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Ideal (ethics)

Ideal (ethics)

An ideal is a principle or value that one actively pursues as a goal. Ideals are particularly important in ethics, as the order in which one places them tends to determine the degree to which one reveals them as real and sincere. For idelism, someone who claims to have an ideal of honesty but is willing to lie to protect a friend is demonstrating that not only does he hold friendship as an ideal, but, it is more important than honesty. In some theories of applied ethics, such as that of Rushworth Kidder, there is importance given to such orders as a way to resolve disputes. In law, for instance, a judge is often called on to resolve the balance between the ideal of truth, which would advise hearing out all evidence, and the ideal of fairness, which would require keeping some evidence unfairly gathered or impossible to validate out of the process. In politics ideals play a pivotal role. During the French Revolution, the principles of "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood" were raised to the status of ideals. The Ten Key Values of the Green Party are likewise raised to such status today. In fact, most political movements have a certain set of ideals. However, in many cases, one can easily find instances where ideals were "not lived up to" - some of which are cases where one simply proved to outweigh another for some specific decision, or where all were compromised simply to retain the power to continue to pursue them. A different form of ideal is an idol or hero, who is held up as a moral example. Since this is an actual person or fictional character, it is too complex and multi-faceted to be considered an ideal in the abstract sense. However, when they are encountered in the form of a story, with only a few traits on display, they are a simplified archetype from which one can very easily derive stereotypes or mimicry. In Islam, for instance, the life of Muhammad is held up as "ideal", but must be interpreted for believers through the tale of his life, or sira, and his many sayings, the hadith. Given the complexity of putting ideals into practice, and resolving conflicts between them, it is not uncommon to see them reduced to dogma. One way to avoid this, according to Bernard Crick, is to have ideals that themselves are descriptive of a process, rather than an outcome. His political virtues try to raise the practical habits useful in resolving disputes into ideals of their own. A virtue, in general, is an ideal that one can make a habit. See also: idealism. Category:Core issues in ethics

Principle

A principle is something, usually a rule or norm, that is part of the basis for something else. For example, the ethics of someone may be seen as a set of principles that the individual obeys. These principles form the basis for their ethics. Principles may also be introduced as pedagogy: laying down basics in a topic, in order later to proceed to more detailed developments. Identifying or defining a rule as a principle says that, for the purpose at hand, the principle will not be questioned or further derived. This is a convenient way of reducing the complexity of an argumentation. See also: principled approach. wiktionary:principle ja:原理 simple:Principle

Value

Value is a term that expresses the concept of worth in general, and it is thought to be connected to reasons for certain practices, policies, or actions. Value is "that which one acts to gain and/or keep."

Economics

In general, the value of something is how much a product or service is worth to someone relative to other things (often measured in money). In neoclassical economics, the value of an object or service is often seen as nothing but the price it would bring in an open and competitive market. This is determined primarily by the demand for the object relative to supply. Other economists often simply equate the value of a commodity with its price, whether or not the market is competitive. In classical economics, price and value were not seen as equal. In this tradition, to Steve Keen "value" refers to "the innate worth of a commodity, which determines the normal ('equilibrium') ratio a which two commodities exchange." (Debunking Economics, p. 271, ISBN 1-86403-070-4.) To Keen and the tradition of David Ricardo, this corresponds to the classical concept of long-run cost-determined prices, what Adam Smith called "natural prices" and Karl Marx called "prices of production." It is part of a cost-of-production theory of value and price. Ricardo, but not Keen, used a "labor theory of price" in which a commodity's "innate worth" was the amount of labor needed to produce it. In another classical tradition, Marx distinguished between the "value in use" (use-value, what a commodity provides to its buyer), "value" (the socially-necessary labour time it embodies), and "exchange value" (how much labor-time the sale of the commodity can claim, Smith's "labor commanded" value). By most interpretations of his labor theory of value, Marx, like Ricardo, developed a "labor theory of price" where the point of analyzing value was to allow the calculation of relative prices. Others see values as part of his sociopolitical interpretation and critique of capitalism and other societies, and deny that it was intended to serve as a category of economics. According to a third interpretation, Marx aimed for a theory of the dynamics of price formation, but did not complete it. In 1860, the year after oil was first struck in Titusville, Pennsylvania, John Ruskin published a critique of the economic concept of value from a moral point of view. He entitled the volume Unto This Last, and his central point was this: "It is impossible to conclude, of any given mass of acquired wealth, merely by the fact of its existence, whether it signifies good or evil to the nation in the midst of which it exists. Its real value depends on the moral sign attached to it, just as sternly as that of a mathematical quantity depends on the algebraical sign attached to it. Any given accumulation of commercial wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities: or, on the other, it may be indicative of mortal luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicanery." Gandhi was greatly inspired by Ruskin's book and published a paraphrase of it in 1908. Economists such as Ludwig von Mises asserted that "value" was always a subjective quality. There was no value intrinsic to objects or things and value derived entirely from the psychology of market participants. Thus, it was false to say that the economic value of a good was equal to what it cost to produce or to its current replacement cost. The theory of value is closely related to that of allocative efficiency, the quality by which firms produce those goods and services most valued by society. The market value of a machine part, for example, will depend upon a variety of objective facts involving its efficiency versus the efficiency of other types of part or other types of machine to make the kind of products that consumers will value in turn. In such a case, market value has both objective and subjective components.

Personal and cultural values

Each individual has a core of underlying values that contribute to our system of beliefs, ideas and/or opinions (see value in semiotics). Integrity in the application of a "value" ensures its continuity and this continuity separates a value from beliefs, opinion and ideas. In this context a value (e.g. Truth or Equality or Greed) is the core from which we operate or react from. Societies have values that are shared among many of the participants in that culture. These beliefs can be grouped into four categories:
- Ethics (good, bad, moral, immoral, amoral, right, wrong, permissible, impermissible)
- Aesthetics (beautiful, ugly, unbalanced, pleasing)
- Doctrine (political, ideological, religious or social beliefs and values)
- Inborn (inborn values such as reproduction and survival, a controversial issue) A value system is in essence the ordering and prioritization of the values (usually of the ethical and ideological varieties described above) that an individual or society holds. Some cultural values recognized in the western world include:
- acceptance
- accountability
- adventure
- appreciation
- balance
- caring
- chastity
- compassion
- confidence
- cooperation
- courage
- courtesy
- creativity
- curiosity
- dependability
- determination
- effort
- endurance
- enthusiasm
- equality
- fairness
- fantasy
- fidelity
- focus
- foresight
- friendship
- generosity
- gentleness
- giving
- helping
- honesty
- hope
- humor
- imagination
- innocence
- integrity
- justice
- kindness
- learning
- love
- loyalty
- magnanimity
- mercy
- moderation
- modesty
- nurturing
- obedience
- optimism
- patience
- peace
- perfection
- perseverance
- potential
- purpose
- respect
- responsibility
- restraint
- self-awareness
- self-discipline
- self-reliance
- self-esteem
- self-respect
- sensitivity
- sharing
- sincerity
- tenacity
- thoughtfulness
- tolerance
- trust
- truth
- understanding
- unpretentious
- unselfishness

Marketing

In marketing, the value of a product is the consumer's expectations of product quality in relation to the actual amount paid for it. It is often expressed as the equation : ::Value = Benefits / Price :::or alternatively: ::Value = Quality received / Expectations There are parallels between cultural expectations and consumer expectations. Thus pizza in Japan might be topped with tuna rather than pepperoni, as pizza might be in the US; the value in the marketplace varies from place to place as well as from market to market.

