Subject: RE: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, competitiion
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 13:54:02 -0500
From: "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu>



Hi Jamie,

One way that I often put this, simplistically, is that we can work to ameliorate, if not eliminate, much human suffering, but that some human suffering is intrinsic to the human condition.  Generalized, that some organisms are food for other organisms is instrinsic to the conditions of life on earth.  Perhaps it could have been otherwise -- a planet on which every living being synthesized its nutrients from non-living elements.  On planet earth, the food chain has a long history.

Dick


Yes I see your reasoning but you appear to be conflating two strands of the debate we began with:

1) Is cooperation arguable as necessarily prior
2) Has competition been a part of evolution

Since your points of inference refers to a reading of 2 the key issue is surely not whether non-competitive evolution would've been preferable or superior but how you can establish that it would have been in early human/primate development - which was the main point of concern. This world denunded of several of its aspects of early primate environment would be perhaps an interesting thought experiemnt but is it realism? Moreover it requires additional specification:

a) If there is no compeititon does this imply no scarcity
b_) Does it imply no other species
c) Does it imply a natural order where species accept a simple functioon of hierarchy - species a eats species b species b accepts this without struggle
D) if not d) how is competition not the case
e) if c pertains does it also pertain intra-species
f) if not why not
g) if e) is yes then on what basis does the human create such hierarchy - this may entail a world of non-autonomy, of marionnette agency or perhaps of perfect consensus and thus of perfect information or collective will - in any case it is not a world we recognise and is one that can easily be counter-historically imagined as quite as negative as any aspect of a world of competition. I don't suggest this is 'reality' I simply point out that it can easily be a consequence of the form of argument you pursue.
h) is not c) far more conducive to predestination than the notion that competition is an aspect of what the human and society emerged from and that cooperation is also just one aspect - though what we have made of them is an open issue and it may be possible to suppress negative aspects of competition

I suppose my point is simply that competition has been a reality and that it continues to be so. This brings us back to 1) because an adequate philosophical argument viz soical ill must avoid placing those aspects of human development outside the individual and into social relations only as a form of social ill that the fundmanetals of the human are a solution to. Perhaps only some parts of the human are a solution to them - in which case the nature of ontology, good and being becomes more complex. This is  a potential problem with certain ways of reading DCR and also TDCR.


Jamie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bailey,DJ (pgr)" <D.J.Bailey-AT-lse.ac.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 1:07 PM
Subject: RE: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


"competition of one kind at least (aggressive inter/intra species
annhilation) would
therefore be integral; to at the very least our early history and could surely not be described as stunting development in an absolute ahistorical fashion - it would (and this is only speculation) simply be a basic facet of how sociality developed with early primates in accordance with environment."

I took this to mean that the competition between species was integral to the development of those species.

The point I was making was that under conditions of cooperation (and the absence of competition) it may be possible that the development of species would have been greater than that which occurred with the presence of competition.  Thus, if this possibility was found to be true (which it is not possible to prove/disprove empirically because it never happened) then we could state that competition between the species has historically contributed towards their stunted development.

The inference I make to predestination is based on:
1) you countered my argument that cooperation may contribute to greater development than competition by citing competition as integral to the evolutionary development of species;
2) this implies that competition was necessary for their development, and that an alternative route to development (i.e. cooperation) could not have existed;
3) this implication is based on the fact that it did not exist, therefore;
4) I understood your argument to be that a) because cooperation (between
species) was not the primal basis underpinning the development of species, then b) it could not have been so;
5) So I thought your reasoning was along the lines of - something didn't happen, therefore it couldn't have happened.
6) if that is the case, then everything that has happened was always predestined to do so.

Do you see what I'm saying?

David

-----Original Message-----
From: jamie morgan [mailto:jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: 17 November 2003 12:49
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


I didn't disagree with counter-historical examples how could I when I was asking what you meant by it.

I am also confused by your inference of predestination - I simply pointed out that selection in evolution does not necessarily support the idea of the priority of cooperation - the point being that it may not be possible to argue priorism from transcendental argument that sees it as previous or basic to other forms because it is what sustains sociality - i.e. if you argue from coordination as cohesion rather than cooperation in the sense of mutual love and feeling society is still possible - I make no comment on whether this is how society is I simply note that it can also be used to account for society making a transcendental argument for what is basic problematic unless substantiated in other ways  - at which point it maynot be a transcendental argument (thought hat is a different issue). Evolution is not a determistic argument - it is anything but. There is no implication from anything else I said that indicates predestination that I can detect - pleases specify the basis of the inference

Jamie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bailey,DJ (pgr)" <D.J.Bailey-AT-lse.ac.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 9:50 AM
Subject: RE: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


hi Jamie,

isn't this the implication of your argument - what has occurred throughout history was always destined to do so.

