Owen Flanagan

James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy

Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience

Co-Director Center for Comparative Philosophy

Duke University

National Chung Cheng University Chia-Yi Taiwan

June 8, 2009

DARWIN’S DANGEROUS IDEA

Humans are 100% Animal

The Philosopher’s Vocation

“The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is

to understand how things in the broadest

possible sense of the term hang together in the

broadest possible sense of the term.” (Wilfrid

Sellars, 1960)

WHAT NEEDS RECONCILING

The Humanistic Image -- roughly and amalgam of the “wisdom of the ages” as offered by wise sages, artists, philosophers, writers & “common sense” which explains and/or justifies our practices “THE BACKGROUND”

The Scientific Image -- that tries to explain the “real or true” nature of things

Gilbert Ryle 1949

Cartesian Dualism is the Official Doctrine

Mind and Body are separate and distinct

substances (res extensa & res cogitans)

and interact in both directions.

The Ghost “in” the Machine

Demands of HumanismDON’T MESS WITH

RATIONALITY• Reasons-sensitivity• Rational deliberation• Rational accountability

MORALS & the MEANING OF LIFE • Moral accountability• The capacity to do otherwise• Unpredictability• Political Freedom & especially• “Spiritual Spaces of Meaning”

But

Rationality & Meaning, Morals, and the

Meaning of Life are to some extent

“GLUED” Together by Mind-Body

Dualism

The Problem for Today

• What are the prospects of reconciling Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection and The Humanistic Image?

• Can the Naturalistic, Scientific picture of Persons and Mind be worked out is a way that is truthful but not disenchanting? In a way compatible with Darwinism and our best Science(s) of the Mind?

Situation Prior to Darwin 1859

TWO WORLDS HYPOTHESIS was credible:

World 1: Explained and governed by immaterial forces (RES COGITANS)

World 2: Explained and governed by material forces/ processes (res extensa)

NOMA = Non-Overlapping Magesteria

THE WORRY

“Man’s supremacy over the earth; man’s power of articulate speech; man’s gift of reason; man’s free will and responsibility… -- all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading notion of the brute origin of him who was created in the image of God.”

(Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford 1860)

Ever Since Darwin

Unified theory of the origin of life, mind, and meaning on earth

Isn’t is rational to accept it? It is simpler than the dualistic alternative(s) & it is well-confirmed.

What Naturalism Is1. Philosophy should 'respect', 'be informed by', 'wholeheartedly

accept' the methods and claims of science; 2. When a well-grounded philosophical claim and an equally well-

grounded scientific claim are inconsistent (whatever 'equally well-grounded' means), the scientific claim trumps;

3. Philosophical questions are not distinct from scientific questions -- they differ, if they do differ, only in level of generality;

4. Both science and philosophy are licensed only to describe and explain the ways things are;

5. Both philosophy and science are, in addition to the businesses of description and explanation, in the business of giving naturalistic justifications for epistemic and ethical ideals and norms;

Meanings of Naturalism Continued

6. There is no room, nor need, for the invocation of immaterial agents or forces or causes in describing or accounting for things;

7. Mathematics and logic can be understood without invoking a platonistic (non-naturalistic) ontology;

8. Ethics can be done without invoking theological or platonistic foundations. Ethical norms, values, and virtues can be defended naturalistically.

9. Naturalism is another name for materialism or physicalism; what there is, and all there is, is whatever physics says there is.

10. Naturalism is a form of non-reductive physicalism; there are genuine levels of nature above the elemental level.

Meanings of Naturalism Continued

11. Naturalism is a thesis that rejects both physicalism and materialism; there are natural but ‘non-physical’ properties, e.g., informational states.

12. Naturalism claims that most knowledge is a posteriori; 13. Naturalism is indifferent to claims about whether knowledge

is a priori or a posteriori, so long as whatever kind of knowledge exists can be explained, as it were, naturalistically.

14. Naturalism is, first and foremost, an ontological thesis, that tells us about everything that there is.

15. Naturalism is, first and foremost, an epistemic thesis, which explains, among other things, why we should make no pronouncements about 'everything that there is.'

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein writes:

4.111 Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences.

4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.

4.1121 Psychology is no more closely related to philosophy than any other natural science [is related to philosophy].

4.1122 Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other hypothesis in natural science.

So what about 4.1122?

Mind-Body Dualism

Before Darwin -- logical & scientific problems with M-B dualism, interaction.

After Darwin: These plus genealogy makes M-B dualism straightforwardly implausible. “The Mind is the Brain” (in some sense or “the embodied brain” or “the embodied brain in the world”). We are mammals with 80 years give or take and then we are gone for good.

Epiphenomenalism

A Natural Mind

Subjective Realism

The Problem Remains

So what about Reason, Rationality, and Morals -- Morality

-- in a Naturalistic,Post Darwinian Age?

Rationality Naturalized?

Morality Naturalized?