Gratitude and the Existence of God

The argument requires the additional premise, "A person is responsible for the existence of butterflies".

Why should any non-theist accept (2), as opposed to something like "We should regard butterflies with wonder and delight, and we should be glad that they exist"?

David,

One can get "A person is responsible for the existence of butterflies" from 1 and 2 (1 is an 'only if', not an 'if')

Alex,
I wonder if 1 is true. Aren't there circumstances where one should be grateful about something, even if there isn't an agent that is responsible for it? I'm thinking of scenarios in which there really isn't an agent that brought x about, but I am justified in believing that there was.

For instance, suppose I'm a farmer who urgently needs rain for his crops, and someone convinces me that there is a demiurge that will make it rain whenever I perform a rain dance. I perform the dance 10 times, and, by coincidence, it rains all 10 times shortly after I dance. It seems to me that I should be grateful for the rain, even if I'm just some poor schmuck that's been deceived and has received some "signs" that bolster my belief. I'm justified in believing this demiurge exists, and I have reason to think that he has graciously helped me. If I weren't grateful, I think I'd be in the wrong.

If the scenario doesn't tug the intuition stings hard enough, consider the (epistemic, at least) possibility that God doesn't really exist. You pray to God about something really important to you, and, against all odds, it comes about. This happens as many times as is necessary for you to think that such events are confirmation of God's existence, love of you, and good grace toward you. Now, even if you are wrong--there is no God and this is all a giant coincidence--I'd say you are behaving immorally if you aren't grateful for the events that happened to you.

In sum, it seems to me that gratefullness should depend on what one is justified in believing, and not on whether or not an agent actually exists that I am grateful toward. If that's true, there are possible situations where the antecedent of 1 is true and the consequent false.

To follow up on O'Keefe's point:

1. We should only be grateful for a feature of the world if a person is responsible for that feature.
2. No non-divine person is responsible for the existence of butterflies.
3. No divine person who could be responsible for the existence of butterflies exists.
4. Therefore, We should not be grateful for the existence of butterflies.

Does this argument beg the question more than the original?

Tim Pawl:

I'm not so sure about that. Let's suppose that (in some narrowly internalistic sense) Snow White justifiably felt grateful that an old peddler woman was willing to give her a magic wishing apple. Still, there is some sense in which, given the facts--it was really the bad Queen giving Snow White a poisoned apple that would send her into the Sleeping Death--her attitude was inapt, or inappropriate to the situation. It's that sense of 'should,' however we want to spell it out exactly, that Alex needs, and your counterexamples wouldn't tell against (1) construed in that way.

I assume the strength of (2) is supposed to be some kind of intuition about butterflies and gratitude? That seems rather implausible on the face of it, just because I see zero reason to think that most people, or any people, feel specifically the obligation to gratitude at seeing butterflies as opposed to some other positive feeling, as Tim O'Keefe suggests.

In a deeper sense I think the problem with the argument is just that (1) is such that the atheist will immediately reject that we feel, or ought to feel, gratitude at butterflies. I can imagine someone saying, "Well fine, if that's what you're going to mean by an obligation to gratitude, then we don't have it in this case and (2) is false because butterflies were not made by a person."

In line with Tim Pawl, I would lastly suggest that we don't have to accept (1). There could be any host of other reasons why someone ought to feel gratitude. Aside from his example, imagine just any scenario where a feeling of gratitude brings about some greater good. Say, kindness of heart. Or, preservation of the thing. Etc.

Tim O'Keefe,

I'd say that Snow White, while believing that the apple was a great gift and prior to knowing the kindly old woman was in fact the Evil Queen, should have felt grateful for the apple. Suppose that at the end of the story (as an afterward after "and they lived happily ever after") there was a bit of Snow White's diary which said "Today I received a wonderful gift of a magic apple from a kindly old lady. She gave it to me and I totally didn't deserve it! But, I'm not grateful for it or anything." I'd say she is an ingrate, or a spoiled brat, or some such thing. Given what she knows, the virtuous response is gratitude.

