The Last Word (Chapter Four)

The Last Word (Chapter Four)

This chapter serves to reiterate the sort of points Nagel has been making in previous chapters about the reality and extent of reason and to serve as a segue into further chapters, which explore what role, if any, reason has in science and ethics. The focus of this chapter is on defending the objectivity of logic and mathematics, which is a natural place to start, since they reveal the sort of principles for discovering what is part of reason (i.e., what is objective) that he will employ in other domains of thought (p. 55). Nagel is going to argue that the content of certain logical truths is such that to grasp them is to see that they must be necessarily true, and that this credibility cannot be overturned. Moreover, many of these principles or forms of thought have to be presupposed in any attempt to reject or relativize them or other ostensibly cases of objectively valid thought.

Section I & II

In this section, Nagel makes the point that total skepticism can only get off the ground if it adequately deals with the content of our logical or mathematical thoughts. But this it cannot do. "The simplest of such thoughts are immune to doubt," says Nagel (p. 55). For instance, to grasp what the claim that 2+2=4 amounts to, or what the form of modus tollens is, leads us to recognize that they are necessarily true and universally valid thoughts (pp. 55, 56).

In case of less fundamental mathematical or logical thoughts, Nagel readily acknowledges that these may be false (p. 57; cf. pp. 63, 64). However, this does nothing to support total skepticism. First, we must rely upon simpler logical and mathematical thoughts to ascertain that we are in error. Secon, when we ascertain that, we then have to form what we take to be a true description of what is actually going on. Part of that involves coming to understand how, given the content of the thought whose truth we are now skeptical of, we were or could be wrong. The lesson here is twofold. This whole process requires we take an internal view point: "Skepticism cannot be produced entirely from the 'outside'," Nagel says. Also, we can't automatically side with skeptical (and hence relativist) challenges (pp. 58, 59). Put another way, total skepticism is impossible and merely to offer an external viewpoint from which we can describe our, say, ethical thought doesn't give us reason to think that such thoughts are wrong or subjective.

Section II elaborates on this point - that the skeptic, insofar as his skepticism can get under way, reveals "his unshakeable attachment to first-order logical thought" (p. 60). He picks up a point he made in chapter two (p. 19).

Section III
So far, Nagel has been refuting total skepticism. Now, he explicitly applies the lessons learned to relativism. This move is justified because the relativist is a kind of skeptic about logic; the universal relativist parallels the total skeptic (who is skeptical of logic).

Traditional skepticism presupposes logic insofar as it makes it appeal by way of argument: all the evidence we have is as consistent with the notion that the universe came into being five minutes ago or billions of years ago, hence we can't believe one over the other (pp. 62, 63).

Total skepticism, since it is skeptical about logic, is not like this. Reason cannot be used to argue that 2+2 might equal 5, or that contraposition might not be a valid logical form, since these truths disclose themselves in such a way that makes it impossible to doubt them, and in any case we will often need them to formulate our skepticism of them, which defeats the attempt at skepticism (p. 63)

Given that these thoughts are indubitable - since their content reveals them to be objectively true and universally applicable - these thoughts resist not just skeptical assaults but "relativistic, anthropological, or 'pragmatic' interpretation" (p. 64). Note well how Nagel shows that these sorts of simple logical and mathematical thoughts have their power in virtue of their content (i.e., as known from an internal viewpoint) not in virtue of anything else (cf. p. 48). Hence, he writes, "Thought itself has priority over its descriptions, because it its description necessary involves thought." (p. 65) This extends to thoughts about the contingency of our make up as thinking beings: these must be based in experience and examined by first-order reasoning (pp. 65, 66); recall, too, that any serious attempt to describe thought from an external vantage point (from which one might try to relativize it) aims to be objective, which nullifies the total subjectivist agenda.

Section IV
In this section, Nagel advances his thesis, previously stated, that often enough relativistic interpretations of thought will be inconsistent with the content of the thought that one is trying to relativize (p. 29). The subjectivist might suggest that he is not saying that we should, say, speak of contraposition differently, but rather is giving us an account of what it means for us to speak of it as we do. He may say that our claim "it is a valid logical form even if we didn't say so" follows from our claim "it is valid" and that it is valid because "we are all prepared to say" that it is (p. 66). We've already seen Nagel speak on this point: if 'objectivity' depend on consensus it is contradictory to say that it extends to what would hold regardless of that consensus (p. 30). Here he also notes that there are "thoughts that are completely free of first-person content" and hence can't be interpreted "in a personal or communal form" (p. 67). Hence, this subjectivist interpretation of our thoughts contradicts itself and the content of (at least many of) the thoughts it aims to interpret.

Nagel also states something important about his conception of reason: reason operates in this region of impersonal thoughts. It's methods are impersonal or objective, and by means of these principles it can reason to further impersonal thoughts. Hence, reason is not limited merely to a set of first principles and forms of thought, but "in any forms of thought to which there is no alternative" (i.e., no way to regard as subjective) (pp. 68, 69). Whether ethics or science are forms of thought to which there are no alternatives is something we will consider in the next two chapters of this book.

