0482 Tomasello chops a good deal of philosophical wood.

His labors are complicated by the fact that the word, “team_2b“, is constituted by two actualities, productivity_1H and having fun_2V, causing the single term to polarize.  The two poles are captured in two slogans, “we work for food” and “web of ‘you-me relations”.

Here is a picture of the polarization of the intersection of team₂.

0483 In order to visualize the roots and the branches of Tomasello’s task, consider projecting  the polarization of the teamback in time from the era of joint intentionality to the era of individual intentionality.

The results are remarkable.

0484 Tomasello’s woodpile is now starting to look like it is full of explicit abstractions that will demand further explicit abstractions that will demand further explicit abstractions.

Did Tomasello axe for this complicated mess?

0484 On top of that, if one substitutes the underlying potentials for the constituting actualities, within the paradigm of polarity, then the explicit abstractions that Tomasello chops in the first session transmogrify into a pile of philosophical wood ready for a second session.

It may take a second to figure out the two preceding diagrams.

Just saying.

0485 With the difficulties embedded within Tomasello’s woodpile now visualized, I turn to the subsection titled, “Second Person Agency”.

The initial challenge of the era of joint intentionality concerns good and fun collaborative partners choosing good and productive collaborative partners.

The axe comes down and this log splits into guilt (for when one denies mutual respect to others) and responsibility (for being productive).  What about labels for when one provides others with mutual respect and when one is not so productive?

Uh-oh.  Now, Tomasello has two more logs to chop.

0486 Adding to this philosophical woodpile, consider the question of how joint intentional activity arises in the first place.  

Here, Tomasello offers a figure, depicting two cooperating individuals facing an elevated gray triangle, emblazoned with the words, “Joint commitment to role ideals”.  To me, that means “we”.  We encompass our joint commitment to well… whatever the team is supposed to do.  From the bowels of the triangle, an arrow descends, bearing the words, “legitimately self-regulate”.  The arrow terminates, hitting the ground (so to speak) with the words, “according to our responsibility”.  Then, the impact of the arrow spreads to the feet of the cooperating individuals, and emerges from each head as an arrow returning to we, the embodiment of a joint commitment to role ideals.

0487 Here is my parody of Figure 3.1.  

Hmmm.  Tomasello’s stick figures have turned into meditative circle-heads.

0488 Why depict the individuals as circle-heads, weighed down by explicit abstractions that characterize “we”, “legitimate”, “self-regulate” and “responsibility”?

These spoken labels are not available to team members collaboratively foraging in the era of joint attention.  What is there to picture or point to using hand-talk?  Instead, whatever these spoken labels refer to are adaptations that end up as phenotypic traits, expressions of hominin neural and physiological architecture.

The meditative figures reflect the two minds of Tomasello. One is committed to the role ideal of evolutionary anthropologist.  One is devoted to concocting explicit abstractions in accordance with that ideal.  These two guide Tomasello’s philosophical axe in order to chop purely relational beings into label-worthy fragments.

0489 Towards the end of chapter three, concerning the era of joint intentionality, Tomasello launches into a subsectiontitled, “The Original Ought”.

What is moral psychology?

What is second-person morality?

The answer, of course, depends on how one defines these labels.

Or, does it?

0490 Chapter four is titled, “Objective Morality”.

Why apply the qualifier, “objective”, instead of “third-person”?

0491 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s three interlocking movements, once again.

To me, the pattern is obvious.  But, what is the difference between Tomasello’s qualifier, “objective” and the pattern-completing qualifier, “third-person”.

Who could the third person be?

0492 Before addressing this question, I must step back and consider the primary social circle under cultural selection for each era of intentionality.

Of course, every social circle undergoes cultural selection.

Yet, it is crucial to recall which social circles are under more intense selection.

Which social circle stands in the place of interdependence_2b?

In each era, one social circle_2b stands out as the primary site where interdependence_2b emerges from and situates cooperation_1b in the normal context of cultural selection_3b.

0493 For the era of individual intentionality, the band_2b must maintain a balance between power_2H and affiliation_2V in the face of predation_1b.  The normal context is cultural selection_3b, in the always productive tropical forest_3b.

