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From the O.J. Simpson verdict to peace-making in the Balkans, the critical role of human judgement--complete with its failures, flaws, and successes--has never been more hotly debated and analyzed than it is today. This landmark work examines the dynamics of judgement and its impact on events that take place in human society, which require the direction and control of social policy. Research on social policy typically focuses on content. This book concentrates instead on the decision-making process itself. Drawing on 50 years of empirical research in decision theory, Hammond examines the possibilities for wisdom and cognitive competence in the formation of social policies, and applies these lessons to specific examples, such as the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the health care debate. Uncertainly, he tells us, can seldom be fully eliminated; thus error is inevitable, and injustice for some unavoidable. But the capacity for make wise judgments increases to the extent that we understand the potential pitfalls and their origin. The judgment process for example involves an ongoing rivalry between intuition and analysis, accuracy and rationality. The source of this tension requires an examination of the evolutionary roots of human judgement and how these fundamental features may be changing as our civilization increasingly becomes an information and knowledge-based society. With numerous examples from law, medicine, engineering, and economics, the author dramatizes the importance of judgment and its role in the formation of social policies which affect us all, and issues the first comprehensive examination of its underlying dynamics.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Part I Rivalry
• 1 Irreducible Uncertainty and the Need for Judgment
• 2 Duality of Error and Policy Formation
• 3 Coping with Uncertainty: The Rivalry Between Intuition and Analysis
• Part II Tension
• 4 Origins of Tensions Between Coherence and Correspondence Theories of Competence in Judgment and Decision Making
• 5 The Evolutionary Roots of Correspondence Competence
• Part III Compromise and Reconciliation
• 6 Reducing Rivalry Through Compromise
• 7 Task Structure, Cognitive Change, and Pattern Recognition
• 8 Reducing Tensions Between Coherence and Correspondence Through Constructive Complementarity
• Part IV Possibilities
• 9 Is It Possible to Learn by Intervening?
• 10 Is It Possible to Learn from Representing?
• 11 Possibilities for Wisdom
• 12 The Possible Future of Cognitive Competence

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Hammond magnificently reviews the history and major controversies in studies of cognition and decision making. Using examples from public policy, medicine, law, and engineering, he illustrates tensions between analysis and intuition, and correspondence versus coherence models of truth. He presents a convincing argument that uncertainty at the time of decision is irreducible, and that this involves injustices (to be minimized with information but nonetheless unavoidable). This reviewer has some caveats about Hammond's work. First, if one is committed to analysis and certainty as achievable goals and as essential to policy, then this book will infuriate. Second, the use of sociobiology is distracting, as is the author's reliance on an outdated Popperian epistemology. Finally, it is amazing to read a work on social policy that does not once mention problems such as organizational culture, bureaucratic imperatives, gaps between policy formation and implementation, and social power. Although Hammond cogently outlines the workings of individual human minds, the absence of consideration for the workings of groups, organizations, and modern institutions limits this book. Clearly a contribution to cognitive science, but only a footnote to political theory and public policy. Graduate; faculty. J. L. Croissant University of Arizona

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Kenneth R. Hammond is at University of Colorado at Boulder.