Section V

Nagel finds the capacity of reason strange: particular individuals engage in it and it permits them access to what is universally or objectively the case. How is this possible? To see how this paradox can be solved, Nagel looks at our finite practice of counting, which he considers "a paradigm of the way reason allows us to reach vastly beyond ourselves" (p. 71).

Knowledge of the infinity of natural numbers doesn't arise simply out of the ability to use numbers in just any way: for example, if we all we did was designate a fixed number of stages. No, it is in counting that we recognize that the "numbers we use to count things in everyday life are merely the first part of a series that never ends". Once we can count, we see that this procedure has no limit (pp. 70, 71). It is within the practice that we see, in virtue of its incompleteness, that the natural numbers must be infinitely many. Looking at our practice of counting from the outside we can't see its incompleteness and so might be tempted to reduce "the apparently infinite to the finite" if we suppose that the external has priority over the internal. After all, we can only ever observe it in limited cases: we never count up to infinity. But clearly, we do know - from the internal point of view, as we count - that the natural numbers are infinitely many. And this infinitude can't be grounded in merely our contingent practice of counting: it is objectively the case that there are infinitely many natural numbers (pp. 71, 72).

Section VI
In this closing section, Nagel makes several important points. Any understanding of ourselves in the world cannot get rid of the fact that we form this understanding, so it cannot get rid of the internal point of view; so, to continue the case of counting, any adequate description of it must include what it is for us to count (i.e., from the inside), and hence it "must include the relation of that activity to the infinite series of natural numbers," a series that our particular exercise of arithmetical reasoning makes clear to us (p. 72).

A purely external view point will fail to capture these things, instantly falsifying it, even as behavioristic philosophies of mind (which offer a purely external view of the mind) fail because there are elements of mind that cannot be reduced to behavior (p. 73).

The sort of completely external vantage point that total subjectivism requires is impossible, because it "is inconsistent with what we know - for example that there are infinitely many natural numbers" (p. 74). Still, it would be good if we could form some kind of external view of ourselves which is at least consistent with us having the thoughts we have (p. 74). Such a view, says Nagel, must describe our capacity to think things like simple logical or mathematical truths "in a way that presupposes their independent validity". Nagel rejects an evolutionary naturalist answer to this question, though, he postpones discussion of it until chapter seven. He mentions and then briefly objects to the theistic answer: our finite minds and the cosmos were made for each other (p. 75). He suspects that this might be a God-of-the-gaps explanation; obviously, I disagree. He also suspects that, given the nature of our capacity for reason, we will not be able to explain them by employing them (p. 76). I want to note that we don't need to explain how reason works for Nagel's self-styled rationalist thesis to go through. That reason is objective is evident even if we can't see how it can be.

The Last Word (Chapter Three)

The Last Word (Chapter Three)

Nagel makes two important points in this chapter. First, shows that thought is prior to language so that one cannot reduce human thought to contingent linguistic practice. Second, he shows that no naturalistic explanation of language can succeed insofar as language is a vehicle for thought and reasoning; on this front he focuses on the impossibility of grounding the intentional in the nonintentional, the meaningful in the nonmeaningful, and the normative in the nonnormative.

Section I

Nagel rejects the notion "that the social phenomenon of language is at the bottom of everything": that linguistic practice explains what our thoughts mean and what is true. First, there are plenty of cases, such as in philosophy, "where thought is often nonlinguistic and expression comes later" (p. 38). Second, we can have thoughts that are necessarily true, such as thoughts about logic, which cannot be explained because of our contingent linguistic practices (p. 39). He takes this to show that language is a tool to express thought, as diagrams can express geometric propositions, or notion can be used to express mathematical claims generally, but "is not the material out of which thoughts are made" (p. 38).

This isn't to deny contingency in language: spelling, grammar, and usage are relative to the agreement of the linguistic community. Nor does he deny that consensus among a linguistic community can determine the extension of some concepts (pp. 39, 40). But this all fall shorts of the relativist thesis that would make thought and truth dependent on language. That "and" is the English word for conjunction is a contingent matter which has no bearing on the truth of the claim p and q implies p. What exactly counts as humorous may be decided by a linguistic community, but what add two means is not dependent on such consensus (p. 40). 

Section II

Using Wittgenstein as a framework, Nagel then proceeds to discuss the impossibility of giving a naturalistic account of intentionality or meaning.[1] He says, "Thinking cannot be identified with putting marks on paper, or making noises, or manipulating objects, or even having images in one's mind - however much contextual detail (including community practice) is added to such an account." (p. 41). Such empirically discoverable details "cannot possibly explain what it is for words to have meaning" (p. 42).

Intentionality cannot be explained by the unintentional. Since language (which expresses thought) is intentional, one cannot give an external, non-linguistic analysis of it (i.e., a naturalistic account of it). (p. 42) The thought is more fundamental than any facts about the sounds I emit, the mental pictures I have, and so forth. My thought add two doesn't get its meaning from what I do (say put two rocks together) or a mental image I might form (of me pushing two rocks together) or my saying, "I'm doing addition." They don't suffice to fix the content of my thought and in fact have whatever meaning they have in virtue of me having that thought and acting on it: intentionality is unavoidable, and the intentional content of thought is primary, not something from which we could escape and get an external view point that could get us to call it into question.

