Functionalist theories have been proposed for just about everything: mental states, dispositions, moral properties, truth, causation, and much else. The time has come for a functionalist theory of ...

Samuel Clark, Human intentionality in the functionalist theory of social change: the role of French provincial intendants in state-society differentiation, European Journal of Sociology / Archives ...

He developed a functionalist perspective of crime, claiming that it is actually necessary because criminal behavior promotes clarification of the moral boundaries that define society.

From a functionalist perspective, therefore, the horrors perpetrated by the serial killer enable society to consider both the source and limitations of its own violent tendencies.