Morality in Nature

[bennyboy]

Add add without free will, morality is impossible. Because without free will, "morality" is just a euphemism for an (incredibly complex, to be sure) accidental interaction between instinct and environment.

Depends upon what you mean by "free will". While I do say that morality requires "free will", what I mean by the word is probably very different from what you do. For example, if you're referring to the libertarian definition of free-will, then, even without it, morality would still not be reduced to an accidental interaction between instinct and environment.

I suppose it depends what we mean by ALL those words. For example, what's an accidental interaction? Also, in what sense is instinct (which ultimately reduces down to purely environmental circumstances, mutation, etc.) separate from the current environment, except by time?

If we conceive of human agency, then we are saying that there is something about a human being which should be considered apart from everything else that is happening in the universe. So I'd define free will as that agency-- stipulating that it must be somehow separate from all that other business.