Author: Curt Doolittle

A THEORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION, CRITICISM AND MORALITY

If empiricists are correct, and that all memories are the product of observations (both internal and external), and that intuition serves as a search engine(which cognitive scientists seem to agree at present), and imagination a hypothetical engine(again a search engine), then all mental content originates with reality, all knowledge as theory, and the function of thinking, reasoning, and science are to criticize imaginary intuitions, hypotheses to see if they can take the standing of theories (which is analogous to belief), and law (which is analogous to norm, ritual, or sacred tenet).

The difference between justificationary and critical points of view buried unconsciously in our language, is that feeling, belief, knowledge and truth describe a justificationary epistemology, and intuition, hypothesis, theory and law describe a critical epistemology.

I would add that I believe (hypothesize) justificationary epistemology is necessary in highly interdependent small polities where most reproduction and production functions as a commons in which all members are shareholders; and therefore the use of most property, is as common property, and so even normative rules (the normative commons) must be justified to others. Whereas under an advanced economy, we are individual actors, and need not justify to others how we make use of resources – only that we do no harm to them. Under both Justification and Criticism we must warranty our words and deeds. Just as we do in all of life.

This is probably the correct interpretation of why we evolved from systems of beliefs (justifications within a commons) to systems of theories (criticisms under individual property rights) – we must claim knowledge is ethically and morally obtained and practiced. But what constitutes moral action changes as property is increasingly privatized. We move from needing permission to use property, to not. But in the process, we increasingly privatize responsibility for our actions as well.

It appears that all justification and criticism are merely the conditions of warranty under different structures of property. And that we have increasingly applied our cooperative methodology to those areas of the world where cooperation is no longer involved.

In other words, it was necessary to privatize property to gain the normative permission to seek the truth. Having privatized it, we have now obtained a condition where we see that the only truth possible is critical. And having abandoned morality from the pursuit of truth, it appears I am unconsciously, unknowingly, and unwittingly, reinserting it into the search for truth as a constraint upon the externalities produced by our search, in an effort to constrain people who would take advantage of the justificationary system for criminal, unethical, and immoral purposes to which it has been put for the past century and a half.

More to come as I drill into this further.