I leave it again for 4D defenders to point out the false premise in the following argument. Let Smith be a person that lives a short span, say 10 yrs and assume Smith does nothing wrong in his short life. I take it as obvious that (1) is true.
1.0 It is wrong to punish Smith for going wrong in his life.
Let Jones be a person (not identical to Smith) that also lives a short life, again, 10 yrs. Suppose Jones’ life is quite bad. I take (1.1) to be obviously true.
1.1 For all x and y, is unjust to punish y for x’s transgression.
1.2. It is unjust to punish Smith for the transgressions of Jones. (from 1.0, 1.1)
Let Adam(1) and Adam(2) be two distinct 10yr parts of Adam. We know that Smith ≠ Jones and we know that Adam(1) ≠ Adam(2). Suppose Adam(1) goes badly wrong in his ten yrs. It follows by the same reasoning as above that it is wrong to punish Adam(2) for the transgressions of Adam(1). But it is impossible to punish Adam without punishing Adam(2). So we can never justly punish Adam for the transgressions of Adam(1).
1.3 God is perfectly just and would never punish anyone inappropriately.
1.4 Punishing Adam entails punishing Adam(2) unjustly.
1.5 God would not punish Adam.
It is easy to see, by generalizing the argument, that God can never justly punish anyone. But then, good news!
1.6 Universalism must be true!
Hi Mike,
You've got a typo in 1.1–as it stands it implies that it is unjust to punish anyone for their transgressions. I expect you meant one of the following:
1.1- For all x and y, if x and y are different people, then it is unjust to punish y for x's transgressions.
or
1.1+ For all x and y, if x and y are distinct, then it is unjust to punish y for x's transgressions.
On my reading of 4Dism, the 4Dist should reject 1.1+ and accept 1.1-. When we talk about stages, to count as "the same person" does not entail identity; rather it entails the right sort of continuity. (This is just what I meant last time when I said we count stages "by persons".) But on this understanding of "same person", then Adam(1) and Adam(2) are the same person. So it's just to punish Adam(2) for Adam(1)'s crimes.
Other 4Dists might approach this differently. They might say that neither Adam(1) nor Adam(2) count as people at all; only *maximal* personish continuants are people. And still others might give up 1.1-, saying instead simply that it is just to punish a stage properly continuous with some other stage that commits a crime. I think the last version is a bit more at odds with our usual linguistic practice, but not *deeply* off.
When we talk about stages, to count as "the same person" does not entail identity; rather it entails the right sort of continuity.
Thanks Jeff, right, (1.1) was about the tenth version of that premise, which was pretty complicated at one point. You're exactly right.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the same person" in your comment quoted above. I do know what it means to say that X and Y are two parts of the same person. Lot's of people (Locke (maybe) to Parfit and on down) allow it that X and Y might be two parts of the same person if X and Y stand in the right sort of relation, R, short of identity. But this seems beside the point I'm trying to make. My claim is that, when it comes to punishment, you cannot punish X for what Y does (of course assuming X is not Y). I can't imagine you disagree with that. I'm sure you agree also, that, in the case under discussion, X is not Y, despite the fact that X and Y are parts of the same person. Now the natural way to go is to say that we can punish Adam (who is composed of X and Y) since surely Adam did something wrong. My argument is that you cannot justly punish Adam, since in doing so you necessarily punish Y who did nothing wrong. Does it matter that some claim Y is personish, rather than a person? I don't think so. Y need not be intrinsically different from Smith (qualitatively). So if you want to claim that Y is personish and not a person, you've got to argue that Y does not count as a person on the basis of Y's non-intrinsic properties. But since when are non-intrinsic properties necessary to being a person? But it's simply not credible to claim that Smith at 10yrs was a person, but he would not have been a person at 10yrs had he lived to 10.2yrs.
I don't see why it is impossible to punish Adam(1) without punishing Adam (2). Why can't Adam(1) be punished while he still exists? I think this argument works only if one assumes that in order to punish someone justly, one must wait until his life is over.
Hi David,
I don't suppose it's impossible, but the argument concerns universalism. The general assumption is that we receive whatever punishment we deserve at the end of our lives. This is why universalism must be true, given a just God.
