This seems reasonable; I address this partially in Appendix C, although not comprehensively.
For me, the fact that ethics seems to exist is an argument for some sort of consciousness&value realism. I fear that Type-A physicalists have no principled basis for saying any use of quarks (say, me having a nice drink of water when I’m thirsty) is better than any other use of quarks (a cat being set on fire). I.e., according to Type-A physicalists this would be a verbal dispute, without an objectively correct answer, so it wouldn’t be ‘wrong’ to take either side. This seems to embody an unnecessarily extreme and unhelpful amount of skepticism to me.
Do you know of any Type-A physicalist who has tried to objectively ground morality?
Yes, in fact. Frank Jackson, the guy who came up with the Knowledge Argument against physicalism (Mary the color scientist), later recanted and became a Type-A physicalist. He has a pretty similar approach to morality as consciousness now.
This seems reasonable; I address this partially in Appendix C, although not comprehensively.
For me, the fact that ethics seems to exist is an argument for some sort of consciousness&value realism. I fear that Type-A physicalists have no principled basis for saying any use of quarks (say, me having a nice drink of water when I’m thirsty) is better than any other use of quarks (a cat being set on fire). I.e., according to Type-A physicalists this would be a verbal dispute, without an objectively correct answer, so it wouldn’t be ‘wrong’ to take either side. This seems to embody an unnecessarily extreme and unhelpful amount of skepticism to me.
Do you know of any Type-A physicalist who has tried to objectively ground morality?
Yes, in fact. Frank Jackson, the guy who came up with the Knowledge Argument against physicalism (Mary the color scientist), later recanted and became a Type-A physicalist. He has a pretty similar approach to morality as consciousness now.
His views are discussed here