Mathematics

In mathematics, a value is a quantitative value - a constant (number), or a variable.

Computer science

In computer science, a value may be a number, literal string, array and anything else that can be represented by a finite sequence of symbols. The exact definition of a value varies across programming languages. For more, see value (computer science).

Law

In law, particularly with respect to contracts, value is a concept closely related, but not identical, to that of consideration. At common law, certain transferrable obligations were only enforceable if the transferee had acquired them for value. Under the rules of equity, the rights of a bona fide purchaser for value would not be interfered with. State courts of various jurisdictions in the US adopted varying definitions of what constituted "value". Under the Uniform Commercial Code, except with respect to Article 3, a person gives value for rights if he acquires them in exchange for: # a binding commitment to extend credit or for the extension of immediately available credit; # as security for or in total or partial satisfaction of a preexisting claim; # accepting delivery pursuant to a preexisting contract for purchase; # generally, any consideration sufficient to support a simple contract. Under Article 3 of the Code, a negotiable instrument is transferred for value if the transferee receives in exchange: # a promise of performance, to the extent the promise has been performed; # a security interest or other lien in the instrument other than a lien obtained by judicial proceeding; # the total or partial discharge of an antecedent claim against any person, whether or not the claim is due; # another negotiable instrument; or # an irrevocable obligation to a third party by the person taking the instrument. The setting forth in express terms of what is "value" in the context of commercial transactions was a bold step forward by the drafters of the UCC, since the jurisdictional distinctions as to value made certain transactions valid in one state and invalid in another.

External links

- [http://www.woodgreen.oxon.sch.uk/economics/allocative_efficiency.htm On Allocative Efficiency]
- [http://www.valuequotes.net Famous Quotations on Value and Values]
- [http://www.scouting.org/boyscouts/resources/34307/values.html Scouting Values] Category:Core issues in ethics Category:Sociology Category:Social philosophy category:Marketing category:Value simple:Value

Ethics

:For the book of the same name, see Ethics (book) Ethics (from Greek ethikos) is the branch of axiology – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy.

The first social science

Assumptions about ethical underpinnings of human behaviour are reflected in every social science, including: anthropology because of the complexities involved in relating one culture to another, economics because of its role in the distribution of scarce resources, political science because of its role in allocating power, sociology because of its roots in the dynamics of groups, law because of its role in codifying ethical constructs like mercy and punishment, criminology because of its role in rewarding ethical behaviour and discouraging unethical behaviour, and psychology because of its role in defining, understanding, and treating unethical behaviour. Ethics has also been extended to the hard sciences, such as biology (as bioethics) and ecology (as environmental ethics). As these fields become more complex and deal with more situations, the application of ethics in those fields can also become more complex. In analytic philosophy, ethics is traditionally divided into three fields: Meta-ethics, Normative ethics (including value theory and the theory of conduct) and applied ethics – which is seen to be derived, top-down, from normative and thus meta-ethics.

Meta-ethics

Meta-ethics is the investigation of the nature of ethical statements. It involves such questions as: Are ethical claims truth-apt, i.e., capable of being true or false, or are they, for example, expressions of emotion (see cognitivism and non-cognitivism)? If they are truth-apt, are they ever true? If they are ever true, what is the nature of the facts that they express? And are they ever true absolutely (see moral absolutism), or always only relative to some individual, society, or culture? (See moral relativism, cultural relativism.) Meta-ethics is one of the most important fields in philosophy. Meta-ethics studies the nature of ethical sentences and attitudes. This includes such questions as what "good" and "right" mean, whether and how we know what is right and good, whether moral values are objective, and how ethical attitudes motivate us. Often this is derived from some list of moral absolutes, e.g. a religious moral code, whether explicit or not. Some would view aesthetics as itself a form of meta-ethics Meta-ethics also investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Meta-ethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.

Normative ethics

Normative ethics bridges the gap between meta-ethics and applied ethics. It is the attempt to arrive at practical moral standards that tell us right from wrong, and how to live moral lives. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others.
- One branch of normative ethics is theory of conduct; this is the study of right and wrong, of obligation and permissions, of duty, of what is above and beyond the call of duty, and of what is so wrong as to be evil. Theories of conduct propose standards of morality, or moral codes or rules. For example, the following would be the sort of rules that a theory of conduct would discuss (though different theories will differ on the merit of each of these particular rules): "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; "The right action is the action which produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number"; "Stealing is wrong". Theories of moral conduct can be distinguished from etiquette by their concern with finding guidelines for action that are not dependent entirely on social convention. For example, it may not be a breach of etiquette to fail to give money to help those in poverty, but it could still be a failure to act morally.
- Another branch of normative ethics is theory of value; this looks at what things are deemed to be valuable. Suppose we have decided that certain things are intrinsically good, or are more valuable than other things that are also intrinsically good. Given this, the next big question is what would this imply about how we should live our lives? The theory of value also asks: What sorts of things are good? What sorts of situations are good? Is pleasure always good? Is it good for people to be equally well-off? Is it intrinsically good for beautiful objects to exist? Or: What does "good" mean? It may literally define "good" and "bad" for a community or society. [Criticism: Theory of value is not a part of normative ethics, though normative ethics presupposes some theory of value. For example, there are aesthetic values which may be amoral, i.e., neutral in regard to conduct.]