I should add that, quite generally, whatever part of you gets punished will be a part that did not commit any transgression, since the punishment must (at least) follow the transgression.
Well, I'm a lot more sympathetic than you are to the notion that personhood isn't intrinsic. In general, I think lots of properties that intuitively seem intrinsic aren't really: for instance, you might have thought that length was intrinsic, but it turns out according to relativity (I take it) that it's frame-relative; you might have thought being a left-handed glove was intrinsic, but it turns out (I take it) that orientation is relational; and so on. So I don't find it incredible at all that which things are people might depend on their surroundings.
But while a lot of 4Dists may take this line, it isn't my favored approach to this issue. I don't think my version is as common (though I believe Delia Graff Fara shares at least large parts of it).
My claim is that, when it comes to punishment, you cannot punish X for what Y does (of course assuming X is not Y). I can't imagine you disagree with that.
There is a sense in which I really do disagree with that, though there is also a sense in which I agree. I do think that it is sometimes just to punish X for the crimes of Y even when X and Y are, strictly speaking, distinct. But the reason I think this is that I don't think that strictly-speaking-identity is a very important relation when it comes to things like punishment or other personal affairs. What matters in that context is the relation of counting as the same person. (This kind of counting talk is borrowed from David Lewis; e.g. in the passage he quotes from himself in "Many But Almost One", p. 175.) For two stages to count as the same person is for them to be related by the right sort of continuity.
Furthermore, I think that lots of ordinary language expressions that are traditionally interpreted in terms of identity—like pronominal cross-reference, or "is"—are better interpreted in terms of other sameness relations, like same-personhood. And this is why there is a sense in which I agree with you: I agree with the English sentence, "You should not punish someone for what someone else does", and also with "If X commits a crime, then only X can be justly punished for it." I just don't think that either "someone else" or "only X" should be understood in terms of strict identity. In English, people are counted by the sameness relations proper to people, not to other things.
This is unorthodox semantics, but I think it earns its keep by helping with a lot more problems than just this one. Is the view clear enough?
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the clarification. But even if punishment can only occur at the end of one's life, and God cannot justly punish any later stage for the sins of an earlier stage, this isn't sufficient for universalism. Suppose Adam(1) deserves punishment at the end of his life. God need not bring into existence a post-mortem unpunished Adam(2) and his successors, where this chain beginning with Adam(2)is what I think the 4D defender would take as Adam's being saved.
you might have thought being a left-handed glove was intrinsic, but it turns out (I take it) that orientation is relational; and so on. So I don't find it incredible at all that which things are people might depend on their surroundings.
Thanks, Jeff. I guess two points. I don't think the left-handed-ness of a glove is an intrinsic property. You can, more or less, move the glove through a 4th dimension by turning it inside out. It's then a right-handed glove. Second, I was was referring to the (more or less endless) literature on personhood according to the consensus on which there is a set of intrinsic properties that are person-making. I don't deny that the literature is not exactly cogent.
But I think there's a bigger problem with your suggestion. You write,
What matters in that context is the relation of counting as the same person.
And that relation is not identity, on the view you're defending. But if it is true that X and Y are the same, in any important sense of being the same, then you can't solve the problem of temporary intrinsics. To resolve that, you need X and Y to be in the important sense distinct. So, take the intrinsic property of being in pain at t and not being in pain at t'. If X and Y are in every important sense the same, then X is both in pain and not. That can't happen. So, you wind up saying that for some purposes, X and Y are not importantly the same, and for other purposes they are. And it starts to sound ad hoc.
I'm sure you can guess what I'd say on behalf of the 4D theorist. 1.4 is false. Instead: "Punishing Adam entails punishing* Adam(2)."
"Punishing Adam entails punishing* Adam(2)."
Right. But it would sure be nice to have a reason to believe it other than the fact that it helps 4D's avoid a problem. As it stands I've no reason to believe it that's not ad hoc.
Well, how about this. You can only punish conscious beings. But only Adam, not his temporal parts, are conscious. The temporal parts are only conscious*. If they were conscious, there would be a whole slew of problems, such as Merricks' problem of not knowing how old we are. Moreover, you'd have the absurdity that if you cause pain to a being that has a longer lifespan, you do something worse, because there are more temporal parts to which you cause pain. So you need to say that the parts are only conscious*. Do any 4Ders actually do this?