0494 For the era of joint intentionality, the team_2b must balance productivity_2H and having fun_2V in meeting the demands of obligate collaborative foraging_1b.  The normal context is cultural selection_3b, in seasonally and locally productive mixed forest and savannah_3b.

0495 For the era of collective intentionality, the community_2b must balance between something more powerful than productivity_2H and something more worthy of affiliation than having fun_2V.  Tomasello does not name these contributing actualities.  Instead, he covers both with the blanket term, “objective morality”.

Why does this work?

Well, isn’t something that is objectively moral more powerful than productivity and more worthy of affiliation than having fun?

Yeah, why not?

0496 Something that is objectively moral_2b emerges from and situates the potential of competing tribes, migrating due to a varying climate, and settling novel environments and ecologies_1b in the normal context of cultural selection during the Pleistocene_3b. 

0497 I ask, “If the band is a congery of family and intimate relations, at most, and one-person intentionality, in general, then the term, ‘first-person morality’ seems appropriate.  If the team is a web of ‘you-me’ relations and shared intentionality, then the descriptor, ‘second-person’ morality should apply.  If the community is a web of team relations,where ‘you-me’ relations abound and influence the operations of every social circle, then why doesn’t the label, ‘third-person morality’ apply?”

Why use the qualifier, “objective”. 

0498 Tomasello offers Figure 4.1 as an illustration.

Three stick figures dance around the totem that appears in Figure 3.1 (the one that more-or-less says, “We legitimately self-regulate according to our responsibility”).  But, now the triangle is an ellipse that basically says, “We express a collective commitment to right versus wrong”. A double arrow passes between each stick figure.  Then, a single dotted arrow passes from the head of each stick figure to the former triangle, now ellipse.  Then a solid arrow descends to the double arrows between each figure, showing that individual awareness proceeds to the ellipse and the ellipse fortifies the double-arrow binding each “you-me” relation.

I suppose that the triangle, now ellipse, represents objective morality.

0499 I could say that Figure 4.1 illustrates third-person morality because there are three stick figures.  But, that would be a cheap comment.

Instead, I offer an alternate picture, since the two figures in 3.1 represent a “you-me” relation.  Indeed, the two figures in 3.1 now represent every “you-me” relation in all the social circles, but most crucially, the community.

One third-person encompasses the two individuals in each and every “you-me” relation.

0500 Surely, something that is third-person moral is more powerful than productivity and more worthy of affiliation than having fun.

Plus, this third-person can be expressed as a fully grammatical hand-talk statement.

[POINT to self][POINT to others in conversation][PANTOMIME bringing sticks together and tying a string around them][POINT to my lips][POINT to sky]

Of course, the statement is nonsensical.

Perhaps, I can roughly translate the statement as, “We belong to the one who binds us together like sticks, without us knowing why.”

0501 What does the prior blog imply?

As far as hand talk is concerned, the era of joint intentionality corresponds to the evolution of sensible construction and the era of collective intentionality corresponds to the evolution of social construction.

0502 Social construction is not sensible, yet, it leads to sensible constructions that otherwise would have never been imagined using sensible construction alone.  How else can one culturally select for something more powerful than productivity_2H and for something more worthy of affiliation than having fun_2V?  When it comes to communities, mega-bands and tribes, sensible thinking is not enough.

Of course, if this sounds a little crazy, then consider A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah.  Also, consider the complementary views presented in How To Define The Word “Religion”.  Both are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0503 Meanwhile, know this.  As a man of science, the evolutionary anthropologist, Michael Tomasello, cannot model the natural history of human morality using the imagery of third-person morality.  Why?  The third-person is not “objective, in the modern sense of the word, but “suprasubjective” in the medieval scholastic sense of the word.

For the modern, “objective” is a proposition that holds despite what any of us think of it.  The objective proposition stands outside ourselves.

For the scholastic, “suprasubjective” is a proposition that both contains and transcends the subjectivity (or attitudes of) every one of us.  The suprasubjective proposition resides within and encompasses ourselves.

