ABSTRACT
Reductionists claim that their view has two important ethical consequences: first, that coming to be a Reductionist leads to the cessation of existential suffering (the despair that stems from the realization of our mortality); and second, that it follows from Reductionism that we are obligated to act so as to promote the welfare of others. We have already touched briefly on both of these points. In this chapter we shall look more closely at the arguments in their favour. Both points turn on the claim that Reductionism, as a middle path between Non-Reductionism and Eliminativism, makes room for mitigated forms of the person-regarding attitudes. This makes both vulnerable to the objection that Reductionism induces a kind of distancing or alienation that undermines important features of our personregarding attitudes. Such Reductionist-grounded attitudes would, according to the critic, be in disequilibrium, that is, unable to withstand knowledge of their own causes.1 If the critic is right about this, then Reductionism is self-defeating or pragmatically inconsistent: it recommends that we act in ways that would make us worse off according to its own lights. This is obviously a serious charge, and calls for some investigation. But first we should review and clarify the arguments for Reductionism’s alleged ethical consequences.
