"Mattering and Mechanism: Must a Mechanistic Universe Be Depressing?"
Academic Article
Overview
Overview
Abstract
There is an intuition to the effect that, if human actions are explicable in scientific terms—that is, if mechanism holds—then our lives and actions do not matter. “Mattering” depends on successful intentional explanations of human actions. The intuition springs from an intuitive analogy between manipulation and mechanism: just as a manipulated agent’s actions are not successfully explained in intentional terms, neither are the actions of a mechanistic agent. I explore ways to avoid the conclusion of this argument. Some of these ways are more promising than others, but all have non-trivial philosophical consequences.
