Life, death, and ontology: More on aspiration and exaggeration

Abstract

This article is a response to Fowers, Ainsley, and Lefevor, who offer a critique of a previously published article of ours that explored the problems of grounding aspiration and virtue in any ontology that does not allow for the possibility of an eternal soul. In this article, we argue that Fowers et al. have seriously misunderstood the nature and intent of our original argument and, therefore, fail to adequately respond to what we take to be a central concern that limits the viability of any approach to virtue and aspiration grounded in a naturalistic ontology for addressing the “Wherefore” question that lies at the heart of virtue and aspiration.

The Triumph of the Will: Evolutionary Psychology and the Conceptual Incoherence of Enhancement

“…The hypothesis that such things as consciousness or personal agency arise out of the meat and chemical of the nervous system is, thus, an example of strong emergence. Unfortunately, as we have argued elsewhere (see, e.g., Gantt & Williams, 2014; Williams & Gantt, 2013, 2014), the only examples of emergence that seem irrefutable in the literature on emergence are all examples of weak emergence. There are virtually no examples of strong emergence to be found anywhere.…”

Questioning Consilience and Autonomy in Self‐Determination Theory: A Critique and Hermeneutic‐Phenomenological Alternative

“…Ultimately, as Bedau (2010) notes, "all the evidence today suggests that strong emergence is scientifically irrelevant" (p. 51). Further, as Williams and Gantt (2014) note, "In the face of a lack of clear empirical or conceptual evidence, what is most often offered in the literature are suggestions that strong emergence 'could' happen, or that, because of an a priori commitment to scientific naturalism and a materialist orthodoxy, it 'must' happen" (p. 419). Thus, a central problem with accounts of strong emergence is that while they function in discourse as a means of addressing the gap between mind and matter, they do not actually describe a viable mechanism or process that could span the ontological gap.…”

“…While our analysis is aimed at SDT's emergentist explanation of autonomy, it is worth noting that similar arguments have been made about emergentist accounts of consciousness in general, and there are serious challenges to taking such accounts seriously. While scientists and philosophers have generally defended the meaningfulness and utility of so‐called “weak emergence” (Bedau, 1997; Chalmers, 2006), or the phenomenon of novel physical properties emerging from combinations of different physical substances, the possibility of “strong emergence” has been roundly criticized (see, e.g., Bedau, 2010; Gantt & Williams, 2014; Koons & Bealer, 2010; Nagel, 2012; Robinson, 2008; Williams & Gantt, 2014; Wilson, 2021).…”

“…Thus, the emergence of consciousness is often taken to be a matter of strong emergence insofar as consciousness, a fundamentally non‐physical phenomenon, is held to emerge out of the entirely physical entities and processes of the central nervous system. Although often employed in psychological explanations of the relationship between brain and mind or behavior, many scholars argue that there as yet exists no satisfactory explanation of precisely how the emergence of something as fundamentally different from physical matter as human consciousness might actually be possible (see, e.g., Bedau, 1997, 2010; Chalmers, 2006; Gantt & Williams, 2014; Taylor, 2015; Turkheimer et al., 2019; Williams & Gantt, 2014). 5 As noted above, this problem stems from profound differences between the characteristics evident at one level (e.g., the level of consciousness) and those found at a lower level (e.g., the brain).…”