Deriving Common Interests from Animal Origins:The Generative Constraints of Global Polity
Version 2.1September, 2008Initially Presented to:World International Studies Committee2 Global International Studies Conference
nd
Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 23-26, 2008by:Craig L. Simon, Ph.D.(No current affiliation)craigsimon@rkey.comhttp://www.rkey.com1024 SE 3 Ave, #205
rd
Dania Beach, FL 33004 USAWords in text:Approximately 17,500Original Proposal, December 2007:Synthesizing recent work from primatology, anthropology, linguistics, and Constructivist IRTheory, a case will be made that a comprehensive discussion of the prospects for an effectiveglobal polity must address foundational human organic capacities and drives such as kinship,status, pattern finding, theory of mind, and the desire for freedom. That synthesis will beframed within key traditional concerns of IR scholarship, particularly the calculation of interests and rules deemed pertinent to the deployment of power. This paper is aimed atpreparing ground for further disciplined discussion of expressly global politics.Please Note:The first version of the paper reflects an abbreviated but substantive fulfillment of theobjectives laid out in the original proposal. There is much more to say.This second version adds a bibliography, expands the discussion of freedom, and makesother stylistic revisions. Thanks go to Arie M.. Kacowicz for comments on the first version.Version 2.1 makes a significant change to the introduction and slight changes elsewhere.These versions should not be considered appropriate for citation, but any feedback will behappily welcomed.
Deriving Common Interests from Animal Origins:The Generative Constraints of Global Polity
Darwin's idea... bear[s] an unmistakable likeness to universal acid:it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in itswake a revolutionized world view, with most of the old landmarksstill recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways.
Daniel Dennett
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
I
NTRODUCTION
What would remain if Daniel Dennett’s concept of Darwinian “acid” were applied to the fieldof International Relations? What if all the old layers of rotting paradigms and decomposing schoolsof thought were seared away from the genuine substance of our discipline? What common structureswould be revealed among the clearly-seen specimens of international organizations, regionalalliances, and epistemic regimes? Quite likely the elements uncovered by such a thorough dousingwould turn out be the bare bones, visceral organs, and connective tissues of human society itself. Butthis does not mean that the study of international relations would have to start anew. After all, thecentral obligation of our discipline, as defined by Thucydides, is to describe “the condition of humanity” without resort to fables. He began with a naked subject. Modern tools help expose it moresharply. So what, more precisely, are the questions that need to be settled?There is an age-old debate over what it means to be human and what obligations necessarilyfollow. Now that evolutionary theory has become the organizing framework of the life sciences,confederates of the Darwinian research paradigm expect the last word will soon be theirs. But thequestion of human nature can not be closed, if ever, before Darwin’s heirs settle their own boilingconflicts about the nature of free will. At stake is the prevailing conception we humans have of ourselves as a self-aware species. At stake also is our shared sense of what a human society mightplausibly hope to attain.The prominence and persistence of the free will debate among modern scientists presents anagging dilemma for state policy makers, political activists, and IR scholars alike. The core of it isthis: Suppose neurobiologists, psychologists, and other cognitive researchers continue to winadherents to the idea that belief in free will is as scientifically unsupportable as belief in supernaturalrealms and beings. Does it follow that freedom – the epitomizing goal of free will – would somehowgo out of fashion? Does it follow that any political effort which insists on freedom as a priority
Craig SimonDeriving Common Interests (Version 2.1)2
The words regarding free will were spoken by Hofstadter while playing himself in the 1988 docudrama,
1
“Victim of the Brain.” The others are from
I am Strange Loop
(2007), where he also writes "the typical human brainperceives its very own 'I' as a pusher and a mover, never entertaining for a moment the idea that its star player mightmerely be a useful shorthand standing for a myriad infinitesimal entities and the invisible chemical transactionstaking place among them." This cluster of views stems from experiments by Benjamin Libet, Daniel Wegner andothers demonstrating the role that unconscious processes play in the initiation of acts presumed to be volitional. SeeBenjamin Libet.
Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness
(2004). Libet’s experiment was repeated herehttp://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/abs/nn.2112.html. See also Michael S. Gazzaniga’s discussionsregarding the moral and legal implications of intentional systems that refer forward from subconscious to consciouslevels.
The Ethical Brain
(2005).John R. Searle,
Mind Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World
(1998) p. 107.
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For a representative sample, see the program for the 2008 conference of the World International Studies
3
Conference, where this paper was first presented.http://www.wiscnetwork.org/documents/WISCbookA4_web.pdf
interest could be portrayed as backward and obsolete? Such outcomes certainly seem unlikely.Nevertheless, suppose that the purveyors of “Darwin’s acid” begin attacking the wish to upholdfreedom as intensely as they now attack the decaying remnants of creation myths. Public officialswho might otherwise welcome the discipline of hard science may decide it has become too harsh forgeneral use... perhaps too harsh for even their own use. A 21 century Emma Goldman would
st
defiantly proclaim, “If I can’t be free, I don’t want to part of your evolution.”Fortunately, the formula for Darwinian acid is still under development. It is true that today’sbetter-known blends include the idea of free will among the targets it seeks to burn it away, but onlyfor the purpose of getting to the bottom of things. The driving goal of evolutionary science is toeliminate mystery, not free will. New and better formulations of Darwinian acid are always in thepipeline. Some of these may turn out to leave free will not only unscathed, but as fully open to honestinspection as the other building blocks of human nature.The majority school in the free will debate clusters around cognitive scientist DouglasHofstadter’s position that “free will is a grand illusion,” and that consciousness is an "hallucinationperceived by an hallucination." The minority tends to ally with linguistic philosopher Jonathon
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Searle’s position that subjective consciousness is a real and distinctive property of the humanspecies, but that the existence of free will, though desirable, is an open question. My goal is to
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outline the contours of that debate with respect to the kinds of questions that preoccupy scholars of International Relations (IR). These include the prospects for global order, international justice, andglobal values, as well as prospects for the advancement of a particular actor’s power and interest.
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I also intend to challenge the position of the Hosfstadter cluster by drawing upon insights available
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Deriving Common Interests from Animal Origins: The Generative Constraints of Global Polity
What researchers in the field of International Relations need to learn from the field of Evolutionary Psychology. Update of a conference paper first presented in 2008.
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