Charles is too anxious to have a foundation. Actually Arendt took care of this a half century ago in her discussion of the (no-existence of) the Archimedean point.
Carrol
Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> c b wrote:
> > ^^^^
> > CB On this, do you consider that _any_ human psychological
> > characteristics are the result of natural selection, or that none at
> > all are ? I would say that altruism bestowed naturally selective
> > advantage on humans. Our high level of sociality is adaptive in the
> > Darwinian sense . This is the exact opposite of bourgeois social
> > "darwinism".
> >
>
> As andie repeatedly points out (on hiatus?), you can make up any kind of
> just-so stories you want about the "selective advantages" of
> characteristic X. That kind of data-free speculation doesn't contribute
> at all to testing or evaluating modern evolutionary theory. Similarly,
> concerning the tired nature/nurture debate you allude to above: the only
> reasonable response to the question, "Are human psychological
> characteristics the result of natural selection, or are none the result
> of natural selection" is "yes".
>
> > CB: I think we should take a different approach. We should argue
> > that humans' sociality and culture bestowed adaptive advantage on our
> > species, and that , if not "justice", then "love" and altruism are
> > part of the original human essence. I use "essence" instead of
> > "nature", because I'm saying that culture, that defining
> > characteristic of our species, is fundamentally social and altruistic.
> > (Or it was; it has turned into its opposite in many ways with the rise
> > of class antagonistic society).
> >
>
> Well, we can make up any narratives we want. Just don't call it
> empirically validated evolutionary theory.
>
> Miles
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