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Gender
Gender is a crosscutting issue in the IPMS project. Understanding of the gender context in each Pilot Learning Woredas and identifying opportunities for supporting gender equality through market led agricultural development initiatives is a central issue to the overall success of project implementation to ensure sustainability of positive development impacts. To this end, a gender strategy was designed in November 2004 to provide direction to the gender mainstreaming process across all project interventions.
The following are the major areas of engagement to mainstream gender in the market led agricultural development:

1. Understanding gender issues in priority crops and enterprises
2. Awareness raising on gender issues
3. Gender empowerment through IPMS activities
4. Operational measures for gender mainstreaming

Teleology
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Teleology (telos: end, purpose) is the philosophical study of design, purpose, directive principle, or finality in nature or human creations.
Contents[hide]· 1 Contrasted with philosophical naturalism · 2 Extrinsic and intrinsic finality · 3 Classical Greek teleology · 4 Modern/postmodern philosophy · 5 Science o 5.1 Anthropic principle o 5.2 Philosophy of Science o 5.3 Technology · 6 See also · 7 References · 8 Further reading
Contrasted with philosophical naturalism
Teleology traditionally is contrasted with philosophical naturalism, which views nature as lacking design or purpose. For example, naturalism would say that a person has sight simply because they have eyes. In other words, function follows form (eyesight follows from having eyes). Teleology is the reverse of this position: a person has eyes because they have the need of eyesight. In this case, form follows function (eyes follow from having the need for eyesight).
Two classic examples of these opposing views are found in Aristotle and Lucretius, the former as a supporter of teleology and the latter as a supporter of what is now often called philosophical naturalism, or accidentalism:
Nature adapts the organ to the function, and not the function to the organ—Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium (On the Parts of Animals)[1] Nothing in the body is made in order that we may use it. What happens to exist is the cause of its use.—Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)[2]
[edit] Extrinsic and intrinsic finality
Teleology depends on the concept of a final cause or purpose inherent in all beings. There are two types of such causes, intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality.
· Extrinsic finality consists of a being realizing a purpose outside that being, for the utility and welfare of other beings. For instance, minerals are "designed" to be used by plants which are in turn "designed" to be used by animals.
· Intrinsic finality consists of a being realizing a purpose by means of a natural tendency directed toward the perfection of its own nature. In essence, it is what is "good for" a being. For example, physical masses obey universal gravitational tendencies that did not evolve, but are simply a cosmic "given." Similarly, life is intended to behave in certain ways so as to preserve itself from death, disease, and pain.
Over-emphasizing extrinsic finality is often criticized as leading to the anthropic attribution of every event to a divine purpose, or superstition. For instance, "If I hadn't been at the store today, I wouldn't have found that $100 on the ground. God must have intended for me to go to the store so I would find that money." or "We won the game today because of my lucky socks." Such abuses were criticized by Francis Bacon ("De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum," III, iv), Descartes ("Principia Philosophiæ", I, 28; III, 2, 3; "Meditationes", III, IV), and Spinoza (Ethica, I, prop. 36 app.).
Intrinsic finality, while more subtle, provides the basis for the teleological argument for the existence of God and or some supernatural force, and its modern counterpart, intelligent design. Proponents of teleology argue that it resolves a fundamental defect in philosophical naturalism. They argue that naturalism focuses exclusively on the immediate causes and mechanisms of events, and does not attend to the reason for their synthesis. Thus, it is argued, if we take a clock apart, we discover in it nothing but springs, wheels, pivots, levers etc. But having explained the mechanism which causes the revolutions of the hands on the dial, is it reasonable to say that the clock was not made to keep time?
Philosophers of science respond that since Aristotle, biology has been profoundly concerned with the constraint function places on structure, and that the arrival of Darwinian evolutionary theory did not alter this concern. A classic and early example is Darwin's interest in functional constraints on the evolutionary development of the beaks of Galapagos finches. Of these birds, Darwin wrote, "Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends. " (Origin of Species, chapter 19)