Applied ethics

One form of applied ethics applies normative ethical theories to specific controversial issues. In these cases, the ethicist adopts a defensible theoretical framework, and then derives normative advice by applying the theory. However, many persons and situations, notably traditional religionists and lawyers, find this approach either against accepted religious doctrine or impractical because it does not conform to existing laws and court decisions. Casuistry is a completely different form of applied ethics that is widely used in these cases and by these groups. Casuists compare moral dilemmas to well established cases (sometimes called paradigms). The well-established methods for coping with the well-established cases are then adapted to the case at hand. The special virtue of casuistry over applied moral theory is that groups and individuals often disagree about theories, but may nonetheless have remarkably similar paradigms. Thus, they may be able to achieve substantial social agreement about actions, even though their theories are incompatible. This may be why casuistry is the foundation of many legal systems. The ethical problems attacked by applied ethicists (of whatever sort) often bear directly on public policy. For example, the following would be questions of applied ethics: "Is getting an abortion ever moral?"; "Is euthanasia ever moral?"; "What are the ethical underpinnings of affirmative action policies?"; "What are human rights, and how do we determine them?"; "Do animals have rights?" Without these questions there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and practice of arbitration – in fact no common assumptions of all participants – so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. But not all questions studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For example: Is lying always wrong? If not, when is it permissible? The ability to make these ethical judgments is prior to any etiquette. There are several sub-branches of applied ethics examining the ethical problems of different professions, such as business ethics, medical ethics, engineering ethics and legal ethics, while technology assessment and environmental assessment study the effects and implications of new technologies or projects on nature and society. Each branch to characterize common issues and problems that arise in the ethical codes of the professions, and define their common responsibility to the public, e.g. to preserve its natural capital, or to obey some social expectations of honest dealings and disclosure.
- Abortion, legal and moral issues
- Animal rights
- Bioethics
- Business ethics
- Criminal justice
- Environmental ethics
- Feminism
- Gay rights
- Human rights
- Just war theory
- Medical ethics
- Utilitarian ethics
- Utilitarian bioethics Ethics has been applied to economics, politics and political science, leading to several distinct and unrelated fields of applied ethics, including Business ethics and Marxism. Ethics has been applied to family structure, sexuality, and how society views the roles of individuals; leading to several distinct and unrelated fields of applied ethics, including feminism. Moral Ethics has been applied to war, leading to the fields of pacifism and nonviolence. Ethics has been applied to analyze human use of Earth's limited resources. This has led to the study of environmental ethics and social ecology. A growing trend has been to combine the study of both ecology and economics to help provide a basis for sustainable decisions on environmental use. This has led to the theories of ecological footprint and bioregional autonomy. Political and social movements based on such ideas include eco-feminism, eco-anarchism, deep ecology, the green movement, and ideas about their possible integration into Gaia philosophy. Ethics has been applied to criminology leading to the field of criminal justice. There are several sub-branches of applied ethics examining the ethical problems of different professions, such as business ethics, medical ethics, engineering ethics and legal ethics, while technology assessment and environmental assessment study the effects and implications of new technologies or projects on nature and society. Each branch characterizes common issues and problems that may arise, and define their common responsibility to the public, e.g. to preserve its natural capital, or to obey some social expectations of honest dealings and disclosure.

Ethics in religion

Ethics in health care

One of the major areas where ethicists practice is in the field of health care. This includes medicine, nursing, pharmacy, genetics, and allied health professions. Example issues are euthanasia, abortion, medical experiments, vaccine trials, stem cell research, truth telling, patient rights and autonomy, rationing of health care (such as triage).

Ethics in psychology

By the 1960s there was increased interest in moral reasoning. Psychologists such as Lawrence Kohlberg developed theories which are based on the idea that moral behaviour is made possible by moral reasoning. Their theories subdivided moral reasoning into so-called stages, which refer to the set of principles or methods that a person uses for ethical judgment. The first and most famous theory of this type was Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Carol Gilligan, a student of Kohlberg's, argued that women tend to develop through a different set of stages from men. Her studies inspired work on a so-called ethic of care, which particularly defines itself against Rawlsian-type justice- and contract-based approaches. Another group of influential psychological theories with ethical implications is the humanistic psychology movement. One of the most famous humanistic theories is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow argued that the highest human need is self-actualization, which can be described as fulfilling one's potential, and trying to fix what is wrong in the world. Carl Rogers's work was based on similar assumptions. He thought that in order to be a 'fully functioning person', one has to be creative and accept one's own feelings and needs. He also emphasized the value of self-actualization. A similar theory was proposed by Fritz Perls, who assumed that taking responsibility of one's own life is an important value. R.D. Laing developed a broad range of thought on interpersonal psychology. This deals with interactions between people, which he considered important, for an ethical action always occurs between one person and another. In books such as The Politics of Experience, he dealt with issues concerning how we should relate to persons labeled by the psychiatric establishment as "schizophrenic". He came to be seen as a champion for the rights of those considered mentally ill. He spoke out against (and wrote about) practices of psychiatrists which he considered inhumane or barbaric, such as electric shock treatment. Like Wittgenstein, he was frequently concerned with clarifying the use of language in the field -- so, for example, he suggested that the effects of psychiatric drugs (some of which are very deleterious, such as tardive diskensia) be called just that: "effects", and not be referred to by the preferred euphemisms of the drug companies, who prefer to call them "side effects". Laing also did work in establishing true asylums as places of refuge for those who feel disturbed and want a safe place to go through whatever it is they want to explore in themselves, and with others. A third group of psychological theories that have implications for the nature of ethics are based on evolutionary psychology. These theories are based on the assumption that the behaviour that ethics prescribe can sometimes be seen as an evolutionary adaptation. For instance, altruism towards members of one's own family promotes one's inclusive fitness. Some concerns have developed recently about ethics in the psychology field itself. In particular there are concerns about the psychotherapy field and how several have reacted to criticism of their science. There has been concern about the behavior of these psychologists on Usenet (in newsgroups). Some of these concerns are voiced through the domain http://cyberper.cnc.net/a_spp_faq.htm

Ethics in politics

Often, such efforts take legal or political form before they are understood as works of normative ethics. The UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights of 1948 and the Global Green Charter of 2001 are two such examples. However, as war and the development of weapon technology continues, it seems clear that no non-violent means of dispute resolution is accepted by all. The need to redefine and align politics away from ideology and towards dispute resolution was a motive for Bernard Crick's list of political virtues.

Ethics by cases

A common approach in applied ethics is to deal with individual issues on a case-by-case basis. Casuistry is one such application of case-based reasoning to applied ethics. Almost all American states have tried to discourage dishonest practices by their public employees and elected officials by establishing an Ethics Commission for their state. Bernard Crick in 1982 offered a socially-centered view, that politics was the only applied ethics, that it was how cases were really resolved, and that "political virtues" were in fact necessary in all matters where human morality and interests were destined to clash. This and other views of modern universals is dealt with below under Global Ethics. The lines of distinction between meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, "where do rights come from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?" Another concept which blurs ethics is moral luck. A drunk driver may safely reach home without injuring anyone, or he might accidentally kill a child who runs out into the street while he is driving home. How bad the action of driving while drunk is in that case depends on chance.

Descriptive ethics

Some philosophers rely on descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society or culture to derive categories, which typically vary by context. This leads to situational ethics and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics and etiquette and arbitration as more fundamental, percolating 'bottom up' to imply, rather than explicitly state, theories of value or of conduct. In these views ethics is not derived from a top-down a priori "philosophy" (many would reject that word) but rather is strictly derived from observations of actual choices made in practice:
- Ethical codes applied by various groups. Some consider aesthetics itself the basis of ethics – and a personal moral core developed through art and storytelling as very influential in one's later ethical choices.
- Informal theories of etiquette which tend to be less rigorous and more situational. Some consider etiquette a simple negative ethics, i.e. where can one evade an uncomfortable truth without doing wrong? One notable advocate of this view is Judith Martin ("Miss Manners"). In this view, ethics is more a summary of common sense social decisions.
- Practices in arbitration and law, e.g. the claim by Rushworth Kidder that ethics itself is a matter of balancing "right versus right", i.e. putting priorities on two things that are both right, but which must be traded off carefully in each situation. This view many consider to have potential to reform ethics as a practice, but it is not as widely held as the 'aesthetic' or 'common sense' views listed above.
- Observed choices made by ordinary people, without expert aid or advice, who vote, buy and decide what is worth fighting about. This is a major concern of sociology, political science and economics. Those who embrace such descriptive approaches tend to reject overtly normative ones. There are exceptions, such as the movement to more moral purchasing.

