In Defence of Dualism

Great Debates
1

To start, I would like to advise any readers and participants that I do not necessarily agree or disagree with Dualism. My defense of such amounts to playing devil’s advocate.

In the course of debate on philosophical implications of a memory-inhibiting drug, the question arose whether one can experience a painful medical procedure while under the effects of the drug[1]. One response was that despite the memory-inhibiting drug, one’s “self” still experienced the procedure[2]. Another response was that one’s “self” is but the most current continuity of memory, so by administering the drug and operating, a doctor is inflicting pain on a “temporary but fully sentient person”, like a temporary clone[3].

To this discussion I brought a dualist’s point of view: the memory-inhibiting drug severs the connection between body and soul; a body without a soul is no longer a person and cannot feel; moral rights over the body are vested in its soul, and when the drug wears off the soul is entitled to get the body back in good condition[4]. Needless to say, I met some opposition and this thread is my defense of that form of dualism.

So what form of dualism am I defending? I define Dualism as the belief that there are two forms of substance - physical reality and non-physical, spiritual substance. This is in opposition to monism, where only the physical reality exists, and pluralism, where there are more than two forms of substance. I also refer to these two substances as realms.

In the spiritual realm there exist souls. Souls are entities linked to bodies in the physical realm, and they are the only entities of either substance that can truly be said to “experience” or be “sentient” or “conscious”. By “linked” I mean that a physical sensation translates into an experience, or qualia, for the soul. Through a soul’s link to it’s physical body arise moral actions - harm to a physical body is harm to the soul it is linked to; likewise with pleasure. For this reason, I identify “me” and “I” and “self” as the spirit linked to “my body”. Properly my body is not the same as “me”, although I might say so in colloquial. You can say that the physical realm causally acts upon the spiritual realm.

The physical realm needs no explanation except that there are no direct, causal interactions from the spiritual realm onto the physical realm. No physical being can directly observe the spiritual realm; therefore, the spiritual realm is non-falsifiable and “beyond the scope of science”.

In the case of death or unusual circumstances, if the soul will never reconnect with the body then it forfeits any moral rights over the body. This is not a given for all forms of dualism (some might believe in reincarnation), but for my form of dualism, I will say that severing the soul from the body creates a philosophical zombie.

Now I assert Dualism is largely compatible with monistic philosophies, say materialism. Only in corner cases do differences arise, for example, when a dualist might think the soul has been severed from the body. Perhaps a memory-inhibiting drug does the trick. A materialist might object to a consensual, painful procedure even if no memories are formed. My form of dualism might be alright with the same procedure, because to a dualist, the pain was being inflicted on a zombie with no moral rights so long as it is returned in good condition.

Now why Dualism when it is so much simpler to imagine one substance than two? We have no evidence of this “spiritual realm” and by my definition, we never will have any. It’s unscientific, it’s bonk!

I defend Dualism from the position of a non-dualist observing moral relativism in the physical world and concluding that any universal moral truth is scientifically unprovable. He is thus given a choice between a world without morals and one of many unprovable moral systems. In rational self interest our non-dualist decides that existance without morals is undesirable, that if there are no provable morals we should act as if there were. I assert Dualism is the most intuitive and pragmatic basis for a moral society.

I concede in advance that a more pragmatic basis for moral society would convince me to abandon dualism. I would do the same if I were convinced that a moral society were undesirable or unnecessary. Finally it is possible that my interpretation of Dualism is self-defeating or inconsistent.

I look forward to the debate.

~Max

[1]https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21595972&postcount=1
[2]https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21598783&postcount=4
[3]https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21599207&postcount=16
[4]https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21599207&postcount=16

2

You seem to be contradicting yourself. If drugs affect the soul, and can harm it, but the soul has no effect on the physical body, how do you account for the changes to the mind that come from drugs? Is the mind linked to the body but there is a soul that duplicates the mind?
If the soul is unfalsifiable, why should we even consider it?

3

I consider the soul and mind to be one and the same. This means you cannot observe changes in the mind, when “mind” means “soul”.

There is another sense of the word “mind”, namely the effects or state of the brain. The brain remains observable in my form of dualism.

If you are wondering whether the brain makes decisions or the soul makes decisions, my answer is that the brain makes decisions with no input from the soul. This is not the case for all forms of Dualism, but it is so in mine.

My form of Dualism might differ from philosophies of monism because this decision-making brain should act in the interest of its soul, not merely the physical body. I hold this as essential to a moral society.

You should consider acting as if there were a soul because it is more intuitive and makes for a more sound system of morality than the alternatives.

~Max

4

Is it Friday evening already?

