Steve:

Interesting and provocative thoughts and insights - as usual!

One wonders whether the answer to your question:

> Still, I wonder whether Kohlberg fully appreciated the threat to our post-conventional constitutional democracy by pre-conventional power politics. 


Is answered, at least on part, by Kohlberg’s death by suicide.

Best regards,

Waldemar

Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD
(Perseveret et Percipiunt)
503.631.8044

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (A Einstein)

> On May 10, 2019, at 8:12 AM, Steven Quackenbush <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Kohlberg asks: "Why should there be a cultural as well as an individual progression through stages of justice?"
> "Justice is both a sociological and a psychological concept.  A just solution of a social conflict is a better equilibrated resolution of a conflict.  By definition, justice is a resolution of conflicting claims in light of principles and procedures that appear fair to all parties involved in the conflict.  When a society has arrived at a relatively just solution to a conflict, that solution tends to be maintained, whereas a solution of injustice is always a situation in disequilibrium, particularly in a society whose sociopolitical institutions have a democratic (Stage 5) or "open" basic structure so that authority or force do not maintain arbitrary, unjust solutions"
> So, it seems that "disequilibrium" is the motor of history (for Kohlberg). 
> 
> An interesting qualification:
> "To classify an institution or society at a certain moral stage does not mean that all or even the majority of members of the society are at that stage."
> e.g., "The American constitutional system is a Stage 5 [postconventional] social system."
> However, "the majority of Americans and sometimes their leaders are conventional (Stage 4 law and order) in their moral reasoning.  
> "The American constitutional system, of course, was never assumed to require that most members of society think and act in terms of liberal moral principles.  Rather the system was designed to ensure that political and legal decisions compatible with liberal principles would emerge from the constitution democratic process itself.  The constitution was an integration of liberal moral principles with a carefully suspicious sociology and psychology that attempted to consider all the abuses of power to which Stage 2 instrumental egoistic human nature was liable"
> Is American democratic system self-sustaining?  [a perfectly-equilibrated "end of history", to adopt Fukuyama's phrasing]
> Kohlberg: "There is...in both adults and adolescents a widespread questioning of democracy, or of our fundamental political structure, as an agency of social progress.  Our form of government, and the nation itself, is seen not only as the preserver of human rights but also as a system in conflict with the rights and needs of minorities within the country, and of the natural environment."
> "This is a questioning, I believe, of the inadequacies of the dominant Stage 5 liberal ideology of our constitutional democracy to resolve world moral problems, not a questioning of its inadequacies as an institutional system compared to some other possible system."
> "To overcome these inadequacies requires reformulation of the liberal ideology in the more morally principled terms of our Stage 6, along the lines of Rawl's effort, as opposed to the more utilitarian or more laissez-faire individualistic views of social contract liberalism found at Stage 5."
> So, it seems that our history is not quite at its end.   Still, I wonder whether Kohlberg fully appreciated the threat to our post-conventional constitutional democracy by pre-conventional power politics. 
> 
> ~ Steve Q. 
> 
> On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 10:26 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> Thanks for this Steve. A fascinating point.
> 
>  
> 
> It seems we are in agreement that justification/knowledge/epistemological/moral systems can evolve. Then we could start to explore questions such as: What are the conditions that foster the progressive evolution of such systems? What are the features of “more evolved systems”? What are the conditions that pull against such evolutionary progress? How or on what dimensions do such things progress?
> 
>  
> 
> Best,
> 
> Gregg
> 
>  
> 
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Steven Quackenbush
> Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2019 1:44 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Description of primary ToK argument for theoretical unification of psychology
> 
>  
> 
> Regarding the evolution of cultural justification systems, Kohlberg's (1977) comments may be of interest to this group:
> 
> "Historical and cross-cultural evidence supports the notion of a long-range moral evolutionary trend on the societal level"
> The attached table documents Kohlberg's approach to assessing "cultural stages of legal systems" (that align loosely with the stages detailed in his account of the "ontogenesis of justice reasoning").
> 
>  
> 
> But, as Kohlberg (1977) also observes, "Watergate reminds us that the Stage 5 social contract still waits for the majority to evolve."  
> 
