In the 3rd-4th century AD joke book, the Philogelos, we meet a son arguing with father, and exclaiming:
Don't you know how much injury you have done me? Why, had you not been born, I should have inherited my grandfather's estate.(The translation here is taken from a quote or paraphrase in Clouston's Book of Noodles; excerpts from the Philogelos can be found here, here and here.)
Leibniz held that each monad mirrored all the others, namely that by knowing all there is to know about each, you knew all there was to know about all. If essentiality of origins holds, then we get Leibniz-like theses quite easily.
1. If essentiality of origins holds, then each thing mirrors everything in its causal history in the strong sense that the proposition that x exists entails the whole causal history of x's coming into existence.
2. If essentiality of origins and determinism holds, and if we add the further postulate that all of the initial conditions for the whole universe are a part of the causal history of every item in the universe's coming into existence, then for every item x in the universe, the proposition that x exists conjoined with the laws entails the whole past, present and future history of the universe.
3. If to the assumptions in (2) we add the postulate that no item in the universe could have existed with the laws being different, then we get the stronger claim that no item in the universe could have existed in any other world—i.e., that the items in the universe are world-bound individuals.
This might make Leibniz's doctrine of mirroring more plausible to some. But I am not a determinist myself.
If inequality in respect of the possession of goods is intrinsically bad, then by creating the world, God necessarily produced something bad, since, necessarily, no creature can have all the goods that God does. But it is absurd that creation necessarily involves a bad. Hence, inequality in respect of the possession of goods is not intrinsically bad.
A common popular criticism of valuing equality in and of itself is that one can achieve equality, say in utility, simply by bringing down everybody who is above the level of the least happy member of the community, which is plainly undesirable. I am ashamed to say that I've used this criticism myself in the past.
But the criticism only applies to a naive view where equality is considered in a binary way—you either have it or you don't, and there is a value in having it and a disvalue in not having it. But of course on any non-naive view, equality is valued along a continuum—a minor inequality has small disvalue, while a large inequality has large disvalue. If one takes this into account, it's easy to come up with ways of weighing the value of equality, or equivalently the disvalue of inequality, that are not subject to the above criticism.
For instance, suppose we have n persons, with utilities: u1,...,un. Standard consequentialism calculates an overall value of u1+...+un. But there are many ways of modifying this so that one (a) takes equality into account, and (b) avoids the popular criticism. Now, the intuition behind the popular criticism is, I think, based on the following intuition:
All that said, I think such numerical models are not something to take very seriously. Here's one reason. While we might think that there is an objective answer to the question: "What is the mass of the electron?", and that this might be some number, the idea that there should be an objective answer to the question: "What is the true value of cn in the above total-good formula?" is very implausible to me. And all such additive formulae assume commensurability of goods between people, which I deny. But the models may still be useful, say for showing how an advocate of equality might avoid the leveling-down criticism.
Consider a version of John Perry's argument that action needs tense. You promised to call a friend precisely between 12:10 and 12:15 and no later. When it is between 12:10 and 12:15, and you know what time it is, this knowledge, together with the promise, gives you reason to call your friend. But if this knowledge is tenseless, then you could have it at 12:30, say. Thus, absurdly, at 12:30 you could have knowledge that gives you just as good a reason to call your friend.[note 1]
Here, however, is a tenseless proposal. Suppose it is 12:12, and I am deliberating whether to call my friend. I think the following thought-token, with all the verbs in a timeless tense:
For suppose that at 12:30, I am again deliberating whether to call my friend. I have, on this tenseless proposal, the very same beliefs that at 12:12 were expressed by (1). It would seem that where I have the same beliefs and the same knowledge, I have the same reasons. If this principle is not true, the Perry argument fails, since then one can simply affirm that one has the same beliefs and knowledge at 12:30 as one did at 12:12, but at 12:30 these beliefs and knowledge are not a reason for acting, while they are a reason for acting at 12:12. But I can affirm the principle, and I am still not harmed by the argument. For what is it that I conclude at 12:30 that I have (tenseless) reason to do? There is reason that the deliberative process should conclude in a call to the friend. But the relevant referent of "the deliberative process" is not the deliberative process that occurs at 12:30, call it D12:30, but the deliberative process that occurs at 12:12, call it D12:12. For (1) is not about the 12:30 deliberative process, but about the 12:12 one.
The principle that the same beliefs and knowledge gives rise to the very same reasons may be true—but the reason given rise to is a reason for the 12:12 deliberative process to conclude in a phone call. But that is not what I am deliberating about at 12:30. At 12:30, I am deliberating whether this new deliberative process, D12:30, should result in a phone call to the friend. That I can easily conclude that D12:12 should result in a phone call to the friend is simply irrelevant.
