Reflections on the Logic of the Good Available from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com The failure of revolutionary utopian experiments is often blamed on a lack of commitment, courage, or self-sacrifice. This book shows that such failures are inevitable irrespective of particular theories of human nature. These societies must fail, in part because no single overarching theory of the good is either possible or desirable. And these societies must fail, in part, because social systems are adaptive systems. The mathematics of adaptive systems is entirely general and does not distinguish between mechanical, electronic, biological, or social systems. In complex adaptive systems, multiple automatic control mechanisms are essential to survival and any single central plan, no matter how benevolent, rational or enlightened that single source of control, will fail. The stability and the health of human communities must be achieved by checks and balances, agonists and antagonists, forces and counter-forces, and multiple decision makers rather than by central guidance and near perfect cooperation. Reflections on the Logic of the Good provides a powerful metaphysical and philosophical foundation for those who argue against the micromanagement of the individual, the economy, and the society. What emerges from this analysis is a non-relativistic ethical pluralism, an entirely general invisible hand theory, and a defense of the open mind, the open society, and the open universe. Recommendations: Political thinkers are right to admire the ability of biological organisms to maintain internal balance and adapt to a dangerous and frequently unpredictable environment, but Chana Cox is the first to get the biology right. Using insights from control theory and recent findings in physiological regulation, she explains how balance in living systems depends on a multiplicity of independent systems, often working at cross purposes. But the central question for Professor Cox is what this notion of harmony in plurality means for the essential human problem of deciding, in groups and as individuals, between competing ideas of the good. Her book forms the basis for a system of ethics that is both fully human and fully grounded in nature. -- Dan Meliza, University of Chicago