I think the difference between our understandings of "x should feel grateful" is that you take it (or say Alex needs it to be) appropriate independent of x's mental state and dependent on what is actually the case, whereas I take it to be dependent on what seems to be the case to x. You take it that, even though Snow White had good reason to think the old lady was being kind to her, she shouldn't have been grateful to her, because the old lady was really the queen aiming to hurt her.

Suppose (as I think was the case in the story) Snow White had no way of knowing that the kind old lady was really the evil Queen. If that's true, and she had no way of knowing that the woman meant her harm, do you still think she should have been ungrateful for the apple (supposing that ingratitude is the proper response when someone offers you Disguised Sleeping Death Fruit)?

I've been taking 'should' here as the moral should. What "should" should I be taking 'should' as?

hey, i deny P1...we should be grateful for things that make us better off, or at least, for good things, whether or not they are created by a person...like flowers...

Re.: Snow White. We need to distinguish justification from appropriateness. A feeling can be inappropriate but justified, just as a belief can be false but justified.

Aren't there circumstances where one should be grateful about something, even if there isn't an agent that is responsible for it?

Tim, I'm not so sure. Compare feeling regret for p and feeling regret that p.

If I feel regret for some state of affairs p and I am not responsible for p, then my attitude is inappropriate. It's inappropriate even if I justifiably believe I'm responsible for it. In the latter case I simply don't realize it's inappropriate.
But certainly I can regret that p is the case without attributing responsibility to anyone, including myself, concerning p.
Similarly for being grateful. Alex is arguing tht 'being grateful for' is a three-place relation. x must be grateful TO y FOR z. That seems not entirely unreasonable. The philosophical component is the claim that y must be a person. I can't be grateful to Nature for butterflies? Ok. In any case, I certainly I can be grateful THAT there are butterflies. That's pretty clearly a propositional attitude. And my gratitude relative to butterflies is just as reasonably rendered as 'gratitude that' as 'gratitude for'.

Mike,

I see what you are saying about gratefulness being a three-place relation (and it is helpful to see it spelt at as such). However, I don't think that's right. I think that gratefulness is a two place relation: X is grateful for y, and a necessary condition for x's being grateful is that x THINK that there is a z such that z is responsible for y. Why must it be the case that z ACTUALLY exists, rather than my more modest condition that x think that a Z exists?

If, for instance, it turns out that I'm deceived or confused and God doesn't exist, I wouldn't then say that I haven't been grateful for all the gifts I've attributed to him. Rather, I'd say I've really been grateful, but have been mistaken about whether there is something responsible for what I've been grateful about.

If I have good reason to think God exists and has been treating me well, then I think I have all I need for my gratefulness to be appropriate. If you were to find out that I thought there was a God pouring bountiful blessings on me, and that I wasn't grateful for such gifts, you'd rightly think that I wasn't having the proper response. My response of apathy or ingratitude would be an improper, inapt, and inappropriate response.

I think there is another argument in the near neighborhood to Alex's argument based on my understanding of gratefulness:

5. If x is grateful for y, then x must believe that there is a person z responsible for y.
6. Some folks are grateful for butterflies
7. There is no natural person responsible for the existence of butterflies
8. Thus, If you are one of those folks who is grateful for butterflies (and you believe 7, which most folks do), then you must (should?) believe that there is a non-natural person responsible for the existence of butterflies.

This, of course, is a much weaker argument than Alex's original. However, it doesn't commit us to what I take to be an overly-strong analysis of gratefulness.

Hi Tim. You ask "What 'should' should I be taking 'should' as [in premise (1)]"?

I agree with Alex on this--justified attitudes can still be inappropriate--but let me expand slightly.

