About political.animals

This blog is about health as seen through the focal points of political theory, moral theory, theory of biology, ethics, law (international, natural), justice, history, human rights, national security, sociology and policy. I understand health to refer to a state or condition of a living thing, taking into account Aristotle's observation that "man is a political animal." The reference to a definition of "man" consciously refers to two ideas. First, ethics (or health) requires a theory of biology. We cannot discuss (as a philosophical matter) any of the foregoing subjects without knowing what a person, or other living thing, is. Are living things biochemical machines? Are they definable by the level of autonomy they have, with man at the apex of a more or less well described hierarchy of autonomy ranging beneath her from the great apes down through plants and into single-celled organisms? Or are we purely social animals, determined by socio-economic status or some other social determinant? These three determinisms dominate, mostly from a unacknowledged position of authority, the outcomes of discussions of health.

Health then, may simply be a word that has no instrinsic or unified meaning. Can it mean the same thing for a biochemical determinist as it does for a social determinist? Pragmatists use a hybrid approach, thinking of the human as the focal point of the three determinisms. However, even this position ultimately requires decisions about a theory of biology, if moral discourse is to proceed from the pragmatist's position. Moral theory cannot tolerate, in my opinion, a bifurcated essence because morality is a characteristic of a whole thing, it is values, ends, goods, or other concepts related to living things, their self-image and relationships. Biochemicals, nerve plexes and statistics cannot have moral status apart from the focal point of the living thing(s) of which they are characetistics. Since morality is about what to do in the future, it must be about things that can be said to have the capacity to contemplate the future, and make and act on decisions about what is contemplated. Living things and political organizations of living things fir the bill. If man is not a political animal, then how can we make moral sense of the world we live in?