Babich N.S. Ethical Intuitions Against Reductive Physicalist Anthropology: An Argument from the Perspective of the Sociology of Knowledge. Chelovek. 2026. Vol. 37. No 2. Pp. 83-98.

Abstract

This article explores the limits of reductive physicalist anthropology, which posits that humans are biological automatons ultimately governed by physical laws. The widespread optimism regarding the imminent resolution of fundamental problems in the study of human nature through advances in neuroscience and computational technology, which allegedly reveal the mechanisms of this automaton’s function, is called into question. The author argues that while physicalism is justified by the successes of the natural sciences, it faces significant challenges from intuitions concerning the subjective and ethical dimensions of human experience. These intuitions become serious restrictions on the scientific paradigm when they form its foundation. The author attempts to demonstrate that physicalism, as a scientific and epistemological project, is itself based on ethical premises that allow trust in physicists and physics as a practice of verifying the truth of judgments. However, the denial of free will and the moral nihilism inherent in consistent materialistic reductionism undermine trust both in physicists as researchers, who are assumed to possess goodwill in seeking and disseminating truth, and in any cognizant subject altogether. If the verification of truth claims is reduced to physical events devoid of the scientist’s goodwill to establish truth, then the outcome depends not on the truth of the statement being verified but on physical causes (e.g., the movement of neurotransmitters and electrical impulses in neurons). The pursuit of truth is an ethical orientation, and in a world filled only with ethically «blind» physical processes, the science that physicalism purports to represent cannot function. The article’s conclusions emphasize the importance of developing theories that integrate physical aspects with moral intuitions, offering a richer and more comprehensive understanding of human nature than that offered by physicalism in its reductive form.