Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necessarily the same as
random
In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no :wikt:order, order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Ind ...
decisions. For example, during the
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...
, Americans were allowed to purchase gasoline only on odd-numbered days if their license plate was odd, and on even-numbered days if their license plate was even. The system was well-defined and not random in its restrictions; however, since license plate numbers are completely unrelated to a person's fitness to purchase gasoline, it was still an arbitrary division of people. Similarly, schoolchildren are often organized by their
surname
In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community.
Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...
in alphabetical order, a non-random yet an arbitrary method—at least in cases where surnames are irrelevant.
Philosophy
Arbitrary actions are closely related to
teleology
Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...
, the study of purpose. Actions lacking a ''
telos
Telos (; ) is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of a work of human art. Intentional actualization of potential or inherent purpose,"Telos.''Philosophy Terms'' Retrieved 3 May 2020. ...
'', a goal, are necessarily arbitrary. With no end to measure against, there can be no standard applied to choices, so all decisions are alike. Note that arbitrary or random methods in the standard sense of ''arbitrary'' may not qualify as arbitrary choices philosophically if they were done in furtherance of a larger purpose (such as the examples above for the purposes of establishing discipline in school and avoiding overcrowding at gas stations).
Nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...
is the philosophy that believes that there is no purpose in the universe, and that ''every'' choice is arbitrary. According to nihilism, the universe contains no value and is essentially meaningless. Because the universe and all of its constituents contain no higher goal for us to make subgoals from, all aspects of human life and experiences are completely arbitrary. There is no right or wrong decision, thought or practice and whatever choice a human being makes is just as meaningless and empty as any other choice he or she could have made.
Many brands of
theism
Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to ...
, the belief in a
deity
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...
or deities, believe that everything has a purpose and that ''nothing'' is arbitrary. In these philosophies, God created the universe for a reason, and every event flows from that. Even seemingly random events cannot escape God's hand and purpose. This is somewhat related to the
argument from design
The teleological argument (from ; also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world wh ...
—the argument for God's existence because a purpose can be found in the universe.
Arbitrariness is also related to
ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
, the philosophy of decision-making. Even if a person has a goal, they may choose to attempt to achieve it in ways that may be considered arbitrary.
Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
holds that knowledge comes about through intellectual calculation and deduction; many rationalists (though not all) apply this to ethics as well. All decisions should be made through reason and logic, not via whim or how one "feels" what is right. Randomness may occasionally be acceptable as part of a subtask in furtherance of a larger goal, but not in general.
In
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
, the general theory of signs, sign systems, and sign processes,
Saussure introduced the notion of
arbitrariness
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
according to which there is no necessary connection between the material sign (or ''signifier''), and the entity it refers to or denotes as its meaning (or ''signified'') as a mental concept or real object.
Linguistics
The principle of semiotic arbitrariness refers to the idea that
social convention
A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria, often taking the form of a custom.
In a social context, a convention may retain the character of an "unwritten law" of custom (for ex ...
is what imbues meaning to a given
semiosis
Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign ...
(any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning) or sign.
Mathematics
A
logical symbol
A logical symbol is a fundamental concept in logic, tokens of which may be marks or a configuration of marks which form a particular pattern. Although the term "symbol" in common use refers at some times to the idea being symbolized, and at other ...
is a fundamental concept in logic, tokens of which may be marks or a configuration of marks which form a particular pattern.
In mathematics, arbitrary corresponds to the term "any" and the universal quantifier
, as in an arbitrary division of a
set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
or an arbitrary
permutation
In mathematics, a permutation of a set is, loosely speaking, an arrangement of its members into a sequence or linear order, or if the set is already ordered, a rearrangement of its elements. The word "permutation" also refers to the act or proc ...
of a sequence. Its use implies generality and that a statement does not only apply to special cases, but that one may select any available choice and the statement will still hold. For example, one might say that:
:"Given an arbitrary integer, multiplying it by two will result in an
even number
In mathematics, parity is the property of an integer of whether it is even or odd. An integer is even if it is a multiple of two, and odd if it is not.. For example, −4, 0, 82 are even because
\begin
-2 \cdot 2 &= -4 \\
0 \cdot 2 &= 0 \\
41 ...
."
Even further, the implication of the use of "arbitrary" is that generality will hold—even if an opponent were to choose the item in question. In which case, ''arbitrary'' can be regarded as synonymous to ''worst-case''.
Law
''Arbitrary'' comes from the Latin ''arbitrarius'', the source of ''arbiter''; someone who is tasked to judge some matter. An arbitrary legal judgment is a decision made at the discretion of the judge, not one that is fixed by law.
In some countries, a prohibition of arbitrariness is enshrined into the
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
. Article 9 of the
Swiss Federal Constitution
The Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation (SR 10; german: Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft (BV); french: Constitution fédérale de la Confédération suisse (Cst.); it, Costituzione federale della Confederaz ...
theoretically overrides even democratic decisions in prohibiting arbitrary government action. The
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
has overturned laws for having "
no rational basis." A recent study of the U.S. asylum system suggests that arbitrariness in decision-making might be the cause of large disparities in outcomes between different adjudicators, a phenomenon described as
refugee roulette
Refugee roulette refers to arbitrariness in the process of refugee status determinations or, as it is called in the United States, asylum adjudication. Recent research suggests that at least in the United States and Canada, the outcome of asylum d ...
.
Article 330 of the Russian penal code defines arbitrariness as a specific crime, but with a very broad definition encompassing any "actions contrary to the order presented by a law".
See also
*
Randomness
In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual rand ...
*
Existential nihilism
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no intrinsic meaning or value.Veit, W. (2018). Existential Nihilism: The Only Really Serious Philosophical Problem – Journal of Camus Studies 2018: 211-236. https://doi.org/10.131 ...
*
Metaphysical nihilism
Metaphysical nihilism is the philosophical theory that there ''might'' have been no objects at all—that is, that there is a possible world in which there are no objects at all; or at least that there might have been no ''concrete'' objects at al ...
References
External links
*{{wiktionary-inline, arbitrary
Free will
Legal terminology
Semiotics
Teleology
Legal reasoning