Let's return to our imaginary coda to Snow White. After Snow White wakes up and learns what happened to her, I think that a natural reaction would be for her to say, "Gee, I trusted that old lady who gave me the apple, but I shouldn't have." And this need not mean that there was some piece of evidence that she was overlooking, but just that she was treating as trustworthy a woman who actually was scheming, deceptive and malicious.

If you admit that "ingratitude is the proper response when someone offers you Disguised Sleeping Death Fruit," then a person who feels gratitude when offered such a fruit isn't responding properly, and in this sense isn't having the attitude she should have. This is consistent with gratitude being the internally justified and virtuous reaction given her epistemic situation.

Likewise, if gratitude for something has as a presupposition that a person is responsible for that something's being the case, then if I'm grateful for something that no person is responsible for, then my attitude is inappropriate/inapt.

Tim O.,

Thanks for this. I need to clarify what I meant when I wrote "ingratitude is the proper response when someone offers you Disguised Sleeping Death Fruit." I meant when the fruit is offered and you think that it is disguised sleeping death fruit. I can see how what I wrote is misleading, and I'm sorry for the slip.

I see the distinction that you are drawing between apt and inapt gratitude. I'd say there is an important distinction between x being grateful for y and thinking that z brought about y (and z's actually having brought about y) and x being grateful for y and thinking that z brought about y (and z didn't bring about y). we We want all our cases of gratitude to be of the former sort. We may want to call the latter inappropriate gratitude. But, even if we call it such, I wouldn't want to say that x "shouldn't" be grateful for y in such cases. x should still be grateful for y, given what x thinks about z, even if there is no z (which is in conflict with 1.).

Mike,

I'm sure you've noticed this, but I mixed up y and z in my post. You wrote:

x must be grateful TO y FOR z.

I wrote:

X is grateful for y, and a necessary condition for x's being grateful is that x THINK that there is a z such that z is responsible for y

You had y as the person and z as the thing x is grateful for. I reversed y and z in my analysis. I hope that doesn't lead to confusion.

Best,
Tim

Tim,

First let me note that my comment at May 28, 2007 8:32 PM, should have referred to Alex's just previous comment May 28, 2007 6:43 PM which says something in the same ballpark. I haven't read every comment carefully, so most of this might have been said already.

You write,

If, for instance, it turns out that I'm deceived or confused and God doesn't exist, I wouldn't then say that I haven't been grateful for all the gifts I've attributed to him.

No, I wouldn't say that either. I would say that your attitude of being grateful to God is inappropriate. I would not say that you did not feel gratitude. Take a simple example when I express my gratitude to Smith for rescuing Jones. When Smith tells me that she was not responsible for it, I would say that my gratitude to her was inappropriate. I would not say that I did not feel grateful to her.

You add,

Rather, I'd say I've really been grateful, but have been mistaken about whether there is something responsible for what I've been grateful about

Yes, I think we're entirely agreed about that. The point was that some attitudes have conditions of appropriateness: regret does, so does guilt and I'd urge gratitude.

Let's add this to the mix as evidence for (2).

i. x feels gratitude for butterflies.
ii. The occurrence of a feeling is highly defeasible evidence for the feeling's appropriateness.
iii. A feeling of gratitude is only appropriate when one has something to be grateful for.
iv. Therefore: Butterflies are something one to be grateful for.

(There is a small gap between (iv) and (2), but I can reformulate the main argument in terms of "something to be grateful for".)

We need to be a bit careful here. For once one links (i)-(iv) with (1)-(4) one gets a defeasible argument. And an undercutting defeater will probably exist in the case of every x who satisfies the following condition:
(*) x's belief in (4) enters into every explanation of x's feeling grateful for butterflies.

So for the combined argument only works for xs whose feeling of gratitude doesn't come from the conviction that God deserves such gratitude. Nonetheless, I suspect there are such xs. (They may believe in God, but the feeling of gratitude is spontaneous.)

