With this post I have finally written about each of the five causes of unintended consequences that Robert Merton outlined in his 1936 paper “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” (the other four being error, short-term vs long-term interests, ignorance, and the self-defeating prophecy).
Let’s look at what basic values are, why we have them (if we do), and how they impact us in unexpected ways to generate unintended consequences. Continue reading “Basic Values”