There is an awkwardness about the solution as I have formulated it. It makes deliberative processes inextricably self-referential. What I am deliberating about is whether this very deliberation should result in this or that action. But I think this is indeed a plausible way to understand a deliberation. When a nation votes for president, the nation votes not just for who should be president, but for who should result as president from this very election. (These two are actually subtly different questions. There could be cases where it is better that X be president, but it is better that Y result as president from this very election. Maybe X promised not to run in this election.)
[I made some minor revisions to this post, the most important of which was to emphasize that (1) is a token.]
We are clearly not morally required to obey laws that tell us to do something immoral. But what about laws that, while not requiring anything immoral, nonetheless have ridiculous consequences?
Here is a fun Texas example. According to Chapter 1702.104 of the Texas Occupations Code:
(a) A person acts as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the person:And according to 1702.101,
(1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information related to: [...]
(D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property; [...]
Unless the person holds a license as an investigations company, a person may not:Consequence: Without a PI license, a historian may not apply for or accept a postdoc at a Texas university to work on a book on the causes of the Great Fire of Rome of 64AD.
(1) act as an investigations company;
(2) offer to perform the services of an investigations company;
Let w be a world where there is only one finite being, George. George has always existed in w. Moreover, each day for George has been just like the previous. Each day, George is mildly happy overall—except he has a minor itch that he can't scratch. Let us suppose that the laws of nature in w are such that they allow one deviation from the endless cycle of repetition from day to day—the itch can disappear (and only in one way, at one particular time of day). After the itch disappears, each day will be mildly happy, and indeed happier than before, and each day, except the first post-itch day, will be just like the previous for George (George won't remember how many days it has been he has lost the itch), forever. Here is an intuition:
But not all theories of time can do justice to this intuition. If time is relational (which also, I think, would imply that the B-theory holds), and we tell the details of the story right, then the world where the itch disappears today if the same as the world where the itch disappears in a billion years—both are worlds where there is an itch for an infinite number of years, and then there is no itch for another infinite number of years. Therefore, either time is not relational or else no situation like the above is possible. But the only good reason to think that no situation like the above is possible is if one thinks that there cannot be indiscernibles or one thinks that it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time. Thus, either time is not relational or there cannot be indiscernible times or it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time. Since I think time is relational, I conclude that either there cannot be indiscernible times or it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time.
It's also not clear that presentism fits with (1). In both of the scenarios mentioned in (1), there is a present itch, and the future does not exist. So why should one of the scenarios be better than the other? If this argument, which I am less sure of, is right, then either presentism is false or it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time.
It would be nice to do better than just getting disjunctive conclusions. For that, we'd need other arguments to rule out of more disjuncts.
Here are three levels of anti-Pelagianism:
An interesting difference at least of emphasis between Catholics and Protestants is that Protestants see Pelagianism primarily as a denial of (1), and focus on (1) in anti-Pelagian polemic, while Catholicism, I think, has an emphasis not just on (1), but also on (2)—grace is not only needed now for fallen man, but Adam and Eve needed grace, too, to attain the beatific vision. And even (3) is probably pretty common in Catholicism. E.g., Aquinas would surely endorse (3). His view of the fall of Satan, if my shaky memory serves me, was that Satan wanted to get by his own powers the good that God was going to give to him by grace—i.e., that Satan was a practical Pelagian.
Christian materialism holds that the human being is a fully material entity, with no immaterial soul. Here is a problem for this view: What happened, on this view, when Christ died? After all, death is the destruction of the body.
Option 1: He ceased to exist. This option is distinctly unsatisfactory theologically—Christians have never believed that. On the contrary, Christians believed he descended into sheol to draw out the souls of those awaiting him there. And if God is omnitemporally eternal, it has the consequence that one of the persons of the Trinity ceased to exist, which is contrary to divine eternity.
Option 2: He ceased to exist qua human. But this simply means that the Incarnation ceased for the second person of the Trinity, and he was back to the state he was before the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation was not a gain for him, neither was this any loss. But then the sacrificial meaning of his death is undercut.
Option 3: He continued to exist, because a chunk, or the whole, of his brain was miraculously preserved, and then that brain piece or that brain descended into sheol to draw out the souls awaiting him. This seems implausible. Moreover, unless something like this happens for all of us (Peter van Inwagen played with this option), then his death was radically different from our deaths, which is theologically problematic. And if this is what happens to all of us, then death is not as evil as it seems—it's really just like an amputation of a lot of one's body, but not of all of it.