The analytic view

The descriptive view of ethics is modern and in many ways more empirical. But because the above are dealt with more deeply in their own articles, the rest of this article will focus on the formal academic categories, which are derived from classical Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle. First, we need to define an ethical sentence, also called a normative statement. An ethical sentence is one that is used to make either a positive or a negative (moral) evaluation of something. Ethical sentences use words such as "good," "bad," "right," "wrong," "moral," "immoral," and so on. Here are some examples:
- "Sally is a good person."
- "People should not steal."
- "The Simpson verdict was unjust."
- "Honesty is a virtue."
- "One ought not to break the law." In contrast, a non-ethical sentence would be a sentence that does not serve to (morally) evaluate something. Examples would include:
- "Someone took the stereo out of my car."
- "Simpson was acquitted at his trial."
- "Many people are dishonest."
- "I dislike it when people break the law."

References

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External links

- [http://ethics.acusd.edu/ Ethics Updates] mega-list of ethics resources maintained by Lawrence Hinman of the University of San Diego.
- [http://www.ditext.com/broad/ftet/ftet.html C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1930).]
- [http://www.ditext.com/ross/right.html W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (1930)]
- [http://www.galilean-library.org/int11.html An Introduction to Ethics] by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/ Ancient Ethics]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/ Environmental Ethics]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/ Feminist Ethics]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ Natural Law Tradition in Ethics]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ Virtue Ethics] Category:Social philosophy ja:倫理 simple:Ethics

Friendship

Friendship is a human relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of putting the other's interests before one's own. Their tastes will be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not kill them. Value that is found in friendships are often the result of a friend demonstrating on a consistent basis
- the tendency to desire what is best for you.
- sympathy and empathy
- honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth
- mutual understanding It is often considered that a true friend is capable of deep feelings, which may be unexpressible, except in times of great trouble, when they come to your aid. In a comparison of personal relationships, friendship is considered to be closer than acquaintanceship, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and acquaintances. For many people, friendship and acquaintanceship lie along the same continuum. The principal disciplines studying friendship are sociology, anthropology and zoology. Various theories of friendship have been proposed, among which are social psychology, social exchange theory, equity theory, relational dialectics, and attachment styles. See Interpersonal relationships Interpersonal relationships

Etymology

The English word is of Germanic origin, and related to the Old English fréond with the same meaning, and the Old Teutonic frijôjan, to love.

History

Friendship was considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. The Greco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades. The Abrahamic faiths have the story of David and Jonathan. The Christian Gospels claim that Jesus Christ declared, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." Aristotle distinguishes three types of friendship:
- Friendship factored on pleasure;
- Friendship factored on interest;
- Friendship factored on goodness;

A tradition in decline

In recent times, some thinkers have postulated that modern friendships have lost the force and importance that they had in antiquity. C. S. Lewis for example, in his The Four Loves, writes, :To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few 'friends'. But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as 'friendships', show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book. Likewise, Paul Halsall claims that, :The intense emotional and affective relationships described in the past as "non-sexual" cannot be said to exist today: modern heterosexual men can be buddies, but unless drunk they cannot touch each other, or regularly sleep together. They cannot affirm that an emotional affective relationship with another man is the centrally important relationship in their lives. It is not going too far, is it, to claim that friendship - if used to translate Greek philia or Latin amicita - hardly exists among heterosexual men in modern Western society. Mark McLelland, writing in the Western Buddhist Review under his Buddhist name of Dharmachari Jñanavira [http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol3/homosexuality.html (Article)], more directly points to homophobia being at the root of a modern decline in the western tradition of friendship: :Hence, in our cultural context where homosexual desire has for centuries been considered sinful, unnatural and a great evil, the experience of homoerotic desire can be very traumatic for some individuals and severely limit the potential for same-sex friendship. The Danish sociologist Henning Bech, for instance, writes of the anxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy between male friends: :The more one has to assure oneself that one’s relationship with another man is not homosexual, the more conscious one becomes that it might be, and the more necessary it becomes to protect oneself against it. The result is that friendship gradually becomes impossible. Their opinion that fear of being, or being seen as, homosexual has killed off western man's ability to form close friendships with other men is shared by Japanese psychologist Doi Takeo, who claims that male friendships in American society are fraught with homosexual anxiety and thus homophobia is a limiting factor stopping men from establishing deep friendships with other men. Recent western scholarship in gender theory and feminism concurs, as reflected in the writings of Eve Sedgwick in her The Epistemology of the Closet, and Jonathan Dollimore, in his "Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault".

Physical manifestations

Jonathan Dollimore Friends usually will engage in various forms of physical contact, at times spontaneous and other times of a ritualized nature. This is often used as an outward symbol of their friendship. The form and context of the physical contact has varied historically, culturally, and developmentally. In the West, these manifestations, with the exception of the more formal ones, can be seen with greater frequency among young children and among female friends. In the East they are more equally distributed. They are frequently used especially with opposite-sex friends.

Types

- Handshakes This is a more formalized type of contact, frequent among older individuals and only denoting feelings of friendship if emphasized.
- Holding hands
- Hugging
- Two-armed hug
- Pound hug This embrace, primarily used by young males, has become popular among Western subgroups because it expresses affection while maintaining a remote posture, so as to preclude any homosexual connotations[http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1458516].
- Walking arm-in-arm
- Placing an arm over the other's shoulder or waist
- Kissing
- Imitation of fight

Developmental issues

In the sequence of the emotional development of the individual, friendships come after parental bonding and before the pair bonding engaged in at the approach of maturity. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotional life of the adolescent, and are often more intense than relationships later in life. These friendships are most often with one's age and sex peers, though equally intense bonds can form with older or younger individuals.

Cultural variations

A group of friends consists of two or more people who are in a mutually pleasing relationship engendering a sentiment of camaraderie, exclusivity and mutual trust. There are varying degrees of "closeness" between friends. Hence, some people choose to differentiate and categorize friendships based on this sentiment.

Russia

The relationship is constructed differently in different cultures. In Russia, for example, one typically accords very few people the status of "friend." These friendships however make up in intensity what they lack in number. Friends are entitled to call each other by their first names alone, and to use diminutives. Everyone else is addressed by full first name plus patronymic, and is known as an "acquaintance." These could include relationships which elsewhere would be qualified as real friendships, such as workplace relationships of long standing, neighbors with whom one shares an occasional meal and visit, and so on. Physical contact between friends is expected, and friends, whether or not of the same sex, will embrace, kiss and walk in public with their arms around each other, or arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand, without the slightest embarrassment or sexual connotation. According to Oleg Kharkhordin in a paper on the politics of friendship, in Soviet society, friendships were "a suspect value for the Stalinist regime" in that they presented a stronger allegiance that could stand in possible opposition to allegiance to the Communist party. "By definition, a friend was an individual who would not let you down even under direct menace to him- or herself; a person to whom one could securely entrust one's controversial thoughts since he or she would never betray them, even under pressure. Friendship thus in a sense became an ultimate value produced in resistance struggles in the Soviet Union [http://www.csis.org/ruseura/ponars/policymemos/pm_0149.pdf]."

