27/01/2020 The Soul: Not Dead Yet - Public Discourse

Philosophy

The Soul: Not Dead Yet

May 2, 2017 By Patrick Lee and Robert P. George

The traditional philosophical and theological concept of the soul allows us

to integrate what the empirical sciences reveal with what we know about
ourselves as rational and moral beings.

In a recent online essay for the New York Times, the eminent English
philosopher Sir Roger Scruton rightly argues that human persons are not
reducible to material forces, correctly insisting that we are aware of
ourselves and others as subjects of moral responsibility, of free choice, and
of rationality. However, he also says: “philosophers and theologians in the
Christian tradition have regarded human beings as distinguished from the
other animals by the presence within them of a divine spark,” which they

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call the soul, and that “recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and
evolutionary psychology have all but killed o that idea.”

We agree that human beings are both animals and persons, but it is
important that the Christian (and Jewish, and Muslim, and classical)
description of the soul not be reduced to a caricature. Indeed, properly
understood, the traditional philosophical and theological concept of the
soul is indispensable in integrating what the empirical sciences reveal
about the world and ourselves with what we know about ourselves as
rational and moral beings.

The claim that genetics has helped “kill o ” the idea of the soul usually
rests on the notion that the actions of DNA molecules are su cient to
explain the events occurring in the larger-level entities of which they are
parts—namely, the organisms, human beings included. The idea is that the
characteristics of organisms are su ciently explained by the properties of
and the spatial relations among their microphysical components. And so
(on this view) there is no need to appeal to the causal powers of the
organism as a whole to account for what occurs in it. Therefore, genetics
could assist in a general program to explain away higher-level properties
such as nutrition, growth, perception, and thought, by reference to the
properties of the microphysical components.

However, while bold promissory notes to provide such explanations have

been given, actual payment—in the form of adequate explanations—has
never been provided. Moreover, if such a reduction could succeed, whole
animals could not then actually be single entities—“composite substances,”
to borrow Aristotelian language—but mere aggregates of microphysical
entities. This reduction wouldn’t just negate the idea of a soul but also the
idea that we are both animals and persons.

Of course, many complex objects are mere aggregates. Many of the things
we might view as unitary objects actually only produce e ects that can be
fully explained by the properties and interrelations of their constituents.
For example, as Trenton Merricks points out in his Objects and Persons,
what a baseball does can be fully explained by the concerted actions of its Privacidade - Termos

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constituents. A baseball shatters a window, not in virtue of any property of

the baseball as a whole, but in virtue of the properties and spatial relations
of microphysical entities it contains. However, other composite objects,
particularly organisms, have causal powers belonging to the complex
substance as a whole. When a human being walks to the refrigerator to
retrieve food for a meal, this is a behavior performed by the organism in
virtue of conscious properties—properties that belong to the complex
substance as a whole. She walks to the kitchen and not to the living room
because of her memory and belief that that’s where the food is. Such a
conscious belief can scarcely be conceived of as inhering in this or that
particle, or as a structural relation of the particles to each other. Rather, it
inheres in the organism as a whole and guides the behavior of that
organism as a whole. Thus, the unity and causal properties of the organism
as a whole are irreducible to the powers and relations of the microphysical
entities it contains as parts.

Nor has neuroscience helped “all but kill o ” the concept of a soul. It could
do so only if it showed how thought could be reduced to neuro-processes.
But many have pointed out the insuperable di culties for such a
reduction. Any argument advanced to support such a feat would logically
undermine itself. For the point of the reduction would be to show that
one’s thoughts are fully explained by the interactions of electrochemical
processes operating according to physical, not necessarily logical, laws. But
if one’s thought—including the reductionist’s argument itself—rests on
such non-rational causes, it is undermined, since beliefs that are
determined by non-rational causes, rather than reasons, are thereby made
suspect. If my thoughts are merely the result of the electrochemical
processes in my brain, then they are non-rational.

Of course, a proponent of the reduction might object that there can be

more than one explanation for an event, and so the thought’s explanation
on one level (neurons ring) does not preclude its simultaneous
explanation on another level as well (logic). And thus, he might say,
thoughts are identical with or fully determined by brain processes, but
these processes can be explained in both physical and logical terms. Just as Privacidade - Termos

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the same material event can be explained both by biology and by physics,
and the two explanations are compatible, so here (it might be argued), one
can give both an explanation by reference to logical laws and by reference
to brain processes and their wholly materially determined interactions.