Option 4: He continued to exist, and so the Logos was the dead body of Christ. This view is similar to the orthodox view that the dead body of Christ was still united to the divinity. But do we really want to take the further step of saying that the Logos was a dead body?
The only argument against theism that is worth considering at all seriously as an argument against theism[note 1] is the inductive problem of evil.
The inductive argument from evil holds that it is unlikely that God would have created a world containing the degree, kind and amount of evil that we observe.
Now, one might offer the inductive argument from evil as an argument for some supernaturalistic hypothesis, such as that there is an evil god (either alone or along with a good or neutral one), or that there is an indifferent god, or the like. In that case, what I will say below does not apply. But, among contemporary philosophers, the primary hypothesis competing with theism is not one of these unorthodox supernaturalistic ones, but naturalism. And then the philosopher offering the inductive argument from evil needs to show not just that the degree, kind and amount of evil that exists in the world is unlikely on the theistic hypothesis, but that it is more unlikely on the theistic hypothesis than on the naturalistic hypothesis.
But to show this is tricky. Much of this point comes from C. Stephen Layman (I am grateful to Todd Buras for letting me know of Layman's argument). Let us grant for the sake of argument that the conditional probability of the degree, kind and amount of evil that we observe is, say, 10−20 given theism. Denote theism by T and let E is the event of there being the degree, kind and amount of evil that we in fact observe. Then it's granted for the sake of the argument that P(E|T)=10−20. Do we know that the probability of the degree, kind and amount of evil that we observe is more than 10−20 given naturalism, i.e., that P(E|N)>10−20, where N is naturalism?
Many of the evils that we observe are of such a kind that they are only evil because of conscious life—pains are like that. Therefore, E entails the existence of conscious life, but says a lot more than that conscious life exists. Hence: P(E|N)<P(C|N), where C is the claim that there is conscious life. If P(C|N) is no greater than 10−20 then we do not have P(E|N)>10−20. Thus the naturalist to use the argument from evil against theism must be able to estimate P(C|N) as greater than 10−20. I do not think we are in a position to make that estimate. And without it, we are not in a position to know that the inductive argument from evil supports naturalism over theism.
Moreover, many of the evils that we observe are moral evils. That there are moral evils entails that there are morally responsible persons, and that there are moral truths. IF R is the claim that there are morally responsible persons and M the claim that there are moral truths, then in order to use the inductive argument from evil as an argument against theism and for naturalism, one would have to show that P(R and M|N) is bigger than 10−20. But I don't think we are in a position to know that. First, it may be very unlikely that persons would arise given N. Second, it seems quite plausible that for moral responsibility one requires persons who engage in a form of causation very different from the natural causation around them—if all we have is the kind of causation that ordinarily goes on in nature, we don't have moral responsibility. If so, then the likelihood of R given N is nil, or perhaps very small. Furthermore, these persons would have to have moral beliefs to be morally responsible. But to secure intentionality for moral beliefs is a tough task for the naturalist. It's hard enough to secure intentionality for empirical beliefs on naturalistic theories, but perhaps some kind of causal theory of content can be made to work. But it does not seem likely that in a naturalistic setting (except an Aristotelian one—and that's not what people usually mean by "naturalism") we could get intentionality for moral beliefs.
And while I do not know of an entirely convincing argument that the existence of moral truths is incompatible with naturalism, the existence of moral truths is not as prima facie likely given naturalism as given non-naturalistic hypotheses like theism. (In fact, theism entails the existence of moral truths.)
Moreover, among the evils that E reports, there are some truly horrendous moral evils. While bare-bones theism may have difficulties with explaining these, naturalism likely has a difficulty with explaining them, too. But theism, unlike naturalism, is at least compatible with positing a supernatural tempter, a devil, to help explain these horrendous moral evils. So, once again, it is not clear that naturalism does better.
Of course one can tell stories about the evolution of persons, responsibility and even the capacity for horrendous moral evil. But are these stories any better than stories that the theist can tell—stories about divine design, the value of human and demonic freedom, etc.?
If I am right, then the argument from evil does not support naturalism. The naturalist can still offer the argument as an ad hominem, but if she is serious about thinking that the argument is a good reason to reject theism, she needs to be open to the possibility that it is a good reason to abandon naturalism.
Today at Baylor's Science and Human Nature conference I am giving a talk where I argue that absurdities follow from the assumption that a robot is a person. For a quick argument, note that the question of how many persons there are ought always to have an objective answer, but the question of how many robots there does not always have an objective answer. (Think of a larger robot made up of smaller ones, for instance.)