I would suggest as evidence for the existence of xs that do not satisfy (*) the existence of people who personify nature I suspect in part our of a feeling of gratitude which then leads them to conclude nature is a person. In the case of such people, a belief that God deserves the gratitude is not prior.

I should note that a feeling of gratitude may be very indeterminate on the side of whom the gratitude is to. I think we can experience a feeling of gratitude simply to whatever is the cause. But that feeling is only appropriate when there is someone to whom we should be (and not just feel) grateful.

Mike:

"The point was that some attitudes have conditions of appropriateness: regret does, so does guilt and I'd urge gratitude."

Don't all attitudes have conditions of appropriateness? At least, I can't think of any that don't. (Of course maybe you're just stating a weaker claim in order to remain more defensible.)

Alex
You a making a normative claim in premise one that I think needs to be argued for if one is to accept it as being true, or warranted. It seems to me that one can simply be grateful for being alive without this feeling denoting any person responsible for my being alive. I can look at nature and appreciate it is wondrousness (word?) without attaching any responsiblity for the existence of nature, or my feelings, to a person, God-like or otherwise. It simply exists due to the relationship I have with nature.

Alex,

I don't think so. I might have the attitude of boredom without my boredom having any specific object. I'm not sure that can be inappropriate. I might have an attitude of hopefulness. That attitude is not inappropriate even in situations that are not promising. I think similarly for the attitude of faithfulness.

Mike:

Thanks for the examples!

I'm bored when nothing much of what should be of interest to me is happening. If I am bored when something that should be of interest to me is happening, say during a metaphysics lecture by John Hawthorne, then my feeling is inappropriate.

I think hopefulness is always appropriate, but that is just because God, in his love for us, has ensured that the conditions for their appropriateness are always met. If it were certain that the future would only be worse and worse, with fewer and fewer redeeming features, hopefulness would be pointless.

I would have to know the kind of faithfulness you are talking about.

Interesting that you think that boredom can be inappropriate. Imagine this exchange:
A: "Why are you bored, that's Hawthorne speaking".
B: "I don't know, I just don't find any of this interesting".
A: "But you should".
B: "What do you mean 'I should'? What interests me, interests me. That's it."

I think B is right. I don't find it inappropriate that someone fails to find something interesting any more than I find it inappropriate that someone fails to find something flavorful.

On the faithfulness example, I had in mind a deeply trusting attitude. Someone can properly trust that such and such words are God's, that the commandments are binding, etc., without any of those being true.

Mike,

I write then you write:

"If, for instance, it turns out that I'm deceived or confused and God doesn't exist, I wouldn't then say that I haven't been grateful for all the gifts I've attributed to him." [Tim]

"No, I wouldn't say that either. I would say that your attitude of being grateful to God is inappropriate." [Mike]

But we were talking about gratefulness as a three-place relation: X is grateful to Y for Z. If there is no y, how can there be gratefulness? My claim was that if we take gratefulness as this three-place relation, we have the consequence that whenever there is no Y there is no gratefulness. If God doesn't exist, then there is no Y in my gratefulness for the "blessings" in my life. If there is no Y, then there is no gratefulness. It isn't that I have inappropriate gratefulness to God for the blessings, it is that I have NO gratefulness for the blessings. I think that's a bad consequence of a theory of gratefulness, and it looks like you agree with me on that point. So, it looks like you and I have good reason to reject a theory of gratefulness like the one in the first sentence of this paragraph.

The theory of gratefulness I have-- where Y needn't actually exist but rather X must think that there is a Y that brought about Z--doesn't have this untoward consequence. But, it also allows for a counterexample to 1 in the original argument.

Best,
Tim

ps, how does one get italics in a comment?

Tim:

It is possible to be grateful to a non-existent person. It is, however, not possible to be appropriately grateful to a non-existent person (what attitude is deserved by the non-existent? none!) A counterexample would have to be a case where we should have gratitude but there is no one to whom we should be grateful, and where the "should" is understood in the more objective sense.