Greece

In Ancient Greece, in a text in defense of pederasty, Plato asserts that, "the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power." Plato, Symposium; 182c Aristotle categorized friendship into three different categories: # Friendship of Utility # Friendship of Pleasure # Friendship of Virtue

Asia

In the Middle East and Central Asia male friendships, while less restricted than in Russia, tend also to be very intimate, and also involve a great deal of mutual non-sexual but affectionate touching, holding of hands and so on.

Modern west

In the Western world, intimate physical contact has been sexualized in the public mind over the last one hundred years and is considered taboo in friendship, especially between two males. However, stylized hugging or kissing may be considered acceptable, depending on the context. An exception are young children, whose friendships, usually of a homosocial nature, typically exhibit elements of a closeness and intimacy suppressed later in life in order to conform to societal standards.

Types of Friendships

- Romantic friendship
- Soulmate
- Best Friend or Best Girlfriend
- Pen pal
- Internet friendship
- Compadrazgo
- Comrade
- Buddy
- Cuddle Buddy
- Boyfriend/Girlfriend
- Romantic life-partner
- Platonic life-partner
- Compadre/Commadre
- Godparent
- Godsibb
- Good Friend
- Gossip
- Facebook friend
- Families of choice or Chosen families
- Friends with access/Friends with benefits
- Sexualized friendship
- Kula
- Pili hoaloha
- Boston marriage
- Blood brotherhood
- Kasendi
- Classical friendship
- Ritual friendship or Religious friendship
- Companionate love
- Intimate relationship
- Love
- Platonic love
- Romantic love
- Brotherhood or Sisterhood
- Drinking buddy

Non-personal friendships

Although the term initially described relations between individuals, it is at times used for political purposes to describe relations between states or peoples ("the Franco-German friendship," for example), indicating in this case an affinity or mutuality of purpose between the two nations. Regarding this aspect of international relations, Lord Palmerston has said that, "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."

Interspecies friendship

Friendship as a type of interpersonal relationship is found also among animals with rich intelligence, such as the higher mammals and some birds. Cross-species friendships are common between humans and domestic animals. Less common but still of note are friendships between an animal and another animal of a different species, such as a dog and cat.

Colloquial nomenclature

A number of colloquial terms have been used to describe friendship and the context in which a friendship is fostered. These are briefly described below.
- A friend who supports others only when it is easy and convenient to do so is called a fair-weather friend.
- A friend who sticks by you through "thick and thin" is a true friend.
- A friend with whom you are sexually intimate but don't consider yourself to be dating is said to be a Casual relationship. This is also referred to as being "friends with benefits".

Friendship contrasted with comradeship

Friendship can be mistaken for comradeship. Comradeship is the feeling of affinity that draws people together in time of war or when people have a mutual enemy or even a common goal. Former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges has written: "We feel in wartime comradeship. We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those, who will insist that the comradeship of war is love -- the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication. As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship -- that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime -- is within our reach. We can all have comrades." [http://listproc.ucdavis.edu/archives/twf/log0305/0052.html] As a war ends, or a common enemy recedes, comrades return to being strangers, who lack friendship and have little in common.

Bibliography

- Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
- On Friendship, Cicero

External links

- [http://www.celebratefriendship.org Celebrating what friendship has meant in the historical past; Expanding what it can mean in the present.] Category:Interpersonal relationships category:Friendship

Applied ethics

Applied ethics takes a theory of ethics, such as utilitarianism, social contract theory, or deontology, and applies its major principles to a particular set of circumstances and practices. Typical examples include applied fields such as medical ethics, legal ethics, environmental ethics, computer ethics, corporate social responsibility, or business ethics. Many considerations of applied ethics also come into play in human rights discussions. The chief difficulty with formal, applied ethics is the potential for disagreement over what constitutes the proper theory or principles to apply, which is bound to result in solutions to specific problems that are not universally acceptable to all participants. For example, a strict deontological approach would never permit us to deceive a patient about his condition, whereas a utilitarian approach would have us consider the consequences of doing so. A deontologist will often come up with a very different solution than would a utilitarian, given the same facts. One modern approach attempting to address this is casuistry. Casuistry attempts to establish a plan of action to respond to particular facts - a form of case-based reasoning. By doing so in advance of actual investigation of the facts, it can reduce influence of interest groups. By focusing on action and not the rationale, it increases the possibility of agreement between prior bodies of precedent and explicit moral codes.

Rushworth Kidder

Rushworth M. Kidder founded the [http://www.globalethics.org/ Institute for Global Ethics] in 1990, and is the author of Moral Courage and How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living. He was at one time a columnist for the Christian Science Monitor.

Books

- Moral Courage (ISBN 0060591544)
- How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemma of Ethical Living (ISBN 0688175902)
- Reinventing the Future: Global Goals for the 21st Century (ISBN 0262111462)

Dispute resolution

:For Wikipedia's dispute resolution guidelines, see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. Dispute resolution is the process of resolving disputes between parties.

Methods

Methods of dispute resolution include:
- lawsuits (litigation)
- arbitration
- mediation
- conciliation
- many types of negotiation One could theoretically include violence or even war as part of this spectrum, but dispute resolution practitioners do not usually do so; violence rarely ends disputes effectively, and indeed, often only escalates them. Some individuals, notably Joseph Stalin, have stated that all problems emanate from man, and absent man, no problems ensue. Hence, violence could theoretically end disputes, but alongside it, life. Dispute resolution processes fall into two major types: # Adjudicative processes, such as litigation or arbitration, in which a judge, jury or arbitrator determines the outcome. # Consensual processes, such as mediation, conciliation, or negotiation, in which the parties attempt to reach agreement. Not all disputes, even those in which skilled intervention occurs, end in resolution. Such intractable disputes form a special area in dispute resolution studies.

Judicial dispute resolution

A competent and effective judge, arbitrator or mediator can greatly aid the proper functioning of the dispute resolution process. In civil law] systems judges are jurists who are trained in investigation techniques, the process of determining the veracity of evidence and the inquisitorial system of adjudication. In the United States and other common law countries, judges are often experienced trial lawyers who have litigated many cases over many years before their appointment or election to the judiciary. Retired judges or experienced private lawyers often become arbitrators or mediators, but trained and qualified non-legal dispute resolution specialists form a growing body. In the United States of America, many states now have mediation or other ADR programs annexed to the courts, to facilitate settlement of lawsuits.

Extrajudicial dispute resolution

Some use the term dispute resolution to refer only to alternative dispute resolution (ADR), that is, extrajudicial processes such as arbitration and mediation used to resolve conflict and potential conflict between and among individuals, business entities, governmental agencies, and (in the public international law context) states. ADR generally depends on agreement by the parties to use ADR processes, either before or after a dispute has arisen. ADR has experienced steadily increasing acceptance and utilization because of a perception of greater flexibility, costs below those of traditional litigation, and speedy resolution of disputes, among other perceived advantages. However, some have criticized these methods as taking away the right to seek redress of grievances in the courts, suggesting that extrajudicial dispute resolution may not offer the fairest way for parties not in an equal bargaining relationship, for example in a dispute between a consumer and a large corporation. In addition, in some circumstances, arbitration and other ADR processes may become as expensive as litigation or more so.

