Greed and Profit-Seeking

Greed, defined as 'taking too much', constitutes both a social and a psychological imbalance, and, thus, can be classified as a Vice on two grounds.  Thus, the proposition 'Greed is good'  does not stand up well to serious Moral scrutiny.  Now, insofar as profit-seeking aims at the acquisition of more than one needs, and entails the loss by another of a vital good, it can only be classified as Greed, and, hence, as a Vice.  So, since profit-seeking is the motor of Capitalism, the implicit principle of Economic systems such as that of the U. S., 'Capitalism is good', may likewise have difficulty standing up well to serious Moral scrutiny, i. e. even if, as Smith posits, an Invisible Hand corrects any social imbalance, it leaves uncorrected the correlative psychological disorder.

Might, Right, Greed

Probably the strongest argument against the previously discussed denial of a Right to be greedy, is that which is based on the principle that Might is Right.  That argument is: 1. If one has the strength to do X, then one has the right to do it; 2. Therefore, if one has the strength to act greedily, then one has the right to act greedily.  But, the problem with this argument, rarely detected in the centuries of its use, is that #1 is, upon further analysis, exposed as false.  For, a Right to do X is a sanction to do X, independent of doing it, whereas the strength to do X is no more than a physiological condition.  So, every argument over the centuries in which #1 serves as a premise is invalid, as is the one that is designed to deny the proposition that there is no Right to being greedy.

Right and Greed

As has been previously discussed, the U. N. Human Right to an adequate standard of living seems to belunfortunately misformulated, since a Right is a defense against interference, whereas the target of that one is neglect, i. e. an omission, not a commission.  However, with a slight modulation, the propriety and the power of the principle becomes clarified. For, it can be interpreted as "A human has a right to only an adequate standard of living", implying that one has no right to a possession that is inessential.  Now, while such a proposition seems to violate a fundamental freedom, it, in fact, is a principle of constraint against Greed, which, outside of some variations of Capitalism, is traditionally and widely recognized as a Vice, and, so, the principle is entailed in many Moral doctrines.  Furthermore, in a Zero-Sum society, to the Excess of one corresponds the Deficiency of another, so Greed is an interference in someone's well-being.  Hence, with a little fine-tuning, that proposition is, indeed, a Right, one which addresses a problem that, in some cases, is so pervasive and deeply entrenched, e. g. in the U. S., it is not even recognized as an ill.

Human Right and Responsibility

A Right is symbolic protection against interference in some activity, usually underwritten by a threat of legal retribution.  So, the U. N. Human Right to an adequate standard of living does not, in most cases, exemplify that scheme.  Now, it does when exploitation deprives someone of their just deserts.  However, the intention of its formulators is broader--to combat the negligence that, if not causes, reinforces and compounds Hgrotesque disparities in the possession of vital goods.  So, a more apt traditional Moral term than either Right or Duty, as an expression of that intention, is Responsibility--of others, for those living in substandard conditions.  That formulation goes beyond even Marxism in making  Species-Being a factor in human interaction.

Human Right and Perfect Duty

Corresponding to a Right is a Duty, i. e. if one possesses a Right, others have a Duty to honor it.  Now, in Kant's doctrine, non-interference in the well-being of another is a Perfect Duty, while promotion of the well-being of another is an Imperfect Duty.  Thus, accordingly, the Right to not be interfered with in the pursuit of well-being is Perfect, while the Right to the promotion of that well-being by another is Imperfect.  In contrast, at least one Human Right is elevated to the status of Perfect, in Kant's sense of the term--the Right to an adequate standard of living.  Thus, correspondingly, others have a Perfect Duty to promote that standard wherever it is lacking.

Right, Civil Right, Human Right

The Enlightenment concept of Right is that of protection against interference.  Hence, it is essentially an Individuating factor, typically advanced as a precondition for a social contract.  Now, most of the features of the 20th-century concept of Human Rights are, similarly, protective, with one notable novelty--the "right to an adequate standard of living", as is formulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, as implicitly addressed to a society, and, hence, to its members, functions as a integrative factor it.  King implicitly recognizes the significance of this development in a 1967 speech, in which he calls for a move "from Civil Rights to Human Rights", on the grounds that the former, as a promotion of Individuality, is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition of the Democracy that he envisages.  Likewise, that Right is another indication of the emergence of the concept of Species-Being as a determinant of social interaction.

