Beyond Exploitation
heraclitus: "The title of the book was "BEYOND Good and Evil", hence it behooves one to purge moral imperatives from the idea of a 'failed state'."
Yes, I agree that is what he said. Hence, when I wrote:
"Simply, what he was saying is that the terms 'good' and 'evil', since they could evolve, were actually meaningless, and needed to be discarded for a new paradigm of creativity and will to power."
He wanted to discard (to go beyond) moral imperatives and the language of good and evil, and I am saying he was right in his analysis and wrong in his prescriptions, that it was folly to recommend a replacement (exploitation, will to power, etc.) that, as a survival value, is prisoner of a statistical curve. In other words, Nietszche's new conceptual paradigm is only occasionally 'good'; other times it could be positively 'evil'. There are times when the exploitation paradigm dries up as a survival value (how you treat your children, for instance); therefore, since it can not be universally incorporated as a guide to individual behavior, why use it as the bedrock foundation of a mental universe? My thought once I absorbed the descriptive analysis of Nietzsche's geneology, was not to discard the moral universe, but to bring it down to earth. If virtue can be different for different societies, and societies are complex systems that emerge organically from the properties of human beings and their interaction, and if the properties of human beings are accredited to a selection process of evolution, then it stood to reason that at both the biological and the memetic levels a process of evolution was present and at work all the way down.
So I use 'good' and 'evil' as substitutive symbols, a conceptual shorthand, to define the apparent forces behind all of evolution: the drive to further life, and the drive to take it away (broad categories that often blend). It has nothing to do with moral imperatives as abstractions (Forms, Essences, Categorical Imperatives, etc.), nor does it have anything to do with doctrinal or emotional sensibilities. I was, and am, trying to create a workable paradigm by using these ancient words, whose meanings have mutated and adapted continuously for 10,000 years. Because of the confusion, I pegged the definitions to the most obvious point: That Which Affirms Life (good), and That Which Destroys Life (evil). And 'life' means the individual all the way up to the ecosystem of human interaction, one level's survival value being interdependent on all the others.
So, when you write: "A State in form is an organism which through exploitation of the macrocosm achieves a condition of growth, in decline, it is an object of exploitation." You imply my point. In this system (which in reality is more complex) the overall 'good' would be the actions that encourage the continued power and growth of the state while discouraging exploitation and ultimate cannabilization. For all states that participated in this closed system, the definition of good would be exactly the same for each player, exploit (good) or be exploited (bad), and cannabalization would be evil (when you are no longer in the game).
But if you start with exploitation as the founding principle of a system, soon it will evolve, if more than one player continues to play, into a multiplayer game of competition, and we can turn to game theory for guidance on emergent rules or ethics (functionalism).
Read Edna Ullmann-Margalit's "The Emergence of Norms" in which she argues that moral norms enable agents to cooperate and coordinate their actions in situations where the pursuit of self-interest prevents this.
These system properties (ethics) emerge as organizing or governing principles out of the self-preservation imperative of the players. Insofar as these organizational principles further the life of each player individually, and the life of the system as a whole, they can be described as 'good'. If it comes to pass that they do not, if these ethics are falsified by reality, they will be dropped and new rules will take their place.
Thomas Kuhn describes this phenomena as the evolution of a paradigm: Emergence, Normality, Crisis, Revolution. 'Good' in 627 AD hits a crisis in 1490 AD, and a new paradigm emerges.
So, using everything we know about systems theory, game theory, evolutionary theory, moral theory, anthropology, biology, and history, it seems to me we can move beyond the simple explanatory thesis of 'exploitation.'
Yes, I agree that is what he said. Hence, when I wrote:
"Simply, what he was saying is that the terms 'good' and 'evil', since they could evolve, were actually meaningless, and needed to be discarded for a new paradigm of creativity and will to power."
He wanted to discard (to go beyond) moral imperatives and the language of good and evil, and I am saying he was right in his analysis and wrong in his prescriptions, that it was folly to recommend a replacement (exploitation, will to power, etc.) that, as a survival value, is prisoner of a statistical curve. In other words, Nietszche's new conceptual paradigm is only occasionally 'good'; other times it could be positively 'evil'. There are times when the exploitation paradigm dries up as a survival value (how you treat your children, for instance); therefore, since it can not be universally incorporated as a guide to individual behavior, why use it as the bedrock foundation of a mental universe? My thought once I absorbed the descriptive analysis of Nietzsche's geneology, was not to discard the moral universe, but to bring it down to earth. If virtue can be different for different societies, and societies are complex systems that emerge organically from the properties of human beings and their interaction, and if the properties of human beings are accredited to a selection process of evolution, then it stood to reason that at both the biological and the memetic levels a process of evolution was present and at work all the way down.
So I use 'good' and 'evil' as substitutive symbols, a conceptual shorthand, to define the apparent forces behind all of evolution: the drive to further life, and the drive to take it away (broad categories that often blend). It has nothing to do with moral imperatives as abstractions (Forms, Essences, Categorical Imperatives, etc.), nor does it have anything to do with doctrinal or emotional sensibilities. I was, and am, trying to create a workable paradigm by using these ancient words, whose meanings have mutated and adapted continuously for 10,000 years. Because of the confusion, I pegged the definitions to the most obvious point: That Which Affirms Life (good), and That Which Destroys Life (evil). And 'life' means the individual all the way up to the ecosystem of human interaction, one level's survival value being interdependent on all the others.
So, when you write: "A State in form is an organism which through exploitation of the macrocosm achieves a condition of growth, in decline, it is an object of exploitation." You imply my point. In this system (which in reality is more complex) the overall 'good' would be the actions that encourage the continued power and growth of the state while discouraging exploitation and ultimate cannabilization. For all states that participated in this closed system, the definition of good would be exactly the same for each player, exploit (good) or be exploited (bad), and cannabalization would be evil (when you are no longer in the game).
But if you start with exploitation as the founding principle of a system, soon it will evolve, if more than one player continues to play, into a multiplayer game of competition, and we can turn to game theory for guidance on emergent rules or ethics (functionalism).
Read Edna Ullmann-Margalit's "The Emergence of Norms" in which she argues that moral norms enable agents to cooperate and coordinate their actions in situations where the pursuit of self-interest prevents this.
These system properties (ethics) emerge as organizing or governing principles out of the self-preservation imperative of the players. Insofar as these organizational principles further the life of each player individually, and the life of the system as a whole, they can be described as 'good'. If it comes to pass that they do not, if these ethics are falsified by reality, they will be dropped and new rules will take their place.
Thomas Kuhn describes this phenomena as the evolution of a paradigm: Emergence, Normality, Crisis, Revolution. 'Good' in 627 AD hits a crisis in 1490 AD, and a new paradigm emerges.
So, using everything we know about systems theory, game theory, evolutionary theory, moral theory, anthropology, biology, and history, it seems to me we can move beyond the simple explanatory thesis of 'exploitation.'
posted by John Aristides at 9:49 AM
1 Comments:
I was mostly right here, but missed the point with functionalism. Functionalism and classical game theory imply a outcome determinations based on rational decision making. This is not what happens.
We are talking about iterative systems. The properties of iterative systems emerge, not from intent and purpose, but from the complex interaction and properties of its constituent parts. In Fractal Geometry, for instance, an iterative system of four equations can create a picture (visual system property) that goes far beyond the scope and complexity of the initial equations.
Therefore, these constituent properties, interacting in a dynamic system of feedback over time, are outcome-determinative. In essence, we must reject functionalism in favor of evolutionary game theory.
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