I read Capital (and in particular the reproduction schema in the second half of volume 2, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall in volume 3) to be an argument about the irrationality, inefficiency and self-defeating nature of production based on individual ownership.  Yet, the opposite - collective, common ownership (communism) - was nowhere in existence.  Does this mean that Marx was wrong to criticise capitalism because there were no counter-historical examples of communism?

Further, if you don't agree with my use of counter-historical examples, doesn't this meant that we are always destined to study the positive? Whereas one of the central aims of DPF was to make the positive appear 'as a tiny, but important, ripple on the surface of a sea of negativity'.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: jamie morgan [mailto:jamie-AT-morganj58.fsnet.co.uk]
Sent: 14 November 2003 18:31
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


Hi, this point seems to underplay the complexity of evolution and also dynamic human systems - when primates left the trees their capacity to coordinate (which may mean pure cooperation, or anylevel along a line to coordination or coherence through social orders of domination acquiesence, subordinattion, subserveience) in competition with other species and other groups of primates was one might speculate a prime reason for their success, selection and breeding survival - competition of one kind (perhaps there are other kinds) at least (aggressive inter/intra species annhilation) would therefore be integral (just as the capacity for social coherence and coordination which may or may not be what you eman by cooperation would be); to at the very least our early history and could surely not be described as stunting development in an absolute ahistorical fashion - it would (and this is only speculation) simply be a basic facet of how sociality developed with early primates in accordance with environment. Moreover I'm not sure what you mean by a counter-historical example of a society without competition - are there are any historical examples of these or are you suggesting we imagine one in counter to history?

Jamie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bailey,DJ (pgr)" <D.J.Bailey-AT-lse.ac.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 2:58 PM
Subject: RE: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


Surely cooperation presumes the absence of competition/conflict (at least in the specific relationship that you are describing).  To achieve one requires the absence of the other - therefore I would argue that they are indeed in competition/conflict with each other.

If I want to create a cooperative society it requires that I absent forms of competition/conflict within that society.  I am therefore in conflict with conflictual behaviour/relationships.

to go back to jamie's point, then, I would argue that competition and conflict may have co-existed; but that competition always requires the imposition of constraints upon those with whom we compete, and therefore competition (whilst seemingly contributing towards the evolutionary progression of humanity) may actually have contributed towards the stunting of humanity's development if we compare it to the counter-historical example of a society without competition.

-----Original Message-----
From: Moodey, Richard W [mailto:MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu]
Sent: 14 November 2003 14:51
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: RE: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


Hi Jamie,

You wrote:

Might it not be that competition and aggression has proved successful within evolution as much as cooperation and thus both have had their place in species evolution and also in human social development - implying that both are aspects of nature and of society where the concept of primacy or triumph is not necessarily the best way of think about what we want to take from each?


I reply:

Well put.  Cooperation, competition, and conflict are aspects of nature and society.  None can "triumph" over the others, as they are not, themselves, in competition or conflict.

Regards,

Dick

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


> Hi Dick,
>
> But it hasn't, i.e. notwithstanding inter-(and intra-)specific 
> aggression, species have proliferated and flourished. If aggression 
> dominated both inter- and intra- the whole show would come to a halt 
> (as of course it might yet owing to contingent aggression within a 
> contingently powerful species, i.e. ours; it would remain the case 
> that there could be no process of biological evolution if love did not 
> triumph over evil, Eros over Thanatos).
>
> Mervyn
>
>
>
>
>  "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu> writes
> >Hi Mervyn,
> >
> >You wrote:
> >
> >"One can argue that, given that biological evolution proceeds, it 
> >must be the case that co-operation, care etc prevails over 
> >self-preservation, aggression etc within species."
> >
> >But isn't it possible that conflict among (between)different 
> >communities may prevail over co-operation among (between)them, even 
> >as this conflict requires high degrees of co-operation within each of 
> >these communities?
> >
> >I don't write this out of any basic disagreement with the other 
> >arguments for the either the existence or the fundamental goodness of 
> >something (not yet fully specified, perhaps) that we can point to 
> >with the
heuristic
> >concept, "human nature."
> >
> >Regards,
> >
>
>
>
>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---