Thursday, May 30, 2013

Yet another amusing ontological argument

  1. The existence of a perfect being does not entail the existence of horrendous, morally intolerable, gratuitous evil.
  2. If it is possible that there is a perfect being, then there is a perfect being. (By S5 and as a perfect being exists necessarily and is essentially perfect.)
  3. So, possibly there is a perfect being. (By (1), since an impossibility entails every proposition)
  4. So, there is a perfect being. (By (2) and (3))
The problematic (though true) premise is (1), of course.

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3 comments:

  1. Mike AlmeidaJune 1, 2013 at 9:08 AM

    What is the impossibility in (1)? (1) just says that G does not entail E, as far as I can tell.

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  2. Rick TaylorJune 2, 2013 at 10:50 AM

    Of course you could run this argument in reverse just as easily, beginning with (1) It is not true that the nonexistence of a perfect being entails the world is maximally good.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alexander R PrussJune 2, 2013 at 1:04 PM

    Rick:

    Fair enough.

    ReplyDelete