Classical Greek teleology
Plato summarized the argument for teleology as follows in Phaedo, arguing that it is error to fail to distinguish between the ultimate Cause, and the mere means by which the ultimate Cause acts:
“ Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. It is what the majority appear to do, like people groping in the dark; they call it a cause, thus giving it a name that does not belong to it. That is why one man surrounds the earth with a vortex to make the heavens keep it in place, another makes the air support it like a wide lid. As for their capacity of being in the best place they could possibly be put, this they do not look for, nor do they believe it to have any divine force, but they believe that they will some time discover a stronger and more immortal Atlas to hold everything together more, and they do not believe that the truly good and "binding" binds and holds them together." [Plato, Phaedo 99bc] ”
Thus, it is argued, those who attempt to explain nature in terms of nature alone are forced to deny the ultimate binding Good (or other such invisible forces, such as gravity and electromagnetism) in the universe, and hope that they will someday discover a stronger supporting argument ("Atlas" or, for example, God) to hold their universe together.
Similarly, Aristotle argued that it is error to attempt to reduce all things to mere necessity, because such thinking neglects the purpose, order, and final cause that causes the apparent necessity. He wrote:
“ Democritus, however, neglecting the final cause, reduces to necessity all the operations of nature. Now they are necessary, it is true, but yet they are for a final cause and for the sake of what is best in each case. Thus nothing prevents the teeth from being formed and being shed in this way; but it is not on account of these causes but on account of the end; these are causes in the sense of being the moving and efficient instruments and the material. …to say that necessity is the cause is much as if we should think that the water has been drawn off from a dropsical patient on account of the lancet alone, not on account of health, for the sake of which the lancet made the incision. [Aristotle, Generation of Animals V.8, 789a8-b15] ”
There are 4 main causes of nature in Aristotle's view. The material cause, efficient cause, formal cause and the final cause.
Modern/postmodern phil
Historically, teleology may be identified with the philosophical tradition of Aristotelianism. The rationale of teleology was explored by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement and, again, made central to speculative philosophy by Hegel and the various neo-Hegelian schools, including that of Marx. In this interpretation of the history of our species on this globe — an interpretation at variance both with Darwin and with what is now called analytic philosophy — the point of departure is not so much formal logic and scientific fact but 'identity'. (In Hegel's terminology: 'objective spirit'.) Individual human consciousness, in the process of reaching for autonomy and freedom, has no choice but to deal with an obvious reality: the collective identities (the multiplicity of world views, ethnic, cultural and national identities) which divide the human race both now and in the past, and which set off (and always have set off) different groups of people against each other in violent conflict. Hegel conceived of the 'totality' of mutually antagonistic world-views and life-forms in history as being 'goal-driven', i.e. oriented towards an end-point in history in which the 'objective contradiction' of 'subject' and 'object' would eventually 'sublate' into a form of life which has left violent conflict behind it. This goal-oriented, 'teleological' notion of the 'historical process as a whole' is present in a variety of 20th Century authors, from Lukács and Jaspers to Horkheimer and Adorno.
According to Jean-François Lyotard (1979) teleology and "grand narratives" are eschewed in a postmodern attitude. Teleology may be viewed as reductive, exclusionary and harmful to those whose stories are erased. [3] Against this, Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that a narrative understanding of one's self is liberatory, in understanding one's capacity as an independent reasoner and, also, in understanding one's dependence on others and on the social practices and traditions in which one participates. Social practices may be understood as teleologically orientated to internal goods. For example, practices of philosophical and scientific enquiry are teleologically ordered to the elaboration of a true understanding of their objects. Although beginning with his book After Virtue, which famously dismissed the naturalistic teleology of Aristotle's 'metaphysical biology', MacIntyre has cautiously moved from that book's account of a sociological teleology toward an exploration of what remains valid in a more traditional teleological naturalism.

