Sample argumentative essays

persuasive essay sample

Projections are always risky or uncertain. Since outcomes refer to the future and are projected theoretically, there is always some possibility that they will not be realized. That risk or probability must be estimated, however roughly, since it will influence the choice actually made. Given a choice between starting a war and triggering an outbreak of measles, only a monster would choose to start a war. But if the measles epidemic is a near certainty and the risk of war is infinitesimally small, then the risk of war may be the more reasonable choice to make.

research paper sample

In the real world, collective decisions are simplified to some extent by the overriding importance of avoiding catastrophes or disasters. In the long run, learning what to avoid and how to avoid it may be far more important than learning how to achieve particular, positive results. In part that comes from the need to expect a certain amount of failure and therefore the need to learn how to benefit from such experience. If efforts to produce improvements in the human situation that fail are regarded as learning opportunities, some good can be squeezed from them. Failure to avoid serious disasters can put an end to experimenting.

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It can be argued, for example, that failure within the U.S. government to guard against disaster in the public housing program introduced in the 1937 Housing Act effectively ruled out the development of a viable public housing program for decades into the future. To some extent, the capacity to avoid disasters depends on the quality of the culture and the effectiveness of the socialization process, with complications already noted briefly. In stable eras, when life styles remain fairly constant between generations and levels of gross dissatisfaction are modest, the primary dangers to be avoided, and the choice situations with which they are associated, become fairly well defined--and populations are highly sensitive to them.

sample argumentation essay

When social conditions are changing rapidly, generations caught in the transition may face a much more difficult situation. To have danger cues for situations that no longer occur or are no longer dangerous is psychologically taxing at least. Not to have adequate indicators for what are real dangers can be lethal or highly disruptive. That creates a genuine social dilemma. Youth must learn the early-warning signals in order to survive; what is available to be learned may not be adequate. It follows that youth should be trained to develop their own warning signals, but that goal is easier stated than accomplished.

sample argumentative essay

One practical addition can be made to the structure. At the boundaries of present theoretical capacity there are usually a number of "gray areas" where relations are suspected but not yet firmly established. The relation between smoking and lung cancer, for example, was suspected long before it was firmly established, and firmly established long before it was fully accepted--and some continue to argue that the evidence is insufficient. Such suspected or "possible" relations can, under some circumstances at least, influence the decision to choose one option rather than another. For example, if experts generally agree that certain substances are a likely or possible source of brain damage in children, that opinion could, even in the absence of wholly convincing evidence, justify excluding those materials from baby food pending further inquiry.

sample cause and effect essay

Much depends on the nature of the problem, the manner in which opinions are expressed, and the kind of reasoning or argument used to support the suspected relation; expert judgments are rarely formed on no basis whatsoever. A parent's assertion that local school lunches are likely to produce sterilization in children is unlikely to be taken seriously, other things equal; a similar judgment by highly regarded medical authorities would almost certainly lead to further inquiry and perhaps an immediate suspension of the lunch program. The structure of choices is readily extended to take such considerations into account.

sample classification essay

When the outcomes from which a decision or choice must be made have been projected to the limits of theoretical capacity, and any suspected important relations have been added in an appropriate place, it is usually helpful to select out the normative variables, each with a projected value, and bring them together into a matrix of rows and columns. Matrices serve to demonstrate the content of a set of options in a very economical way, and the structure greatly facilitates systematic comparisons. That is particularly true because it is usually good strategy in choices involving a large number of options to look for reasons to rule out certain options quickly.

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The principal hazard associated with the use of such matrices to depict choices is that it will impart a static character to the outcomes from which choices must be made. A matrix appears as a cross-section of an ongoing process. Yet the consequences of action are extended in time; what is included in the matrix is limited by the availability of reliable theories. It would be wrong to select a point in the development of those consequences, freeze the action by determining the values of the normative variables at that point, and base the decision on that set of values. The chooser must take into account the full effects of action (and they extend over time), as far as they can be projected.

sample comparative essay

The solution to this problem is not a three-dimensional matrix, for the added complexity would greatly reduce the value of the structure. It is found in the normative variables, which refer to the projected over-time effects on individual lives of a particular action in a given situation. Those variables, to be examined in more detail in the following unit, serve to collapse the film clip of the future in which the effects of action have been captured into a still photo. They do so by referring to a life as a whole and not to the state of life at a particular moment in time.

sample compare and contrast essay

The meaning, and unavoidable complexity, of the normative variables is best demonstrated by developing them progressively from the simplest possible base. A point of departure is provided by a descriptive account of the individual affected by action prior to the action taking place. Every person can be described fully, although not completely, in terms of the observed values of some selection of variables. In principle, the set of variables that could be applied to the person is infinite, therefore the description is always incomplete. Some set must therefore be selected to make the description; it can include any dimension of the individual from such purely physical attributes as height or weight through psychic states, learned skills or acquired capacities, legal rights, relations with others, and so on.