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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:53 2006 |
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The background to my hasty intervention (which I am already beginning to
regret) is, of course, Margaret Thatcher's famous aphorism: 'There's no such
thing as society'; one of those self-evident propositions like Milton
Friedman's (was it he?) 'There's no free lunch'.
Further back in the intellectual tradition to which Lady Thatcher belongs,
is a passage with which historians of economic thought will be familiar:
'although we speak of communities as of sentient beings; although we ascribe
to them happiness and misery, desires, interests and passions; nothing
really exists or feels but individuals. The happiness of a people is made up
of the happiness of single persons. . .' (William Paley, Moral and Political
Philosophy (1785), chap XI.).
Individual football players 'really exist', and they have 'desires,
interests and passions' that may be gratified by the victory of their team
over another. The team does not 'really exist', which is why I called it an
abstraction. Useful, but dangerous when used anthropomorphically.
If, in order to make my (Paley's) point I have to concede 'rationality' to
dogs, so be it. What I do not want to do is to ascribe it to the pack.
Anthony Waterman
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