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631 lines
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<title>What Ought To Be</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<br><br>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="center" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="4" style="font-size: 16pt"><b>What
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Ought To Be</b></font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdaWOught_up" align="left" hspace="5" width="82" height="30" border="0"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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implications of spatiomaterialism are ontologically necessary truths,
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but there are two kinds of necessary truths. They are all
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ontologically necessary <i>for reason</i>, because ontological
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philosophy is an <i>argument </i>about the world directed toward
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rational beings. But in addition to its theoretical function, reason
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has a practical function, and since its practical function cannot be
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entirely reduced to its theoretical function, there are necessary
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truths about what ought to be, as far as reason is concerned, that
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are not just truths about what is. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Ontological
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philosophy is a two step argument. First, it argues that
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spatiomaterialism is the best ontological explanation of the world,
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and then it uses spatiomaterialism to show what must be true in a
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spatiomaterial world. Such implications are ontologically necessary,
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but many are conditional, because they also depend on space and
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matter having the more specific essential natures that makes the
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basic laws of physics true and that give the universe a large scale
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structure of the kind it actually has. Conditionally necessary truths
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hold only in spatiomaterial worlds <i>like ours</i>. There are, as we
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have seen, many such truths about what is, most relevantly at this
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point, including all those about progressive evolution. On suitable
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planets, there is an evolutionary change that proceeds through a
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series of stage in the direction of natural perfection, with each
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stage being a gradual change in the direction of the natural
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perfection of organisms (or primary structures) of its kind. And
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since it is a (conditionally) necessary truth, evolution would unfold
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in basically the same way in any spatiomaterial world like ours.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Reason
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itself is, however, something that comes to exist in that grand
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process. A series of inevitable stages of biological evolution (by
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natural selection) leads to rational beings, and since spiritual
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animals contain within themselves cultural evolution (by rational
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selection), which eventually includes progress in natural science
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(sponsored, in part, by economic evolution through capitalist
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selection), reason eventually comes to understand how the world is
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whole. That is, as we have seen, what ontological philosophy
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contributes to cultural evolution at the philosophical stage in the
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wake of the failure of epistemological philosophy. Ontological
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philosophy is an argument about the wholeness of the world that is
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made to beings that exist necessarily in that world. Thus, rational
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beings eventually come to recognize their own nature and their place
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in the world, and since that self-understanding is itself part of the
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wholeness of the world, it plays a role in what happens in the world.
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“Ontological reason,” as I will call it, has work to do. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">What
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reason comes to know about its nature, with the evolution of
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ontological philosophy, includes recognizing its own function as a
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behavior guidance system. Guiding behavior is the basic function of
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what evolves at every stage of biological evolution, and reason
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guides the behavior not only of individual subjects, but also of
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spiritual animals, the social level animals of which rational
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subjects are the parts. Its function as a behavior guidance system
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explains, as have seen, the difference between theoretical and
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practical reason. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Practical
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reason is as basic as theoretical reason. Indeed, the original
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function of arguments about the true is to enable reason to discover
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the good. Reason would not have evolved by natural selection if the
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cultural evolution of theoretical arguments by rational selection did
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not make it possible for reason to discover what is good for rational
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beings (that is, what contributes to their maximum holistic power, or
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natural perfection). Thus, in addition to its theoretical role,
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reason has a practical employment. Reason is something that acts in
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the world. That is why there is a difference between conclusions
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about what is and what ought to be among the necessary truths proved
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by ontological philosophy. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">With
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the evolution of ontological philosophy, therefore, reason
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understands its own nature as a behavior guidance system that evolves
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by reproductive causation, and it recognizes its place in the world.
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The function of reason is to guide the behavior of the most powerful
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organisms that come to exist in evolution, and so ontological reason
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comes to recognize itself as the most powerful being in the world.