Well, how about this. You can only punish conscious beings. But only Adam, not his temporal parts, are conscious.
No, in the case I describe Adam(1) and Adam(2) are both temporally extended parts. Adam(1) is the part of Adam endures from (0, 10yrs) and Adam(2) is the part that endures from (10yrs, 20yrs). Adam(1) at (say) 9 years is obviously conscious and a person. Adam(2) at (say) 19 yrs. is also obviously conscious. So that can't be the reason.
But if it is true that X and Y are the same, in any important sense of being the same, then you can't solve the problem of temporary intrinsics.
That's a good point, and it brings to focus the unusualness of my 4Dism. My 4Dism requires systematic double-talk: when we speak metaphysically, or stage-wise, we say that X and Y are distinct, that X is in pain (simpliciter), Y is not. When speaking in the personal mode, though, we'll say that X and Y are one and the same—just as the 3Dist does—and so we'll have to use the 3Dist's means for resolving the problem of temporary intrinsics: either we relativize pain to times, or we appeal to tense (I think the jury may still be out as to which is a better model of how English works). The difference between this view and honest 3Dism, though, is that we account for this behavior of English person-talk in terms of the 4Dist metaphysics of stages: for a person to be in pain at t is for the person to have a t-stage in pain (or pain*, if you prefer).
As for the charge of ad hockery—well, the theory has some complexity to it, but I think that the complexity is doing a lot of jobs, and worth it. That's a matter to be decided holistically.
Mike:
I think the 4Der ought to deny that Adam(1) and Adam(2) are conscious. They are only conscious*. Only Adam is conscious. I don't see why Adam(1) is "obviously a person". He is obviously a part of a person. But why think he is a person?
Compare here Eric Olson's arguments for animalism. The position I am defending--only for the sake of argument--is analogous to Olson's. Olson admits that the brain does the sort of processing that is involved in personhood. But he denies that your brain is a person or conscious. It is you who are conscious, and your brain is but a part of you. If I were a materialist and believed that brains exist (I don't believe in proper parts), I would say: You are conscious in virtue of what your brain does, but you are not conscious in virtue of your brain's consciousness--you are conscious in virtue of the processes in your brain, which processes constitute your, not your brain's, consciousness.
So, the 4Der might say that there are processes in Adam(1) and Adam(2) that constitute Adam's consciousness. But these processes are not conscious processes in Adam(1) and Adam(2). We can call these processes their consciousness*.
(Or the 4Der could take a top-down view, and say that what is prior in the order of explanation is Adam's consciousness, and that Adam(1) and Adam(2) are only conscious in an extended sense of the word ("conscious*"), and their being conscious* derives from Adam's being conscious. But this removes the possibility of using 4D as a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics. However, I don't think the problem of temporary intrinsics is a big deal.)
Jeff, sorry for the delay,
My 4Dism requires systematic double-talk: when we speak metaphysically, or stage-wise, we say that X and Y are distinct, that X is in pain (simpliciter), Y is not. When speaking in the personal mode, though, we'll say that X and Y are one and the same—just as the 3Dist does—and so we'll have to use the 3Dist's means for resolving the problem of temporary intrinsics: either we relativize pain to times, or we appeal to tense (I think the jury may still be out as to which is a better model of how English works).
Interesting, for sure. But how can you do that--i.e., engage in what looks like ontological double-talk--without assuming that your quantifiers are vague? But quantifiers are not vague, so ontological double-talk is impossible. But if your double-talk is not ontological (say, it just reflects some semantic indecision) then it won't do the work you want it to do. This is how things look to me, but maybe I'm not understanding how double-talk is supposed to help.
I think the 4Der ought to deny that Adam(1) and Adam(2) are conscious. They are only conscious*. Only Adam is conscious. I don't see why Adam(1) is "obviously a person". He is obviously a part of a person. But why think he is a person?
