Generalized Selected Effects Functions, the Liberality Problem, and Interspecific Competition

Abstract

This paper discusses the over-inclusiveness or liberality problem faced by Justin Garson’s generalized selected effects (GSE) theory of function. While discussions of this problem have focused on illustrations of it involving cases of sorting among abiotic items (e.g. rocks differentially eroding on a beach), I will here be concerned with another illustration: organisms acquiring functions through interspecific competition. Drawing on previous discussions, and bringing insights from community ecology, I will argue that the similarity-of-type clause Garson introduces for dealing with this illustration fails. Either the clause is interpreted in a way that is arbitrary, undermining Garson’s main rationale for the GSE theory, or it is interpreted in a more principled way, but one that recognizes interspecific competition as a genuinely function-bestowing selection process. Based on this, I will argue that a satisfactory formulation of the GSE theory should deal with such counterexamples by restricting GSE-function-bestowing processes to ones involving selection for service.