In the above video from Peaceful Science, philosopher JP Moreland argues for the existence of immaterial souls and minds, and is challenged by the scientists S. Joshua Swamidass, a Christian, and Nathan Lents, an atheist. Despite the fact that all three participants hold quite different views on the subject, the discussion is respectful and collegial. And I’m not entirely sure it should have been.
I will say at the outset that Moreland does a good job of describing his position and explaining why he holds it. He believes in the existence of the soul, which he describes as “an immaterial or spiritual substance, which has and unifies consciousness and makes the body alive and animates the body.” The relationship between the soul and consciousness is analogous to that between container and contained, with consciousness being one of the faculties or attributes of a living thing that are part of the soul. (You will notice that Moreland seems to be one of the last holdouts who still believes in a form of vitalism.)
The idea of a soul is, of course, one that has a lengthy history in philosophy and human thought in general, and there are philosophical arguments to be made both in favour of and against this form of dualism. However, as we have seen in other examples of dualists I have discussed on this blog, Moreland is on less certain ground when he tries to argue that the current state of scientific knowledge favours dualism. When Lents provides his own definition of the mind as “what the brain does”, Moreland counters that this is a meaningless definition because one could then define the function of anything, e.g. a thermometer, as a “mind.” But that clearly misses the point. Lents’s definition refers specifically to functions of the brain alone, with the relation between brain and mind being analogous to that between lungs and respiration, or heart and circulation. It makes no sense to describe the function of those organs as a “mind.”
Moreland dismisses emergentism by arguing that since individual particles of matter do not possess consciousness (But are we sure of that?), then to say that consciousness emerges from arrangements of matter would require that something come from nothing. I believe he overstates his case here. While it is true we do not have a complete physicalist account of how consciousness arises from the physical brain, if indeed it does, it does not follow from this that it cannot or does not.
At another point Lents makes what I believe is one of the strongest arguments against dualism, which is the fact that conscious experience can be altered in ways that are consistent, predictable and repeatable by physical processes affecting the brain, such as illness, injury or the effects of drugs. Moreland replies with an analogy to a person driving a car, saying that if part of the car is damaged or faulty, the driver will no longer be able to operate the car properly. However, this would not demonstrate that the car was driving itself. Similarly, that mental activity is affected by damage to the brain does not mean the soul is not, nonetheless, necessary for that activity.
Which is fine so far as it goes. But Moreland then goes on to argue that near death and out of body experiences demonstrate that the soul can continue to sense things without the body. I don’t see how that works. Sticking with his car analogy: What Moreland is effectively saying is that if the brakes are malfunctioning, the driver can no longer stop the car even if he steps on the brake pedal. However, if the entire car is towed off to the scrap yard and destroyed, the driver can now brake, steer, accelerate, and do everything he did with the car, only without a car. Which is obviously absurd. It is a phenomenon that I have never seen explained by proponents of an immaterial soul, why this soul will continue to experience the world in the same way it did when tethered to the material body, with some exceptions such as a new-found ability to float around in the air.
Lents, however, raises a somewhat different objection, that the content of NDE’s varies with a person’s culture and religious beliefs. Moreland takes issue with this and accuses Lents of being unfamiliar with the scientific literature on the subject, which he believes shows a high degree of consistency between such experiences (which he thinks is because everyone is encountering Jesus). I am no more familiar with this literature, such as it is, than is Lents. However, even if Moreland is describing this literature correctly, it does not support his position that NDE’s are anything more than a symptom of a brain that is malfunctioning because it is being deprived of oxygen. People’s experiences of strokes and seizures are also very consistent across cultures, but that does not mean these are immaterial supernatural phenomena.
The discussion does touch on some other areas. There is a brief mention of something called Christian materialism which sounds intriguing, and Moreland does a good job of clarifying the specific sense in which the term “substance” is used in philosophy, which is often a source of confusion. However, at the very end the discussion takes an abrupt detour into the area of morality, which Moreland believes can only be grounded in theism. Swamidass and Lents take Moreland to task for his endorsement of the Nashville Statement, an evangelical Christian document opposing same-sex marriage. Lents, who is in a same-sex marriage and has two children, asks Moreland directly how he would morally justify to Lents’s children such efforts to undermine the legal protection of their family. Moreland replies with a breathtakingly inane argument in which he compares a same sex relationship to a child who dissolves his candy floss in a swimming pool instead of eating it. (Since from comments made in the discussion it appears that Moreland knew beforehand that this topic was going to be discussed, his response cannot be blamed on his being caught unawares.)
So that was a pretty major failure on Moreland’s part. On the other hand, if his position is indefensible (as I believe it to be), then he cannot really be expected to offer a successful defense. And, yes, at the conclusion of the video Moreland tells Lents that he has nothing but respect and and appreciation for him. But that’s a bit like saying to a black person “I have nothing against you personally. I just don’t think you should be allowed to sit at the front of the bus.” I am myself in an interracial marriage and if someone, in the course of a public academic discussion, were to tell me to my face that my marriage is unnatural, immoral and should not be allowed, I do not think I would respond with the courtesy and magnanimity that Lents did here. And while that may reflect differences in our character, I cannot help thinking that it also has much to do with Lents’s position as a gay man in a nation that still does not universally recognize his rights to be free from discrimination. While someone who express disapproval of interracial relationships today would be committing professional suicide, that was not case until far more recently than you might suspect. On the issue of same-sex marriage, in the US at least, things are not yet at that point. Let’s hope things move faster this time.