Wittgenstein is right, Nagel says, in affirming "that no natural fact about me makes it true that I mean something" (p. 43). Why? He is a finite being, so any, say, behavior or physiological facts about him will be finite in number. However, the mathematical function of addition has "infinite normative implications". Behavioral evidence about me will only extend, say, to my computing integers lower than 10^N, so you can't determine that I am doing addition as opposed to some function indistinguishable from it when the integers are below 10^(N+1); call this function quaddition. (pp. 43, 44). Every sort of natural fact we could gather together would be indeterminate in this respect.

Nagel notes that, because of this, philosophers like Kripke will simply conclude that I don't mean anything (or at least determinately mean addition) when I say "plus" and that this conclusions holds for every word I use. Of course, Nagel finds this ludicrous. "We would be left without the possibility of formulating the argument for the paradoxical conclusion" (p. 44). We will still have to meaningfully use words to formulate the argument and Kripke's conclusion, for instance.

Hence, there must be some fact as to what what we mean by using some (many, most) of our words, even if we can't ground the fact that we mean such-and-such by them in natural facts about ourselves. At the end of the day, we have thoughts which we can express meaningfully and this is not something which we can explain in a nonintentional way (p. 45).

At this point, Nagel introduces the problem with grounding meaningful thoughts in natural facts in a different way: "the gap between the nonnormative and the normative". Meaning, he says, entails the difference between right and wrong answers or applications, but behavioral, dispositional, or experiential facts have no such meanings. (p. 45). (Answering "5" is an incorrect answer to the problem 2+2=?; but being inclined to jump when startled is not a wrong response to being startled; so if answering "5" or "6" to that arithmetical question is just a natural response, some deep disposition we follow blindly, it can no more be wrong than jumping when startled is.)

Nagel also dismisses "the move from the terrain of truth conditions to the terrain of assertability conditions" as misguided (p. 46). By "assertibility conditions" Nagel refers to the idea that, given our linguistic practice, we are warranted to ascribe some concept to someone who seems to apply it according to common practice in finitely many cases. So, we can say that, given you answer "4" to "2+2=?" and "9" to "2+7=?", etc., you possess the concept of addition.

Two problems face this view. First, that you conform to what we all see as addition is not what it means for you to have that concept; that you have that concept (as do we) explains why you behave accordingly. Second, as noted by Nagel, what is true is not coterminous with what is assertable. Hence, you could possess a concept even if your behavior doesn't express that concept in a way observable by us. But then concept possession (and hence having thoughts whose meanings are expressible through language) is not defined by such finitely many warrantability conditions; this fails as much as the attempt to ground meaning in finitely many naturalistic truth conditions (pp. 46, 47).

Nagel closes this second section with some remarks from P. F. Strawson. Part of the quotation from Stawson provided by Nagel reads: "we do not merely experience compulsions, merely find it natural to say, in general what (we can observe that) others say too . . . rather, we understand the meaning of what we say" (p. 47). We see the meaning; thus that meaning, content, or intentionality is irreducible and not dependent on behavior, environment, etc.

Section III

Nagel begins this section by examining what Wittgenstein says about following rules. Wittgenstein seems to say that whether I follow some rule ultimately comes down to the sheer fact that I happen to act that way: "I obey the rule blindly," he says (pp. 47, 48). Nagel glossess this as: "what I am doing when I add, for example, is that I am simply producing responses which are natural to me" and unavoidable in the situation in which I find myself. To say this is what is going on when I follow a rule, such as found in addition, is to take an external view about myself, "to get outside of my arithmetical thoughts" in a way that negates the content of my thoughts (pp. 48, 49).

That external view ends all justification and grounds all meaning in a contingent fact about me (how I'd respond to stimuli), whereas Nagel would say that what makes it the case that I am doing addition is just that I grasp what addition is, so know how to apply it, and act on that knowledge: an internal view (that ends justification in the content of the concept I grasp, addition). (pp. 48, 49). 

This case, I think, well highlights the problems that follow from trying to explain how I can have thoughts in general (mean anything) or mean addition when I say "plus" in particular (pp. 49, 50). You cannot explain the intentional in terms of the nonintentional, nor ground the infinite in the finite. More on this last point presently.

Nagel believes "that our linguistic practices reach 'beyond themselves'": our possession of the concept addition, which as infinitely many implications and possible cases to which it applies, is independent of our everyday application of the word "addition" (to finitely many cases) and undergirds it.[2] Our acting in ways that our linguistic community call "adding" is not what it means for me to mean addition nor does it ground my possession of the concept addition: that I have it is because I can simply see what addition means (an explanation internal to arithmetical thought). The external view of arithmetical language will never show what I mean by the things I say or do; it can't ground the meaning or extension of addition. However, as soon as I look at things from the inside, things become clear (p. 51). 