Online Dispute Resolution

Dispute resolution can also take place on-line or by using technology in certain cases. Online Dispute Resolution, a growing field of dispute resolution, uses new technologies to solve disputes. It also involves the application of traditional dispute resolution methods to disputes which arise online.

Additional Resources

- [http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/dispute/ CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium]- 'The Dispute Resolution Headquarters in New York City. The City University of New York Dispute Resolution Consortium (CUNY DRC) serves as an intellectual home to dispute resolution faculty, staff and students at the City University of New York and to the diverse dispute resolution community in New York City. At the nation’s largest urban university system, the CUNY DRC has become a focal point for furthering academic and applied conflict resolution work in one of the world’s most diverse cities. The CUNY DRC conducts research and innovative program development, has co-organized countless conferences, sponsored training programs, resolved a wide range of intractable conflicts, published research working papers and a newsletter. It also maintains an extensive database of those interested in dispute resolution in New York City, a website with resources for dispute resolvers in New York City and since 9/11, the CUNY DRC assumed a leadership role for dispute resolvers in New York City by establishing an extensive listserv, sponsoring monthly breakfast meetings, conducting research on responses to catastrophes, and managing a public awareness initiative to further the work of dispute resolvers.

Law

:This article is about law in society. For other possible meanings, see law (disambiguation). Law (a loanword from Old Norse lag), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who do not follow the established rules of conduct. Law is typically administered through a system of courts, in which judges hear disputes between parties and apply a set of rules in order to provide an outcome that is just and fair. The manner in which law is administered is known as a legal system, which typically has developed through tradition in each country. Legal practitioners, most often, must be professionally trained in the law before they are permitted to advocate for a party in a court of law, draft legal documents, or give legal advice.

Legal traditions

There are generally four broad legal traditions that are practiced in the world today.

Civil law

The Civilian system of law is a codified law that sets out a comprehensive system of rules that are applied and interpreted by judges. It is by and large the most commonly practiced system of law in the world, with almost 60 % of the world's population living in a country ruled on the civilian system. The most important difference to common law is that normally, only legislative enactments are considered to be legally binding, but not precedent cases. However, as a practical matter, courts normally follow their previous decisions. Furthermore, in some civil law systems (e.g. in Germany), the writings of legal scholars have considerable influence on the courts. In most jurisdictions the core areas of private law are codified in the form of a civil code, but in some, like Scotland it remains uncodified. The civil law system has its origins in Roman law, which was adopted by scholars and courts from the late middle ages onwards. Most modern systems go back to the 19th century codification movement. The civil codes of many, particularly Latin countries and former French and Spanish colonies closely trail the Code de Napoléon in some fashion. However, this is not true for most Central and Eastern European, Scandinavian and East Asian countries. Notably, the German BGB was developed from Roman law with reference to German legal tradition. The importance of the Code Napoléon should also not be overemphasized as it covers only the core areas of private law, while other codes and statutes govern fields such as corporate law, administrative law, tax law and constitutional law.

Common law

The Common law is an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, based on unwritten laws developed through judicial decisions that create binding precedent. The common law system is currently in practice in Australia, Canada (excluding Quebec), United Kingdom, and the United States (excluding Louisiana). In addition to these countries several others have adapted the common law system into a mixed system. For example, India and Nigera operate largely on a common law system but incorporate a good deal of customary law and religious law.

Customary law

Customary law are systems of law that has evolved largely on their own within a given country and have been adapted to meet the needs of the particular culture. Note that customary law may also be relevant within jurisdictions following another legal tradition in fields or subfields of law where no legislative enactment exists. For example, in Austria, scholars of private law often claim that customary law continues to exist, whereas public law scholars dispute this claim. (In any case, it is hard to find any practically relevant examples.)

Religious law

Many countries base their system of law on religious tenants. The most dominant system of this form of law is Muslim law (or "Sharia") which is a codified law that is found within the Koran. These laws deal primarily with the personal rights and dispute resolution between individuals. It is used in some Middle Eastern nations; such as in the Iran and Saudi Arabia. On a smaller level there are still regions of the world that practice canon law, which is followed by Catholics and Anglicans, and a similar legal system is used by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The same can be said for Jewish law (halakha or halacha), which is followed by Orthodox and Conservative Jews, in substantially different forms.

Bodies of law

In the broadest sense, bodies of law can be subdivided on the basis of who the parties to an action are. It is frequent that practiced fields of law overlap into several of these bodies of law.

Private law

The area of private law in a legal system concerns law that oversees disputes between private individuals. This area is, to a large extent, the most comprehensive area of law, dealing with all non-criminal harm one person does to another.

Public law

The area of public law, in a general sense, is the law in a given legal system that concerns disputes between the government and private individuals residing within the country. The state can bring actions against people for criminal acts, as well as breach of regulatory laws. Equally, individuals can bring actions against the government for harm it has done. This includes grounds on the basis of a breach of regulations, legislate on matters beyond their competence, or violation of an individuals rights. These last two points are often protected under a countries’ constitution.

Procedural law

Procedural law concerns the areas of law that regulate how all actions are dealt with. This includes who can have access to the court system, how complaints are submitted, and what are the rights of the parties involved. Procedural law is often known as "adjective" law as it is the law that concern how other laws are to be applied. Typically, this is broadly covered by a government’s civil and criminal procedure rules. But equally this includes the law of evidence which determines what means are used to prove facts, as well as, the law regarding remedies.

International law

International law governs the relations between states, or between citizens of different states, or international organizations. Its two primary sources are customary law and treaties.

Philosophy of law

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as "what is the law?", "what are the criteria for legal validity?", "what is the relationship between law and morality?", and many other similar questions. In the western tradition there are several schools of thought on the philosophical basis of law. First, there is natural law, which attempts to describe law as an inherent quality in humans that is derived from natures. Second, there is the positivism which believes that law is a purely human-made construct that society uses to maintain social order. Third, there is legal realism which believes that law is an arbitrary set of rules that are largely established through the tastes and preferences of judges.

Anthropology of law

:See main discussion at Honour Law has an anthropological dimension. It has been recognized from Montesquieu to the present that law is shaped by the kind of society in which it is practised. One continuum into which various societies can be placed contrasts the "culture of law" with the "culture of honour". In order to have a culture of law, people must dwell in a society where a government exists whose authority is hard to evade and generally recognised as legitimate. People take their grievances before the government and its agents, who arbitrate disputes and enforce penalties. This behaviour is contrasted with the culture of honour, where respect for persons and groups stems from fear of the revenge they may exact if their person, property, or prerogatives are not respected. Cultures of law must be maintained. They can be eroded by declining respect for the law, achieved either by weak government unable to wield its authority, or by burdensome restrictions that attempt to forbid behaviour prevalent in the culture or in some subculture of the society. When a culture of law declines, there is a possibility that an culture of honor will arise in its place.
History

Practice of law
Practice of law is typically overseen by either a government organization or independent regulating body such as a bar association or barrister society. To practice law – i.e. appear in front of a judge on behalf of someone, draft legal documents, etc. – the practitioner must be certified by the regulating body. This usually entails a two or three year program at a university’s faculty of law or a law school, followed by an entrance examination (eg. bar admissions). Once accredited, a legal practitioners will often work in law firm, as well as in government, a private corporation, or even work as sole practitioner. A significant component to the practice of law in the common law tradition involves legal research in order to determine the current state of the law. This usually entails exploring case reporters, legal periodicals, and legislation.
See also