>  
> 
> The source is a chapter entitled "The Future of Liberalism as the Dominant Ideology of the Western World" (included in Kohlberg's anthology, The Philosophy of Moral Development).
> 
>  
> 
> ~ Steve Q. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Thu, May 9, 2019 at 12:59 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> 
> Fascinating thoughts, Jamie. Thanks for sharing them. I agree that evolutionary epistemology is a good way to study the evolution of culture and ideas. I also think that the competition for the most justifiable ideas is an interesting and useful frame for thinking about how things like philosophies and scientific knowledge and laws generally evolve. Of course, the context, resources and the subconscious forces like drives for power and influence play a huge role in what a particular group legitimizes. Working out those dynamics is a very important enterprise in the social sciences.
> 
> Best,
> Gregg
> 
>  
> 
> From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> On Behalf Of Jamie Dunbaugh
> Sent: Tuesday, May 7, 2019 3:46 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Description of primary ToK argument for theoretical unification of psychology
> 
>  
> 
> Great slides Gregg. 
> 
> Just some thoughts:
> 
> A good theory should make predictions. I made a vague argument to this group a while back that I called the Moral Apex. It seems to me that the Justification Hypothesis predicts a certain progression in the evolution of culture, which I believe to be towards the pragmatic truth. If units of culture are selected by justification/utility, culture should move towards that which is most justified, but according to what fundamental principles? Logical coherence? The operant-hedonic principles beneath culture? .Social coherence/harmony/nonzero sum rules? All of the above?
> 
>  
> 
> As culture evolves, the memetic software gets more sophisticated. Culture is arguably "evolution with intelligence". Ideas are flung forth pseudorandomly, spawned from brains and conversations, and with the justification process, bad ideas get filtered out and good ideas are distilled and emergent towards greater complexity.  Modern humans who grow up today have a ton of mental software installed that has taken eons of generations to evolve through the justification process. 
> 
>  
> 
> Evolutionary epistemology is a good frame to study cultural evolution. 
> 
>  
> 
> Just like the Cambrian explosion was born out of the coming together of certain body structures, certain ideas born in our time could be the epistemological body-frame for the future of cultural evolution: immortal ideas. True memes. The truth is immortal, in a sense. 
> 
>  
> 
> A mind that apprehends the truth is liberated from mental cycle of death/rebirth. If depression is behavioral investment shutdown due to bad ideas, a mind of truth should be free to ascend. 
> 
>  
> 
> Jamie
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 8:49 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> 
> Dear List,
> 
>   Just had a wonderfully stimulating conversation with Alexander Bard on the overlap between our visions. After he walked me through some of his current work, I then laid out for him more details of the ToK argument. Specifically, I was going back to the beginning and clarifying the original ToK System argument for the theoretical unification of psychology. I thought it might be a summary some might be interested in, especially those who have more recently joined the list, so I decided to share here.
> 
> 
> Best,
> 
> Gregg
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx 
> Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2019 11:40 AM
> To: 'Alexander Bard' <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: RE: Bard vs Henriques Video chat
> 
>  
> 
> Dear Alexander,
> 
>  Great talking with you today. I decided I would develop a summary for you that sets the stage for diving into my first paper, written in 2003. 
> 
>   
> 
>   I am going to start with three central observations. The first observation is that every known culture has divided the world up into the following four categories: 1) Inanimate objects like rocks; 2) living organisms, like plants; 3) animals; and 4) people. Slide one in the attached powerpoint includes a picture my daughter drew for me when she was four. She came to me and said, “Look, Daddy, I drew your work. See: Rocks, Plants, Animals, People!” It also includes Aristotle’s conception of the levels of the “soul”, that is vegetative, animal, rational. These four categories coorespond to Matter, Life, Mind and Culture on the ToK and need to be “drilled in” to clearly understand the full meaning of the ToK. The next two slides include Cahoone’s work, which I shared earlier. The point here is that is shows there is a modern philosopher who clearly diagnoses the fundamental problem in the Western Intellectual Tradition since Descartes as being “Mind” versus “Matter” dualism. He calls it the fundamental “bipolar disorder” and argues it was fundamentally misguided. Instead, he develops the Orders of Nature view. The point simply is to illustrate how strikingly similar the two views are. Another KEY point is that if we put these slides together, we have a very clear picture of a “mental order of nature”. It exists between living creatures (cells and plants) and humans building/living in societies. This is crucial to realize when we move into the second observation.