There is a difference.  Plus, this difference is most apparent with explicit abstraction.

0504 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hand-talk and hand-speech talk cannot perform explicit abstraction.  They can only facilitate implicit abstraction.  Therefore, long-lived traditions sustain intentional implicit abstractions that, for example, promote the harmony of social circles and select for individuals inclined to cogitate those collective implicit abstractions.  Those inclined are blessed with reproductive success.

So, what am I saying?  Where am I going with all this?

The era of collective intentionality must have the same relational structure as the previous eras.

However, because Tomasello hides what he is trying to discern behind the word, “objective”, the intersection is obscured.

Here is what I expect to see.

The slogan is a sign from a third person.

This slogan presents itself in the milieu of hand talk.

0505 Hand talk is very visual.

Today, railroads are very visual.

So, in order to keep on track, railroads will be my metaphor of choice.  

Imagine that railroads, everything about them, is owned by a third person, and that person talks to us through… um… the meaning, presence and message of… hmmm… trains and rails and schedules and all that stuff.

To this third-person track, I attend.  The following discussion runs on the third-person track through the same academic territory as chapter four, titled “Objective Morality”.   The tracks are as as different as the terms, “objectivity” and “suprasubjectivity”, yet the territory is still the era of collective intentionality.

0506 The third-person track begins with an implicit judgment that becomes embodied during the era of joint attention.  The team and its organizational objectives are inseparable.  They are one thing.

This inseparability coheres to Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  In this case, the real elements are the team and its organizational objectives.  Can I say that the team might associate to having fun_2V and the organizational objectives may associate to productivity_2H?  If so, the contiguity, which stands between the two real elements and therefore gets placed in brackets (for good nomenclature), is the term, [inseparable].

0507 Here is a comparison of the team hylomorphe with Aristotle’s hylomorphe, from which the term, “hylomorphe”, comes.  “Hyle” translates from Greek into English as “matter”.  “Morphe” translates as “form”.

0508 Okay, that will not do.  Let me try a different, more medieval sounding, hylomorphe.

0509 Ah, that is better.  The contiguity, [inseparable], matches the contiguity, [animates].

Of course, this hylomorphe presents a challenge for modern evolutionary anthropologists who hold the Scottish philosopher, David Hume, in high regard.  Only the operations of the team can be observed and measured.  The organizational objective must be inferred.

Does this make sense?

A scientist builds models on the basis of observations and measurements of teams.  So, I suppose that it is easy for the scientist to imagine that these models correspond to organizational objectives.  Such projections are plausible when organizational objectives must be sensible.  In other words, the organizational objectives and the team are [inseparable] in ways that make sense.  [Animates] relies on sensible construction in the era of joint intentionality.

0510 What about the era of collective intentionality?

A community may be regarded as a team of teams.  Each team has a single animating organizational objective.  Can I label this objective, “subject”?  Each team has an animating subject.  When I scale up to the community, an organizational objective contains the objectives of each team as animating subjects.  Can I label this monstrous organizational objective,“subject”?  If I can, then each community has an animating subject that encompasses all the team-subjects and, hopefully, resolves their contradictions.

0511 The slogan, “we work for food”, unfolds into “we work for something more than food”.

The slogan, “we are a web of ‘you-me’ relations” expands into “we are a web of ‘team-team’ relations”.

May I now present a massive parody of Figure 4.1?

Each triangle represents a team.

The third person is the team of teams.

0512 Imagine trying to elaborate the nature of the preceding figure using explicit abstraction?

Spoken words pile onto spoken words in a litany of statements, qualifications, and oh-that-reminds-me-ofs.

Tomasello is a disciplined scientist.  He is very organized.  But, the above image breaches every item on his list because it composes the medium upon which the list is inscribed.  Even though each and every one of us appears to be a tabula rasa, a blank slate, at the time of birth, evolution has already contoured that slate so that cultural traits that conform to its apparently blank surface will absorbed like ink into parchment.

0513 Does collective intentionality bring diverse teams into harmony by putting their team organizational objectives into perspective?

Does collective intentionality bring different social circles into harmony as well?

