SOCL 3501 Lecture : SOCL 3501 Semester Notes
Document Summary
Murder: all homicide (the killing of another person) is not murder (the unlawful killing of someone)-like self-defense, even something as serious as murder is relative because we can all legally kill people under certain circumstances. Kinds of theory: based on their view of deviance: we discuss these two theories as opposite, but they"re more complimentary than opposite, positivist: works better with high consensus deviance (a crime as called by police, absolutism. Implies that deviance is different from conventional behavior. Means people that engage in it are different than conventional people: objectivism. We are applying some kind of scientific method to positivism. We study things objectively through statistics- quantitative data if deviance is absolutely real, we can count how much of it goes on, and eliminate it: determinism. Our behaviors-to some extent-is determined by social forces. You can play your cards any way you want, but society deals your cards-we are not as free as we like to think.
