 For Lange, the realization that metaphysics is a creation of the imagination, similar to art, opens up a way to respond to the damaging ethical consequences of the materialistic world view (Widmer, forthcoming). Though he does seem to think that the materialistic world views of many of his contemporaries influence their ethics, it is less clear whether Lange thinks that the kind of materialism discussed above actually entails any ethical positions. At times Lange claims that both a normative principle of ethical egoism and a principle of sympathy for humanity can both be “derived” [abgeleitet] from theoretical materialism (Lange 1873–75, 3:260, 303). It is perhaps most charitable to read Lange as suggesting that there is nothing in materialism that requires one principle or the other, but that one could find oneself attracted to either principle, even if one started from theoretical materialism. His considered view appears to be that materialists have a plausible explanatory account for certain kinds of human behaviour, but that they slide from this plausible explanatory account to problematic normative claims. His label “ethical materialism” seems to be a label for the kind of ethical positions that materialists tend to accept as a matter of sociological or psychological fact rather than some particular ethical position required by materialism.