0514 Chapter four strives to explain how second-person morality lays the groundwork for later hominin’s group-minded “objective” morality, characterized by (1) the creation of “objective” normative values of right and wrong, (2) nascent institutions (broadly described as conventions, manners and traditions) and (3) the obligation of a person with a moral identity to the moral community.

0515 In Razie Mah’s framework, two actualities reflect one another.  One is an actuality₂ that makes an institution within the community into a person writ large.  The other is an actuality₂ that makes an individual within the community into an institution writ small.

0516 Where do I get these metaphors?

Consider A Primer on How Institutions Think, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  This primer reviews a book by anthropologist Mary Douglas.

0517 Here is a picture of those two actualities.

0518 The three characteristics listed by Tomasello may be found within these two hylomorphes.  Surely, without a sense of right and wrong (1), an organizational objective cannot animate an institution…. er… organization.

Institutions are not the same as organizations.  A team is an organization that has an obvious mission.  The mission is captured in the slogan, “we work for food”.  Everything about the team concerns sensible construction.  Only later, when the community overflows with normative values, not only of right and wrong, but of all sorts of dichotomies, do teams engage in works of art (that is, social construction).

0519 Institutions put organizations into perspective (2). If an organization works to get a job done, then the institution puts that job into the perspective of right and wrong, or some other dichotomy.  In short, institutions have souls.  Organizations have bodies.  So, when an organizational objective [animates] an organization, the entire being acts like a person writ large.

0520 Finally, an institution’s organizational objective interpellates a person’s perceptive soul (3).  The term “interpellates” is composed of two Latin words.  “Inter” is often translated as “between” and “pellates” means “to call someone”.  The call comes from the third person, the institution, and is received by a person in community.  After receiving the call, the perceptive soul brings the reactive body into an act of collective intentionality (that is, into an organization).  Thus, a person becomes like an institution writ small.

0521 Well, the term, “third-person morality” is not what it first appears to be.

It may be also be called, “third-category morality”.

If second-person morality concerns the rights and the wrongs that go into productivity_2H and having fun_2V, in the sensible constructions of team activities, then this third-person morality must concern the rights and wrongs that go into something more than productivity_2H, such as an organizational objective_2H, and that go into something more than having fun_2V, such as the joy of being called_2V or the satisfaction of a moral identity_2V.

0522 The third-person of third-person morality is not a third individual, as depicted in Figure 4.1.  It is a person writ large, belonging to Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Third-person morality_C brings the actuality of second-person morality_B into relation with the potential of first-person morality_A.

Here is a picture of how each hylomorphe associates to an element in the nested form.

0523 Now, I portray a the third-person morality of Figure 4.1.

Does this look familiar?

Each gray figure in the preceding cartoon, if released from the “you-me” relationship of the team (in blue) and the institutional relationship (in green), could easily return to a primal world of power_2H and affiliation_2V.  To any person in our current Lebenswelt, this return would be experienced as a nightmare beyond imagination.

The individuals in team-related “you-me” relations (the figures in gray) live in a world of productivity_2H and having fun_2V (the figures in blue).  This is the sweet spot for many in our current Lebenswelt.  This is a world of sensible construction.  Everything makes sense because spoken words refer to things that can be pictured or pointed to.

Obviously, we all agree

Don’t we?

Sensical things consist in matter [substantiating] form.  Implicit abstractions are obvious.  Explicit abstractions are technical.  And yet, the run-of-the-mill person senses that, if there is no third-person, our world of sensible constructionmay be swamped by inner conflict or external threat.

So, what is a common person to do in our current Lebenswelt?

Join a congregation.

Especially, join a team within that congregation.

0524 Each green figure puts more than one “you-me” relation (blue figure) into perspective.  A congregation manifests something more than productivity_2H and something more than having fun_2V.

A government agency does not.  Government does something less than productive and something less than having fun. Taxation is not the same as spontaneously sharing abundance.

Faith is the more than sweet spot for many in our current Lebenswelt.  Faith is a world of social construction.