Human Rights and Morality

The terms 'Rights of Man' and 'Human Rights' are, in themselves, synonymous, but their usages have been very different.  The former is most prominent in the context of the American and French Revolutions, signifying a transition from Monarchism to Democracy, and attributed primarily to individual members of an incipient nation.  The latter is prominent as a United Nations response to the Holocaust, asserting protection from varieties of brutality, e. g. genocide, slavery, torture, etc., and attributed primarily to individuals qua members of some extant ethnic group.  So, while the Rights of Man is a fundamentally Political principle, Human Rights is a more general Moral one, signifying a further concretization of the Universalist doctrines of the preceding centuries.

Human, Right, Species

The bearer of a Human Right is any member of the species.  Now, a Right, even if conceived as inhering in a bearer, pertains to the treatment of them, and, hence, is addressed to others.  Specifically, in the case of a Human Right, the addressee is every other Human.  Hence, entailed in the concept of Human Right is Species-Being, and the promotion of the former is also the cultivation of the latter.

Freedom, Equality, Human Right

The traditional concept of Natural Right has entailed Freedom and Equality.  Now, over the centuries there have been objections to the characterization of the latter as 'natural', on the grounds that Nature evinces great differences, e. g. of height, of power, etc.  However, such complaints have rarely also recognized that the former is also lacking in a system, e. g. Newton's, governed by Causal relations.  In any case, the status of each in the concept of Human Right is more refined.  Since the concept is derived from that of Species-Being, absolute Freedom, i. e. to opt out of the Species, is precluded, and, likewise, insofar as all members are subject to a Species-Principle, 'freedom of choice' is only ever at a subordinate level, e. g  hunger may be inescapable, but one can choose what to eat.  In contrast, each is equally a member of the Species, though the roles played within the collective may be differentiated with respect to significance, privileges etc.  In other words, any actual inequality is delimited by Species-Being.  So, structurally, Equality is more fundamental in Human Rights than is Freedom, though concretely, they are each vital factors, but variably so, depending on circumstances.

Natural Right, Divine Right, Human Right

The term 'natural right' has been a misnomer, since what it connotes is actually a universalization of the 'divine right of Kings.  Likewise, the variation, 'rights of man', is still associated with a divine origin, even if ambiguously so, e. g. in the U. S. Constitution.  In contrast, the 20th-century descendant of the concept, Human Rights, proposed by the United Nations, is completely secularized.  Instead of a deity, the foundation of what is granted is, as the term suggests, the Species, and, is, thus, an indication of the correlation between Globalization and Species-Being.

Humanity, War, Evolution

The trend in the history of human warfare has been the involvement of larger and larger groups, for more and more abstract reasons, i. e. from between tribes over territory, to between religious sects over theological details, to between superpowers over Economic principles.  So, examination of war reveals in individuals not, as Hobbes posits, an instinct for Self-Preservation, but an identification with an increasingly larger group, for reasons that have less and less to do with survival.  In other words, even in the seventeenth-century, a more rigorous application of Hobbes' own Empiricist method to his privileged phenomenon, namely war, can lead to the conclusion that human history is determined by a collective Evolutionary principle, rather than by individual Self-Preservation.

Human Rights and Species-Principle

The concept of Human Rights plainly exemplifies a Species-Principle.  However, as normative, not descriptive, the concept is not necessarily ingredient in actuality, e. g. it surely seems lacking in the genocides that occur, and, so, is not necessarily indicative of a fundamental determinant of human activity.  On the other hand, the pervasive repudiation in recent centuries of the long-time inhumanity of Slavery is an indication of a progress that may eventually eliminate other apparent counter-examples to thesis that human activity is fundamentally determined by a Species-Principle, one that is essentially Evolutionary.