In recent decades, a form of teleological reasoning has reappeared in certain quarters of physics and cosmology, under the heading of anthropic principle, a term Brandon Carter coined in 1973. The problem the anthropic principle tries to Anthropic principle address is: Why did the universe begin in a very simple state (Big Bang) but has since grown ever more complex, to the extent that, at least in our corner of it, it is hospitable to life as complex as homo sapiens?

Contemporary accounts of teleology within biology are heavily influenced by Larry Wright's "etiological" account of teleology[4]. Wright sought to supply a definition of "function" that could be applied to natural phenomena as well as human artifacts - that is, human constructions such as a hammer. Most contemporary accounts of teleology follow in the steps of Wright's etiological account (Ruth Millikan[5] for instance[6]). There is, however, disagreement over its use. Some, such as Godfrey-Smith[7] and Ernst Mayr[8], object to any sort of etiological theory of teleology that attempts to explain both natural phenomena as well as human artifacts. Their accounts are therefore naturalistic accounts of teleology.
For a very detailed discussion of this resurgence of teleology in natural science, see Barrow and Tipler (1986). While long stretches of this monograph are technically challenging, it also includes:
· A circa 200pp masterly review of much of the intellectual history of teleology and design arguments. Here the authors draw attention to the distinction, drawn by L. E. Hicks in 1883 and since ignored, between teleology and eutaxiology;
· A whole chapter on the teleological implications of earth science and chemistry, with special reference to the eclectic but little known work of Lawrence Joseph Henderson;
· A fair discussion of the implications of evolutionary biology for teleology, granting pride of place to the writings of Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr;
· Teleological speculations on the ultimate fate of the universe.
Barrow and Tipler include many references. Teleological considerations also inform some of the writings of Arthur Eddington, Freeman Dyson, and John Wheeler.
[edit] Technology
Teleology has a long history in the study of purpose in human creations such as technology. The study of "teleological mechanisms" in machinery (i.e. machines with corrective feedback) dates back at least to the late 1700s when James Watt's steam engine was equipped with a governor.
More recently, Julian Bigelow, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Norbert Wiener conceived of teleology in machinery as being a feedback mechanism. Wiener, a mathematician, coined the term 'cybernetics' to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms," which was popularized through his book Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and machine (1948). Cybernetics is the study of the communication and control of regulatory feedback, both in living beings and machines, and in combinations of the two. Since that time the term "teleologic" in particular has been frequently used in the scientific literature to capture the sense of purposeful goal-directed behavior in biological and technological control systems.
[edit] See also
· Efficient cause, final cause
· Emergence
· Purpose
· Ed Ricketts
· Teleological argument
· Naturalism (philosophy)
· Orthogenesis
· Dysteleology
· Destiny
· Moirae
· Cybernetics
· anthropic principle
danteology
Teleology
From the Greek telos, meaning "end," a type of ethical theory that evaluates human actions according to their final causality or ultimate end. As with consequentialism, all teleological theories emphasize a conception of the good as the source of moral value. Because of this similarity, many thinkers consider teleology in opposition to deontology as one of the two primary methodological categories of deductive ethics. Within this line of thought, consequentialism is often equated with teleology, rather than understood as merely one type of teleology. Some thinkers, however, more properly distinguish teleology from consequentialism. According to this line of thought, not all teleological theories conceive of the good as the maximization of valuable resulting states of affairs (as do all consequentialist theories). Rather, a teleological conception of the good can be one of human flourishing (as the final cause of human life), which assumes a particular view of human nature. In this sense, attaining the good may entail bringing about favorable resulting states of affairs, but the good itself also consists of activities that are valuable in and of themselves, that is, independently of their consequences. For example, contemplation may be considered a valuable activity even if it does not maximize a desirable resulting state of affairs.
Similarly, some teleological conceptions of the good may entail performing actions that one has a duty to perform, regardless of their consequences. Further, the conception of the good in some teleological theories may require not performing certain actions simply because they are contrary to the good, and we may therefore have an obligation to avoid performing these actions under all circumstances. Some interpretations of Natural Law are examples of teleological theories of this type. Understood in this broad sense, teleology is a distinct method that could include elements of both consequentialism and deontology, while the latter methods remain in opposition. Teleological theories are often criticized for depending too much on fact-based propositions and committing the "Naturalistic Fallacy" (which claims that one cannot logically deduce a normative conclusion from a statement of fact).

