HOW THE SIX COMMITMENTS GROUND THE VIRTUE/EXTERNALS DISTINCTION

 ## HOW THE SIX COMMITMENTS GROUND THE VIRTUE/EXTERNALS DISTINCTION

### **1. SUBSTANCE DUALISM: Creates the Boundary Line**

**What it does:**

Establishes that there IS an internal/external boundary at all.

**How it grounds the distinction:**

**WITHOUT dualism:**

- Mind and body are one substance (materialist monism)

- Mental events are just brain states (physical events)

- "Internal" and "external" become matters of degree, not kind

- The control boundary becomes fuzzy (what counts as "me"?)

**WITH dualism:**

- Mind (soul/prohairesis) is ontologically separate from body

- Clear boundary: Mind = internal domain; Body + world = external

- **"I am my prohairesis"** creates sharp identity claim

- Body itself becomes external (Sterling's explicit claim)

**Result:** The virtue/externals distinction maps onto a **metaphysical** distinction:

- **Virtue** = excellence of the immaterial mind/soul

- **Externals** = everything material (body, possessions, outcomes)

**Why necessary:** Without dualism, Sterling couldn't claim that your body is external to you. The whole "torture doesn't morally harm you" claim requires treating bodily states as genuinely outside the domain where moral harm occurs. Only corruption of prohairesis constitutes genuine (moral) harm.

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### **2. LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL: Makes the Controlled/Uncontrolled Distinction Absolute**

**What it does:**

Guarantees that mental assent is **genuinely** in our control in a way nothing else is.

**How it grounds the distinction:**

**WITHOUT libertarian free will (compatibilism or determinism):**

- Assent is caused by prior states (genes, environment, neural patterns)

- Control over assent is same type as control over other things (causal influence)

- "In our control" becomes matter of degree

- Can't claim absolute difference between mental and physical control

**WITH libertarian free will:**

- Assent is **uncaused choice** (agent causation)

- Genuinely up to us in way nothing physical is

- **Absolute control** over prohairesis vs. **no absolute control** over externals

- Sharp metaphysical distinction in type of control

**Result:** The control dichotomy becomes **metaphysically absolute**:

- **Prohairesis** = domain of libertarian free choice (genuinely controlled)

- **Externals** = domain of causal determinism (not genuinely controlled)

**Why necessary:** Sterling's system requires that we have **complete** control over virtue (assent) and **zero** complete control over externals. This only works if libertarian free will marks out a special domain where we have a fundamentally different kind of control.

**Sterling's explicit claim:** *"Choosing whether or not to assent...is the only thing in our control"*

This "only" requires libertarian metaphysics - otherwise other things are "in our control" in similar ways (through causal influence).

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### **3. ETHICAL INTUITIONISM: Makes the Virtue/Vice Categories Knowable**

**What it does:**

Provides **epistemic access** to the moral facts that constitute the distinction.

**How it grounds the distinction:**

**WITHOUT intuitionism:**

- Can't know which mental states are virtuous vs. vicious

- Can't identify what "excellence of prohairesis" consists in

- Moral categories become conventional or subjective

- Can't discover that "only virtue is good"

**WITH intuitionism:**

- **Direct rational insight** into moral facts

- Can **know** that wisdom/justice/courage/temperance are genuinely good

- Can **know** that foolishness/injustice/cowardice/intemperance are genuinely evil

- Can **know** that externals lack moral value

**Result:** We can **identify** what virtue is (knowable through rational intuition):

- **Virtue** = mental states we can intuit as genuinely good (wisdom, justice, etc.)

- **Vice** = mental states we can intuit as genuinely evil (foolishness, injustice, etc.)

- **Externals** = things our moral intuition reveals are value-neutral

**Why necessary:** Sterling needs to claim we can **know** the value judgments are false, not just that correcting them is therapeutically useful. Intuitionism provides the epistemic ground for recognizing that only moral excellence and moral corruption have genuine value-status.

**Sterling's language:** *"This belief is factually false"* (about externals having value)

This requires that we can know moral facts, which intuitionism provides.

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### **4. FOUNDATIONALISM: Makes the Distinction Logically Derivable**

**What it does:**

Shows the virtue/externals distinction **follows necessarily** from secure starting premises.