That we mean addition, with its infinite scope, cannot be established from an external view. It cannot be ground in the fact that, from the perspective of our linguistic community we follow some rule (p. 52). Rather, "the rule-following practices of our linguistic community can be understood only through the substantive content of our thoughts" (p. 53). To generalize: the meaning of words (and rules about when to use them) may be ground in linguistic consensus, but the meanings of our thoughts expressible through language is not.

[1] A lot of what Nagel says here fits in nicely with what Feser says here.

[2] To possess the concept addition is not merely the disposition to give the correct verbal answered to certain questions; possession of the concept addition in those who have it undergirds such answered, but the concept is of far greater scope than its application to particular instances.

The Last Word (Chapter Two) (pt. 2)

The Last Word (Chapter Two) (pt. 2)

Nagel makes two significant points in this chapter. First, he decisively refutes total skepticism and universal subjectivism, the latter of which is the target of his book. Second, he sketches out the method by which he will defend particular domains of thought against relativist challenges (we considered these in pt. 1). Along the way, he responds to certain subjectivist views and answers some objections (we will look at these now). 

He considers two subjectivist proposals: (1) reason as consensus, (2) reason as the outer edge of a contingent conceptual framework. Let's look at these in turn.

Certain philosophers regard ostensibly objective reason as merely those beliefs and forms of thought upon which certain groups of people are subjectively persuaded. Nagel quotes Sabina Lovibond to this effect: "the objectivity of an assertion or an argument is always at the same time something of which human beings (those human beings who call it 'objectively valid') are subjectively persuaded" (p. 28). Likewise, he notes others reject the idea that there is a reality beyond that about which there is consensus among a linguistic community (p. 28).

He responds to this position by noting that it is often "inconsistent with the very consensus on which they propose to 'ground' objectivity" (p. 29). For example, when mathematicians agree on certain claims they agree that they are true full stop (i.e., in an unqualified way) and would be true even if they did not agree on their truth. Hence what is agreed to is that X is objectively true (apart from such agreement). This reveals an important fact: consensus about, say, the Law of Noncontradiction is grounded in the objectivity of the proposition as disclosed by its content. Reason-as-consensus gets things backwards (p. 31). 

In case why the actual nature of consensus is a problem from the reason-as-consensus view is unclear, recall that that thesis is claiming that there is nothing more to truth or objectivity than that some group of people agree to it. But we find that about a whole range of items people agree that they are objectively true whether or not anyone agreed to them, and that there are additional objective truths which we don't yet know and might never know. This can no more be fit into the reason-as-consensus view as can the statement "the laws of my community specify that not everything that is wrong is illegal" be fit into a view that says "there is nothing more to wrongness than being contrary to the laws of my community" (p. 30).

The second subjectivist proposal he examines is that which views reason (the objective framework of thought) as relative to one's conceptual scheme; that is, reason are the aspects of thought within our conceptual scheme we have to regard as objective. From here this position stipulates that we can imagine thinking beings with different conceptual frameworks such that what is 'objective' in ours is not in theirs and vice versa; the end result of this is that nothing is absolutely objective, but only 'objective' given a certain conceptual scheme (p. 31).

Nagel's response to this is to double down on the fact that there are certain thoughts we cannot get outside of, even in the attempt to formulate this sort of scenario (p. 32); if we reject the truth or objectivity of these, we cannot even formulate this proposal. Further, we cannot regard our commitment to the objectivity of some of our thoughts and ways of thinking (say, simple logical truths) as merely a phenomenological fact about ourselves. If we are persuaded that they are objectively true (and how can we avoid being persuaded of the truth of the LNC?) we can't at the same time suppose that they are not objectively and universally valid. This conceptual-scheme-relative notion of reason would ask us to do just that. But "this is merely an instance of the impossibility of thinking 'It is true that I believe that p; but that is just a psychological fact about me; about the truth of p itself, I remain uncommitted' " (p. 32).

As I see it, Nagel responds to three objections to his claims. Let us say a brief word on these. 

"This response to subjectivism [that we must adjudicate it by reason] may appear to be simply question-begging." (p. 24)

Recall, his strategy is to return to reason. Since reason is what is being challenged, is it question-beginning to return to it and presuppose its objective validity? He answers that it is not, since the subjectivist is giving us a proposal about how things actually are, and must supply reasons. Hence the defense of reason by reason is mandated by the challenge itself (pp. 24, 25).

Nagel considers two similar objections (objections similar to each other, not to the one just described). The first is that our commitment to the objectivity of some of our beliefs and forms of thought is just a psychological fact about us (p. 16). The second is that, while their subjectivity cannot be said, shows itself in the way in which all argument and reason comes to an end, in judgments we find compelling (p. 33). Both of these objections concede that we simply can't help but think that reason's authority is independent of us (that some of our beliefs and forms of thought are universally valid). They differ in only the way they handle this fact. 