(My philosophy lecturer told me that’s the only time dualists crawl out of the shadows and get together :stuck_out_tongue: )

5

Appeal to consequences? Really?

6

The argument against dualism is simple and twofold:
a) a soul is an unnecessary entity, it adds nothing that pure physicalism doesn’t already explain.
b) definitions of the soul are invariably themselves incoherent, or rely on otherincoherent things like qualia.

7

Adhering to dualism is not wishful thinking if the decision was made rationally. Maybe you prefer to see my comparison of different moral systems. I can try writing that out later today or tomorrow, then you can pick yours from the list and defend it against my critiques.

~Max

8

It’s not quite a get-together yet.

~Max

9

To my knowledge pure physicalism does not explain consciousness and the strongest form of physicalism refutes such. Neither can it sustain any moral society. Without consciousness, each person in a society will find it in their best interest to be perfectly immoral and get away with it. Society could not exist.

There is also the problem of whether a whole person is more than the sum of it’s parts. If you were to take a small chunk of my body away, is what remains still me? How many chunks do you remove before the Max ceases to be Max? What is your answer to the clone problem? The teleporter problem? Organ transplants? Cyborgs?

If by incoherent you mean “not connected to physical reality” or “unable to be described without making references to nonphysical entities” then you are assuming the conclusion.

~Max

10

Appeal to consequences is not rational, and that’s what your argument, which I quoted, amounts to. It’s Pascal’s Wager for the soul instead of God.

11

Of course it does.

Dennett even made thatthe title of his book on the subject.

Whyever not?

Are you using some definition of “consciousness” other than the usual?

Why is that a problem? Emergence is a real phenomenon, not a “problem”.

Continuum fallacy now? That’s hardly advancing your argument.

What clone problem?

What transporter problem?

I’m … for them? As long as they’re not Chinese?

Already exist. Is that supposed to be a moral problem?

No, I mean “internally logically inconsistent in its purported properties”, the usual meaning of “incoherent”.

12

Wishful thinking is compatible with pragmatism, or arguments of necessity or rationality. A decision to support a desired outcome is rational if the outcome is desired. If that sounds tautological, it is.

The fallacy of argumentum ad consequentiam is a wholly separate beast, which doesn’t apply because I do not claim Dualism to have a truth value at all. I will say it more plainly: my conclusion is that Dualism leads to the most desirable consequence. Technically this is an argument to the consequence but it is not the fallacy of that name.

~Max

13

I will have to read the book to properly respond to this.

~Max

14

I didn’t say it was a fallacy, but it isn’t a convincing argument because, as you state, it is one big honking tautology. Those don’t really meet my baseline for “rational argument”. They have their uses in logic, but not as the sum total of an argument, which is what this amounts to.

15

It is not quite a fallacy until I say “therefore, there is no difference between me and not-me”. Your potential answer that there are degrees of self-identity or “me-ness” is unsettling, to say the least.

Even so, you cannot dismiss the question; these situations could conceivably come up in real life and I need an answer to inform my response.

Let us say I am driving and I see a severed hand in the middle of the road. It has clearly been there for a while and has been driven over a couple times. Assume there is no law dictating any particular response. I don’t have time to stop but I can still call police. Should I bother swerving out of my way to avoid rolling over the hand?

It makes my decision making much more complicated than under Dualism. With dualism, the soul is separate from the body and so the soul continues to retain identity no matter how much you mutilate the body; however, if the brain permanently stops processing sensations the souls rights over that part of the body are forfeit.

~Max

16

If that wasn’t where you were leading to, why bring it up?

I’m completely settled, and I don’t even believe in the unity of self…

17

How?

CMC fnord!

18

You might feel settled but I don’t - not when I’m defending Dualism. Real life situations can force you to make a choice - sometimes even a Hobson’s choice. If I am to convert to physicalism I need some sort of framework on where to draw the line. I am either running over the hand, swerving, or stopping the car, continuum fallacy or not! How big does the body part have to get before I change my behavior?

~Max

19

That’s the wrong question…size of the part is irrelevant. Sentience is (assuming it’s suffering you want to minimise by swerving, not the bill for cleaning your tyres, which requires a different calculus)

20

With just a rotting hand on the highway I assume the worst, that someone has lost a hand, and I swerve if safely possible. Then I call to report a missing hand. Of course, whatever I’m busy driving to has to be important, not just some fling like a visit to the park. More important than recovering my own rotting, mutilated hand would be.

If it’s a rotting head or chest on the highway I lose the “more important than recovering my own rotting, mutilated body part” justification. In its place there is consideration for the loved ones of the deceased; however, in a world of Dualists this would have slightly less weight than it has presently. So I still swerve if safely possible.

This is assuming there is no law mandating my behavior.

~Max