Species-Principle and Individual-Principle

An conclusive objection to the thesis that all the activities of the members of a Species are determined by a Species-Principle, requires proof of the existence of an Individual-Principle in members that is demonstrably independent of Species-Being.  Now, probably the three most prominent Individual-Principles in Philosophy have been Cogito, Self-Preservation, and Freedom of Choice.  However, first, as Kant shows, Cogito is impersonal, so it connotes no independent Individual.  Second, just as the presence of a localized defense-mechanism, e. g. the blinking of an eye, does not imply the independent existence of the location, e. g. an eye, the instinct of a member of a species to survive can be a protective mechanism that originates in the Species.  Finally, the exercise of a Freedom of Choice would be independent of any Species-Principle only if it involved an escape from that Species, e. g. in the origination of a new Species.  But, even in that case, the exercise can still be determined by a Species-Principle, e. g. Evolution.  So, if there is a conclusive objection to the possibility that a Species-Principle determines all the activities of its members, it is unclear what it is.

Phenomenalism and Species-Principle

What might be called 'Phenomenalist Foundationalism', according to which all Knowledge is based on private experiential data, supports Social Atomism, and, hence, seems to preclude the soundness of a thesis of the reality of Species-Being, as well as, thus, of any Species-Principle.  However, Rationalists, such as Spinoza, and Epiphenomenalists, such as Freud, show, in varying ways, that the evidentiary value of such private data is nil, i. e. either is no more than partly informative, or is a mere byproduct of some covert process.  Furthermore, data such as sympathy, sexual attraction, and parental instinct, elude easy reduction to Atomist privacy.  So, if there is a strong objection to the positing of the existence of a Species-Principle as the basis of a Political Philosophy, it would not likely be one that Phenomenalism can offer.

Capitalism and Species-Principle

Capitalism is commonly understood as a Hobbesian system--a universal conflict amongst self-interested parties.  However, that image does not conform to Wealth of Nations in three respects.  First, Smith, unlike Hobbes, conceives that conflict as itself a means to the general Good.  Second, his mediating factor, the Invisible Hand, is 'natural', whereas Hobbes' correlate, the Sovereign, must be constructed.  Finally, while Hobbes' Egoism is descriptive, Smith's is normative, which implies that it is preceded by sympathetic feelings which need to be suppressed in specifically an Economic arena.  So, with all these features incorporated into Smith's model, it resembles Rousseau's, with the variation that the privatization of goods is beneficial to the collective well-being.  And, in particular, the underlying Sympathy and the Invisible Hands are each indications of the influence Cof a Species-Principle.

State of Nature, General Will, Species-Principle

While for Hobbes, the 'state of nature' is a 'war of all against all', for Rousseau, it is a condition of universal harmony.  But, the latter is more than a mere alternative to the former; rather, Rousseau conceives that harmony as preceding any antagonisms, which are instigated by the privatization of originally communal goods.  Now, for Hobbes, universal war is less an actual historical event than an illustration of what he posits to be the fundamental Psychological principle of human behavior--individual Self-Preservation.  Likewise, therefore, Rousseau's state of nature corresponds to an underlying unifying factor in all human interaction.  Now, that factor could be called 'General Will', except that in his system, that term signifies an a posteriori regulative factor in the determination of the general Good, rather than a pre-condition in such a process, though with a little more attention, he might have proposed that the former is the actualization of the latter.  In any case, Rousseau's imagery can also be recognized as an indication of the presence of a Species-Principle underlying all human interaction.

Nature, Mode, Species

In Spinoza's system, the term 'state of nature' is empty, since everything is Nature in it.  But, regardless of that general context, his Political Philosophy is essentially Hobbesian, in which Modes cooperate with similar entities because to do so benefits the Self-Preservation of each.  In other words, any social solidarity is constructed, not given.  In contrast, the concept of Species-Being entails that of a subdivision of Nature that precedes any instantiation of Modes.  Correspondingly, that concept entails that of a Species-Principle which is, likewise, Species-Preservation.  So, Darwinism can be imbedded in Spinoza's system, with the implication that the Self-Preservation of a Mode, and whatever Political organization that would best promote it, is conditioned by the Survival instinct of the Species.