The first objection attempts to rebuff the conclusion that reason's authority is independent of our belief in its authority. The objective validity of reason is just an appearance and not part of reality. But the problem is that we can only make the division between what is real and what is a mere appearance if we have principles and methods of thinking that are true and universally valid (pp. 16, 17). I'd also add that this objection does nothing to undercut the criticism Nagel has made against general subjectivism, nor has it made any attempt to be rationally compelling; the same goes for all the subjectivist proposals and objections Nagel considers in this chapter.

The second objection goes like this, "Why doesn't that show only that we cannot say logic, for example, or ethics, is rooted in our natural, unquestioned practices, but that this nevertheless shows itself in the way in which arguments and justification come to an end, in judgments on which we naturally agree?" (p. 33) Afterall, we are talking about "our arguments, our thoughts, our reasoning" (p. 33). This objection parallels Wittgenstein's claim that the truth of solipsism can't be stated (since it is false in my language game) but is shown in the fact that however I talk about the world it will always be in my language game (pp. 33, 34).

The subjectivist presses their case because all justification seems to end in principles or forms of thought that we (individually or collectively) hold. However, this doesn't show that these principles have their authority because we treat them as such; in which case we or our recognition of these principles or forms of thought would have the last word (as the subjectivist says). That argument and justification comes to an end in our thinking (individually or collectively) doesn't mean that our thinking has the last word (and not the principles and forms of thought themselves). Rather, these principles or forms of thought or justifications must have the last word; even to recognize that argument and justification take place in our thinking and the attempt to derive some subjectivist conclusion from that must employ argument and justification in a way that shows their authority to be independent of the fact that we think them (p. 34).

"Why doesn't that show only that we cannot say logic, for example, or ethics, is rooted in our natural, unquestioned practices, but that this nevertheless shows itself in the way in which arguments and justification come to an end, in judgments on which we naturally agree?" (p. 33) Afterall, we are talking about "our arguments, our thoughts, our reasoning" (p. 33). This objective parallels Wittgenstein's claim that the truth of solipsism can't be stated (since it is false in my language game) but is shown in the fact that however I talk about the world it will always be in my language game (pp. 33, 34).

The subjectivist presses their case because all justification seems to end in principles or forms of thought that we (individually or collectively hold). However, this doesn't show that these principles have their authority because we treat them as such; in which case we or our recognition of these principles or forms of thought would have the last word. That argument and justification comes to an end in our thinking (individually or collectively) doesn't mean that our thinking has the last word (and not the principles and forms of thought themselves). Rather, these principles or forms of thought or justifications must have the last word; even to recognize that argument and justification take place in our thinking and the attempt to derive some subjectivist conclusion from that must employ argument and justification in a way that shows their authority to be independent of the fact that we think them (p. 34).

Nagel notes the fact that prevents an immediate inference from 'we think these thoughts' to 'our thinking them / we who think them have the last word' when he says, "If there were nonsubjective thoughts, someone would still have to think them. So the formula that simply notes this cannot be used to demonstrate that everything is based on our responses. A tautology with which all parties to a dispute must agree on cannot show that one of them is right" (p. 35). 

I think you can see that Nagel does an excellent job rebutting general subjectivism and charting a path for refuting it in particular domains of thought. We will see if he succeeds in the latter endeavour when we come to later chapters.

The Last Word (Chapter Two) (pt. 1)

The Last Word (Chapter Two) (pt. 1)

Nagel makes two significant points in this chapter. First, he decisively refutes total skepticism and universal subjectivism, the latter of which is the target of his book. Second, he sketches out the method by which he will defend particular domains of thought against relativist challenges. Along the way, he responds to certain subjectivist views and answers some objections (we will consider these in pt. 2).

At the beginning of the chapter, Nagel connects subjectivism with understanding thought from the outside. Being self-aware enough to entertain the idea that some of our beliefs might be the product of rationalization is an example of understanding (some) thoughts from the outside (i.e., outside of the content of the thoughts in question) (p. 13, 14).  It should be clear why subjectivism and understanding thought from the outside go together: the subjectivist must use such an external vantage point (viewing our thoughts as cultural artifacts, expressions peculiar to our psychology, etc.) in order to challenge the ostensible objectivity of our thoughts.

He immediately notes that this procedure of viewing thought from the outside has inherent limits. It is one thing to view certain thoughts from this external vantage point and even challenge their truth or objectivity, but another to to do this for all thought. In the former case we must rely on the truth and objectivity of certain principles and forms of thought and our conclusion aspires to describe how reality (and our relationship to it) actually is. Taking an external vantage point for all thought and concluding that this shows all of our thoughts to be subjective simply can't be done, for it has undermined its own foundation and what it purports to be is just an instance of the sort of thing that it denies is possible (p. 14)

Nagel apty states, "We cannot criticize some of our own claims of reason without employing reason at some other point to formulate and support those criticisms" (p. 15). He also shows this again in connection with Descartes' skepticism. Again, aptly stated, "Skepticism that is the product of an argument cannot be total," and skepticism that is not the product of an argument is worth nothing (p. 19).

