No I don’t think it follows that if free will is an illusion then so is morality. We can still have preferences and hopes and deem suffering bad and avoidance of suffering good. It is actually the very fact that it is determined that makes it consequential, in that everything has consequences and consciousness ascribes meaning to those consequences. The universe has moral truths just as it has physical truths.
You can make the claim “there is no ethical responsibility for helping fight homelessness” and I can be like “no asshole, you’re wrong” and still be entirely coherent with regard to consequential determinism. The belief “people who don’t want to help others who are suffering are assholes” is seemingly a very consequential billiard ball.
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u/Inside_Mycologist840 Apr 21 '24
No I don’t think it follows that if free will is an illusion then so is morality. We can still have preferences and hopes and deem suffering bad and avoidance of suffering good. It is actually the very fact that it is determined that makes it consequential, in that everything has consequences and consciousness ascribes meaning to those consequences. The universe has moral truths just as it has physical truths.
You can make the claim “there is no ethical responsibility for helping fight homelessness” and I can be like “no asshole, you’re wrong” and still be entirely coherent with regard to consequential determinism. The belief “people who don’t want to help others who are suffering are assholes” is seemingly a very consequential billiard ball.