Species-Being and State of Nature

While Aristotle conceives political organization as a 'natural' fulfilment of human interaction, Hobbes conceives the 'state of nature' to be a 'war of all against all', for which political organization is an extra-natural remedy.  Now, though Hobbes concept of Nature is sometimes traced to the English Civil War of the period, the thesis that grounds it is not historical, but Psychological--that the fundamental principle of motivation of each human is Egoistical, i. e. Self-Preservation, with universal war ad its consequence.  In sharp contrast, according to Darwinism, the 'state of nature' is primarily a property of a Species, involving processes such as Evolution, Surviving, and Adaptation, usually with respect to an environment.  Accordingly, the internal conditions of a Species, i. e.  the motivations and relations of its members, are derived from Species-processes and -conditions.  Thus, if members are motivated by Self-Preservation it can only be as an expression of a Species-Principle.  However, absent a self-destructive mode of the latter, a war of all against is impossible as a state of nature.  Hence, there is no need, as does Hobbes, to cast the remedy for an actual event such as the English Civil War as 'extra-natural'.

Species-Principle and Political Philosophy

A Species-Principle is the fundamental determinant of the behavior of a Species.  But, a Species is constituted by its members.  Thus, how its members are organized is fundamentally determined by its Species-Principle.  Now, as has been previously discussed, Darwinism vacillates between Survival and Evolution as the Species-Principle of Humanity.  Still, in either case, the Principle is the fundamental determinant of how members of Humanity are organized.  In other words, either Species-Principle is the fundamental Politico-Economic principle of human society, a generally unconsidered consequence of Darwinism that sharply contrasts with the standard Social Atomism of Modern Political Philosophy.

Marxism, Darwinism, Messianism

Like Nietzsche, Marx presents a challenge to prevailing Theology via a derivation of Spirit from Matter, i. e. that shows how the former might not be independent of the latter, or its origin.  But, the value of the argument is limited, since it offers only an alternative to, not a refutation of, the Theological doctrine.  In contrast, Darwinism is more compelling in that regard, since it can cite evidence that tends to falsify the account of the origin of the human species that is the fundamental premise of that doctrine.  It is not to the Cosmogony of the latter, the usual focus of debate, but to its Messianism, that the threat is potentially devastating, because if Darwinism is correct, then the species is not in a 'fallen' condition--indeed, to the contrary, it is in a superior one to its antecedents--in which case, it has no need of a 'savior'.  But, the extent to which Marxism might subscribe to Darwinism in order to draw upon this powerful weapon against exploitation is unclear, since it would seem to require jettisoning some cardinal features, such as Dialectical Materialism.

Darwinism, Labor, Marxism

As has been previously discussed, Marxism and Darwinism intersect in the concept of Species-Being.  They also do so in the concept of tool-abetted Labor as the fundamental fact, according to Marxism, of human existence.  For, the use of virtually all tools is in one respect or another impossible without opposing thumbs, which, according to Darwinism, is the product of an evolutionary process.  Thus, insofar as Human history is constituted by relations of Production, it is determined by a principle of Evolution, as is, therefore, both the emergence and the fate of Socialism.

Darwinism and Adaptation

The centrality of the concept of Adaptation in Darwinism obscures its essential indeterminacy--Adaptation can be either 'to' or 'of'.  Now, the priority of the former in the theory can be easily inferred from the following analysis: because humans lack adequate fur, they need to adapt to a climate by constructing shelter, which involves the development of opposing thumbs, which, in turn, facilitates the adaptation of trees for the construction project.  In other words, in this proto-Darwinian scenario, Adaptation-of is subordinate to Adaptation-to.  However, such an analysis does not explain the adaptation of raw materials to the construction of the Internet or of an extra-terrestrial vehicle, or to a sculpture in a climate-controlled shelter.  In other words, the predominating concept of Adaptation in Darwinism reflects the arbitrary subordination of Evolution to Survival in the theory.

