Abstract Book of the 13th International Conference on Research in Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year: 2025
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The Anatomy of Conflict: A Reductionist Approach to Understanding Peace
Seoyoung Ann
ABSTRACT:
Given that conflict is an inevitability, this paper attempts to understand why conflict occurs and how the negative consequences of conflict can be mitigated. International conflicts, for example, are prominent large-scale conflicts that need to be addressed. To do so, it is crucial to make a philosophical inquiry into the reasons behind smaller-scale conflicts, such as interpersonal ones. The reductionist method, which reduces the scale of the subject to analyze its components, is particularly useful for understanding conflict. This paper, through a reductionist approach, focuses on the level of small, interpersonal conflicts to uncover the underlying components of larger, international conflicts. Though there have been studies that present microanalyses of conflict, they often overlook a crucial factor—human nature. This article delves into not only the level of the individual but the level of the gene because interdisciplinary reductionism allows for the acknowledgement of the root causes of conflict. This paper conducts a review of the relevant literature on evolutionary biology to reveal how deeply rooted biological mechanisms influence conflict behavior. While conflict cannot be entirely avoided, acknowledging and addressing the root causes of conflict most effectively minimize its detrimental consequences. This paper concludes that the philosophical imperative of striving for peace best minimizes the consequences of conflict.
Keywords: conflict, reductionism, peace, interdisciplinary, philosophy