Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:03:32 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.


Hi Tobin,

I don't think I'd want to say that each individual's own personal
self-development is 'the foundation', although there is a sense in which
our first (but not only) duty to others is to ensure that we ourselves
are relatively autonomous and flourishing (amour de soi is the basis of
altruism). But as you say that leaves out the other half of the
equation: 'as a condition for the free development of all'. I think
Marx's conception is one which completely dispenses with illusion of
social atomism, as Howard suggested (which is the ontological
presupposition of methodological individualism, which therefore can't
apply) as well as the 'oversocialized' conception of individuals (social
fusionism), transcending the opposition of individual and social in a
conception of social individuals who embody and freely affirm 'the life
of society' (Hegel), i.e. their social relations (which no longer
dominate them but are the ones they want, and of course confer civic
duties and obligations as well as rights and freedom). So yes, there
most definitely is a dialectic of social love for, by the logic of
dialectical universalizability it's in no social individual's interest
that any other should be exploited, oppressed etc, i.e. not enjoy the
conditions for flourishing.

Mervyn

PS. I've just read James' post, which makes similar points.

 Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> writes
>> In urging that we 'follow our daimon' I'm not of course invoking a
>> bourgeois individualistic attitude but rather the rich kind of
>> individuality presupposed by 'the free development of each as a
>> condition of the free development of all' which fully recognizes our
>> social interconnection but insists on the right (need) to freely
>> flourish providing it doesn't interfere with the free flourishing of
>> others.
>
>Hm, it's interesting that Marx conceptualized free development in terms of
>individuals.  I wonder, does this perhaps run athwart his social analyses?
>In other words, is it not also true that the free develoment of all is the
>condition for the free development of each?  Or that my own development is
>freer if I contribute to the development of someone else?  (Would that be a
>"dialectic of love"?)  Why exactly is it that each individual's own personal
>self-development is the foundation, and is this not methodologically
>individualistic?
>
>Jus' askin'.
>
>T.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
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