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Originally Posted by Beestie
My real question, therefore, is how can we really be sure what does and doesn't belong there. How can we differentiate between categorical error and the truly metaphysical? ... If you want to only include those things for which error is unthinkable (God, for example), then justification is limited to the lack of a physical cause.
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I want to limit the metaphysical to exactly that ... those things which, if they exist at all, can by definition only exist as metaphysical entities. God is one example. Universal moral laws are another. They may not exist, but if they do, then by definition, they exist as something other than the result of physical causation. There was no chemical reaction that caused universal moral laws, if they exist by that definition.
We might say "Well, these things we call moral laws are the result of chemical reactions in the collective brains of a society, and are therefore physical and not metaphysical." This might be true, but if it is, then what we are really saying is that universal moral laws do not exist as such, and only appear to exist. Catch what I'm saying? For something to be a metaphysical concepts, it has to be by nature metaphysical. If it is demonstrated to be the result of physical causation, we cannot say that it has "become" physical, we must say that is does not exist. Some new thing may be said to exist, the physical thing, but the initial thing must be said to have never really existed.