> 
>  
> 
>  The second observation is the Problem of Psychology. If there is one thing all scholars of the field of psychology agree on, it is that there is NO consensus regarding what the field of psychology is about and what is its key identity. There are three core/foundational problems or areas of disagreement. First, there is the “mind versus behavior” divide. This is the question of whether the discipline is about “the mind” and how it causes behavior versus whether it is about behavior in and of itself. It is the dispute between the cognitivists or mentalists and the Skinnerian radical behaviorists. Although the cognitiists have “won” in terms of popularity, the basic conceptual issues remain unresolved. The second problem is the “animal versus person” divide. This is the problem of whether psychology is just about people, about some animals and people or is about essentially all animals. The fact is that most of psychology’s basic concepts like learning, memory, and perception clearly take place at the level of the animal. But the vast majority of psychologists (90-95%) deal with humans. The third problem pertains to the identity of the field. Is psychology a basic science like biology or is it primarily a health profession like medicine or social work? There is NO resolution to these issues. (However, if we go back to observation 1, we could see that psychology should be about the science of the mental order of nature!)
> 
>   
> 
>   The third observation pertains to E. O. Wilson’s vision of consilience. He is the “quintessential” natural scientist who, in 1998, offered a view of the unity of knowledge. If you know this book, it is very helpful to contrast it with the picture of reality afforded by the ToK. It achieves a basic outline of the picture of consilience, but it breaks down at two spots. First, as Paul Naour’s book documents, operant theory, which is very arguably the FOUNDATION of psychological processes resides at the BASE of sociobiology. Thus, the core psychological concept GROUNDS sociobiology (many think of sociobiology as grounding psychology!). This is the first major error, as it fails to recognize the jump from life/plants into animals, because the latter exhibit operant behavior patterns, a fundamentally new kind of behavior in the universe. The second major breakdown is something Wilson himself readily acknowledges. He lacks a theory of Culture and its emergence and how it can function the way it does in the natural world. 
> 
>  
> 
>   These three observations set the stage for you to enter my first paper on my system, The Tree of Knowledge System and the Theoretical Unification of Psychology. The final slides provide the visual argument for what the paper lays out. Namely, it identifies the current state of the field as being confused. The ultimate reason for the confusion is that we lack the right systematic metaphysics for science writ large. The ToK provides a new systematic metaphysics. It highlights the idea that if we are to properly carve nature at her joints, we need to see that there are joint points between (a) organisms/Life and animals/mInd and between (b) animals/Mind and people/Culture. The paper explains how Behavioral Investment Theory is the joint point between Life and Mind and the Justification Hypothesis is the joint point between Mind and Culture. Moreover, BIT pulls in Skinner with evolutoinary biology and cognitive neuroscience to create a new synthesis for understanding the mental order of nature (i.e., animal-mental behavior). The JH pulls Freud and aligns him with a proper science of the animal mind, and social and personality psychology to give rise to a view of human reasoning, self-consciousness and Culture that solves Wilson’s missing link (i.e., person-Culture behavior). 
> 
>  
> 
> Okay, with that background knowledge, dive in. Look forward to getting your thoughts.
> 
> 
> Best,
> 
> Gregg
> 
>                
> 
> ############################
> 
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1>
> ############################
> 
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1>
> ############################
> 
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1>
> 
> 
>  
> 
> --
> 
> Steven W. Quackenbush, Ph.D., Chair
> 
> Division of Psychology & Human Development
> 
> University of Maine, Farmington
> 
> Farmington, ME 04938
> 
> (207) 778-7518
> 
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> ############################
> 
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1>############################
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1>
> 
> -- 
> Steven W. Quackenbush, Ph.D., Chair
> Division of Psychology & Human Development
> University of Maine, Farmington
> Farmington, ME 04938
> (207) 778-7518
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>############################
> To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1 <http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1>

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1