Italics are done with <em>emphasized text</em>.

Alex, regarding your evidence for (2), two worries:

First of all, I have my doubts about how many non-thesists do have attitudes of gratitude in particular for e.g., the existence of butterflies, as opposed to feelings of wonder, delight, etc., which are in the same neighborhood as gratitude but for which there is little reason to think that they presuppose that there is some person responsible for the existence of the butterflies.

Second, even for people who do have such attitudes of gratitude, I do not see why their existence should have much evidentiary value. This is similar to your concern that if one's gratitude is fueled one's by the conviction that God exists, this would be an undercutting defeater for your argument.

But even for people who don't already believe God exists, and who do (for the sake of argument) have the relevant attitudes of gratitude, there exists an undercutting defeater. I may not believe God exists, but I've been raised in a culture (and maybe in a family) that represents nature as the handiwork of God. And I've imbibed lots of personified depictions of 'Mother Nature' in cheesy margarine commercials and the like. These sorts of factors would help explain why some people who don't believe in God might nonetheless have attitudes of gratitude towards various aspects of nature, but if so, they also would show why the existence of such attitudes would give the person having them little reason to believe that God and/or a personified 'Mother Nature' exist.

Alex,

Thanks for telling me how to use italics :)

Your objective and appropriate should is factive--if one should have objective and appropriate gratitude for z, then there is a y that brought z about.

If that's what "should" should mean in the argument, let's just put it in there. Your 2 should read:

2. We should have appropriate and objective gratitude for the existence of butterflies.

If we modify your 1 so that we can still run a modus ponens, 1 should read:

1. We should only have appropriate and objective grateful for a feature of the world if a person is responsible for that feature.

Given your understanding of "grateful" as objective and appropriate, I think 1 shouldn't have the world "should." It should say "can", since the consequent of 1 is just spelling out explicitly what is implicit in the antecedent. Saying "should" rather than "can" makes it sound like I could have the sort of gratitude you are referring to in this argument without there being a person responsible for the state of affairs I am grateful for.

Making explicit the sort of gratitude you need for your argument to work--appropriate and objective gratitude--makes me even less inclined to think that this argument is a success.

Tim:

I wasn't thinking about it this way. Rather, I was using "should" in the objective sense (in the sense in which we say: "You should do the right thing no matter what", and not in the sense in which we say: "You should do wrong when your conscience tells you it's right"; I am not too happy with the distinction but it's a nice first approximation). That you should have attitude A entails that attitude A would be appropriate. For, in the objective sense, one should not have inappropriate attitudes, even if one incorrectly believes them to be appropriate.

Alex,

Thanks for this.

I'm still not getting the exact force of "should" in the argument. I still think there may be an equivocation between "should" in 1 and "should" in 2.

The "should be grateful" in your argument is factive or nonfactive. Either " x should be grateful for z", as understood in your argument, requires there to be an actually existing y to which x is grateful for z or it doesn't.

If "x should be grateful for z" DOES require an actually existing y to which x is grateful, then you get the problems I mentioned in my proceeding post.

If "x should be grateful for z" DOES NOT require an actually existing y to which x is grateful, then 1 is false. There are (at least possible) cases where x should be grateful for z and the y x is grateful toward doesn't actually exist.

Either way there are problems with the argument.

Call perfect gratitude the gratitude x has for z to y when y actually exists and is responsible for z. This is the sort of gratitude we all want. No one wants anything less than perfect gratitude. Is this the sort of gratitude you are saying we "should" have for butterflies in your argument?

Thanks,
Tim

Tim,

But we were talking about gratefulness as a three-place relation: X is grateful to Y for Z. If there is no y, how can there be gratefulness? My claim was that if we take gratefulness as this three-place relation, we have the consequence that whenever there is no Y there is no gratefulness.

