AIM Framework glossary
A-Floor
Canonical definition
The A-Floor is the level of Appetitive provision at or above which an Individual's bodily requirements are met sufficiently that sustained deficit does not degrade the fidelity of their belief revision. The A-Floor is a level, not a policy and not a condition: it is the quantity against which provision is compared. Because the degradation it marks is a property of the Individual rather than of the population, the A-Floor is assessed per Individual, and a population's position with respect to the A-Floor is read off its worst-off member rather than its mean. Canonical reference: Appendix A, A.5.8.7, where the level is and the shortfall of the worst-off Individual beneath it is the floor deficit .
Explanation
Everything the AIM Framework says about Appetitive provision rests on there being a level at which the body's requirements are met, and this entry names that level and nothing further. Four constructs are built on the A-Floor and are not the A-Floor. The A-Floor Requirement is the architectural condition that provision be held above the level. Appetitive Floors are the provision that holds it. The A-Floor Guarantee is the policy instrument by which a jurisdiction establishes and maintains Appetitive Floors. The A-Floor Erosion Principle is the mechanism by which the cost of reaching the level rises faster than the means of reaching it. Holding the level distinct from the condition, the provision, the instrument and the mechanism is what allows the AIM Framework to say that a jurisdiction may enact an A-Floor Guarantee, operate Appetitive Floors, and still breach the A-Floor Requirement.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Term.
Derivation
Chapter 13, Section 13.6.4; Chapter 17, Section 17.5; Appendix A, Section A.5.8.7.
Also in the entry
Distinction from Appetitive Floors. The A-Floor is a level; Appetitive Floors are provision. A sentence about whether provision is adequate concerns the A-Floor; a sentence about what is supplied concerns Appetitive Floors. The resemblance between A-Floor and the declared short form A-floors is a trap worth naming: the two are not the singular and plural of one term but a level and the provision measured against it.