Recently in Virtue Category

Here are two plausible necessary conditions for a law to violate freedom of religion or freedom of conscience:

1. Legislation L violates x's freedom of religion only if L requires x to do something that is contrary to the requirements of x's religion.
2. Legislation L violates x's freedom of conscience only if L requires x to do something that is contrary to the requirements of x's conscience.

I am pretty sure that (1) is false, and am inclined to think (2) is false as well. (Let me specify that I am using "legislation" to mean something like a putatively authoritative enactment of an authority. The reason I say "putatively" is that I want to allow for legislation that is so unreasonably that it is null and void, has no authority. Aquinas will say such legislation--my term, not his--is not a law.)

Let me start with (1). There is a simple counterexample. Consider legislation prohibiting public religious worship on Saturdays. Such legislation seems to be a paradigm of legislation that violates the religious freedom of Jews. But it is my understanding (and if the understanding is flawed, just make this a hypothetical) that Judaism does not require public worship on Saturdays--the requirements of prayer do not have to be fulfilled in Synagogue worship. Hence (1) is false.

Now consider (2). Suppose that Sam is a typical vegetarian on grounds of conscience. Now, consider legislation M1 that requires everyone to eat meat on New Year's Eve, under penalty of a week in jail. This legislation is a paradigmatic case of a law that violates Sam's freedom of conscience. (Note: I am not taking it to be clear that "violates x's freedom of conscience" entails that the legislation is unjustified; obviously that legislation violates someone's freedom of conscience is a strong reason against having such legislation, but since consciences can be mistaken in all sorts of spectacular ways, there may be times where such legislation is justified.) But note that except in really weird scenarios, M1 isn't like that.)

But now consider legislation M2 that is just like M1, except that now the penalty is death. Surely if M1 violates Sam's freedom of conscience, so does M2. But Sam is a typical vegetarian. And typical vegetarians, I think, hold that it is permissible to eat meat when the alternative is death. Thus, M2 does not require Sam to do anything that is contrary to the requirements of his conscience: it requires him to eat meat, but eating meat is permissible given M2.

A standard line of objection against divine command theories is centered on the counterfactual:

1. Even if God commanded it, torturing the innocent would be wrong.

But here it is extremely plausible that the antecedent is necessarily false--that God cannot command torture of the innocent. There is still a line of argument against divine command theories that continues past this roadblock, but I think it fizzles out.

But if we replace "God commanded it" with "God didn't forbid it", we actually get a much stronger argument. Actually, let's avoid counterfactuals, since we don't understand them well enough. We can give this argument:

2. (Premise) Necessarily, torturing the innocent is wrong.
3. (Premise) Possibly, God does not forbid torturing the innocent.
4. (Premise) If divine command theory is true, then it is the case that: necessarily, something is wrong if and only if it is forbidden by God.
5. Therefore, divine command theory is not true.

The argument is valid. Premise (2) is pretty plausible. It is justified by the same kinds of intuitions as (1) was. Premise (4) is uncontroversial, though it highlights the fact that the argument is specifically being aimed at divine command theories. Pure divine will theories are unaffected by the argument.

Interestingly, I think that if the argument works, it continues to work even if one replaces "God" with "a loving God", as in Robert M. Adams divine command theory.

The big question now is with regard to (3). A quick move to defend (3) is this. Possibly, God creates a world with no agents other than himself. In such a world, God wouldn't have any reason to issue any commands. So, possibly, there is a world with no agents other than God where no such commands have been issued. (Maybe you might object that God can issue a command to himself. But why would he need to? After all, the same loving character that might lead him to issue such a command would lead him to refrain from torturing the innocent.)

Now, this particular argument might make one worry that the assent to (2) was too quick. Perhaps instead the divine command theorist should have said:

6. Necessarily, for every created agent x, it is wrong for x to torture the innocent.

However, I don't think the quantification in (2) should be restricted to created agents.

But suppose we do grant such a restriction. I think my argument can be rescued. Add:

7. (Premise) Possibly, there is a created agent x who is not forbidden to torture the innocent.
8. (Premise) If divine command theory is true, necessarily: for every created agent x and action-type A, A is wrong for x if and only if A is forbidden to x.
9. So divine command theory is false. (By 6-8)

The Bible refers to the "fear of God" as a good thing.

In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are commanded, "Fear the LORD your God and serve him... "(10:20)

David prays "Teach me your ways, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name" (Ps. 86:11).

In Proverbs, it says, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" (31:30).

Jesus warns, "But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him" (Luke 12:5).

