Free examples of persuasive essays

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To return to the example, once Smith has been offered a second job, action is not avoidable. That is the sense in which capacity forces action. Smith may, on various grounds, decide to accept or refuse the job on the spot and end the matter there. But if the decision is to be justified to a competent critic, certain requirements must be satisfied first. The implications of each of the available lines of action must be projected on the future and compared in terms of the conditions of life of the people affected. Those projections will be dynamic, film clips of the future rather than still photographs, and must extend as far as current capacity to foresee can be pressed. As a result, the projections will be problematic in some degree, and that uncertainty can influence decision.

free examples of persuasive essays

All of the normatively significant dimensions of the projected future are to be included. That places an added burden on the theories used to make projections, for they must be linked to an adequate set of normative variables. A worker who could do no more than project the economic implications of accepting another job or retaining the present job, leaving aside all the familial, cultural, social, educational, and personal implications of the choice, could hardly be said to have an adequate basis for decision, and would probably refuse to make the choice. Some aspects of the future will weigh more heavily than others, and weighting may vary from person to person.

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The point to be made here is that the outcomes must be weighted, without suggesting how or what the weighting should be. Two factors will influence the weight attached to particular elements in the outcome: (1) the probability that the projection is accurate, the level of uncertainty attached to the outcome; and (2) the significance of that factor in the hierarchy of preferences that are accepted by the individual. An uncertain but highly significant factor may count far more heavily than a less significant factor that is almost certain to occur. Thus a moderate risk of incurring illness from hazardous wastes may influence the decision to move much more than the near certainty of better transportation or even improved schools.

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In most cases, the choice of jobs will be treated as a simple two-option decision: The worker will either accept the new position or remain in the present job. In fact, there are usually a great many other options available, but they are overlooked or ignored. To take a specific case, if the worker is very nearly at retirement age, that option might be added to the set being reviewed. Other options, which may appear unreasonable, may nevertheless be available. The worker could vacate both jobs, abandon his wife and children, and run off to join the French Foreign Legion.

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The practice of suppressing all but a few of the real options available for choice is an important function of socialization. Consider a young woman who goes to the store to buy a purse. She examines the available purses (those she can afford) and chooses one--or in the case of my wife, rejects the lot and returns home. The alternate uses that might be made of those resources, which are virtually endless, are almost never examined. To justify the choice, she would refer to the kinds of purses available, their respective costs, and the degree of fit between purse features and her needs and habits.

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…The same resources could certainly be used to purchase food for hungry childen or assist the elderly to obtain medical attention. Told that she had chosen to add a new purse to her wardrobe rather than provide food for hungry children or medical assistance for the elderly, the young woman would be likely to become indignant. Yet precisely such choices are made every day when the exercise of capacity is examined realistically in terms of its scope. Each option must be weighed against all other options, both by chooser and critic. Socialization serves to suppress a very large part of the available alternatives and to legitimate the practice of limiting options in particular ways.

free persuasive essays

Projecting the options from which choices must be made into the future is a little like dropping a stone into a moving stream. Depending on the size of the stone and the speed of the river, the pattern of waves created by the stone cannot be followed very far, or in great detail, before it disappears. Reasoned action requires that the options be projected as fully, and completely, as present capacity permits, but too much cannot be expected in the current state of knowledge. And present choices cannot be criticized in terms of future knowledge; the chooser can only do the best possible at the time of choice.

free personal essays

If a choice is made under severe time constraints, as occurs in the real world all too often, that will also limit how well the options are arrayed. Experience can help by suggesting the kinds of actions likely to have significant consequences, and the kinds of places where significant consequences are likely to appear. Mistakes are unavoidable, but the real tragedy occurs when nothing is learned from either success or failure, and subsequent performance does not improve. An important goal of training in the use of the analytic framework is to facilitate learning from experience, first by providing a way of linking purposes to intellectual tools useful for fulfilling them, and second, by suggesting areas of great human significance for those concerned with choosing or criticizing choices.

essays on why do i want a dog

In order to determine the attitude of family members toward dogs as household pets, and to assess inductively their role in family life, a series of case studies (thirtyseven) was gathered over a period of three years, in which family members were encouraged to state their experiences as dog owners. The material was gathered by the interview method. Observations of these, and an additional eighteen families, were made over a number of years, to supplement the case records. The conclusions of this study, as published in Mental Hygiene, a quarterly publication of the National Association for Mental Health, follow.

essays on critical thinking

Consider how very difficult it would be for physicians in those times to question the diagnosis. Yet training for critical thinking and action must somehow prepare people in ways that would make it likely to occur, and not in medicine alone. At best, sensitivity to error, like willingness to acknowledge it, is not easily cultivated. About all that can be done is point out potential sources of error; if the errors were already known, they could be built directly into the training. That is not a very satisfactory solution to the problem, but there is nothing better available at present and so it will have to suffice.