I having trouble believing that we disagree about this. Ok. Here's a reason to believe that Adam(1) is a person. Let Adam(1') be indiscernible (qualitatively identitical) to Adam(1), except that Adam(1') dies at 10 yrs of age. A ten year old, normal human being is a person. That's true by any standard you like. But Adam(1) is intrinsically identical to Adam(1') until the age of 10 and, just like Adam(1'), has all of the essential properties of personhood that anyone has ever proposed. Since Adam(1') is a person, so is Adam(1). Now you have two options. You can say that Adam(1) is a person until 10 yrs., and thereafter becomes a non-person. That's just bizarre. Or you can say that Adam(1) is a person at 10 yrs., and remains a person thereafter.
"1.1 For all x and y, is unjust to punish y for x’s transgression."
Does this hold too?
1.1* For all x and y, is unjust to reward y for x’s law-abiding?
Basically, seems to me that if you don't like Adam's imputed law-breaking, then you don't get to get all happy over getting Christ's imputed righteousness.
By my lights, if your argument is sound, you did indeed prove universalism. A universalism about hell.
Yes, that holds too Paul. But it certainly won't entail universalism about hell. There is an asymmetry between two sorts of injustice. Mercy is permissible, though the beneficiaries are not receving what justice demands. Unjust punishment is impermissible, and again those burdened are not recieving what justice demands. So though there is nothing impermissible about rewarding those who simply do nothing wrong.
Mike:
It seems that you may not be entitled to suppose that Adam(1) and Adam(1') are intrinsically exactly alike. After all, Adam(1) and Adam(1') differ in respect of consciousness--Adam(1) is a zombie (though conscious*) on the view I've been defending, while Adam(1') is conscious--and consciousness is an intrinsic property.
However, this way of putting the problem does push one towards this issue: The 4Der needs to distinguish between a maximal temporal part and the whole. Let w1 be the world where Adam dies at age 10. Adam(1) exists in w1 just as it exists in the actual world. But in w1, Adam(1') also exists. Moreover, Adam(1) is not equal to Adam(1'). One way to see it is that Adam(1) is conscious and Adam(1') isn't. A less controversial way to see it is that w1's Adam(1') is identical with the actual world's Adam, while Adam(1) is not identical with the actual world's Adam.
So, in w1, we have Adam(1) and Adam(1'): Adam(1) is a maximal temporal part, while Adam(1') is the whole. But what is their relationship? Adam(1) is a part distinct from the whole. So he is a proper part of Adam (=Adam(1')). But in w1, there are no parts of Adam outside of Adam(1'). So the situation violates minimal mereology.
It seems that you may not be entitled to suppose that Adam(1) and Adam(1') are intrinsically exactly alike. After all, Adam(1) and Adam(1') differ in respect of consciousness--Adam(1) is a zombie (though conscious*) on the view I've been defending, while Adam(1') is conscious--and consciousness is an intrinsic property.
Declaring that Adam(1) is a zombie is not an argument. Suppose, though, that you insist that Adam(1) is a zombie and that Adam(1') is not. Here's a sound reductio of that position. Let t be time at which Adam(1) is almost 10yrs old. At t the future branches into two possible futures. In one future f, Adam(1) dies at exactly 10 yrs old. In another future f', Adam(1) lives on until 20 yrs old. Both futures, f and f' share a past P with respect to Adam(1). But it is true in future f that Adam(1) was a person and not a zombie in P at t. It is true in future f' that Adam(1) was a zombie and not a person in P at t. Contradiction! So either Adam(1) and Adam(1') are both persons or neither is. Since Adam(1') is paradigmatically a person, so is Adam(1). QED.
Mike:
I don't think the 4Der should admit that it is true in either f or f' that Adam(1) is a person. In both f and f', there is one and the same perduring person, whom we may call Adam. In f, Adam is colocated with Adam(1), but not identical with Adam(1). Adam(1) is not identical with Adam, because they have different essential properties: Adam(1) essentially has the property of living until age 10, while Adam does not have that essential property. In f', Adam is neither identical nor colocated with Adam(1).
