I don’t have enough knowledge of the theory or the criticism to have any idea if your defense is appropriate to the attack. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_functionalism, I think my concerns about it would revolve around why “solidarity and stability” is used as the functional target, rather than something more fundamental like “individual competitive advantage”. My worry would be that structural functionalism seeks explanations on the wrong level for the evidence it uses, much like “functional biology” could be led astray with evolutionary just-so stories.
I don’t have enough knowledge of the theory or the criticism to have any idea if your defense is appropriate to the attack. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_functionalism, I think my concerns about it would revolve around why “solidarity and stability” is used as the functional target, rather than something more fundamental like “individual competitive advantage”. My worry would be that structural functionalism seeks explanations on the wrong level for the evidence it uses, much like “functional biology” could be led astray with evolutionary just-so stories.