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This self-understanding might even be called the <i>outcome </i>of
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evolution in a spatiomaterial world like ours, at least, so far,
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since it happens at the end of a series of inevitable evolutionary
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stages. But the advent of ontological philosophy is not the end of
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evolution. Its explanation of the wholeness of the world is merely
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the point at which reason discovers its own real nature and begins to
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assume its full power. And since reason has a practical, as well as a
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theoretical, function, it can be described as the point at which
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ontological reason (still evolving by rational selection) takes over
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from biological evolution and controls the course evolution. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Thus, the
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wholeness of the world is not merely that everything in the world and
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everything about the world is constituted by space and matter. Nor is
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it merely that its essential nature entails that a part of any
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spatiomaterial world like ours inevitably comes to understand its
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wholeness. It also includes how that understanding of its wholeness
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leads reason to act in a way that ultimately <i>makes </i>the world
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more "whole." That is the <i>work </i>of ontological
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reason.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Predicting
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the future of evolution.</i> It might seem that what ontological
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reason does in the world ought to be counted among the necessary
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truths about what is, because cultural evolution, including its
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evolution, is a global regularity like the rest of evolution and,
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thus, can be predicted. As a behavior guidance system, reason pursues
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the good, and since goodness is contributing to natural perfection,
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what is good is a fact about the world. Thus, what reason does in the
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world can be predicted. That means that it is one of the necessary
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truths about <i>what is </i>in the world that reason discovers, which
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suggests that there is no need to distinguish from <i>what is</i> a
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set of necessary truths about <i>what ought to be</i>. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">In a sense,
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it is true that what ontological reason does can be predicted, for it
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is inevitable. But it is not merely an ontologically necessary truth
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about what is in a spatiomaterial world like ours, because unlike
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earlier stages of evolution, what happens depends on ontologically
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necessary truths about what ought to be. That is, what makes those
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predictions about the future after the advent of ontological reason
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turn out to be true is that rational being do what is good, and so
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the only way to predict what will happen is to work out what
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ontological reason discovers about what ought to exist. That is not
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something that can be predicted by knowing what is good for rational
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beings in the sense of contributing to their natural perfection as
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rational beings. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">After
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recapping the ontological explanation of the nature of goodness and
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considering more carefully why it seems that practical reason can be
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reduced to theoretical reason, I will explain why necessary truths
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about <i>what ought to be </i>are not entirely reducible to necessary
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truths about <i>what is. </i>Then I will take up the implications of
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spatiomaterialism about the goals that reason ought to pursue (in its
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individual self interest, its spiritual self interest, and its
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religious self interest). </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>Goodness.</b></i>
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The nature of goodness is explained, as we have seen, by the
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progressiveness of evolution by reproductive causation. Not only does
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evolution have an inevitable beginning in a spatiomaterial world like
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ours, but it also involves change in the direction of natural
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perfection. And natural perfection has a structure that determines
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what is good. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>Natural
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perfection.</i> Setting reason aside for the moment, reproductive
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causation generates four different forms of natural perfection: the
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natural perfection of the <i>organism</i>, of the <i>ecology</i>, of
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<i>life </i>and of <i>change </i>itself. That is, they follow from
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the two main reproductive global regularities, gradual and
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revolutionary evolution.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Organism.</i>
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At each stage of evolution, there are reproducing organisms (or
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primary structures) that start off simple, uniform and weak, and
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during the stage, they gradually become more complex, diverse and
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powerful, until each kind of organism is as powerful at controlling
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all the conditions that affect its reproduction as possible for
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primary structures of its kind. Such maximum holistic power is the
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natural perfection for organisms. It is an optimal part-whole
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relation in which no possible change in the parts will make the whole
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more powerful, though this maximum may be approached only
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asymptotically. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Ecology.</i>
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But since maximum holistic power for organisms (i.e., primary
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structures) also involves their becoming more diverse, the direction
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of gradual change is also toward maximum holistic power for the
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ecology. It is a holistic power, because it is the power of all the
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organisms in the region. But the appropriate measure of the power
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that is maximized at the ecological level is different. As the
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organisms all become naturally perfect, the right kinds and varieties
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of organisms exist to consume as much of the available free energy to
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fuel reproductive cycles as possible. Making maximum use of the
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ultimate source of the power to do work in the region is the natural
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perfection for the ecology. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Life.</i>
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But one stage of evolution can make another stage inevitable. When
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the organisms evolving at one stage have structures that can be
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organized as the several parts of an organism on higher levels of
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organization (that is, whose primary structures have higher levels of
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part-whole complexity), and when that makes it possible for the whole
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to control a range of relevant conditions that were previously out of
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reach, such a radical random variation begins a new stage of gradual
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evolution during which those organisms and the ecology they help make
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up (along with organisms from previous stages) become naturally
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perfect for their kinds. The succession of evolutionary stages uses
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the part-whole relation in space to expand the power of organisms, as
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primary structures generating reproductive cycles, to control what
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happens in the world, step by step, increasing the level of
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organization of the natural perfection involved. Hence, revolutionary
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evolution is in the direction of the natural perfection of life
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itself, or the very enterprise of controlling conditions in the
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world. Reproductive causation makes the most of the spatial structure
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of the world by using the part-whole relation in space to increase
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the holistic power of organisms of all kinds to control what happens
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in the world.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Change.</i>
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Finally, since evolution is progressive, there is even a natural
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perfection about the kind of change that is involved in evolution.
