Rules are not molecules, and institutions do not enter the bloodstream as statutes. Yet housing policy, credit allocation, work organization, food systems and environmental regulation can become biological reality by changing the conditions under which living beings must function.
This Debate tests the central claim of The Missing Bridge: social arrangements affect life through intermediate causal pathways rather than metaphorical identity. The speakers examine how rules shape access to food, housing, income, care, time, safety, information and environmental protection; how these conditions alter exposure and demand; and how the resulting load interacts with capacity, reserve, regulation and repair.
The exchange also presses the framework’s hardest questions. When is language such as “social pathology” illuminating, and when does it hide the need to demonstrate a mechanism? Can a shared life-value criterion guide inquiry without predetermining contested empirical conclusions? How should trade-offs, displaced burdens, different scales and time horizons be handled? The debate clarifies why ethical orientation and causal evidence must work together while remaining distinct.
Read the companion article:
The Missing Bridge: From Life-Value Onto-Axiology to a Causal Science of Living Coherence
Scholarly record:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22530235
This AI-generated programme is an interpretive companion to the published work. It is not the canonical scholarship, empirical validation or authorization for intervention. The published paper remains authoritative.