[lbo-talk] tragedy of the commons

[Jeffrey Fisher]

this has me thinking of alasdair macintyre's _dependent rational animals_. i
taught this book once in an intro ethics class. his argument (or anyway a
large part of it) is essentially that human beings are not built (not to say
"designed") to be completely independent. we can't be. and so ethical/moral
models that take independence (and particularly with a certain kind of
rationality as part of that indendence) as an absolute ideal set us up for
failure. at best.

he's quite aristotelian in this book, but in an updated, "in the tradition"
way, not in a retro kind of way. short book. easy read. worth it i think,
although i'd be interested in other opinions, contrary or not. surely i'm
not the only one on the list who's read it?

and it DOES seem to me to bear on the question of the commons, but it would
take a couple of (short, i think) steps to get there.

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>wrote:


>
>
> But they are wired a certain way. All animals are. What that way is is
> obviously pretty flexible, but it is there.
>
> --- On Wed, 8/27/08, Sean Andrews <cultstud76 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > But the point is that people aren't hardwired a certain
> > way--so acting
> > like they are, that this is "natural" is a
> > fallacy.  I suppose in the
> > case of the west/north this is just a technicality at this
> > point, but
> > when economists speak as if it is a given, there is much to
> > contest.
> >
>
>
>
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