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Since evolution is a global regularity caused by how reproductive
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cycles add up in space <i>as time passes</i>, each moment during each
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stage of gradual evolution makes a necessary contribution to the
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increasing power of the organisms and the ecology at that stage. And
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since evolutionary stages are caused by levels of part-whole
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complexity in evolving structures, each stage makes an necessary
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contribution to the increasing power of life. Thus, by using each
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moment in the existence of the substances involved to increase the
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power of material structures to do work, reproductive causation gives
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change itself a kind of natural perfection. It makes the most out of
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the temporal nature of the world by using the succession of moments
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in which substances exist to increase the power of organisms to
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control what happens in the world. No moment is redundant or
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superfluous.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>The
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nature of goodness.</i> Natural perfection is an explanation of the
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nature of goodness, because natural perfection is an optimal
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part-whole relation. Though the part-whole relation is somewhat
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different in each form of natural perfection, in each case, parts of
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certain kinds are combined in certain ways and numbers to make the
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most out of the least. "The most" always has to do with the
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power of the whole to use free energy to control what happens in the
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world, and "the least" has to do with the number and
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simplicity of the parts. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Natural
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perfection is a property of the whole, and the corresponding property
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of the parts of such wholeness is goodness. Goodness is the property
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of contributing to the natural perfection of the whole of which it is
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part. But since there are different forms of natural perfection,
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there are different ways that that things can be good.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Organism.</i>
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In the case of the organism, the parts are the structural causes that
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are bundled together to go through reproductive cycles as a whole,
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and things are good for the organism when they are involved in
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generating the non-reproductive structural effects that help give it
|
||
the maximum power to control the conditions that affect its
|
||
reproduction. Thus, certain kinds of traits are good for the organism
|
||
because of their functions, that is, because of which relevant
|
||
conditions they control. And certain kinds of behavior are good for
|
||
the organism because of its goals, including, in the case of animals,
|
||
animal behavior, whose goals involve behavior directed at other
|
||
objects in space in order to control relevant conditions. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Ecology.</i>
|
||
In the case of the ecology, the parts are the organisms in the
|
||
region, and things are good for the ecology when they help the
|
||
organisms jointly consume as much as possible of the free energy
|
||
available in the region as fuel for reproductive cycles. Each kind of
|
||
organisms is good for the ecology because of the form of free energy
|
||
it taps or the way in which it does so. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Life.</i>
|
||
In the case of life, the parts are the successive levels of
|
||
part-whole complexity in the reproducing organisms that evolve at
|
||
each stage of evolution, and things are good for life itself because
|
||
they are involved in the evolution of another level of organization
|
||
that helps life control as much as possible what happens in the
|
||
world. Thus, certain levels of biological, neurological and forensic
|
||
organization in evolving structures are good for life because each is
|
||
necessary for life to evolve another range of powers and, thus, step
|
||
by step, as much power to control conditions affecting reproduction
|
||
as possible for living organisms. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><i>Change.</i>
|
||
In the case of change itself, the parts are particular stages in the
|
||
overall course of evolution and particular moments during each stage,
|
||
and things are good for change itself when events unfold in a way
|
||
that helps bring about the natural perfection organisms, ecology and
|
||
life. Thus, even such events as organisms failing to reproduce
|
||
because of scarcity and species becoming extinct because other
|
||
species displace them from their ecological niche are good because
|
||
that is how reproductive causation makes evolution progressive. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>The
|
||
unity of goodness. </i>Though things are good in various ways,
|
||
ultimately, they are all good in the same way, because there is a
|
||
necessary overall structure to the various kinds of natural
|
||
perfection to which they all contribute. Naturally perfect organisms
|
||
are essential parts of naturally perfect ecologies, and stages of
|
||
gradual evolution in the direction of such natural perfection are
|
||
essential to the overall evolutionary change in the direction of the
|
||
natural perfection of life. And all the events that occur in the
|
||
course of evolution are essential to the natural perfection of
|
||
change, since that is what makes evolution progressive. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">It is true
|
||
that what is good for one organism might be bad for another. The
|
||
predator <i>is </i>bad for the prey. But since the natural perfection
|
||
to which they both contribute is a single spatiotemporal whole with
|
||
an overall structure, there is no ultimate conflict about whether
|
||
something is good or bad. Everything good is good because it
|
||
contributes to some form of natural perfection that is part of that
|
||
overall structure. Thus, what is bad for the prey is good not only
|
||
for the predator, but also for the ecology, and it is by contributing
|
||
to the natural perfection of the ecology that the prey is good (and
|
||
that what contributes to the natural perfection of the prey is good).