**How it grounds the distinction:**

**WITHOUT foundationalism (coherentism or infinitism):**

- No secure starting point

- Virtue/externals distinction is one belief among many in web of belief

- Could be revised if coherence requires it

- No certainty that the distinction is correct

**WITH foundationalism:**

- **Self-evident starting premises:**

  - "We all seek happiness/flourishing" (psychological fact)

  - "Only what we control can reliably constitute happiness" (rational principle)

  - "Virtue is in our control, externals are not" (from free will + dualism)

- **Logical derivation:**

  - Therefore: Virtue can reliably constitute happiness

  - Therefore: Externals cannot reliably constitute happiness

  - Therefore: Only virtue is genuinely good

**Result:** The virtue/externals distinction is **foundationally certain**:

- Not just plausible but **logically necessary** given secure premises

- The distinction is **derived** from more basic truths

- Cannot coherently deny the distinction while accepting the foundations

**Why necessary:** Sterling presents the system as **demonstrable**, not merely defensible. Foundationalism provides the deductive structure that makes the virtue/externals distinction a necessary conclusion rather than one option among many.

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### **5. CORRESPONDENCE THEORY: Makes False Value Judgments Objectively Wrong**

**What it does:**

Establishes that treating externals as good/evil is **factually incorrect**, not just subjective preference.

**How it grounds the distinction:**

**WITHOUT correspondence theory:**

- "Externals have value" might be true-for-me, false-for-you

- Value judgments don't correspond to mind-independent facts

- Can't say someone is **objectively wrong** about what has value

- Pragmatic or coherence theory: true = what works or coheres

**WITH correspondence theory:**

- **Objective fact of the matter** about what has value

- Judgments correspond or fail to correspond to this reality

- **"Externals have value"** fails to correspond to reality (objectively false)

- **"Only virtue has value"** corresponds to reality (objectively true)

**Result:** The virtue/externals distinction reflects **objective reality**:

- **Virtue** = what **actually** has value (truth-maker exists)

- **Externals** = what **actually** lacks genuine value (no truth-maker)

- False value judgments = beliefs that fail to correspond to these facts

**Why necessary:** The therapeutic power comes from **correcting errors**, not just adopting useful fictions. Correspondence theory grounds the claim that we're aligning with reality when we judge that only virtue is genuinely good.

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### **6. MORAL REALISM: Makes Virtue Objectively Good, Externals Objectively Value-Neutral**

**What it does:**

Establishes that the virtue/externals distinction tracks **mind-independent moral facts**.

**How it grounds the distinction:**

**WITHOUT moral realism (non-cognitivism or error theory):**

- "Virtue is good" expresses attitude (emotivism) or is systematically false (error theory)

- No objective fact makes virtue good and externals neutral

- Value distinction reduces to subjective preference or social convention

- Can't claim virtue is **actually** better than externals

**WITH moral realism:**

- **Virtue is objectively good** (moral fact, mind-independent)

- **Vice is objectively evil** (moral fact, mind-independent)

- **Externals are objectively value-neutral** (moral fact: they lack value-properties)

- These facts hold **regardless of anyone's beliefs or attitudes**

**Result:** The virtue/externals distinction is **metaphysically grounded**:

- **Virtue** = instantiates objective goodness (moral property actually present)

- **Vice** = instantiates objective evil (moral property actually present)

- **Externals** = lack these properties entirely (metaphysical fact)

**Why necessary:** Sterling claims we should pursue virtue **because it's genuinely good**, not because we prefer it or it's socially valued. Moral realism grounds this normative force - virtue isn't just preferred, it's objectively valuable.

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## THE INTEGRATED ARCHITECTURE

**How All Six Work Together:**

**METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATION (Dualism + Free Will):**

1. **Dualism** creates the boundary (mind vs. body/world)

2. **Free Will** makes one side absolutely controlled (prohairesis), other side not

**NORMATIVE FOUNDATION (Moral Realism + Intuitionism):**

3. **Moral Realism** establishes objective value facts (virtue good, vice evil, externals neutral)

4. **Intuitionism** gives us access to these facts (we can know them)

**SYSTEMATIC FOUNDATION (Foundationalism + Correspondence):**

5. **Foundationalism** derives the distinction from secure premises (logical necessity)

6. **Correspondence** validates true vs. false value judgments (objective correctness)

**The complete grounding:** These six commitments transform the virtue/externals distinction from a therapeutic suggestion into an objective truth about reality that we can know with certainty and that logically follows from secure foundations.