Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The possibility of avoiding; the state or condition of being avoidable.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

c. 1850 avoidable +‎ -ity

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Examples

  • First, as to the avoidability issue: There's no doubt that chronic mismanagement and the deep recession have left GM in dire straits.

    Robert Weissman: Bankrupt Thinking 2009

  • While Dennett does not offer a careful analysis of the ability to do otherwise, as for instance the new dispositionalists have (see 5.1.5), he does offer a general explanation of avoidability for free agents at determined worlds in terms of the evolution of intentionally complex beings “designed” to be able to avoid some outcomes and seek others (2003).

    Compatibilism McKenna, Michael 2009

  • It is clear, therefore, that the crucial component of the offense principle is the avoidability of the offensive material.

    The Tortoise in the Hair 2009

  • As to Paul's ideas about Lincoln and the Civil War, I once dabbled in his notions about the avoidability of the conflict.

    Let's take a closer look at Ron Paul. Ann Althouse 2007

  • To determine when offense (nuisance) regulation is permissible and when it is not, Feinberg employs a balancing test in which we must weigh the seriousness of the offense (e.g. its magnitude and avoidability) against the importance of the agent's interests being regulated (e.g. their magnitude and the existence of alternative avenues of expression).

    Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy Brink, David 2007

  • In strict liability, there are the requirements of a wrong to a plaintiff (class), a harm, the appropriate causal connection between the two, and other elements of responsibility for the outcome, including forseeability and avoidability.

    Theories of Tort Law Coleman, Jules 2003

  • In general, I think that AI tends to take events in a vacuum, without concerning itself with things like military logic and the avoidability / unavolidability of events in a larger context, as well as automatically assuming that all wars are bad.

    Siberian Light 2009

  • Before I introduce my guest essayists and their clean-up proposal for the British Petroleum corporation's planet-impacting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I want to re-emphasize that the avoidability (yes, avoidability; no, oil spills are not merely the cost of doing business, as some self-described, self-legitimizing "realists" might argue in their wholly suicidal logic) of this episode speaks directly to human nature and human error, and makes irrefutably manifest that any credible analyses of energy sources must now be done firstly with an eye toward unforeseeable worst-case scenarios.

    Michael Vazquez: On The Proposed Use of Cattail Fluff in the Cleaning Up of British Petroleum's Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Lakes, Rivers 2010

  • Before I introduce my guest essayists and their clean-up proposal for the British Petroleum corporation's planet-impacting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I want to re-emphasize that the avoidability (yes, avoidability; no, oil spills are not merely the cost of doing business, as some self-described, self-legitimizing "realists" might argue in their wholly suicidal logic) of this episode speaks directly to human nature and human error, and makes irrefutably manifest that any credible analyses of energy sources must now be done firstly with an eye toward unforeseeable worst-case scenarios.

    Michael Vazquez: On The Proposed Use of Cattail Fluff in the Cleaning Up of British Petroleum's Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Lakes, Rivers 2010

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