Yet, faith faces a difficulty.  Nothing makes sense, because spoken words refer to things that cannot be pictured or pointed to.  Nonsensical things consist in being [substantiating] form, which seems a lot like matter [substantiating] form, but who knows?  Beings are relational structures, which may or may not entangle matter. So, beings can be… um… difficult to comprehend, yet seem real.  Yes, spoken words can name beings, that seem actual and support implicit abstractions.  These implicit abstractions then support convictions that resist analysis through explicit abstraction (using spoken words).

Which is to say, spoken words can be misleading and slippery.

And… what does that mean?

In our current Lebenswelt, a snake resides in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

0525 Institutions_C become persons writ large.  Individuals in community_A become institutions writ small.

Clearly, my discussion of third-person morality runs on a parallel track to Tomasello’s discussion of objective morality in chapter four.  They run through the same anthropological territory, but they stop at different stations.

At this junction, I am tantalizingly close to articulating the intersection for Era 2.

Here is the general version.

0526 The community has a slogan.  What that slogan is, I do not know.

0527 What do I know?

The community latches all the productive_2H and fun-loving_2V teams behind the locomotive of one big slogan.

Also, the community spawns its own teams.  These teams are more than productive_2H and more than fun-loving_2V.  Teamsare interpellated into being by institutions within the community.

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the community (150) harmonizes all other social circles: family (5), intimates (5), teams (15), bands (50), mega-bands (500) and tribe (1500).

0528 What is a good substitute for more than productivity_2H?

Does an interpellating organizational objective_2H fit the slot?

0529 What potentiates an organizational objective_2H?

Perhaps, the power of deservingness_1H will do.  An organizational objective_2H emerges from the power of deservingness_1H that comes from serving the “me” of a person writ large. An organizational objective_2H situates the potential of the power of deservingness_1H with a recognition_2H that an individual deserves power_2H within the institution_3H.

So, the power of deservingness_1H is situated as deserving of power_1H.

Is that confusing enough?

I love explicit abstractions.

0530 What is a good substitute for more than having fun_2V?

Well, congregations are about more than having fun.

Tomasello discusses these types of issues in the subsection titled, “Culture and Loyalty”.

An institution_C calls the individual_A to align his or her individual perceptions_A with the perceptions of a person writ large_C.

0531 Surely, interpellation brings a common cultural ground_C into relation with individual cultural practices_A (or “conventions”).

Interpellation keys into Tomasello’s explicit terminology, including “identification”, “loyalty”, “legitimization” and “moralization”.

0531 Interpellation offers a societal identity_2V to the person_A who aligns his or her judgments, perceptions and feelings to the person writ large_C.  The Germans have a word for this.  The word is “denkalign”.  “Denk” means “thought”.  If a person may be characterized as a perceptive soul [animates] a reactive body, then denkalignment offers a way for the perceptive soul to train its body’s emotions.

0533 Oh, now I can start to appreciate what Tomasello means by the term, “objective morality”.

Through denkalignment, I train my emotions according to a worldview that exists independently of what anyone thinks of it.

0534 Here is a picture of the substitutions.

0535 Natural philosophy is not the same as natural history.

Modern science offers objective natural history.  “Objective” means “independent of what anyone in particular thinks about it”.

Does that imply that “objective” must be true?

Premodern philosophers and scholastics offer a natural philosophy that starts with the recognition of (1) material things as hylomorphes where matter [substantiates] form and (2) immaterial things as hylomorphes where being [substantiates] form.

Clearly, immaterial things do not exist independently of what anyone in particular thinks about them, because they are what people are thinking.  Immaterial things structure human thought.

0536 Plus, immaterial things cannot be directly observed or measured with scientific instrumentation.

So, how is a scientist supposed to build a model, based on observations and measurements?

0537 Does Tomasello wrestle with angels… or maybe… demons?

Thank God that angels and devils are not material things.  Science can safely ignore them.  Why?  The positivist intellect can only build models based on observations and measurements of material things.

Indeed, how can “angels” and “devils” be material things?

They are merely spoken words, labeling what (superstitious) humans project from their own imaginations.  Their imaginations are the potentials underlying their perceptive souls [animating] their reactive bodies.  Their imaginations project internal actualities onto the external world.  Such projections reflect their own internal successes or failures at moral self-governance.

