China Social Science Review

No.3, 2020

Physicalist Morality and Values

(Abstract)

Ye Feng

Physicalists do not believe that there are supernatural morals and value truths, but they are not nihilists. They can hold and defend their own morals and values, and defend them before others. In particular, they can accept the values of freedom. Indeed, some physicalists believe that the physicalist worldview can put up a better defense of the values of freedom and pluralism. They can also very naturally absorb the concepts of “selflessness” and “compassion” from the Buddhist tradition of the East; they propose a more idealistic and higher value of freedom than that current today, satisfying the demands of those who think that the value of freedom has shortcomings.