|
||
There is no context in which contributing to natural perfection, or
|
||
natural perfection itself, could turn out to be bad.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>The
|
||
apparent reducibility of practical to theoretical reason.</b></i>
|
||
Since what is good is a fact about the world, or an aspect of what
|
||
is, it is something that theoretical reason knows at the ontological
|
||
philosophical stage, for that includes knowledge of the nature of
|
||
goodness. And since reason gives rational beings the autonomy to do
|
||
the good because they believe that it is good, it should be possible
|
||
to predict what ontological reason will ultimately do in the world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
|
||
know the course of evolution, it is not necessary to know all the
|
||
details about how it will happen, because it is a global regularity
|
||
about what happens in whole regions of space. This holds for cultural
|
||
evolution by rational selection as well. It is possible to know how
|
||
culture will evolve without predicting all the details. That is,
|
||
after all, how we know that the evolution of ontological philosophy
|
||
is inevitable. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Even before
|
||
reason discovers the nature of goodness, it is sometimes able to tell
|
||
what is good, because rational imagination enables rational subjects
|
||
to discern what is naturally perfect. Reason can see the uniqueness
|
||
of the naturally perfect, because it stands out against the
|
||
background of what all is possible. Thus, reason can tell, in
|
||
principle, what is good for any organism, for the ecology, and for
|
||
life itself. Even in the case of individual subjects and spiritual
|
||
animals, where inherited desires have the function of picking out
|
||
goals to be pursued, reason judges which actions are good by their
|
||
contribution to the natural perfection of the whole of which they are
|
||
part. Thus, it is possible to predict what reason will wind up
|
||
believing and doing. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Thus, when
|
||
reason discovers how the world is whole and comes to understand its
|
||
own nature and its own place in evolution, it will use its
|
||
understanding of the nature of goodness to sharpen its perception of
|
||
what is naturally perfect and, thereby, discover more accurately and
|
||
completely what is good. Though it will still be a result of cultural
|
||
evolution by rational selection, rational subjects will be better
|
||
able to judge which arguments make their world view more coherent,
|
||
because they will understand how everything in the world fits
|
||
together as a whole and that will constrain their views on particular
|
||
normative issues in ways that previously seemed impossible. The
|
||
completeness of their understanding of the nature of the world is
|
||
what enables reason to see which truths are necessary, including
|
||
necessary truths about what is good. And since reason will recognize
|
||
itself as having, in its practical employment as behavior guidance
|
||
system, the function of doing what is good for rational beings, it
|
||
will do whatever it discovers to be good for itself. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Thus,
|
||
it seems that there is no basic difference between the implications
|
||
of spatiomaterialism about <i>what exists</i> and <i>what ought to
|
||
exist</i>. What ontological reason will do in the world is
|
||
inevitable, like any stage of evolution, and thus, it is something
|
||
that can be known by theoretical reason alone. Since practical reason
|
||
does not play an essential role in explaining what reason ought to
|
||
do, necessary truths about <i>what ought to be </i>can be reduced to
|
||
necessary truths about <i>what is</i>. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i><b>The
|
||
irreducibility of practical reason.</b></i> Contrary to this
|
||
impression, however, the necessary truths of practical reason about
|
||
what ought to be cannot be eliminated in favor of necessary truths of
|
||
theoretical reason about what is. There are two reasons, one
|
||
superficial and the other more profound. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">First,
|
||
some of the goals that reason will pursue are optional. Reason gives
|
||
subjects the capacity to do what is good because it is good, that is,
|
||
simply because they believe that it is good, and as we have seen,
|
||
that means that rational subjects can pursue goals in addition to
|
||
those that control relevant conditions (that is, in addition to
|
||
conditions that affect their own reproduction). These “optional
|
||
goals” must already be good (by contributing to natural or
|
||
artificial perfection in some way), but there is such a wide range of
|
||
goals to choose from that it is not possible to predict which ones
|
||
will be chosen. And since choosing them is what makes them <i>good
|
||
for the rational subject</i>, it is not possible to predict all of
|
||
the goals that rational beings will pursue. It is also possible for
|
||
spiritual animals to pursue optional goals. Thus, the future course
|
||
of evolution is, in principle, not predictable. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Optional
|
||
goals for rational beings are like aspects of biological evolution
|
||
that are contingent. It is not possible to predict contingent aspects
|
||
of evolution, because they are not essential to the global regularity
|
||
caused ontologically by reproductive cycles and space. Indeed, it is
|
||
not always easy to see, even in retrospect, what is inevitable about
|
||
