In hmolscience, physico-chemical morality refers to []
Quotes
The following are related quotes:
“We conclude that there exists a principle of the human body which comes from the great process in which so many millions of atoms of the earth become many millions of human molecules.”
— Jean Sales (1789), The Philosophy of Nature: Treatise on Human Moral Nature
“The moral symbols in the natural sciences—for example that of the elective affinities invented and used by the great Bergman—are more intelligent and permit themselves to be connected better with poetry, even connected with society better than any others, which are, after all, even the mathematical ones, anthropomorphic. The thing is that the former (the chemicals) belong with the emotions, the latter (mathematics) belong with the understanding.”
— Johann Goethe (1809), “Conversation with Friedrich Riemer”, Jul 24
“Many do not see the battle between morality and passion within Elective Affinities.”
— Johann Goethe (1809), in response to critics, mid Dec; in: Tantillo (pg. 6) (FA 2, 6:616-17)
“My chief proposition: there are no moral phenomena, there are only a moral interpretation of these phenomena. This interpretation itself is of extra-moral origin.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche (c.1885), WP:258
“If iron sulphate and caustic potash are brought together, the SO4 ions leave the iron to unite with the potassium. When in nature an adjustment of such differences of potential is about to take place, he who would approve or disapprove of the process from the moral point of view would appear to most to play a ridiculous part.”
— Otto Weininger (1903), Sex and Character
“Morality has nothing to do with any particular form of religion. Morality is the adjustment of matter to its environment—the natural arrangement of molecules. More especially it may be considered as dealing with organic molecules. Conventionally it is the science of reconciling the animal homo (more or less) sapiens to the forces and conditions with which he is surrounded.”
— Howard Lovecraft (1918), “Letter to Maurice Moe”, May 15
“The most familiar attempts to explain how evolution takes place are restricted to special aspects of evolution, and are often epitomized in personal names, such as Darwinism, Lamarkism, Weismannism, Mendelism. Among us there are naturalists, morphologists, physiologists, and psychologists; breeders, experimentalists, and bio-chemists. And surrounding us on all sides are the physicists, chemists, geologists, and astronomers, with whom we must reckon, for their domains and their subject matter overlap ours in countless ways. But unfortunately between all these workers there is little common understanding and much petty criticism. We shall use the terms morality, behavior, conduct, or constructive action in the same broad way. It may sound strange to speak of the morals of an atom, or of the way in which a molecule conducts itself. But in the last analysis, science can draw no fundamental distinction between the conduct of an animal, a bullet, or a freshman, although there may be more unknown factors involved in one case than in the other.”
— William Patten (1920), AAAS address “The Message of the Biologist” + The Grand Strategy of Evolution: the Social Philosophy of a Biologist
“Thinking about atoms discussing morals is absurd.”
— Ravi Zacharias (1990), The Real Face of Atheism
“This is the sort of irrelevant-sounding question that seems minor at first, and the mind looks for a quick answer to dismiss it. It sounds like one of those hostile, ignorant questions some fundamentalist preacher might think up. But why do the fittest survive? Why does any life survive? It's illogical. It's self-contradictory that life should survive. If life is strictly a result of the physical and chemical forces of nature then why is life opposed to these same forces in its struggle to survive? Either life is with physical nature or it's against it. If it's with nature there's nothing to survive. If it's against physical nature then there must be something apart from the physical and chemical forces of nature that is motivating it to be against physical nature. The second law of thermodynamics states that all energy systems ‘run down’ like a clock and never rewind themselves. But life not only ‘runs up,’ converting low energy sea-water, sunlight and air into high-energy chemicals, it keeps multiplying itself into more and better clocks that keep "running up" faster and faster. Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N), 'struggle' for billions of years to organize themselves into a professor of chemistry? What's the motive? (see: motive force) If we leave a chemistry professor out on a rock in the sun long enough the forces of nature will convert him into simple compounds of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and small amounts of other minerals. It's a one-way reaction. No matter what kind of chemistry professor we use and no matter what process we use we can't turn these compounds back into a chemistry professor. Chemistry professors are unstable mixtures of predominantly unstable compounds which, in the exclusive presence of the sun's heat, decay irreversibly into simpler organic and inorganic compounds. That's a scientific fact. The question is: Then why does nature reverse this process? What on earth causes the inorganic compounds to go the other way? It isn't sun's energy. We just saw what the sun's energy did. It has to something else. What is it?”
— Robert Pirsig (1991), Lila: An Inquiry into Morals
See also
● Moral chemistry
● Physicochemical morality puzzles
