Reply #103: Rocks, even happy ones, don't cut it. [View All]

As a preliminary, make the plausible Kantian assumption that a rational being, all of whose actions and states are determined by causes external to itself, is a contradiction in terms.

Well, the idea has been around for some time that the happiest anything can be, and the realization of the highest form of value, is this: a rational being knowing and loving to the fullest possible extent.

Ignorance, or a lack of love, are inconsistent with the highest possible happiness for rational beings. And the valuable states of rational beings have generally been taken to be incommensurably more valuable than any other valuable states.

Now, of course, one question is whether a rational being *by its very nature* has to be also a material or physical being. From Plato and Kant to Chalmers and McGinn, this question has exercized the best minds. Or brains. But even among those of a materialist persuasion, there are plenty who think that knowledge and love are incommensurably high values.