the course of biological evolution and what is not. Since optional
|
||
goals are contingent, what reason does in pursuit of them is not
|
||
predicable. Thus, if optional goals are as big a part of what
|
||
ontological reason does as its power would suggest, much of the
|
||
future course of evolution is not predictable, at least not on
|
||
ontological grounds.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The pursuit
|
||
of optional goals means that what reason does in the world is more
|
||
like the creation of something beautiful, like a work of art, rather
|
||
than something it discovers, like a truth about the world. There will
|
||
be a perfection about it, but since it is an expression of a unique
|
||
form of life, it will be a unique form of beauty. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though
|
||
ontological philosophy includes everything that reason can know about
|
||
the nature of the world, the future course of evolution will depend
|
||
on the optional goals it chooses to pursue, and thus, reason stands
|
||
to its work in the world like each rational subject stands to his or
|
||
her own Self. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Insofar as
|
||
the future course of evolution is not predictable, it cannot be among
|
||
the necessary truths of ontological philosophy about what is, and
|
||
thus, practical reason cannot be reduced to theoretical reason. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Second,
|
||
there is a more profound reason why practical reason cannot be
|
||
reduced to theoretical reason. That is because reasoning about what
|
||
ought to be may make the pursuit of certain goals inevitable for
|
||
ontological reason, even though they cannot be predicted from what is
|
||
good for reason as a behavior guidance system for individuals and
|
||
spiritual animals. Doing what is good for the world as a whole is
|
||
such a goal, and it may be a necessary truth about <i>what is </i>in
|
||
a spatiomaterial world like ours that they are pursued. But it is an
|
||
ontologically necessary truth about <i>what is </i>that can be known
|
||
only by reasoning about <i>what rational beings ought to do</i>.
|
||
Thus, we cannot know whether there are any such goals without
|
||
following out all the practical implications of our ontological
|
||
foundation. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Goals that
|
||
would be of this kind are ordinarily called “religious,” because
|
||
they come from the recognition that there is something that is worthy
|
||
of worship. Such a religious interest may not be reducible to the
|
||
individual or spiritual interest of rational beings, because it could
|
||
depend on recognizing the existence of God. And if God is not
|
||
necessarily a transcendent being, naturalism does not rule out the
|
||
possibility of God's existence.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though
|
||
religious goals are pursued before the evolution of ontological
|
||
philosophy, that earlier pursuit of religious goals is among the
|
||
necessary truths of theoretical reason (about what is), because
|
||
religious goals (and the beliefs about God on which they are
|
||
predicated) can be predicted, as we have seen, by the function of
|
||
religion at the rational spiritual stage (that is, as the attempt to
|
||
provide an ultimate justification of the principles of practical
|
||
arguments, including morality and submission to the group, which are
|
||
part of rational culture). But that function does not require belief
|
||
in God after ontological philosophy evolves, because its ontology
|
||
entails, by way of the reproductive global regularities, an
|
||
explanation of the nature of goodness that explains why rational
|
||
subjects ought to be moral. Moral beliefs do not depend on God for
|
||
their justification.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Similarly,
|
||
at the philosophical spiritual stage, religious goals pursued as a
|
||
result of the belief in a transcendent God (as part of
|
||
epistemological philosophy) are necessary truths of theoretical
|
||
reason, because they are a predictable part of its attempt to
|
||
overcome the dichotomy between theoretical and practical reason. But
|
||
ontological philosophy explains the nature of reason in a way that
|
||
entails that dichotomy, and thus, it does not need God to overcome
|
||
the dichotomy of facts and values. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Neither
|
||
belief in God nor religious goals can be predicted by theoretical
|
||
reason alone after ontological philosophy evolves, because they do
|
||
not help maximize the power of reason to control <i>relevant
|
||
conditions</i>. But it is nonetheless possible that its pursuit of
|
||
religious goals is inevitable, because given what ontological reason
|
||
knows about the world, it may realize that there is something that is
|
||
worthy of worship and, thereby, know that it ought to pursue such
|
||
goals. If so, those goals would be good for reason, and the pursuit
|
||
of those goals would be the <i>work </i>of ontological reason in the
|
||
world. That is how the wholeness of the world may include how reason
|
||
<i>makes </i>the world more "whole"it would be otherwise. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though this
|
||
conclusion of practical reason would depend on what ontological
|
||
philosophy implies about what is, it would be practical reason that
|
||
leads ontological reason to take up this work in the world. To show
|
||
the inevitability of the pursuit of religious goals, we would have to
|
||
follow practical reason to its conclusions, and so practical reason
|
||