In ethics, deontological ethics or deontology (Greek: Deon meaning obligation or duty) is a theory holding that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering one's duties and the rights of others.
One of the most important implications of deontology is that a person's behavior can be wrong even if it results in the best possible outcome. And, an act can be right even if it results in a bad outcome. In contrast to consequentialism, a philosophy infamous for its claim that the ends justify the means, deontology insists that how people accomplish their goals is usually (or always) more important than what people accomplish:
Contents[hide]· 1 Proponents of deontological ethics · 2 Criticism of deontology · 3 External links · 4 References
[edit] Proponents of deontological ethics

Immanuel Kant
The most famous deontological theory was advanced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In his theory, Kant claimed that various actions are morally wrong because they are inconsistent with the status of a person as a free and rational being, and that, conversely, acts that further the status of people as free and rational beings are morally right. Therefore, Kant claimed, we all have a duty to avoid the first type of act and perform the second type of act.
Kant believed that this duty was absolute. He drew a distinction between contingent duties, which only need to be carried out under certain empirical circumstances, and categorical duties, which always need to be carried out, because they are based on a priori reasoning about the general nature of things, and thus apply no matter what the circumstances are. Kant thought of the duty to promote human freedom and rationality as the only truly categorical duty. He called this duty the categorical imperative, and described it at great length in his writings. Of the five formulations of the categorical imperative Kant developed, the three most well-known and significant are:
· Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a universal law.
· Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
· Act as though you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.
Other examples of deontological theorists include the English philosopher John Locke and the modern-day philosopher John Rawls. Locke held that individual persons have rights that are part of the natural law of the world, and that actions (including the death penalty, which he advocated) can be judged as right or wrong based on whether they respect these rights. John Rawls held that individual persons have a duty to act according to the laws that they would propose if they were unaware of their present socioeconomic status. Because most people are risk-averse, Rawls argues, most people in this situation would propose laws that disproportionately benefit the poor and the oppressed. Because John Rawls is particularly concerned with the utility of the least well off, he is sometimes associated with utilitarian and/or consequentialist schools of thought. What John Rawls has in common with thinkers like Kant and Locke is his use of the distinction between the concept of the right and the concept of the good. Whereas consequentialist theories argue or assume that an act is right (and should therefore be carried out) if it maximizes the good, deontological theories assert that an act can maximize the good yet still be wrong (and therefore should not be carried out) if it violates some deontological principle such as a right or a duty or the categorical imperative.
Criticism of deontology

Jeremy Bentham
Many utilitarian philosophers offer critiques of deontology. Jeremy Bentham, an early utilitarian philosopher, criticized deontology on the grounds that it was essentially a dressed-up version of popular morality, and that the unchanging principles that deontologists attribute to natural law or universal reason are really a matter of subjective opinion. John Stuart Mill, who lived in 19th century Britain, argued that deontologists usually fail to specify which principles should take priority when rights and duties conflict, so that deontology cannot offer complete moral guidance.
Shelly Kagan, a current professor of philosophy at Yale University, notes in support of Mill and Bentham that under deontology, individuals are bound by constraints (such as the requirement not to murder), but are also given options (such as the right not to give money to charity, if they do not wish to). His line of attack on deontology is first to show that constraints are invariably immoral, and then to show that options are immoral without constraints.
Another, unrelated critique of deontological ethics comes from aretaic theories, which often maintain that neither consequences nor duties but "character" should be the focal point of ethical theory. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, for example, sought to describe what characteristics a virtuous person would have, and then argued that people should act in accordance with these characteristics.

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