But, if this is so, then the above paragraph constitutes a scientific model that accounts for observations and measurements of phenomena associated with the terms, “angels” and “devils”.

Is that not curious?

0538 Here, I return to diagrams developed in Looking at Tomasello’s Book (2014) “A Natural History of Human Thinking”, and similar examinations (see point 0389).

We live in a world of judgment.  A judgment is a triadic relation with three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.

0539 Here is a judgment as a purely relational being.  One could say that it is “objective”, because the relation exists despite what anyone thinks of it.

0540 Okay, as one watches the empty slots filled in, does that change its objectivity?

According to the Latin Age scholastics, if two of the empty slots are filled in by the universal aspects of an impression (a species impressa intelligibilis) and the intelligible aspects of a perception (a species expressa intelligibilis), then the resulting judgment may be labeled as a kind of intelligence (a species intelligibilis).

0541 Here is a picture.

Is this judgment_2c still “objective”?

I suppose that it_2c exists independently of what anyone thinks about it.

0542 At the same time, I can say that an impression_2a (a species impressa_2a) is subjective and a perception_2b (a species expressa_2b) is both objective (since it objectifies an impression_2a) and intersubjective (since members of a group share intentionality_1b and imagination_1b).

So, a species intelligibilis_2c, having the “objective” relational structure of judgment, may also be labeled, “suprasubjective”, because it_2c puts the intersubjective perception_2b and the subjective impression_2a into perspective.

0543 Here is a picture of the scholastic interscope of the way humans think.

0544 Now, I may perform some substitutions.

For the content-level actuality_2a, species impressa_2a or impression_2a, I substitute the hylomorphe, active body [substantiates] sensate soul_2a.

For the situation-level possibility_1b, the potential of ‘situating content’_1b, I substitute the potential of shared intention and imagination_1b.

For the situation-level actuality_2b, species expressa_2b or perception_2b, I substitute the hylomorphe, perceptive soul [animates] reactive body_2b.

For the perspective-level possibility_1c, the potential of ‘contextualizing the situation’_1c, I substitute the potential of a person as an institution writ small_1c.

For the perspective-level actuality_2c of species intelligibilis_2c, I substitute the term, “suprasubjective judgment_2c“.

0545 After all these substitutions are made, here is a picture of an updated scholastic interscope of the way humans think.

0546 The previous blog not only demonstrates that Tomasello’s natural history of human morality ties back to the natural history of human thinking, the origins of social communication and the cultural origins of human cognition, but it also moves me closer to bringing the intersection for Era 2 into alignment with David Hume’s views of the nature of human morality.

How so?

0547 Recall the nested form that comes into being during the era of collective intentionality.

The perceptive soul [animates] reactive body_2bA, or the perception_2bA, characterizes the individual in community_A.  An organizational object_2aC, belonging to the content-level of an interscope corresponding to society_C, animates an organization_B by interpellating the individual in community_A and bringing the perceptive soul_2bA into denkalignment.

0548 The institution is the third person of third-person morality.

You and me share intentions in joint attention in second-person morality.

You or me are the individuals in first-person morality.

0549 The institution goes with the society_C interscope.

You and me on the same team (or social circle) goes with an organization_B interscope.

You or me are humans who think in the way that the scholastics propose in the individual in community_A interscope.

0550 The interscopes of society_C, organization_B and individual in community_A belong to a primal category-based nested form, which is home to third-person morality.

0551 So, does perceptive soul [animates] reactive body_2bA bring the individual_A into organization_B?

Well, no, because denkalignment brings the perceptions_2bA into alignment with an interpellation by an organizational objective_2aC.  Another way to say the actuality is, “The perceptive soul trains skills and emotions according to tradition.” Perceptions_2bA characterize the individual in community_A.

Well, yes, get on board the denkalignment train.

0552 So, what brings the individual_A into organization_B?

It must be a suprasubjective judgment_2cA or “conviction_2cA” emerging from (and situating) the possibility that a person is an institution writ small_1cA in the normal context of making sense_3cA.