Evolution, Capitalism, Marxism

As has been previously discussed, 'to Evolve' is, most generally, 'to transition from lesser to greater comprehensiveness', a process which entails the dissolution of a smaller unity, and the formation of a larger one.  So, Marxism Socialism is the product of an Evolutionary process insofar as it consists in the elimination of Class distinctions.  However, as is expressed in "Workers of the world unite", it is more immediately Evolutionary insofar as it consists in the dissolution of National unities.  Likewise, Wealth of Nations spans the transition from provincial organization to a National one.  Thus, in an Evolutionary concept of History, which spans both the origination of the Human species, as well as its transition from a local phenomenon to global domination, Capitalism and Marxist Socialism constitute successive phases of development.  So, because that concept is more comprehensive than that of Dialectical Materialism, or of any other that has appeared thus far, Evolutionary development is the fundamental significance of each.

Evolution and Species-Principle

The everyday expression 'to evolve' can be defined as 'to become more complex', or, equivalently, 'to become more comprehensive'.  Hence, as the example of the transition from fish to amphibian illustrates, this sense of 'evolution' has more in common with the Darwinian concept of the origination of a species than does what 'micro-evolution' connotes in the theory, i. e. adaptive variation.  Accordingly, that the everyday experience of the transition to a greater complexity, e. g.  an increase in knowledge, is often enjoyed for its own sake, indicates that so, too, might the origination of a species be not a means to a further end.  Thus, by subordinating Evolution to Survival, Darwin loses sight of the discovery of a novel fundamental Species-Principle that, like Nietzsche's Will to Power, supplants the traditional Will to Live.

Darwinism and Practice

Practical correlates of Micro-evolution and Macro-evolution are selective breeding and cross-breeding, respectively.  But, perhaps because of the horrors of Mengele, the subjects of such experimentation are flora and other fauna, rather than humans.  So, the dimension of Darwinism that has had the greatest impact on human society is its evidence that calls into question the contentions of works such as the first three chapters of Genesis.  For, it thereby has been tending to undermine practices that such passages have been engendering for centuries, e. g. the way humans relate to the rest of the world, the status of Labor, male-female relations, etc.  In other words, contrary to Marx's juxtaposition, it has been by interpretating the world that Darwinism has been most effective in changing it.

Macro-Evolution and Micro-Evolution

Some Darwinists distinguish the origination of a species from adaptive variation by the contrast of 'Macro-evolution' and 'Micro-evolution', respectively.  However, if that terminology is designed to resolve an incoherence in the theory, any success is only nominal.  For, the proposed classification overlooks, and thereby further suppresses, a more fundamental distinction between the two--that between Evolution and Variation.  While the latter involves merely the introduction of a new feature, the former is constituted by both the introduction of, and the incorporation of, a novelty into the given.  For example, the development of coloring in a fish that allows it to better hide from a predator is an adaptive Variation, while the emergence of lungs and some musculature that transforms a fish into an amphibian is the origination of a species, i. e. it is Evolution, since the novelty is incorporated into the given.  So, the nomenclature only underscores the incoherence in Darwinism of its Evolution and Survival principles.

Natural Selection, Theory, Practice

Marx-Engels express admiration for Darwinism despite the fact that it intreprets the world, rather than seeks to change it, unlike, say, a Practical correlate of the theory of Natural Selection.  But, even in the case of Artificial Selection, i. e. of selective breeding, engendered improvements are hardly of the epochal scope of the survival of the Species, or even that of the elimination of exploitation from Human society.  Instead, one lesson for Marxism, from either Natural or Artificial Selection, is the randomness of Nature, which calls into question the presumption of Necessity in Dialectical Materialism, and perhaps reminds Marx that his reduction of Epicurus' Swerve to that neo-Hegelian scheme suppresses that randomness.

