Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Free Will

Materialism, Freedom & Ethics

Philip Badger constructs a materialist ethical theory, with the help of John Rawls.

I want to begin this article with the assumption that reality consists entirely of physical things and the forces which bind them. That is to say, I will assume the truth of materialism: the idea that the only things that ultimately exist are matter, energy, and physical forces. I will argue that this is consistent with a ‘materialistic compatibilism’ which preserves some sense of freedom and responsibility, and that this implies a positive conception of political and social liberty.

You might wonder what on earth might possess me to want to start with something like that, but as I unpack it, I hope you’ll see that it makes sense.

Reality Consists of Physical Things

A materialist view of the world might strike you as characteristically modern and Western.

…