The Human Question

Warning: This may be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off base. I see an analogy between the behavior of Lorenz's water-wheel and mixed bodies as understood by Aristotelians. The latter are able to act in new ways when the elements are balanced. This balance gives new forms of responsiveness to the environment, and this newness is not predetermined by the properties of the elements alone, nor by a mechanical combination thereof (think of sense organs as examples). Compare with Lorenz's water-wheel, which under some circumstances seems to act chaotically. BUT What seems like CHAOS when interpreted in terms of the lower level laws is itself an orderly response to some part of the environment. The water-wheel may be analogous to a transistor. But that is not to argue reductively, but only to point out the material substrate of higher level activities. Higher level acts are such because they unite, in ONE act, the many diverse lower level acts. *** later criticism: the above confuses...

Dawkins tells us he is a "good reductionist" (each time I hear this expression, I think of Glinda asking Dorothy "Are you good witch or a bad witch?"), and he takes science as helping to demonstrate this truth. On the other hand, he also agrees that ethical reasoning is a genuine form of human rationality, even though we can't derive our ethical principles from science. I will show how his ethics and reductionism collide with each other. But before I do that let me caution that my criticism does not hinge upon human immortality or the existence of God: those are matters for another discussion. Even one who is agnostic about or hostile to those theses will find Dawkins unable to deliver himself from the horns of the following dilemma. First let me set up the premise: Ethical reasoning cannot take place unless you accept your identity through time, for there is no agency without identity. That is, we must use the word "I" and "you" ...