Moreland has interests in various fields, which include ethics and applied ethics, and philosophy of religion. He is well known of Cartesian dualism that he calls it substance dualism. In this perspective, Moreland asserts that human beings are composed of physical substance, which is the body as well as immaterial substance comprising soul or mind. His defense on dualism begins with the attempt to make immaterial souls be more palatable to those who do not believe. According to him, people mostly believe that there are numerous immaterial entities in existence. On the other hand, materialism is problematic because he believes that souls and mind are one.
The soul and mind problem focuses on composition of human beings and the relationship of its existing composition. In definitions, there are two forms of dualism, property dualism and substance dualism. Property dualisms emphasize that mind is always the property of the body. Physicalism holds that all things that exist is a single Spatio-temporal form. The worldview on physicalism believes that all that exist is matter. According to them, physicalism souls and god do not exist. Perhaps, there are factors that state otherwise. One of the factors is that physicalism will be false, if theism holds some truth. Additionally, other people argue that numbers are always in existent but in an abstract form (Moreland, 1987).
Another factor is that God, number and values exist yet they are not physical. In this case, certain events and objects have nonphysical property of goodness. In addition, if physicalism is true, then it is tough to comprehend the nature of concepts and theories. The entities such as concepts, meanings, prepositions, truth, and laws of logic caused numerous difficulties to physicalists. Therefore, in order to understand the opposing arguments on body/mind physicalism, it is crucial to analyze identity in its nature (Moreland, 1987). As a matter of fact, there is a correlation between brain and mental events, but these does not make brain event and mental thought identical. For example, the roundness and redness of an apple are inseparable, but not identical.
There are differences between physical and mental properties. Mental events can be categorized as feeling of pain, thoughts, sense of the image as well as experience. The subjective nature of a certain experience if difficult to ascertain in terms of physicalists. Furthermore, the concept of personal identify is crucial in physicalism. Changes in physical nature of an object lead to change in identity. Based on the evidence, there are reasons that prove the falseness of strict physicalism. There are various emerging property views, it includes parts and whole, levels of complementarity and explanation, causation between levels, as well as the resultant self (Moreland, 1987).
There are also mysterious things that human beings can do, this surrounds the power of rational beings. This mystery is on determinism and free will. In most cases, morality requires the power of free will, which guides in judgment. On the other hand, the concept of determinism is part of a thesis that has some truth in every moment and has some consistency with various laws of nature. Certainly, we cannot see very many or all of the basis operating in a situation. Hence, the universe certainly is deterministic, regardless of the fact that humans see the possibility of many future. Basically, it is obvious that people who are not exposed to philosophical thoughts that determinism and free will are incompatible cannot understand the concepts. Determinism asserts that there is only one physical connection with the current, especially in all internally physical features.
It is contentious if those philosophers rejecting the free will concedes that judgments based on morals are false. Currently, the perception morality needs free will is not common. As a matter of fact, many philosophers reject compatibilism as compared to the past. Perhaps, is there is no free will, then the issues of morality are an absolute illusion. This implies that the world that has no free will falsifies the morality.
Moreland, J. (1987) Dualism Defended Retrieved from
http://depthome.sunysuffolk.edu/Selden_PL/SE/pl101/handouts/PL101_Moreland_dualis
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