So, even in the attempt to cast doubt on all belief or to relativize all belief we run up against some thoughts which we have to take as objectively true, and within which, or from which, all reasoning must take place. Thus, reason is defended! However, for all this we've not shown much about the content of reason: it "may be quite rich . . . or it may be very austere, limited to principles of logic and not much more" (p. 17). How can we find out which of these alternatives is true? The only way to find out is to scrutinize what we belief, why we hold these beliefs, and see what beliefs or forms of thought resist being relativized (p. 17). Moreover, we need to drop the notion that objectively true beliefs will be certain; they may be, or may be probable but the key factor that we should emphasize is that they aspire to universality (p. 18).

He also lays out principles for us to follow in this task, such as "one can't criticize the more fundamental with the less fundamental" (p. 21). You can't displace logic or arithmetic with anthropology or sociology (p. 22). Part of the reason is that these disciplines presuppose the objectivist of at least some logical and mathematical thoughts. But, as he makes clearer in later chapters, part of the reason is that the content of some of our, say, ethical or mathematical thoughts will just repudiate any attempt to relativize them. These forms of thought reveal their objectivity in virtue of their content and unavoidability (p. 24,26); think of the law of non-contradiction. Thus, we may still have good reason to take these principles and forms of thought as objective even if we are given some external criticism of them. Part of the reason for this, is that we must always ask if such a proposed external explanation of those beliefs makes it reasonable to reject or relativize those, say, ethical beliefs. But this will require that we go back to ethics and work out the answer to that question within ethics (p. 21). Again, he will say more on this in future chapters, so let this suffice for now.

The Last Word (Chapter One)

The Last Word (Chapter One)

In this chapter, Thomas Nagel sets out the task of this book. He intends to find out "where understanding and justification come to an end." Does it end with principles and forms of thinking that we hold because of our peculiar viewpoint or with objective principles that transcend our point of view? The former position he calls 'subjectivist' and the latter, which he sets out to defend, he calls 'rationalist' (p. 3,6,7). Let's look at what he says about those two views.

The rationalist regards reason as something in us, but whose authority does not depend on us: its principles are objective and the conclusions we arrive by means of it aspire to be (and can be) universally true (pp. 3, 4). Reason is universally valid; its applicability is not limited by social or linguistic agreement (p. 5). Not only will Nagel try to show that this must be so, he will also try to show how it can be so for finite, contingent creatures such as ourselves (p. 4,11).

A brief word on what 'reason' is. Is it the same thing within different domains, such as ethics or logic? He writes, "This is not to say that reason is a single thing in every case, only that certain decisive aspects of our thought about such very different matters can all be regarded of instances of it, by virtue of their generality and their position in the hierarchy of justification and criticism" (p. 6; Italics mine). That is to say that for various domains of thoughts we have principles of reasoning which are universally true and which cannot be questioned, for they are either presupposed in any such questioning or are more obviously true than the points raised against them.

Relativism claims that thoughts and forms of reasoning are only locally valid ("for me" or "for us"). In the end, disagreement ends in personal or communal assertions (p. 4). He believes that all forms of universal relativism and most forms of restricted subjectivism (subjectivism about reason in ethics, say, and not about reason generally) are false, even if they manage to avoid self-defeat (claiming that nothing is the case) or to vacuity (claiming merely that we believe what we believe) (p. 6). More sophisticated forms of reason "tend to collapse its content into its grounds," which is to say, for example, that it looks at human reason's cultural origins and thereby confines its applicability to statements about what is true for that culture.

Nagel distinguishes several sorts of ways we can challenge reasoning. First, one can either challenge particular instances of reason, or one can challenge reason at a more general level. Second, one can either be a realist, a skeptic, or a reductionist. Let's consider these two points in term.

There are two sorts of ways that one can criticize particular instances of reasoning: internally and externally. An internal critique of a particular instance of reasoning proceeds by assuming the universality of reason generally (for it argues that the particular instance of reasoning is guilty of mistakes that are universally mistakes). An external critique of a particular instance of reasoning attempts to undermine the warrant of the conclusion reached by arguing that it was not obtained by reason at all, but is, say, an expression of personal preference that has been rationalized. "Sometimes one can challenge a particular piece of reason in this way without implying any doubt that reason of that type is possible." We don't have to be a subjectivist to employ these sort of critiques (p. 8)

One can also make external challenges to reason more generally, say, as it is ostensibly used in ethics. There are two purposes we can put these challenges to. First, we can aim to discredit the claims ostensibly arrived at through reason: they are simply false (pp. 8,9). Second, we may be trying to show that they are true given some method other than reason, something less universal. For instance, our aim may not be "to debunk ethics but to reveal its true grounds". In the first case, we are critical or skeptical about the claims which reason is said to have given us (such as in ethics). In the second case, we qualify the claims by offering an alternative method or ground to them (p. 9). But this brings us to the second point form above: we can adopt a realist, skeptical, or reductionist perspective on reason itself.