The proposed reduction of thought to neurochemical processes could

succeed, however, only if the actions of the neural components, operating
according to physical laws, determine the reasoning processes—that is,
determine which conclusions one draws in an argument. On a reductive
view of mental events, the premises (or the acts of accepting the premises)
have the causal powers they do only in virtue of their physical properties,
and so the logical laws—the relations among contents of thought just as
such—will be utterly irrelevant. Thus, if thoughts are just neuro-processes,
governed by physical laws, then the laws of logic are dispensable, and the
physical antecedents of a thought (such as a conclusion) determine it
regardless of the contents of those antecedents. But this renders the
argument by which one defends the attempted reduction unworthy of
acceptance. Thus, thought cannot be adequately explained by
neuroscience alone.

Thus, some properties and causal powers of organisms belong to them as

wholes rather than merely resulting from the sum of the properties and
causal powers of their components, and so organisms are substantial
entities rather than mere aggregates. But as complex substances, each
organism must have a principle of unity making its components a single
whole. This principle cannot itself be a concrete component; the resulting
unity would not be a single substantial entity composed of parts, but one
entity acting on others—an accidental whole, a mere aggregate. Nor can
the source of unity be merely a relation accruing to those components,
which remain what they are but acquire ordered relations to others. What
is required is a factor that uni es the materials in order to make them one
being, one substance, and makes the parts be what they are because of
their place within that whole. It must be a principle of organization that is
logically prior to and not merely the result of the causal properties of the
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parts. Such a principle is precisely what the Aristotelian tradition called a

“substantial form.” In a living being, such a form is a soul.

The role of such a principle can also be understood as follows. Animal

organisms die, and some are consumed by other animals. It is obvious that
some of the matter-energy that once went into the make-up of one animal
ends up in the make-up of another. In fact, all of the materials, or matter-
energy, within an animal could end up in the make-up of another. And so
within the animal now there must be a formal principle, a principle of unity,
determining the matter-energy in its make-up to be of this kind rather than
of another kind. This is the substantial form. In a living being, it is called a
soul.

One can of course rightly a rm many things without a rming the

existence of a soul, but some of these a rmations cannot be made sense of
without a rming a soul. One can agree that human beings are both
animals and persons without rst appealing to the notion of the soul—and
one could even be derisive of that concept at the same time. But one can
give no intelligible account of those a rmations of our nature as personal
animals without the concept of a soul—as that term has traditionally been
used and understood.

Moreover, while organisms are irreducible to the laws and properties of

the chemicals and particles composing them, likewise the human person
(as Sir Roger rightly suggests) is irreducible to the laws and properties of
organisms. Human thoughts and choices cannot be fully explained by
biological laws and properties: the dimensions of logic and morality are
distinct and irreducible types of reality.

Still, the source of thought and choice in a human person cannot be a

distinct agent or a substance distinct from the human organism. It must be
the same agent that believes the food is in the kitchen (a person or thinker)
and that walks there (an organism). So, on the one hand, the human
thinker and the human body are not two di erent things, but one complex
substance with di erent powers. On the other hand, the human person
engages in operations—thought and choices, for example—that are not Privacidade - Termos

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reducible without remainder to the laws and properties of natural, material

entities.

If one denies the rst point, one will view the bodily aspect of the human
person as a mere extrinsic instrument, without inherent meaning and
importance. If one denies the second point, one fails to acknowledge the
human being precisely as a person, as a source of uniqueness and
originality and the bearer of rights. But to make sense of the compatibility
of both points one needs the concept of a substantial form—soul. Without
that, the organic aspect of the person will lack substantial unity and either
the distinctiveness of the person will be denied (reverting to materialism),
or the person will be viewed as separate from the organism (“ghost in a
machine”).

We are directly aware that we persist through time and that our plans,
deliberations, and choices extend through time. Such activities cannot be
attributed to this or that material component, or to a group of components
in a mere accidental whole. So if the organism is viewed as a mere
aggregate, a mere mass of particles, the personal subject will inevitably be
viewed as a separate agent making use of that mass of particles as a mere
extrinsic tool. Without the idea of a human substantial form or soul one
cannot intelligibly relate the organic to the personal, the world of the “life-
form” to the world of the empirical sciences.

About the Author

PATRICK LEE
Patrick Lee holds the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Chair of
Bioethics, and is the Director of the Center for Bioethics, at
Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is the author of
three books (Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and
Politics, with Robert P. George, 2008) A... READ MORE

ROBERT GEORGE
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Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence

and Director of the James Madison Program in American
Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has
served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom and as a member of the President...
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