Developmental Direction and Welfare Goals. Some Comments On Functionalistic Evolutio Nary Theory About Highly Developed Socie Ties

Abstract

Neo evolutionary theories of functional thinking presume a naturalistic conception of history while this paper takes as its domain assumption an activistic humanistic point of view. If the functionalistic evolutionary theories of social growth, of social differentiation and integration and of developmental viability arc given futuristic interpretations for advanced societies, there seems to be lacking evidence for their validity and they seem to be partly detrimental to the realization of welfare goals on a global level. Other functionalistic theories are implicitly based on evaluative criteria in an ambiguous way e.g. in terms of freedom, democracy, equality or rationality. Developmental analyses of advanced countries would profit from an integration with welfare theory and policy science where developmental direction is more clearly related to welfare goals.