Now, we are concerned with the very possibility reason - not just whether this particular instance of reasoning is genuine and well-formed, or whether reason is possible in a particular area of thought, such as ethics. We can take a realist perspective, as does Nagel. Or we can be skeptical and say that reason is not possible. Or we can continue along the trajectory we were on with external critiques to reason. But when applied to reason as a whole it isn't an alternative, but a reduction of reason to "a contingent though basic feature of a particular culture or form of life." Nagel regards this move as tantamount to skepticism: as the denial "that my understanding of the nature of reason is correct" (p. 9). That understanding is that reason offers "a method of transcending both the merely social and the merely personal" (p. 10)

It is this sort of attack on reason itself (and its universal applicability) that Nagel says cannot be sustained. It may be possible to argue against a broad range of ostensible applications of reason, but the wider one aims, such challenges "inevitably run out," since "one has to rely at some level on judgments and methods of argument which one believes are not themselves subject to the same challenge" of falsity or relativism."

Genuine Love and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities

Genuine Love and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities

September 23, 2019

Wesleyans seem to assume that if love is genuine it must be given by someone who is free to not love. This is one of their main philosophical arguments against the Calvinist commitment to irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints. But it seems false. I think there are two reasons for this. First, the principle of alternative possibilities isn't necessary for an action to count as free (whatever we mean by that!). Sometimes our intellect just doesn't see more than one courses of action to pursue - one is just so outstandingly good and the rest are all overwhelmingly bad - and the will only has one option to choose from, as it were.

Second, there are cases of love that are obviously genuine, but which the person who loves never chose. Does a five year old love his parents? In the typical case, yes. Did he choose to? Apparently not. It occured naturally. As soon as he could recognize that he loves them, he has been doing it all along. At any point the thought 'should I love my parents?' comes into his mind, the answer is obvious and already given: yes! The same goes for the average mother or father and their children.

Now, I concede that as the child grows up, he can cease to love his parents - by choice, even. However, this is rare. Absent some horrible betrayal, he will continue to love his parents; he can't simply decide one day that he will stop loving his parents. And that he continues to do so is not a choice. He would see the rightness of loving his parents, but that isn't a choice. Or at least a 'free' choice. It is not as if he was not prejudiced going into it, as it were. In such a case the choice was over whether he would love his parents or love his parents: there was only one live option. And why? Because continuing to love his parents is just so obviously good that there is only one option.

Now, let's tie this into Calvinism. Suppose that in imparting irresistible grace God makes it perfectly clear that God is the final end of man, etc. so that the person can't help but believe in God and trust him. It may still be fuzzy what every implication of this is: hence why there is still the need for sanctification. But the overarching orientation is set: I will always love God and put my faith in him.

In any event, I think this shows that genuine love can be had even if the one who love doesn't choose to do so against choosing not to (even if they didn't have another live option but to love). If so, Calvinists have an edge over Arminians on this score.

The Epistemological Skyhook (Chapter One)

The Epistemological Skyhook (Chapter One)

This first chapter introduces the Epistemological Skyhook through several of its historical representatives, as well as similarly structured arguments, namely, those from Epicurus and Kant.

The Epistemological Skyhook, says Slagle, is aimed at determinism and/or naturalism: to formulate, defend, or believe these position generates an undefeatable defeater for these positions such that one should not accept them. That is, these positions are self-referentially incoherent (p.1). They can only be believed if one presupposes some further position or vantage point, one denied by the position in question, from which it can be seen to be true (p. 5). Another way of putting things it is that "the Epistemological Skyhook argues that either naturalism or determinism (or both) lead to skepticism" (p. 8).

Despite the claims of philosopher like Daniel Dennett, this argument is not question beginning. Rather, the argument works from "premises that the naturalist or determinist must presuppose in presenting their theses" (p. 6).

This argument has similarities to other arguments against naturalism, such as the qualia argument or the simplicity argument. These arguments claim that certain features of the mind (our qualitative experience of reality, or the unified nature of our mind/consciousness) are incompatible with naturalism, and so naturalism must be false. However, these sort of arguments, unlike the Skyhook, don't argue that naturalism is self-defeating (p. 7).

The Skyhook is also similar to transcendental arguments, which argue that if an interlocutor's premise entails a conclusion he'd reject, or that if his position entails the rejection of rationality, he is being irrational if he holds to his position. Here, the similarity with the Skyhook is quite clear: the transcendental argument concludes that the opponent's belief ends up defeating itself (pp. 7, 8). In a way, the Skyhook is a combination of the argument forms just summarized: there is some feature of the mind denied by naturalism which must exist if naturalism can even get off the ground.

Slagle begins his historical precis of the argument by taking us back to Epicurus, who argued that determinism is self-defeating. Epicurus writes, "The man who says that all thing come to pass by necessity cannot criticize one who denies that all things come to pass by necessity: for he admits that this [his opponent's assertion] happens of necessity" (p. 10). What is he saying here? The idea is that there is nothing beyond deterministic causation that the determinist can employ as a standard for good reasoning; if determinism is true, both the determinist's belief and his opponent's belief are equally caused. No criticism is possible, since both conclusions are formed by the only sort of means available: causality. Only if logic was a norm which reason could follow - something presupposed in the act of making an argument - could the determinist criticize his opponent: you should believe this, etc. (p. 11). However, rational norms require reason to be a self-motive force, because only a self-motive force is able to conform itself to these norms, and so be at fault if it fails to do so (p. 12). But a self-motive force can't be determined by forces outside of itself.