Darwinism and Human History

Despite their distortion of it, 'Social Darwinists' have been nearly alone in recognizing that if Darwinism applies to the past, it does so to the present and the future, as well.  Now, how it accordingly applies depends on whether Survival or Evolution, each of which is prominent in the theory, as has been previously discussed, is the fundamental principle.  For, if the former, then Evolutionary leaps are only occasional, and may be unnecessary in the event of a successful adaptation, e. g. may be merely a thing of the past for the Human Species.  On the hand, if the latter, then Human history, in even its smallest moments, is, and continues to be, a preparation for a new Species.  In that case, Nietzsche is correct to conceive Humanity as a "bridge", whereas the Social Darwinist concept of Human society as an arena for the determination of the "fittest" qua the wealthiest, is small-mindedly muddled.

Darwinism, Evolutionism, Will to Grow

Though Darwinism and Evolutionism are commonly equated, the fundamental principle of the latter is apparently not that of the former.  Rather, insofar as Evolution is a means to Survival, as is frequently posited in Darwinism, the more fundamental principle is the Will to Live.  Still, there is one case that eludes easy reduction to the latter pattern--the emergence of amphibians from fish.  For, that development consists in a change of environment and subsequent adaptation via mutation, not a mere adaptation to a given environment via mutation.  So, very briefly, at least, the Will to Grow is revealed there as the fundamental principle of Darwinism, and, hence, as a reason why an otherwise well-adapted terrestrial Human Species might, like some fish before it, seek new environments.

Marxism and Darwinism

Marx and Engels express enthusiasm for Darwin's works, but there are reasons to curb it, as well.  On the one hand, he, too, is what they call a 'Materialist', but, on the other, his various Species-Principles diverge from theirs, to lesser and greater degrees.  For example, Evolution does not quite coincide with Dialectical Materialism, since Mutation is not mere Antithesis.  Furthermore, Marxism offers no argument as to why Socialism is a better means of Adaptation than is Capitalism, or any other system.  Finally, and perhaps most hostile to Socialism, is the Survival of the Fittest principle, which can easily be construed as Capitalistic, as 'Social Darwinists' have exploited.  At minimum, aligning the two doctrines requires a demonstration that a society based on cooperation inherently has greater adaptive and survival potentials than does one based on competition.

Will to Grow and Extra-Terrestriality

Given the evidence at their disposal, Marxists of the 19th- and early 20th-centuries are justified in subsuming the rise of Science and its applications, in the Modern era, under Dialectical Materialism, since the fruits of all that productivity can easily be construed to be the elimination of scarcity, and of the need for human labor, that are the breeding grounds of exploitation.  However, they could hardly have imagined the eventual further fruit of Science--extra-terrestrial travel.  Now, to the extent that the 'space race' is an offshoot of the Cold War, it can be interpreted as yet another episode in Dialectical Materialism.  But, with those hostilities no longer a factor, this latest development in Human history can be more clearly recognized as a manifestation of a Will to Grow that has been the Species-Principle all along.

Will to Grow and Dialectical Materialism

Growth is constituted by three moments: 1. A given; 2. The introduction of some novelty; and 3. The integration of the novelty into the given.  Now, because Growth can be a seamless process, #2 and #3 are commonly conceived as combined.  However, adding 7 cats to 5 dogs shows that a further operation is present but obscured in '5 + 7 =12', which is why Kant is correct to classify such propositions as 'Synthetic'.  Similarly, the development of opposing thumbs, and the integration of them into behavior, are two distinct stages of an evolutionary process.  Now, a Dialectical pattern also has 3 moments, significantly differing from Growth because #2 is exclusively the antithesis of #1, and, so, is a special case of the latter pattern.  Furthermore, in his dissertation, Marx has an opportunity to develop a concept of Growth, because Epicurus' concept of Swerve that he studies therein is a #2, but since he is already committed to a version of Hegelian Dialectics, interprets Swerve as a Negation of the given, and, hence, as merely its Antithesis.  He, thus, cannot recognize that Dialectical Materialism is a special case of the Will to Grow, thereby bogging Marxism down in Negativity, instead of showcasing its constructive potential.