Towards a great chain of being

Here is one way to generate a great chain of agency: y is a greater agent than x if for every major type of good that x pursues, y pursues it, too, but not vice versa.

Take for instance the cat and the human. The cat pursues major types of good such as nutrition, reproduction, play, comfort, health, life, truth, and (to a limited degree) social interaction. The human pursues all of these, but additionally pursues virtue, beauty, and union with God. Thus the human is a greater agent than the cat.

Is it the case that humans are at the top of the great chain of agency on earth?

This is a difficult question to answer for at least two reasons. The first reason is that it is difficult to identify the relevant level of generality in my weaselly phrase “major type of good”. The oak pursues photosynthetic nutrition, the dung beetle does its thing, while we pursue other forms of nutrition. Do the three count as pursuing different “major types” of good? I want to say that all these are one major type of good, but I don’t know how to characterize it. Maybe we can say something like this: Good itself is not a genus but there are highest genera of good, and by “major type” we mean these highest genera. (I am not completely sure that all the examples in my second paragraph are of highest genera.)

The second reason the question is difficult is this. The cat is unable to grasp virtue as a type of good. A cat who had a bit more scientific skill might be able to see an instrumental value in the human virtue—could see the ways that it helps members of communities gain cat-intelligible goods like nutrition, reproduction, health, life, etc. But the cat wouldn’t see the distinctive way virtue in itself is good. Indeed, it is not clear that the cat would be able to figure out that virtue is itself a major type of good, no matter how much scientific skill the cat had. Similarly, it is very plausible that there are major types of good that are beyond human knowledge. If we saw beings pursuing those types of good, we would likely notice various instrumental benefits of the pursuit—for the pursuit of various kinds of good seems interwoven in the kinds of evolved beings we find on earth (pursuing one good often helps with getting others)—but we just wouldn’t see the behavior as the pursuit of a major type of good. Like the cat scientist observing our pursuit of virtue, we would reduce the good being pursued to the goods intelligible to us.

Thus, if octopi pursue goods beyond our ken, we wouldn’t know it unless we could talk to octopi and they told us that what they were pursuing in some behavior was a major type of good other than the ones we grasp—though of course, we would still be unable to grasp what was good in it. And as it happens the only beings on earth we can talk to are humans.

All that said, it still seems a reasonable hypothesis that any major type of good that is pursued by non-human organisms on earth are pursued by us.

Anselm's ontological argument

Here is my favorite version of the “existence is not a property” objection to Anselm’s first ontological argument.

It makes no sense to talk of the greatness of a nonexistent being except hypothetically as the greatness it would have if it existed. When we compare the greatness of things, we compare what the things would be like if they existed. Thus, when we say that Thor is greater than Hermes, we mean something like this: if Thor existed, he would be greater than Hermes would be if Hermes existed. And to exist is to exist in reality.

But now take the crucial claim in Anselm’s argument that it is greater for x to exist in mind and in reality than just in mind. This claim is simply false when we understand it in the hypothetical way. For we need to compare the greatness of the x that exists in mind and reality to the greatness that the x that exists only in mind would have if it existed in reality. But that’s the same greatness!

Anselm’s second argument makes no such slip, for it is based on a comparison between contingent and necessary existence, and that comparison survives the criticism.

Kant's 20 thalers objection to the Ontological Argument

I’ve been thinking of this way of putting one of Kant’s “20 thalers” objection to Anselm’s ontological argument:

1, When we say “x is greater than y”, what we mean is that what x would be like if it existed is greater than what y would be like if it existed.

Now, Anselm claims that a perfect being that exists in thought and reality is greater than a perfect being that exists only in thought. But this does not seem true. For what we need to compare is what (a) the perfect being that exists in thought and reality would be like if it existed to what (b) the perfect being that exists only in thought would be like if it existed. But the answer here is that the two perfect beings would be exactly the same under the hypothetical condition that they both existed in reality.

(A query: Wouldn’t the being in (b) be a self-contradictory being if it existed in reality, since it would be a being that exists only in thought and yet that exists in reality? This depends on how the counterfactual is resolved.)

Note that this objection does not apply to the necessary being versions of the argument (like, perhaps, Anselm’s “cannot be conceived not to exist” version). For a perfect being who is a necessary being would be greater, if it existed, than a perfect being who isn’t a necessary being, if that one existed.

I cannot be the greatest being

And here is yet another argument that is sound (given that theism is true):

1. Alexander Pruss couldn't be the greatest being.
2. If theism is not true, Alexander Pruss could be the greatest being.
3. Therefore, theism is true.

The better you know me, the more plausible (1) should be. What about (2)? Well, the intuition is that if theism is not true, then there need not be any infinite beings (I am dismissing as implausible alternatives to theism like Leslie's with multiple necessarily infinite beings, or like weird hypotheses on which there has to be an infinite being in any world where I exist, but it's not God, etc.). But one could imagine a world where I grow smarter, better, stronger and more knowledgeable in every respect, in such a way as to exceed every finite being at that world. Unless there has to be an infinite being in that world, which isn't going to be the case if theism is not true, in that world I will be the greatest being.

If you don't know me well enough to accept (1), replace "Alexander Pruss" with your own name.