If there is no x, then (1) does not entail (2).

1. I am grateful to Santa for y.

2. I am grateful to Santa.

And so my gratitude is inappropriate. But it does not entail that I do not have a misdirected gratitude. And so it does not entail that I do not have a genuine feeling of gratitude. What I do not have is gratitue to Santa (since there is no santa). The fact that the attitude is directed to a nonexistent being does not mean it fails to be three-placed or fails to be gratitude.

Compare this example. Smith regrets that he killed Jones. I do not deny that 'regrets that' is two-placed. I don't deny that Smith might genuinely feel regret, though, as it happens, he did not kill Jones (unbeknownst to Smith, Sue killed Jones). I do say that Smith's regret is inappropriate.

Tim:

How about this:

Premises:
1. Gratitude is only appropriate for something for which a person is responsible.
2. Only things for which gratitude would be appropriate are things that we should (objectively; or "materially" as scholastics would say) be grateful for.
3. We should (objectively) be grateful for the existence of butterflies.
4. No non-divine person is responsible for the existence of butterflies.

Conclusion:
5. Hence, a divine person is responsible for the existence of butterflies.

Or this non-deductive variant:
1. Gratitude is only appropriate in the case of something for which a person is responsible.
2. Gratitude for the existence of butterflies is appropriate.
3. No non-divine person is responsible for the existence of butterflies.
4. Hence, a divine person is responsible for the existence of butterflies.

Mike,

I see your point. I was thinking that, if gratitude is indeed a three-place relation, it would behave like "is between" which is also three-placed. Suppose B is between A and C. Suppose C gets annihilated. We wouldn't say that B is still between A and C, just inappropriately. We'd say that, given that being between is three-placed, you just plain can't have it instantiated without something fulfilling that last place.

Thanks Tim, and nice example. The question is good. I agree that 'x is between y and z' entails that there is some x, y and z. I also agree that, when the gratitude is appropriate, 'x is grateful to y for z' entails there is some x, y, z. But what you said earlier (May 28th above) was this,

X is grateful for y, and a necessary condition for x's being grateful is that x THINK that there is a z such that z is responsible for y. Why must it be the case that z ACTUALLY exists, rather than my more modest condition that x think that a Z exists?

There is something right about this, I think. Since the latter is an intensional verb it is possible for you to express gratitude to someone you believe exists, but does not. So I agree with you that you can express gratitude in the sort of case you describe. What I deny is that such gratitude is appropriate. Make sense?

Dear Alex,

Concerning the new deductive argument:

premise 1 needs a strong notion of "appropriate." I'd say (with some circumstantial caveats) that it is appropriate to feel gratitude whenever you think that someone has done something good for you--whether or not such a person exists. I'm fine with restricting "appropriate" such that it is stronger than what I say here, but I think that should be noted: "Appropriate gratitude (in 1) implies the existence of a person responsible for the thing one is grateful for.

Given the strong use of both "appropriate" and "should", I affirm both 1 and 2. However, given the strong use of the terms, I wouldn't affirm 3 unless I already affirmed the existence of a being responsible for butterflies.

Mike,

It makes perfect sense.

I think there are two uses of "appropriate" here. I've been using the term in what you might call a subjective way. On my usage, even if I were a brain in a vat and every other person was dead, so long as I thought I had received a good, and I thought that someone gave it to me, it would be appropriate for me to be grateful. Given my mental state, gratitude is the appropriate response. If I weren't grateful, I'd be behaving inappropriately. This "appropriate" is a normative "appropriate"

But, I think you and Alex (and maybe everyone else who commented here!) has been using "appropriate" in an objective sense. It isn't appropriate for me to have gratitude when a BIV in an otherwise empty world, because there is no one to be grateful toward. Even if I think there is, and even if I have good reason to think it, it is inappropriate to be grateful without there being someone responsible for what I'm grateful for.

I think both uses of the term are ...appropriate...