RE: Paganism vs. Monotheism
August 12, 2015 at 11:13 am
(This post was last modified: August 12, 2015 at 11:15 am by Pyrrho.)
(August 12, 2015 at 5:20 am)Nestor Wrote:
In all seriousness, I take your point. It seems to me to be the very definition of improbable - and the obstacle theists cannot overcome - to propose that there is not one single instance of suffering that lacks any redeeming quality or purpose; contrarily, if all such actual and possible evil does in some sense "work for good for those who love God," then the problem has, rather than been solved, simply been denied. Evil must be viewed, according to the "blessed," as a necessary supplement to the greatest possible good, and therefore not really evil at all.
You are certainly correct, that that is a kind of denial that there is a problem. That response is unsatisfactory for a few reasons. First, it is asserted and not supported by legitimate arguments. (The arguments are typically a form of begging the question, in which it is assumed that there really is a God as described, and uses that as the basis for deciding that this is the best of all possible worlds. However, since the existence of such a God is the issue at hand, assuming its existence is purely begging the question.) So there is no reason to accept it at all. Second, the idea is implausible on its face. That is, it is not what appears to be the case. Of course, appearances can sometimes be deceiving, but there is in this case no compelling reason to suppose that the appearance is anything other than exactly correct. Third, a direct consequence of that idea is that it is impossible to ever do anything that is evil. If I become a mass murderer, then that must be somehow for the greater good, and consequently it is good for me to be a mass murderer. And if I torture small children to death in my basement, then, that, too, must be good, as that must also be for the greater good. A direct consequence of that idea is that everything is permitted; everything is good. And not only that, but that every action that does happen must be better than every action that does not happen; thus, if I torture to death children in my basement, me doing that must be better than the counterfactual idea of me not doing it. And yet the advocates of the idea that you express never (at least never in my experience) accept this conclusion that necessarily follows from their position. In other words, they end up contradicting themselves, and consequently are wrong in their view of the world, no matter what the truth may be.
(August 12, 2015 at 5:20 am)Nestor Wrote:
I don't see how a legal definition of "free will" imposes on, or resolves, the philosophical conclusions any deteminist - hard or soft - must appear to confess: freedom to choose right or wrong, i.e. the moral quality attached to such freedom, is entirely illusory. If you claim that these contentious notions - free will, determinism, and moral responsibility - are compatible, I think it's likewise incumbent on you to explain how and why this could be so, also without appeal to magic.
What I meant was that the way "free will" is commonly used in ordinary life makes no reference to metaphysical determinism. One can look at Aristotle's discussion of this in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, of "voluntary" and "involuntary" actions.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicoma...3.iii.html
Whether there is ultimately an earlier cause of what a person is, that makes no difference for the distinction between a voluntary (i.e. free) action and an involuntary action.
One can look at this another way. A man may be good or bad, as he is. It makes no difference how he became that way, as far as the judgement that he is good or is bad at present. A murderer is a murderer, regardless of what caused him to be a murderer.
(August 12, 2015 at 5:20 am)Nestor Wrote: Here's an interesting argument for human freedom I was recently offered, which is a formalization of Sartre:
1. For a state of affairs to cause human action, the causal efficacy of said state of affairs must come only from the characteristics of the state of affairs itself.
2. A state of affairs has no meaning in itself.
3. If a state of affairs has no meaning in itself, its meaning must be given to it by someone experiencing it.
4. The meaning of a state of affairs must be given to it by someone experiencing it. (MP on 2 & 3)
5. The meaning of a state of affairs is what motivates our actions.
6. If the meaning of a state of affairs is what motivates our actions, then (for human actions) the causal efficacy of said state of affairs does not come only from characteristics of the state of affairs itself.
7. (For human actions) the causal efficacy of a state of affairs does not come only from characteristics of the state of affairs itself. (MP on 5 & 6)
8. No state of affairs can, by itself, cause human action. (MT on 1 & 7)
9. If no state of affairs can, by itself, cause human action, then human action is free.
10. Human action is free. (MP on 8 & 9)
What is your take on that?
It seems to me he is equivocating on the phrase "meaning of a state of affairs." With 5, the "meaning" of which he writes appears to mean the feelings that people have. Yet people have feelings due to the particular state of affairs (not the way I would normally express this) that is the arrangement of their constituent parts. And that runs counter to 2, in that the state of affairs, the way one is, is the cause of the feelings one has, and those feelings are what motivate action.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