I am holding out to you my two closed fists. Let us suppose that I know that you know that I know which, if any, of my fists are empty and which are full (for simplicity, I take "full" to be the denial of "empty"). You don't know which, if any, of my fists are empty and which are full. In which of the following cases would I be telling you a lie if I said: "My left hand is full or my right hand is full" while competently using English? (Choose "depends" if you think the answer depends on factors that I didn't include in the description of the case.)
Suppose a couple uses contraception but conception nonetheless occurs. Then it is true that the couple have put obstacles in the way of their own child's life, indeed that they have engaged in activity directly opposed to their child's life. To stand to one's child in the relation of having directly opposed Johnny's life fits poorly with having an unconditional love for Johnny, unless one has repented of having opposed Johnny's life. But if the act of contraception was morally unproblematic and rational, then one cannot repent of it, since a part of repenting of an act is recognizing that the act was not to be done.
Therefore, contracepting couples take the risk (for surely there is always a chance of pregnancy) of standing in an inappropriate relation to their child—in the relation of having striven against that child's life.
I don't know how much this argument establishes. In the case of 100% effective contraception (e.g., complete removal of the ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus), the argument is silent. In the case of typical contraception, whose effectiveness is less than 100%, the argument either establishes that the contraception is wrong, or that at least there is a very strong moral presumption against it.
Does the argument say anything about the couple who uses natural family planning (NFP)? Well, there are two ways conception can occur despite NFP. One way is because the couple engage in marital union despite the fact that the NFP method tells them that there is a significant chance of conception. If Johnny is conceived in this way, then the couple has not done anything that hindered or opposed Johnny's conception. (One might think that by abstaining on other days they hindered Johnny's conception. But Johnny could not have been conceived on those other days—they abstained from conceiving other children then.) In fact, in this case, it is right to say that the couple wasn't using NFP on the relevant day.
The other, and apparently rarer, case is where the couple mistakenly believe that they are infertile on a given day, but in fact they are fertile (either because they incorrectly used the NFP method or because the NFP method made a mis-prediction). In this case, I do not think we can say that the couple hindered Johnny's coming into existence. But we can say that they hoped Johnny would not come into existence, and that they would have refrained from bringing Johnny into existence if they knew there was a significant risk. The relation of having hoped one's child would not come into existence, and of its being the case that one would have refrained from bringing the child into existence, is not an ideal one. Thus there is a presumption against risking being in such a position, and hence there is a presumption against using NFP (which is closely related, I suppose, to the Catholic claim that a couple needs to have serious reasons to use NFP). But this is not a relation that is as morally problematic as the relation of having actively tried to hinder one's child's coming into existence. It is one thing not to have striven to further a child's life and another to have striven to hinder it.
But could one perhaps say that the NFP-using couple in the second case was trying to abstain from the act that would have produced Johnny, and trying to abstain from conceiving is an active opposition to life? But it seems to me that if it is an opposition to life at all, it is a much lesser one than active hindrance—just as it is one thing to try to abstain from giving an extraordinarily burdensome medical treatment (this may be hard—it may require a struggle for a conscientious health professional to refrain from offering the treatment) and another to kill. And perhaps the intention in abstaining is not to prevent Johnny from existing, but to prevent oneself from acting against the virtue of prudence (by having potentially fertile marital relations when one has grave reasons to the contrary).
Our Department's (unofficial) weekly Bible study is on 1 John. We meet for about 55 minutes every week. The last three weeks, we've been struggling through 1 John 2:28-3:10 (last week we "covered" only two verses). The dilemma is that the text seems to be telling us that if we are children of God, then we do what is right and love our brother, and if we do not do what is right or fail to love our brother, then we are not children of God. This makes it seem that unless we are perfect, we have no hope of salvation. But we are not perfect (or at least, I am not, and none of my colleagues wanted to claim perfection)—and, besides, 1 John begins by warning us against claiming we are perfect.
I am beginning to wonder if this isn't the right place to bring in the notion of purgatory.
The first part of today's sermon was quite unique (actually, so were the second and third parts, but it's only on the first that I want to comment). It was on All Souls'. I can't remember any noteworthy All Souls' sermons ever before. I am guessing that they were warm and comforting. But our pastor was quite blunt. The souls we commemorate on All Souls' are the souls who are in purgatory because they loved something other than God more than they loved God (I would add the qualifier: in some respect). They are not to be emulated. We should look forward to meeting them in heaven, but should try to avoid their purgatorial route.
