One argument linking morality and immortality speaks of punishment and reward: the following argument doesn't. We discover moral principles by thinking of our actions (and those of others) as belonging to a society that persists: in fact, persistence is integral to that discovery. When we think globally about morality, we think as if all rational beings do or could belong to a quasi-society that persists. And persists. And persists. And that's a kind of immortality that we seem to assume when talking about morality at the cosmic level.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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