Here's an argument that Adam(1) in f is not a person. Adam(1) is colocated with Adam, but not identical with Adam. If Adam(1) is a person, then there are two colocated persons: Adam(1) and Adam. Now, maybe that's not absurd--maybe two ghosts could occupy exactly the same place--but it is absurd that it should routinely happen that there are two colocated persons. But if it happens to Adam in f to be colocated with a person, it happens to all of us--just take your maximal temporal part, and notice that your maximal temporal part has different modal properties from yourself, even though it is colocated with you.
Maybe the move we should make is this.
Dilemma for 4Der: Either the temporal parts have the same mental properties as the whole or they do not.
Suppose they do: Then we have all the absurdities you've pointed out.
Suppose they don't: Then we have to distinguish between Adam and Adam(1) in f. We have to suppose that although they share the same matter and are colocated, only one is conscious, while the other is a zombie. We have to admit the possibility of parts that violate minimal mereology. All these things are pretty costly.
Perhaps your and my disagreement is only as to which horn of the dilemma is more costly. You see the "don't" horn as so costly, that you think the 4Der will prefer be empaled on your "do" horn. I think your horn is the costlier (so in that sense, I am paying you a compliment, right?), and so I think the 4Der will prefer to be empaled on the "don't" horn.
But how can you do that--i.e., engage in what looks like ontological double-talk--without assuming that your quantifiers are vague?
Sorry, Mike, you're going to have to spell that out a bit more for me. The way I was setting it up, we have two "modes" of identification: the personal mode, and stage mode. The detailed semantic story remains to be given, but I don't think it will rest on vagueness. Here's one way to go (though I haven't thought this through very far): the semantic value of a (so-called) singular term in English won't be an individual, but rather an equivalence class of individuals under some relation of sameness. Similarly, quantificational expressions and the various idioms of identity will work with respect to individuals-up-to-sameness, rather than individuals proper. That's a bit sketchy still, but perhaps enough to get the flavor.
There is a kind of semantic indecision involved here: when we speak of people, we don't decide on a particular stage to talk about, and so we effectively treat all the stages as one. But I don't see how this gets in the way of the work I want to do.
Does help defuse your objection? If not, maybe you can explain it again.
My 4Dism requires systematic double-talk: when we speak metaphysically, or stage-wise, we say that X and Y are distinct, that X is in pain (simpliciter), Y is not. When speaking in the personal mode, though, we'll say that X and Y are one and the same
This looks to me like you're saying that the number of objects there actually are varies under ways of identifying X and Y. But that can't be right. The number of objects there are is just the number of objects, right? So, either X and Y are the same object or they're not. That's consistent with semantic indecision letting us talk sometimes as though there are two, sometimes as though there is one. Semantic indecision doesn't affect what there is. But the problems we're discussing depend on an answer to the ontological question of whether X and Y are two things or one, not on the semantic question. You need two things to solve one problem, one to solve the other. Does that make better sense?
"Unjust punishment is impermissible,"
Then it seems like you're argument demands a very specific view of the atonement. I'd like to see it spelled out and see how it avoids the above comment.
"So though there is nothing impermissible about rewarding those who simply do nothing wrong."
I'm confused, all those who receive Christ's imputed righteousness have done something wrong. They sinned, Christ didn't. They broke the law, Christ kept it. Christ's law-keeping is credited to their account, their law-breaking is imputed to him. He bears their sin and is punished as guilty in their place. They are accepted as legally righteous even though they are the ones who broke the law. Christ is accepted as legally guilty even though he didn't break the law. It's the "great exchange." Romans 5 treats Christ as the second Adam.
A problem I see with your argument is that it is abstracted from the view of the world the Bible gives us, i.e., one where representative headship is, indeed, how things operate.
A problem I see with your argument is that it is abstracted from the view of the world the Bible gives us, i.e., one where representative headship is, indeed, how things operate.
You're right that I make no Bibical assumptions. Specifically, I make no Christian assumptions. I don't see that as a problem, since I am not doing theology. On the other hand, my argument is perfectly consistent with the Chistian view that Christ might be permissibly punished for my sins, since Christ takes on that task freely. I can justly take the punishment for my child, if I consent to do so under the right constraints, etc. My argument has nothing to do with any such complicating cases. And I'm not especially interested in such cases in this post.
