Autor: Byrne, Patrick H.

Buch: Beitrag zur Konferenz: World Views: Environment, Culture, Religion 7: 1-2 (March 2003)

Titel: Ecology, Economy and Redemption as Dynamic: The Contributions of Jane Jacobs and Bernard Lonergan

Stichwort: Emergente Wahrscheinlichkeit (emergent probability) - Befangenheit (bias)

Kurzinhalt: When biases interfere with the full development of intelligence, both the well-functioning of human systems as well as their underlying natural infrastructure is imperiled.

Textausschnitt: (5) Bias and Destruction

5a To say that human beings have an unlimited capacity to intelligently inquire into every sort of problem posed by their organized efforts does not, of course, mean that human beings actually do so. Unlike natural ecologies, innovations in human social and economic arrangements are all too frequently implemented without the fullness of intelligent self-correction. Real self-correction can occur only when the full complement of further pertinent questions and problems are taken into account and answered by with creative solutions. The possibilities of genuine social and economic self-correction are cut short, Lonergan argues, by the forces of what he terms "bias." He therefore resonates with Jane Jacobs complaint, "we no longer care" to understand "how things really do work, but only what kind of quick easy outer impression they give" (1993, 11). When biases interfere with the full development of intelligence, both the well-functioning of human systems as well as their underlying natural infrastructure is imperiled. (Fs)

5b Lonergan's account of emergent probability in the human order incorporates the fact of human failure to consider questions raised by their endeavors, failures to seek answers even to all the questions they do raise, and refusals to act according to what they come to understand as the best courses of action. He identifies four fundamental forms of bias that distort human collaborative efforts into dysfunctional constellations: psychological aberrations ("dramatic bias"), selfishness disregard ("individual bias"), ethnic, racial, class and gender discrimination ("group bias"), and the narrow-minded disregard for non-immediate consequences, such as long-term environmental impacts ("general bias"). Instances of bias are legion. They all operate by ignoring the reflective processes of asking and answering all the questions that are raised by complex situations. According to Lonergan, biased courses of action that evade intelligent self-correction initiate downward spirals of decline, degradation and destruction not only of natural but also of cultural environments. Biases and decline have their own "logic" - the logic of a vicious cycles that lead to great destruction, unless something acts to reverse their downward trends (1992, 214-23, 242-63). (Fs)