could not be reduced to theoretical reason. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">That is the
|
||
sense in which reason is not merely the knower of what is, but also
|
||
an agent that helps determine the future course of evolution. What it
|
||
does would not be not determined in the way that everything is caused
|
||
prior to the evolution of ontological philosophy, but would be an act
|
||
of free will. And it would be a truly creative act. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The pursuit
|
||
of religious goals, if they are pursued by ontological reason, are
|
||
ontologically necessary in the end, and thus, they are indeed a
|
||
necessary aspect of a spatiomaterial world like ours. But the way
|
||
that ontological philosophy knows them is different from all the
|
||
other necessary truths, because this necessary truth cannot be known
|
||
without <i>using </i>practical reason at the ontological stage. But
|
||
once it is known by way of practical reasoning, it is also known by
|
||
theoretical reason. It is part of <i>what is </i>as well as <i>what
|
||
ought to be</i>. It is just that theoretical reason is essentially
|
||
reflective in the end, knowing about its own role as an agent in the
|
||
world. This is, as we shall see, God's knowledge of himself as a
|
||
person.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
order to discover whether reason has such a religious interest,
|
||
therefore, we shall consider all the goals that reason ought to
|
||
pursue in three steps, by considering the three practical interests
|
||
that reason has (or may have) because of the nature of the beings
|
||
that are rational. The first is the <i>individual interest</i>, which
|
||
reason has because of its responsibility for pursuing the good of the
|
||
individual as such. It is usually called “self interest.” The
|
||
second is the <i>spiritual interest</i>, which comes from reason’s
|
||
responsibility for guiding the behavior of the spiritual animal. And
|
||
the third is the <i>religious interest,</i> because that is the
|
||
traditional name for the interest that reason has when it pursues in
|
||
the belief that there is something that is worthy of worship, that
|
||
is, something of such exalted glory that reason ought to revere it
|
||
and serve it, even beyond its own individual and spiritual interest. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">These
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are interests that reason has in addition to its interest, as reason,
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in knowing the good, the true and the beautiful. The latter are
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<i>rational interests</i>, which contribute to the natural perfection
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of culture as a result of cultural evolution by rational selection.
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But the interests to be discussed here are <i>practical interests</i>,
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because they have to do with how reason guides the behavior of the
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beings whose behavior it controls. Which goals rational beings pursue
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depends on what is good <i>for them</i>, and that makes it a matter
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||
of practical reason. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Ultimately,
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||
they are all, of course, interests of the individual rational
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||
subject, if they are interests at all, because the subject, as an
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||
individual mind, is the ultimate agent of reason in its function of
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||
guiding behavior. The individual is the being who must ultimately
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||
judge what is good, true, and beautiful and, indeed, who must
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||
ultimately do what is good. Thus, they are all forms of <i>"self
|
||
interest</i>," where the Self is understood as the four
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||
dimensional object that one constructs by how one leads one’s life,
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||
for they are interests that rational subjects must pursue as part of
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such a life. </font></font></font>
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||
</p>
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<p lang="en-US" dir="rtl" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">With
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||
the evolution of ontological philosophy, therefore, reason recognizes
|
||
itself as the inevitable outcome of evolutionary change in a
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||
spatiomaterial world like ours. Ontological reason recognizes itself
|
||
as the most powerful being in the world. And reason recognizes itself
|
||
as having the function of doing what is good for rational beings.
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||
Thus, the main question for practical reason is, “What are those
|
||
goals?” It can be answered by determining what contributes to the
|
||
natural perfection of rational beings. </font></font></font>
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||
</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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