Morality, like gravity, is a physical force in nature

Observation 1: Pro has offered the following account of morality: “The concept of wrong involves going against the flow” “the concept of right involves going with the flow” Observation 2: Pro has the BOP since he is making a positive claim. My job is only to disprove Pro. 1) Pro’s account fails to yield normative judgments, and thus fails to establish an account of morality; Pro violates Hume’s Law Pro has offered an account for what the Constructal Law means for human behavior and society. He has offered no justification for why these implications offer justification for moral judgments. For example, it may well be the case that the Constructal Law is the reason humans have “a desire to bring about Happiness,” but why does the fact that we have that desire mean we ought to act in conformance with that desire? What reason do we have for believing that all societal outcomes of the Constructal Law are moral or that some outcomes are not morally preferable to others? Hume’s Law refers to Hume’s famous observation that no normative conclusion can be derived from purely factual statements about the world. This is often referred to as the “is-ought” problem; A statement about what individuals “ought” to do cannot be derived only from statements about how the world “is.” Pro has not offered an account of morality, he has only offered an account of how human behavior relates to flow theory. 2) Pro grossly misinterprets the Constructal Law a) Constructal Law is devoid of the value judgments Pro inserts The Constructal Law is a law describing how “design” in nature emerges. It attempts to account for the emergence of design out of physical processes- it is a general law that can be applied to a huge range of physical systems. Note that the law is ambiguous in defining “flow system” and “currents;” this is intentional, as the law is formulated in such a way that it makes predictive claims for any physical flow system subjected to any physical current. The implication of this is that the Constructal Law will predict vastly different outcomes for a given flow system subjected to vastly different currents. In the context of this debate, the impact of the Constructal Law on human behavior depends on whether we are discussing “survival,” “emotional fulfillment,” “chemical dependency,” or “procreative success.” Pro has chosen to insert morally relevant terms into his case as a means to hijack the Constructal Law and transform it into morality; this is how Pro attempts to overcome the challenges of Hume’s Law. But the Constructal Law could just as easily be used to discuss the success of crack cocaine in taking over impoverished communities. The value judgments supplied by Pro are not scientific or empirical conclusions from the Constructal Law b) The Constructal Law allows for indeterminate outcomes; it does not necessitate the “moral” outcomes Pro describes. The Constructal Law predicts only that systems “evolve in such a way that provides easier access…” For any given flow system, multiple outcomes satisfy this requirement. The Law does not predict optimal outcomes, only outcomes which trend toward lower resistance to flow currents. This is why biological evolution has produced an immense variety of species- biological systems evolve in indeterminate ways to provide easier access to flow systems. Pro attempts to cram determinate moral concepts into the predictive outcome of the Constructal Law- claiming humans move “from the high resistance of tyranny to the low resistance found in freedom.” Setting aside the fact that Pro offers no argument that tyranny and freedom actually represent quantifiably distinct states of flow resistance, Pro’s conclusion is not supported by the Constructal Law. The Constructal Law allows for indeterminate social outcomes – societies may react to the negative aspects of tyranny in any number of ways just as biological systems have reacted to natural forces in diverse ways. Moreover, empirics affirm that different societies respond to tyranny in different ways. The failure of the Arab Spring demonstrates that transition from despotic to democratic societies is not a foregone conclusion due to some inevitable moral force. Many societies have transitioned away from freedom, as the Roman empire did when the Republic succumbed to rule by monarch after the rise of Caesar. The Constructal Law doesn’t selectively apply to human behavior; all societies are outcomes of human interaction following Constructal Law. This means Pro has no grounds to claim that any existing society is more or less moral than any other existing society. Pro has no justification for any normative claim. 3) Pro’s concept of “right” and “wrong” leads to bizarre moral judgments. Pro argues that right and wrong is simply a matter of going with or against the flow. But a massive array of behavior, much of it amoral or immoral, falls under “going with the flow.” For example, this article by Bejan describes how specific paddling techniques best go with the flow for competitive swimmers [1]. Does this mean that competitive swimmers who use different techniques are immoral? What about people who design constructally inefficient equipment, are they immoral? Consider the case of an impoverished crack-addict. If the lowest resistance path to positive feedback is to continue dumpster-diving for bottles and purchasing crack, is that the moral thing to do? Some economists have argued that the popularity of crack is due precisely to the fact it is the path of least resistance to positive feed-back. This is more than a refutation of Pro, this is an active reason to reject Pro’s thesis. [1] http://constructal.files.wordpress.com... [2] http://www.nytimes.com...; 4) Pro fails to account for why “doing the right thing” often requires going against the flow It is often the case that acting morally requires going against the flow of society and taking the path of least-resistance. Consider Schindler’s List, a film which describes the true story of a man who jeopardized his wealth and social standing in Nazi Germany to save hundreds of Jews from the peril of the Holocaust. This is just one example of how moral action often requires going against the flow. In fact, if Constructal Theory were a valid account of morality it would justify the horrific actions of concentration camp executioners who were “just following orders.” Again, this is not a defensive argument. This argument is a reason to reject Pro’s thesis as morally repugnant. 5) Pro generally fails to justify his assertions about Universal Rights. Pro offers zero justification for his claims about Universal Rights. First, he offers no justification for his claim that life naturally evolves towards movement. Sloths, oysters, coral, and plants have all evolved to either not move freely or be totally stationary. Second, he makes the massive leap in equivocating “freedom of movement” to “Liberty.” Liberty is a complex political concept that far exceeds the very basic evolutionary advantage of being able to move. Similarly Pro equates “positive-feedback” to “Happiness.” Positive-feedback encompasses chemical feedback from drugs and sex, emotional support from peers, satisfying hunger urges, or even satisfying the urge to rape or dominate. Third, Pro acknowledges there is a “big step” between thermodynamics and Unalienable Rights but DOESN’T EXPLAIN HOW THAT STEP IS MADE. Seriously, how does the fact that animals move mean I have an unalienable right to anything? Pro needs to explain how he is bridging the is-ought gap. Even if life evolves toward “liberty,” why does that mean humans have an unalienable right to it? Is everything humans have evolved to do an unalienable right? Humans have also evolved to reproduce sexually; does that mean humans have an unalienable right to have sex? Are my rights being violated when I’m told I can’t have sex on the steps of Lincoln Memorial? 6) Pro’s account of morality describes a statistical tendency in nature, not a force. Pro claims morality is a product of the Constructal Law, which describes how systems tend to evolve over time. According to Pro, the Constructal Law is an outgrowth of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Resolution claims that morality is a physical force, like gravity. Gravity is a fundamental interaction- it describes a physical pattern of behavior not reducible to other physical phenomena. Gravitational force describes how the fundamental constituents of the universe interact with each other. The laws of thermodynamics describe the statistical behavior of systems over time. These laws do not describe fundamental physical interactions, but deal with the behavior of thermodynamic systems. For example, the second law of thermodynamics explains the phenomenological behavior of heat transfer. The phenomenon of heat transfer can be explained by the complex interaction of fundamental forces through the work done on a system or the change in potential energy of a system. Thus, even if Pro’s case is 100% correct, morality is NOT a physical force like gravity but only a law describing the macroscopic behavior of organized systems.