- Law topics overview
- List of areas of law
- List of legal topics
- List of legal terms
- List of jurists
- List of legal abbreviations
- List of case law lists
- List of law firms
Further reading

- Cheyenne Way: Conflict & Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence, Karl N. Llewellyn and E. Adamson Hoebel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983, trade paperback, 374 pages, ISBN 0806118555
- The Bilingual LSP Dictionary. Principles and Practice for Legal language, Sandro Nielsen, Gunter Narr Verlag 1994.
- [http://browse.addall.com/Browse/Author/2088479-1 Other books by Karl N. Llewellyn]
- David, René, and John E. C. Brierley. Major Legal Systems in the World Today: An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Law. 3d ed. London: Stevens, 1985 (ISBN 0420473408).
External links

- [http://www.legalmatch.com LegalMatch] Legal Resource
- [http://ausicl.com The Australian Institute of Comparative Legal Systems]
- [http://www.lpig.org Law and Policy Institutions]
- [http://www.llbee.com/news.php?p=news Laws External Education- Legal News By Subject]
- [http://www.4lawschool.com 4LawSchool- Legal Reference]
- [http://ww3.definitions-legal.com:8567/ Law, Legal Definitions & Reference]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-3/law.htm Essentials of Law-Related Education. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://www.law.cornell.edu LII - Topical overviews, US Supreme Court decisions, US Code (Acts of Congress)]
- [http://www.worldlii.org WorldLII - The World Legal Information Institute]
- [http://www.lawmoose.com LawMoose Legal Reference Library]
- [http://legallinks.jenkinslaw.org Legal Research Links]
- [http://www.findlaw.com FindLaw]
- [http://ausicl.com The Australian Institute of Comparative Legal Systems]
- [http://www.nolo.com/glossary.cfm Everybody's Legal Glossary] - From Nolo
- [http://www.alllaw.com/ AllLaw]
- [http://legal.wikicities.com/ WikiCities Legal Site]
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-ideology/ Law and Ideology]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-language/ Law and Language]
- [http://en.jurispedia.org/ The shared law] in Jurispedia
- [http://www.avocatura.com Romanian Law]
- [http://www.thedailylaw.com Daily Law news]
- [http://members.fortunecity.com/victorcauchi/lex/lexindex.htm Laws of Malta] Chapter summaries and a general Glossary of definitions.
- [http://LawyerIntl.com LawyerIntl.com] Legal Resource and Law Dictionary
- [http://LawGuru.com LawGuru.com] Legal Portal
- [http://forumprawne.org Prawo i porady prawne] - web discussion board about Polish law Category:Core issues in ethics ja:法 (法学) simple:Law th:กฎหมาย

Judge

A judge or justice is an official who presides over a court. The powers, functions, method of appointment, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. More generally, a "judge" may be a qualified person who evaluates and passes judgment on something. For example, a judge at a county fair might award prizes to the best cattle or best jam, while dog-show judges at a dog show determines which of several dogs best meets the breed standards.

Judges in the legal system

breed standard Judges are considered to be the leaders of one of the three branches of government, the judiciary. In liberal democracies with rule of law, judges are required to be impartial and not influenced by outside factors. In some civil law jurisdictions with inquisitorial systems, judges go to special schools to be trained after graduating with a law degree from a university; after such training they often become investigating magistrate. In common law countries, judges usually operate according to the adversarial system of justice under the applicable rules of civil procedure, and usually are not trained separately from lawyers. In the law of the United States, judges are generally appointed or elected from among practicing attorneys. In the common law system, when there is a jury trial in the trial courts, the jury generally decides questions of fact (guilt or innocence, whether a party was negligent, what the amount of damages should be, etc.) while the judge decides questions of law (under common-law systems, one of the judge's most important power is jury instructions). In the United States, bench trials and summary judgments are situations in which the judge decides issues of both law and fact. Historically, in Europe in the Middle Ages, juries often stated the law by consensus or majority and the judge applied it to the facts as he saw them. This practice generally no longer exists. In Finland, there are two kinds of judges in district courts: a legally-trained judge functions as the president of the court, while judges elected for a four-year term from the population, without any special legal training, serve as lay members of the court. Judges in special courts and apellate courts are always legally trained. Lay judges do not function like a common-law jury. In the usual case, three lay judges in district courts hear criminal cases in cooperation with a legally trained judge, each judge – legally trained or not – having an individual vote. Civil cases, however, are heard exclusively by legally trained judges.

Symbols of office

Being a judge is usually a prestigious position in society. A variety of traditions have become associated with the occupation. In many parts of the world, judges wear long robes (usually in black or red) and sit on an elevated platform during trials (known as the bench). In some countries, especially Britain, judges also wear wigs. The long wig often associated with judges is now reserved for ceremonial occasions, although it was part of the standard attire in previous centuries. A short wig resembling but not identical to a barrister's wig is worn in court. American judges usually always wear simple black robes and use gavels to keep order in the courtroom. However, in some Western states, like California, judges did not always wear robes and instead wore everyday clothing. Today, the Maryland Court of Appeals is the only state supreme court that deviates from the standard uniform; its seven judges wear red robes. In the People's Republic of China, judges wore regular street clothes until 1984, when they began to wear military-style uniforms, which were intended to demonstrate authority. These uniforms were replaced in 2000 by black robes similar to those worn in the rest of the world.

Titles

In the United States, a judge is addressed as "Your Honor" when presiding over the court. The judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the judges of the supreme courts of several U.S. states and other countries are called "justices." The justices of the supreme courts usually hold higher offices than the justice of the peace, a judge who holds police court in some jurisdictions and who typically tries small claims and misdemeanors. However, the state of New York inverts the usual order, with the Supreme Court of the State of New York being the trial court, and the Court of Appeals being the highest court; thus, New York trial judges are called "justices," while the judges on the Court of Appeals are "judges." New York judges who deal with trusts and estates are known as "surrogates." In England and Wales, judges of the higher courts are addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady" and referred to as "Your Lordship" or "Your Ladyship." Circuit Judges are addressed as "Your Honour" and all lower judges, magistrates, and chairs of tribunals are addressed as "Sir" or "Madam." Magistrates were at one time addressed as "Your Worship," mainly by solicitors, but this practice is nearly obsolete. Masters of the High Court are addressed as "Master." When a judge of the High Court who is not present is being refered to they are described as "Mr./Mrs. Justice N" (written N J). In the House of Lords, judges are called Law Lords and sit as peers. In France, the presiding judge of a court is addressed to as "Mr./Mrs. President" (Monsieur le président/Madame le président). Judges of courts of specialized jurisdiction (such as bankruptcy courts or juvenile courts) were sometimes known officially as "referees," but the use of this title is in decline. Judges sitting in courts of equity in common law systems are called "Chancellors."