0553 The following associations characterize the living-world of third-person morality.

0554 At this point, I may propose a loop whereby social circles adapt to one another in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Society contains individuals writ large.

Today, we may call these individuals, “institutions”, but such a word cannot be fashioned in hand-talk or hand-speech talk.  “Institution” is a purely symbolic label.  “Institution” is an explicit abstraction.  Hand-talk and hand-speech talk only facilitate implicit abstraction.  So, our ancestors can not name institutions, not like the way that we do today.

For example, after a person dies, we bring the corpse to the tree of life.

Tree of life?

[IMAGE tree][POINT to breath while inhaling][POINT to sky and exhale]

A gathering to mourn is an institution.

0555 The individual writ large_C interpellates other individuals_A.

Individuals_A denkalign with the interpellation_C.  In this, they serve as institutions writ small.

Individual convictions_2cA animate each organization_B, each team_B, and each traditional manifestation of a social circle_B.

Then, the events and processes of each organization_B, each team_B, and each tradition_B are contextualized by an individual writ large_C.  Such is the tree of life.

0556 Years later, the child of the deceased will say.

[NAME of deceased][IMAGE root][IMAGE tree][POINT to breath while inhaling][POINT to sky while exhaling]

0557 The tree of life represents the living and the dead.

The following proposed intersection for the era of collective intentionality does not quite capture poetic representation.

0558 I ask, “What tells me to bring the corpse of my father to the tree of life for preparation for burial?”

Does the tree of life tell me?

Is the tree of life an individual writ large capable of talking to me through its own version of hand talk?

Surely, the tree is planted by the one who gives, without us knowing why.

[POINT to sky] [CIRCLE POINT to all around][CIRCLE POINT to audience][PANTOMIME “give”]

0559 Perhaps, the apparent inadequacy of the prior intersection comes from the fact that the organizational objectiveassociates to society_C and social identity associates to the individual in community_A.  So, organization_B polarizes between society_C and individual_A.

That may be technically correct, but it does not move me towards the foundations of morality proposed by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume.

0560 So, what if I return to the hylomorphe that associates to organization_B?

What if I substitute suprasubjective judgment or conviction for organizational objective_2H?

What if I substitute social circles for societal identity_2V?

0561 Then, the horizontal potential changes from the power of deservingness to… something close to the modern concept of “justice”.

 And, the vertical potential changes from denkalignment with a person writ large to… something close to the modern concept of “fairness”.

Here is a picture.

0562 Thus, I arrive at the same final station as Tomasello does, in his natural history of human morality.

All may now disembark.

Plus, I arrive at a novel way to define key words that Hume applies to human morality.

0563 Justice_1H underlies convictions_2H.  Justice_1H is also the potential_1H of underlying organizational objectives_2H. Without justice_1H, an organizational objective_2aC will fail to interpellate individuals in community_A.  With justice_1H, an organizational objective_2aC not only successfully calls the individual_A into organization_B, but the individual_A proves his or her worth.  Worth is honor that is not bestowed, but rather demonstrated through committed action.  With justice_1H, deservingness has power, not the establishment’s definition of “power”, rather, the power of righteousness_1aC.  If justice_1Hprevails, then establishment_3H power_2H is bestowed upon the deserving_1H.

0564 Fairness_1V underlies coming together into organization_2V.  Fairness_1V is more than having fun_1V.  Fairness_1V is the prerequisite for having fun.  If I agreed to play a game, then discover that the game is unfair (that is, rigged), then why continue playing?  The game is no longer fun.

One challenge faced by our ancestors in the era of collective intentionality becomes obvious.  Some teams are more productive than others.  Some teams have more fun than others.  So, if team members start to denkalign with a team, as if the team provides their societal identity, then pride (in productivity) and guilt (in having good fun) are countered by resentment and jealousy (by those who denkalign with other teams).  

Consequently, the team cannot provide a person with their societal identity.

There is someone more encompassing than any team.  That larger than life person embraces all teams, from way back to now to way to come. That third person interpellates every you and every me.  That person planted the tree of life.  We are the roots.  We are the branches.