EBM is expected to be practically relevant, it ought to be tied to rather than separated from the normative world of emancipated patients and diverse health care practices. Proponents and opponents of EBM should be prepared to defend the normative claims and power effects that are inherently tied to any presentation of evidence.

A Minimalist Solution to Jørgensen's Dilemma

This article develops a fresh approach to Jørgensen's Dilemma on the basis of Paul Horwich's “minimalist” view that our notion of truth is implicitly defined by the instances of the equivalence schema “The proposition that p is true if and only if p.” The “deflationary” claim that the truth predicate, far from referring to any deep property of propositions, merely plays the logical function of enabling us to take certain attitudes (e.g., acceptance or rejection) towards propositions the content of which we are not completely acquainted with or do not want to state openly is argued to lend powerful support to the claim that normative reasoning is concerned with the “transmission” of truth and falsity in the very sense in which descriptive reasoning is commonly taken to be. This result is all the more valuable since the “minimal” sense in which normative propositions are ascribed the capability of being either true or false involves no questionable ontological commitment to the existence of a “world of norms” as opposed to the familiar world of objects and their properties.

Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and Its Commentators, 1298-1545 by Elizabeth Makowski

296BOOK REVIEWS The phenomenon represented by Latinate Jewish wills could well be termed "legal code switching," by analogy with "linguistic code switching." In the latter, bilingual persons or those living in multilingual cultures will switch languages in order to enter a symbolic realm consonant with a specific situation or set of conditions . Thus did Catalan-speaking Jews switch to Hebrew or Latin as events required : most men had double personal names: a Catalan name for daily life,which might be a translation of a Hebrew sacred name (e.g.,Vidal/Hayyim). Similarly, by switching from a Jewish to a Christian legal code, the Jew thereby entered a different normative world, in consonance with a set of specific objectives. A documental appendix contains forty-five previously unpublished texts (dated 1260 to 1343), either wills or documents related to their execution, in Latin, with English summaries. Thomas F. Guck Boston University Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and Its Commentators, 12981545 - By Elizabeth Makowski. [Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law, Volume 5.] (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press. 1997. Pp. x, 149. $46.95.) When Chaucer's Prioress went off to Canterbury, she violated canon law because in 1298 Pope Boniface VIII had decreed the "strict enclosure of nuns of every order throughout the Latin Church" (p. 1). Canonists commented on the decree throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the Council of Trent re-enacted it. In spite of this continued interest, however, the decree was often ignored in practice. The career of Periculoso thus illustrates the tension between the ideals of the religious life articulated by the reforming papacy and the practical realities of monastic existence. Furthermore, it also sheds light on the way in which female spirituality was understood in the late medieval Church. Boniface was attempting to bring communities of women under tight control, ending the development of "quasi-religious communities of laywomen throughout Christendom" that posed a "potential threat to church discipline" (p. 27). Such groups continued to flourish, however. Periculoso was a major step in differentiating between male and female religious life. Previously, according to Makowski, the regulations for religious life had been similar for monks and nuns. Subsequently, women's religious life was increasingly under the control of men and centered on enclosure. Men's communities , however, were not held to the same standard of enclosure. One unforeseen consequence of this was that this decree, if fully enforced, would have made it almost impossible for abbesses to oversee the operation of the properties upon which the economic well-being of their communities rested, because they could not leave the confines of the cloister. BOOK REVIEWS297 This study provides insight into the way in which the leaders of the late medieval Church dealt with what they saw as the threat that women's spirituality posed to the Church and how to control it. To that extent alone, it is a valuable contribution to scholarship. It also raises some related issues. For example, because the application of Periculoso affected the ability of an abbess to visit the properties owned by the community, it raises questions about the economics of religious life. Just how much did it cost to support a monk or nun? Were there significant differences in the economic bases of male and female communities? As Makowski's discussion of the canonistic commentaries on Periculoso also demonstrates, the later canonists had important things to say. While it may be true that these lawyers were not as creative as those in the classical period of canon law, 1140-1375 (not 1250 as she states, p. 5 n. 10), nevertheless they were quite capable of developing the implications of the work of the classical period to meet the needs of their own day. Study of the canon law flourished in these later centuries as the number of lengthy commentaries and treatises indicates . With the exception of the literature generated by the conciliar movement , however, this later canonistic material has generally been neglected. In her discussion of Periculoso, Makowski follows a path pioneered by Brian Tierney and Kenneth Pennington that is adding to our understanding of the debt that the legal world of the...

Do Neo-Romans Curse? Law, Land, and Ritual in the Midi (900-1100)

Do Neo-Romans Curse? Law, Land, and Ritual in the Midi (900-1100). This essay explores the relationships between ritual sanctions and written legal rules in the south of France during the tenth and eleventh centuries. A number of scholars have drawn attention to citations of Roman or Visigothic law in charters from the Midi, and have argued that these citations reflect the endurance of a Roman cultural foundation well into the central Middle Ages. While some scholars have assumed that the regional survival of such rules reflects the presence of a coherent legal system whose healthy functioning precluded the importance of ritual in mediating social relations, this article argues instead that one of the most compelling features of these documents is their reliance on both written legal rules and ritual sanctions (like curses and excommunications). The normative world of these charters reflects a fusion of law and ritual. Recent legal and anthropological scholarship suggests models for understanding the in...