Mike,
Sorry, I thought you were asking for people to point out false premises.
If the way the world is undermines your argument, then I guess I don't get what the upshot of such an argument would be.
At any rate, a sinner may freely take on Adam's punishment. In fact, this is what I think is the case with the human race. Yeah, maybe I got that premise from the Bible, but so what. I follow Plantinga and his advice to Christian philosophers. Why should I neglect a large portion of truths about the world in the name of "not doing theology?"
At any rate, an infant might receive his father's inheritance if his father dies. Is this "unjust" and impermissible? He did not freely agree to be the beneficiary of the reward of his father's merit.
Sorry, I thought you were asking for people to point out false premises.If the way the world is undermines your argument, then I guess I don't get what the upshot of such an argument would be.
I am asking for people to point out false premises. Asserting theological commitments is not pointing out false premises. I find Plantinga's advice edifying, but it's no way to do philosophy. So we have that basic disagreement. On the question of the child receving inheritance, if the father does not minimally freely consent (in some way or other, perhaps tacitly) to giving it to him, then no, it's not just. On the question of atonement, it can be just for one person to take the punishment for another. I can justly pay your speeding ticket, for instance, so long as I consent to doing so. May I justly take your prison sentence? I just don't know, even if I freely consent. One other word on methodology. When I say it is unjust, I'm appealing to moral intuitions that a theory of justice must either accommodate or explain away as illusory. I don't have any particular theory of justice in mind.
Mike:
"Asserting theological commitments is not pointing out false premises." -- Yes it is, if the theological commitment is a true proposition that obviously entails the negation of a premise and is asserted in order to point to the falsity of that premise. (I am not making any claims about the specific case at hand.)
Yes it is, if the theological commitment is a true proposition that obviously entails the negation of a premise and is asserted in order to point to the falsity of that premise.
If you say that chemical reaction XYZ is occurring on the dark side of the moon, and I say that rather it's PQR, and by chance I happen to be right, I haven't pointed out that you are wrong. I've pointed out that we disagree. I can't point out that you're wrong unless I've shown that I am right. And neither I (nor he) has done that.
Mike, (you, then Pruss, then you)
>>"I am asking for people to point out false premises. Asserting theological commitments is not pointing out false premises."
>>Yes it is, if the theological commitment is a true proposition that obviously entails the negation of a premise and is asserted in order to point to the falsity of that premise.
>>"If you say that chemical reaction XYZ is occurring on the dark side of the moon, and I say that rather it's PQR, and by chance I happen to be right, I haven't pointed out that you are wrong. I've pointed out that we disagree. I can't point out that you're wrong unless I've shown that I am right. And neither I (nor he) has done that."
Your response is odd to me (and besides the fact that I'm not right "by chance" :). Suppose that the person who told you that it is PQR is *God*? Now, surely the truth of your premise doesn't depend on either some specific, minority view of the atonement or inspiration/inerrancy, correct?
At any rate, I was trying to show that your premise was wrong by drawing what I thought a Christian theist would have to say is an unacceptable conclusion or, at the least, place you a very undesirable position with a troublesome burden to shoulder given the implications of one of your premises.
>>"On the question of the child receving inheritance, if the father does not minimally freely consent (in some way or other, perhaps tacitly) to giving it to him, then no, it's not just."
No, my point was the the child doesn't consent. You seemed to be assuming the premise that Jesus' receiving the punishment for sins others committed escaped my argument by claiming that he freely accepted it and so receiving the (de)merits of another is acceptable just in case the receiver freely accepts.
Your response is odd to me (and besides the fact that I'm not right "by chance" :). Suppose that the person who told you that it is PQR is *God*?
I'll just cut to the point. What I was looking for was some reason to believe one or more of the premises was mistaken. For me, theological assertions do not provide such reasons.
No, my point was the the child doesn't consent. You seemed to be assuming the premise that Jesus' receiving the punishment for sins others committed escaped my argument by claiming that he freely accepted it and so receiving the (de)merits of another is acceptable just in case the receiver freely accepts.
Being a recipient is not the relevant property. It is rather the person that incurs the cost. The recipient of the pain/suffering in one case and the person tranferring ownership of resources in the other.