Multiple questions arise.
1) Textual questions: Are the above Biblical writers talking about the same sort of mental state? Whether they are talking about the same thing or not, what do they mean? Is what they are talking about close in meaning to what we mean in ordinary English if were to say that a person ought to fear another person?

2) Textual-to-Normativity Question: Given that we can accurately grasp what the above writers are referring to, what sort of normativity is being ascribed? Is it prudential or moral (or both or something else)? Given that we grasp which sort of normativity is being ascribed, are the statements true? Why?

3) A-Specific-Normativity Question: This question makes specific what was described in (2). Suppose that they are making moral statements and suppose that by "fear" they mean "being afraid of". Is it indeed true that it's a morally good state off affairs to be afraid of God?

Against a positive answer to the question in (3), Russ Shafer-Landau criticizes,

Begin with this plausible principle:

1. If x is necessitated by his internal state and the circumstances to do something wrong, then either (a) x's character was in some way vicious prior to the action or (b) x is not culpable for the wrong (or both).

This principle is one that both compatibilists and incompatibilists can accept. Hume certainly accepts it, because he thinks we are culpable insofar as our actions reveal our vicious character. We can imagine cases where an internal state that is in no way vicious necessitates a wrongful action. For instance, one might justifiably believe that some action A is right, and one's virtuous character might necessitate one to do what one believes to be right, but objectively A is wrong. However, in that case, one is not culpable for A. If there is nothing vicious in x's character, and the character necessitates an action, it is hard to see how the action could be a culpable action.

But now add these premises:

2. The first sin was culpable.
3. The internal state of the first sinner was in no way vicious prior to the first sin. (The goodness of creation)

It follows from (1)-(3) that:

4. The first sinner's first sin was not necessitated by his internal state and the circumstances.

St. Anselm believes that the least of our sins puts us in an infinite debt to God and is infinitely bad. Anselm's own argument for this thesis is uses some implicit premises. Here is my best reconstruction:

1. (Premise) To sin is to oppose the will of God.
2. (Premise) If it is not permissible to do A in order to preserve a good G, then A is at least as bad as the loss of G.
3. (Premise) It is not permissible to oppose the will of God "even to preserve the whole of creation", even "if there were more worlds as full of beings as this", and even if "they increased to an infinite extent".
4. (Premise) The badness of the loss of the whole of creation if the whole of creation consisted of planets as full of beings as Earth and increased to an infinite extent would be infinite.
5. (Premise) If something is at least as bad as an infinite bad, then it's infinitely bad.
6. To oppose the will of God is at least as bad as something infinitely bad. (2, 3 and 4)
7. To oppose the will of God is infinitely bad. (5 and 6)
8. Every sin is infinitely bad. (1 and 7)
9. (Premise) To do something infinitely bad puts us in infinite debt.
10. Every sin sin is infinitely bad and puts us in infinite debt. (8 and 9)

I'm afraid that the answer to my question might be obvious; if so, then it'll be answered quickly!

I come from a Christian background which told me that God has forgiven all of my sins, past, present, and future. I also come from a background which tells me that I should ask God for forgiveness. I also have the background belief that it's not the case that you should ask for what you already have. These beliefs seem to me to conflict. Let's be more precise.

In Revelation, we learn that the angels are singing "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty!" We speak of "holy men" and there might be a "holy moment". We strive for "personal holiness".

I've always had difficulty getting a grasp of this concept. Sometimes, it seems that "holiness" is used synonymously with "moral purity" or "sinlessness". I've also heard "being holy" equated with "being wholly other or set apart or different", but what's that supposed to mean?

As a first approximation, x is holy iff x is really, really morally good. But this feels like its lacking. Any ideas?

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy added another philosophy of religion entry this week: John Hare's contribution on Religion and Morality. It's a lot more historical than I expected, and it has a lot less detail on the contemporary issues, with only one paragraph of eleven sentences on the issues in contemporary analytic philosophy. But it seems like a good historical guide to a number of issues too often ignored in many historical introductions to ethics.

One of my projects for this summer is to prepare a new (for me) course: Virtues and Vices. I'm taking a largely historical approach to the course. The three major texts that I'm using are Aquinas' The Cardinal Virtues, Stephen Pope (ed.) The Ethics of Aquinas and Dante's Purgatorio. I have found reading this material and preparing for the course to be fascinating and stimulating. It has raised a number of questions. For instance, why would Aquinas say "since human beings cannot use reason apart from sense powers, which need bodily organs, human beings need to sustain their bodies in order to use their reason"? This seems to contradict what he says elsewhere about the possibltiy of disembodied human intellect and will. But the question I want to ask about today concerns how Aquinas and Dante rank the virtues and their corresponding vices.

More below the fold.