Law in Contemporary Society

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SociobiologyAndConsilienceTalk 3 - 04 Apr 2008 - Main.JesseCreed
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This topic is about socio-biological arguments and consilient argument structures. Specifically whether the interaction seen between Tharaud and Cerriere in Cerriere's Answer from “Lawyerland” has a biological basis (or whether it matters)
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 First, when Andrew was speaking about transactions costs (I was honestly a little lost because I don’t really understand how this is a problem of transaction costs) I was reminded of the danger of socio-biology. I’m sorry if I oversimplify your point Andrew, but I gather that you were at some point saying that studies in the area of biology, physics, etc… are more specific or precise. While socio-biology is currently discredited and associated with racists on the fringes of their field. I think that if you take some socio-biological arguments and rename them (cognitive science maybe?) they are then cloaked in the authority of what most consider a reliable enterprise --- an enterprise more reliable than the more subjective, field-based disciplines. Arguments made by scientists are more readily accepted than those made by sociologists or anthropologists. So if we are trying to create some sort of multi-disciplinary matrix to explain social facts, using this one theory that completely overwhelms all other theories might be a little counter productive. This is one reason why I find the use of socio-biology dangerous, if not entirely unhelpful.

-- ThaliaJulme - 03 Apr 2008

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>		To add to Julia's comments or maybe even regurgitate her arguments, I say that perhaps we are justified in distrusting sociobiological arguments insofar as their extremely low independent probability of explaining social phenomena does not outweigh the historically proven high risk of distorting that probability. Eben started out the entire discussion with the argument that it is intellectually irresponsible to discount the biological mode of describing human interactions. But perhaps it would be irresponsible to provide a biological explanation - whose explanatory probability is relatively low compared to other modes - in light of the historically high risk of organizational negligence in distorting these explanations for group advantage. In this sense, while I support the freedom to voice these arguments and for us to listen to them, our vigilant distrust ought to continue.

-- JesseCreed - 03 Apr 2008

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