Good Thoughts3/13/2026

The Substantive Question Argument

Richard Y Chappell
The Substantive Question Argument Reductive accounts of mind and morality render real questions meaningless What’s the best or most central reason to reject naturalism about mind and morality? Sometimes it’s suggested that normativity is simply “too different” from matter to be reducible to it. (Both Parfit and Enoch have argued in this vein.) But that seems too quick: plants and stars seem very different from atoms, yet they’re wholly constituted by atoms. Mind and morality may be even more...