Nursing education: the marriage of two normative worlds — creating a sustainable relationship?

Nursing has had a presence in Australian higher education since 1975 however, during the past 19 years this area of endeavour has seen a number of significant changes. The most significant change being that of relocating all pre-registration nursing education from its traditional hospital base into the higher education sector, This transfer however, has not been without problems, some of which relate to the lack of nursing's effective adjustment to higher education and the changes in higher education itself. Antecedent to these factors are other elements which include fundamental changes to western ways o f life and thought and the lack o f adequate preparation o f nurses for the experiences and roles they would encounter in the higher education sector as a result of their occupational experiences as nurses and women. These antecedent factors require nurses therefore, to not only understand the significance o f the changes occurring in the western world but also the need on the part o f nurse academics to work in, understand and acknowledge two normative organisations and the impact these organisations are experiencing as the result of the social and cultural changes occurring in the western world. A normative organisation is one in which the exercise o f power is undertaken in such a way so as to gain the commitment to and personal involvement in the organisation's goals by the individuals working in the organisation. The two organisations associated with nursing education, universities and health care organisations, are as such normative organisations. These organisations however, while being normative, differ markedly in a number o f ways. This includes their historical origins, goals, organisational structures and processes established to achieve their goals and the expectations they have o f the individuals who work in them. In this sense, nurse academics work between two normative organisations that generate, as a consequence o f their differences, a number of significant difficulties. Additionally, changes in the health care structures, increasing cost containment and the historically generated values o f nursing itself combine to create a range of difficulties that will potentially have a deleterious effect on nursing and which are impossible to overcome unless nursing acknowledges its current difficulties and takes specific steps toward their resolution. Changes being experienced in these normative organisations are however not occurring by chance but as the result of a much wider set o f circumstances. Rather, I suggest that these changes have their genesis in history with the rise o f science and the subsequent advances in knowledge and technology. These innovations gave rise to the industrial revolution and the modern age. In turn, advances in science, knowledge and technology generated a range o f circumstances that has led to a weakening of the traditions and social structures associated with the modern age and a resultant lack of social and cultural stability. This lack of social and cultural stability, the emergence ofmultiplicities and the associated trends o f internationalisation; increasing technologisation; privatisation; commodification and vocationalisation o f education has resulted, in turn, in greater cultural fragmentation, pluralism, diversity and change that collectively is referred to as postmodernity (Lyotard 1986). The forces generated by postmodernity are currently placing pressures on both universities and hospitals and in turn impact on the nature o f and processes associated with nursing education. These are clearly evident in the role and function o f nurse academics and the problems they currently experience. This paper offers some beginning thoughts about these issues and in so doing hopes to stimulate discussion between all persons involved in nursing education. Throughout this paper I use the word hospital to refer to all health care organisations. While in terms of structure and broad philosophical orientation a difference has been made between hospitals and community agencies, in terms of their normative function and associated expectation of the individuals who work in them there is minimal difference.

An Antimony in Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law*

Abstract. Some important ideas in Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law can be traced back to Kantian tradition, which has been very influential in Kelsen's thought, particularly in his early period. Among them we find the distinction between two radically different worlds (the world of facts and the world of norms), the normativity of legal science and the idea of validity as a binding force, based on the famous doctrine of the basic norm. These tenets and, especially, the use of a normative concept of validity prove to be incompatible with Kelsen's positivistic programme of a value‐free legal science. The science of law cannot state that legal norms are obligatory or binding without trespassing the limits of Kelsen's ideal of a legal science; on the other hand, it is possible to define the concept of a legal system without resorting to the basic norm. So, if Kelsen is to be regarded as a consequent positivist, the Kantian ingredients of his theory must be rejected and the descriptive concept of validity as membership must be substituted for the normative notion of validity as a binding force.

THE TWO NORMATIVE WORLDS of the University Nursing Faculty

THE TWO NORMATIVE WORLDS of the University Nursing Faculty

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:The Normative World of the Elementary School Principal. By John M. FoskettEvaluating Employee Performance. By Felix M. LopezRecruitment and Selection in the Public Service. J. J. DonovanLibrarianship in Canada, 1946–1967/Le Bibliothécariat au Canada de 1946 à 1967 Bruce PeelFederal Royal Commissions in Canada 1867–1966: A Checklist. By George F. Henderson

THE NORMATIVE WORLD OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL. By John M. Foskett. Eugene: The Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration, University of Oregon, 1967. 119 pp. $2.00

Journal Article The Normative World of the Elementary School Principal. By John M. Foskett. Eugene: The Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration, University of Oregon, 1967. 119 pp. $2.00 Get access Benjamin J. Hodgkins Benjamin J. Hodgkins Florida State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 47, Issue 1, September 1968, Page 109, https://doi.org/10.2307/2574749 Published: 01 September 1968