РУАЭСТ (RUAEST)
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC POLICY PROBLEMS
Let us start from a simple and common sense definition of the concept of a ‘problem’: One has a problem when one experiences a gap or disparity between a moral standard and an image of a present or future state of the world. Someone who claims to be plagued by a problem, implicitly or explicitly passes a moral judgment. One uses a standard involving value or worthlessness, desirability or undesirability, to pass judgment on present or expected acts or situations (e.g. Rokeach, 1973; Frankena, 1973). Some call moral standards strictly phenomenological, subjective facts of our inner, personal lives (Hodgkinson, 1983:31–32). Life presents itself to us as a series of moments-facts-events. To these phenomena we attribute value; it is what we appreciate. Values are, to put it inelegantly but unambiguously, ‘in ourselves’, not ‘in things out there’. People attribute or ascribe value to things. In principle, this is a voluntary act.