Truth

When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, they are claiming that it is the truth. Epistemology, the study of knowledge, seeks solutions for the many philosophical problems associated with truth. The first problem for philosophers is deciding what sorts of things are true or false, the so-called truth-bearers. At stake is the terminology we use to discuss truth. Then there are a range of theories about what makes these truth-bearers true. Some, the robust theories, treat truth as a property; others, the deflationary theories, suggest that it is no more than a convenient tool in our language. Developments in formal logic have thrown light on the way in which truth is used both in formal systems and in natural languages. Standing beside these problems are the issues of how we know something to be true. The way in which one knows that one has a toothache seems different from the way in which one knows that the Earth is the third planet from the sun; perhaps one is subjective, and determined by introspection, while the other objective, and determined by a combination of shared observations, reasonings, and calculations. Similarly, some truths seem to be relative to one's position or background, while others appear absolute. Philosophers have diverse opinions on each of these issues.

Bearers of truth

Philosophers call any entity that can be true or false a "truth bearer." Propositions, sentences, statements, ideas, beliefs, and judgements are said to be truth bearers. Thus, a truth bearer, in the philosophical sense, is not a person or god. Some philosophers exclude one or more of these categories, or argue that some of them are true (or false) only in a derivative sense. These claims are made on the basis of theories about truth such as those discussed below. For example, propositions are often thought to be the only things that are literally true. A proposition is the abstract entity which is expressed by a sentence, held in a belief, affirmed in a statement or judgement. All these things (which are parts of a language) are called true only if they express, hold, or affirm true propositions. So plausibly sentences of different languages, such as the (English) The sky is blue and the (German) Der Himmel ist blau express the same proposition. On the other hand, many philosophers have claimed that propositions and similar abstract entities are mysterious and provide little explanation; surely sentences, or even utterances of sentences, are a more clear-cut and fundamental truth bearer.

Theories about truth

Philosophers and logicians have proposed a number of broad theories about truth, which are now frequently sorted into two camps:

Robust theories

Some theories hold in common that truth is a robust (sometimes inflationary) concept. These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences that seem to predicate truth or falsity, such as "Snow is white is true" can be taken at face value. Truth is a property, just as red is a property predicated of a barn in the sentence in "The barn is red." The task for such theories is to explain the nature of this property. Hence, according to these theories, truth needs explanation and is something about which significant things can be said:
- The correspondence theory of truth sees truth as correspondence with objective reality. Thus, a sentence is said to be true just in the case that it expresses a state of affairs in the world.
- The coherence theory sees truth as coherence with some specified set of sentences or, more often, of beliefs. For example, one of a person's beliefs is true just in case it is coherent with all or most of her other beliefs. Usually, coherence is taken to imply something stronger than mere consistency: justification, evidence, and comprehensiveness of the belief set are common restrictions.
- The consensus theory holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group.
- Pragmatism sees truth as the success of the practical consequences of an idea, i.e. its utility.
- Social constructivism holds that truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community.
- The Indefinability theory of truth views the concept of truth along the same lines as a correspondence theorist, but it holds that truth cannot be defined in terms of simpler concepts.

Deflationary theories

Other philosophers reject the idea that truth is a robust concept in this sense. From this point of view, to say "2 + 2 = 4 is true" is to say no more than that "2 + 2 = 4", and that there is no more to say about truth than this. These positions are broadly called "deflationary" theories of truth (because the concept has been "deflated" of importance) or "disquotational" theories (to draw attention to the mere "disappearance" of the quotation marks in cases like the above example). In addition to highlighting this formal feature of the predicate "is true", some deflationists point out that the concept enables us to express things that might otherwise require an infinitely long sentences. For example, I cannot express my confidence in Michael's accuracy by asserting the endless sentence: :Michael says, 'snow is white' and snow is white, or he says 'roses are red' and roses are red or he says ... etc. But I can express it succinctly just by saying: :Whatever Michael says is true. Once we have identified the truth predicate's formal features and utility, deflationsists argue, we have said all there is to be said about truth. The primary theoretical concern of these views is to explain away those special cases where it appears that the concept of truth does have peculiar and interesting properties. (See Semantic paradoxes, and below.) From this point of view (see Gottlob Frege and F. P. Ramsey), truth is not the name of some property of propositions — some thing about which one could have a theory. The belief that truth is a property is just an illusion caused by the fact that we have the predicate "is true" in our language. Since most predicates name properties, we naturally assume that "is true" does as well. But, deflationists say, statements that seem to predicate truth actually do nothing more than signal agreement with the statement. For example, the redundancy theory of truth holds that to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. Thus, to say that "Snow is white" is true is to say nothing more nor less than that snow is white. A second example, attributed to P. F. Strawson, is the performative theory of truth which holds that to say "Snow is white" is true is to perform the speech act of signalling one's agreement with the claim that snow is white (much like nodding one's head in agreement). The idea that some statements are more actions than communicative statements is not as odd as it may seem. Consider, for example, that when the bride says "I do" at the appropriate time in a wedding, she is performing the act of taking this man to be her lawful wedded husband. She is not describing herself as taking this man. A third type of deflationary theory is the disquotational theory which uses a variant form of Tarski's schema: To say that '"P" is true' is to say that P. One of the most thoroughly worked out versions of this view is the prosentential theory of truth, first developed by Dorothy Grover, Joseph Camp, and Nuel Belnap as an elaboration of Frank P. Ramsey's claims. They argue that sentences like "That's true" are prosentences (see pro-form), expressions that merely repeat the content of other expressions. In the same way that it means the same as my dog in the sentence My dog was hungry, so I fed it, That's true is supposed to mean the same as It's raining if you say the latter and I then say the former.

Formal definitions

Semantic theory of truth

The semantic theory of truth has as its general case for a given language: :'P' is true if and only if P where 'P' is a reference to the sentence (the sentence's name), and P is just the sentence itself. Logician and philosopher Alfred Tarski developed the theory for formal languages (such as formal logic). Here he restricted it in this way: no language could contain its own truth predicate, that is, the expression is true could only apply to sentences in some other language. The latter he called an object language, the language being talked about. (It may, in turn, have a truth predicate that can be applied to sentences in still another language.) The reason for his restriction was that languages that contain their own truth predicate will contain paradoxical sentences like the Liar: This sentence is not true. See The Liar Paradox. As a result Tarski held that the semantic theory could not be applied to any natural language, such as English, because they contain their own truth predicates. Tarski thought of his theory as a species of correspondence theory. Donald Davidson used it as the foundation of his truth-conditional semantics and linked it to radical interpretation in a form of coherentism.

Kripke's theory of truth

Saul Kripke contends that a natural language can in fact contain its own truth predicate without giving rise to contradiction. He showed how to construct one as follows:
- Begin with a subset of sentences of a natural language that contains no occurrences of the expression "is true" (or "is false"). So The barn is big is included in the subset, but not ' The barn is big is true', nor problematic sentences such as "This sentence is false".
- Define truth just for the sentences in that subset.
- Then extend the definition of truth to include sentences that predicate truth or falsity of one of the original subset of sentences. So ' The barn is big is true' is now included, but not either This sentence is false nor "' The barn is big is true' is true".
- Next, define truth for all sentences that predicate truth or falsity of a member of the second set. Imagine this process repeated infinitely, so that