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, the social construction of the serial killer identity is symbolic and it helps to clarify the moral boundary that separates good and evil in society.