Suchergebnisse

In "Principled Compromise and the Abortion Controversy" Simon C. May argues that we do not have a principled moral reason to compromise. While I seek to understand how more precisely we are to understand this suggestion, I also object to it: I argue that we have a principled moral reason to accept democratic decisions that we disagree with, and that this can only be so if disagreement can change what the all things considered right political position is. But if this is so, then also a principled moral reason to compromise is possible. I suggest that there is a class of procedures, including compromise, voting, expert delegation, and coin flip, such that when we disagree about what justice requires, we have a principled moral reason (though not necessarily a decisive reason) to engage in one of these procedures.

Disagreements between ethnographers often arise because of the particular circumstances of field‐work or attributes of the ethnographers. A positivist search for truth versus error may be less fruitful than a constructionist examination of the research itself. This article suggests a conceptual framework for such a constructionist approach.

It is often held that one function served by evaluation in the fields of education & social policy generally is to assist the administrator in the making of rational decisions. If, under these circumstances, several evaluators come to different conclusions about a research proposal or a pilot social program, on what basis can the administrator make his decision? He can hardly be expected to resolve any technical dispute between the experts who are his advisors. Various functions of the evaluation process are discussed, & some of the factors that may lead to such lack of consensus among experts are analyzed. It is recommended that if the administrator is concerned solely with making a rationally defensible decision, then he should select his evaluating panel so that all members share the same theoretical orientation. HA.