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  • Publications
    • Publications List, 1969-2025
    • Books
      • Synergistic Selection: How Cooperation Has Shaped Evolution and the Rise of Humankind
      • The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice
      • Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution
      • The Synergism Hypothesis: A Theory of Progressive Evolution
      • Nature’s Magic
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The Bio-logic of Social Justice

By Peter Corning • May 28, 2015

 

  • We are all roughly equal with respect to an array of biologically-grounded basic needs that are requisites for survival and reproduction.
  • These needs are not only well-defined and measurable but they are also inescapable imperatives; if they are not satisfied, for whatever reason, there will be measurable harm and possibly a loss of life.
  • Satisfying these needs represents a virtually universal (shared) normative preference.
  • In a complex society, we are highly interdependent; each of us depends on many others for the satisfaction of their basic needs. An organized society is, first and foremost, a collective survival enterprise.
  • Accordingly, we are all parties to an implicit social contract which entails a mutual/reciprocal responsibility to provide for the basic needs of the other participants.*
  • Social justice, then, is grounded in assuring that our common needs are satisfied.**
  • In order to avoid exploitation, however, social justice also requires differential rewards, and punishments, for merit (equity) and a proportionate sharing of the costs (reciprocity).
  • A just society, therefore, can be defined as one in which all of these three fairness precepts (equality, equity, and reciprocity) are fully realized.

___________________

*  Historically, a failure to assure that these basic needs are met has undermined the social contract and has produced more or less serious social conflict. As Thomas Hobbes put it, “Seeing every man, not only by Right, but also by necessity of Nature, is supposed to endeavor all he can to obtain all that is necessary for his conservation, he that shall oppose himself against it, for things superfluous, is guilty of the war that thereupon is to follow.”

**  This social responsibility has been acknowledged in numerous public opinion surveys over the years, as well as in the extensive series of social preference studies by Norman Frohlich and Joe Oppenheimer and their colleagues.

Category: Publications

Evolution ‘On Purpose’: Teleonomy in Living Systems

Evolution ‘On Purpose’: Teleonomy in Living Systems

In this volume, a number of biologists and philosophers of science, greatly expand on the thesis that “teleonomy” (“internal” purposiveness and goal-directedness) is a unique and important property of living organisms and that it has exerted a major influence over the course of evolutionary history.

Superorganism

Superorganism

As evidence of our global survival crisis continues to mount, the expression “too little, too late” comes to mind. We all live in an interdependent world which has an increasingly shared fate. We are participants in an emerging global “superorganism” that is dependent on close cooperation.

Synergistic Selection

Synergistic Selection Book Cover

Synergistic Selection is being hailed as a major contribution to what is perhaps the greatest shift in our understanding of evolution since The Origin of Species. As Corning puts it: “Nothing about the evolution of biological complexity makes sense except in the light of synergy.... One of the great take-home lessons from the epic of evolution is that cooperation produces synergy, and synergy is the way forward. The arc of evolution bends toward synergy.”

The Fair Society

The Fair Society

The Fair Society calls for a new social contract based on three biologically-grounded fairness principles – equality in relation to our “basic needs,” equity in providing rewards for merit, and reciprocity to repay the benefits we receive from others and society.

Holistic Darwinism

Holistic Darwinism Book Cover

Calls for a paradigm shift, a refocusing of evolutionary biology to address the rise of complex systems over time and their emergence as distinct units of selection, with special reference to the causal role of synergy, thermodynamics, information theory, and the bioeconomic influences underlying evolutionary change.

Nature’s Magic

Nature's Way Book Cover

Nature’s Magic presents a bold new vision of the evolutionary process – from the Big Bang to the 21st century. Synergy of various kinds is not only a ubiquitous aspect of the natural world but it has also been a wellspring of creativity and the “driver” of the broad evolutionary trend toward increased complexity, in nature and in human societies alike.

Synergism Hypothesis

Synergism Hypothesis Book Cover

A major causal theory of complexity in evolution at all levels, based on the functional advantages arising from synergistic effects of varying kinds.

Copyright Notice

All of the papers included at this site have previously been copyrighted in various print media, including (mostly) professional conference proceedings and scholarly journals. These may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior authorization. "Commentaries" by ISCS associates will also be posted from time to time. These will include more informal "op-ed" material (and some short items for various publications) on complexity and complex systems, including applications to contemporary economic, social and political concerns.

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