The pre-critical Kant makes an interesting theistic argument for the subjective necessity of believing that God exists, which mirrors the Skyhooks with which this book is concerned. Kant says that a thing can only be materially possible if there is something actual in which its potentiality is grounded, and anything that is materially possible is, in principle, thinkable or logically possible; likewise, anything that is thinkable or logically possible must be materially possible (i.e., able to exist in virtue of something that already actually exists). From this it follows that one cannot say that, if nothing existed, it would still be possible for anything to be: from nothing comes nothing. Of course, somethings exist and other things are possible, so there must be some necessary being which grounds the basis of the existence of all things, which is God (pp. 13, 14). Now, for Kant, what is possible is thinkable, and vice versa. (p. 14).

But if these claims are true, then if you deny God's existence, then there is nothing that grounds the possibility of anything, and so it would be possible that nothing exist: and so, possible that nothing is possible; if so, it would have to be thinkable, too: and so thinkable that nothing would be thinkable. If you think these conclusions are about as acceptable as saying that it is true that there are no truths, you're following the argument. God, who is the ground of all possibility and thought cannot fail to exist; hence it is not possible that nothing be possible, nor can it be thought that nothing is thinkable. But, naturalism denies the existence of God, and so is lead into these absurdities, which is why it must be rejected (p. 14). Now, Kant only concludes that God's existence must be believed in, or at least presupposed, lest thought become impossible. For him it was a separate matter whether God existed in mind-independent reality (pp. 14, 15).

Likewise, Kant thought he held that free will must be presupposed in order to engage in pure reason. Why is postulating free will necessary to get pure reason under way? Slagle comments that, for Kant, "Discursive thought cannot be explained purely in passive or receptive terms." Rather, what is needed is the ability to engage in a spontaneous act of conceptualization, something of which the mind needs to be aware of doing (p. 15).

What does this spontaneous act of conceptualization consist in? A grasp of the logical connections between premises and a conclusion. It is not enough that good reasons somehow shape our consequent belief; rather, these reasons must also be seen to be good reasons, and the mind conclude on the basis of this awareness. This is the opposite of the mind being compelled from outside of itself. Further, the process of reasoning logically cannot be reduced merely to causation such as that which began prior and external to the reasoning agent, or else we could make no distinction between valid and invalid inference: each would be the necessary effect of their respective causal processes (p. 16). So, in order to believe that my reasoning arrives at its conclusions validly and on the basis of good reasons I have to believe that I am free from external causes (p. 17).

Kant also argues against materialism, which for present purposes we can define as the thesis that it is possible to give a completely material account of thinking (p. 17). Kant's argument works equally well against eliminative materialism, reductive materialism, and non-reductive materialism: if material causality is the driving force behind all reasoning, then the propositional content of my beliefs and my awareness of these and their logical connections are irrelevant to why I adopt the conclusions that I do (p. 18). But surely this undermines any epistemic justification I might have for my beliefs, including my belief in materialism.

Kant also presages Thomas Nagel in arguing for the irreducibly subjective nature of reasoning: the illeminability of I think. For, the active power of reasoning that Kant argues is necessary for reasoning  requires that there is a certain vantage point from which I grasps the meaning of premises and sees their logical relations. They will seem to be a certain way to me, and only as such can they function as good reasons in valid reasoning processes. But this first-person perspective doesn't fit into a materialist account of things, which is cashed out in objective, third-person terms. Hence, materialism must deny this first-person perspective which is necessary for reasoning, including the reasoning supposedly leading to materialism, to get off the ground, which is self-defeating (p. 19).

From this chapter, we can see several routes one can take the Skyhook down: normativity, subjectivity, self-origination are integral parts of reason. However, all of these are denied by naturalism and/or determinism.

P.S. I didn't add this in the main body of the essay, but it is worth noting. Grasping reasons as reasons is not the case of merely having another belief.

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Appendix)

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Appendix)

The purpose of this appendix is to clarify God's relation to morality. Is God morally indifferent? Is the universe governed by a morally indifferent being? Davies answers that there is a sense in which the answer to these questions is yes, though, a more important sense in which the answer to these questions is no.

God is morally indifferent insofar as he is not a moral agent (p. 251). But this not the sort of moral indifference that we typically have in mind by that predication, nor is it objectionable. Rather, the objectionable sort of moral indifference is evinced by humans who, though having moral obligations, take them lightly. Clearly, God cannot do this, since he has no obligations.

But that is not all that can be said to show that God is not objectionably morally indifferent. Unlike morally indifferent humans, his will is perfect by nature and so necessarily fixed upon Goodness. Further, morality is tied to God's will for us in a way that it can never be tied to human beings. He issues commands, and what is good is constituted by his will for us (that we should will certain things and not others given our nature) (p. 252). Further, God is the source of all that we rightly regard as good, just as he is the foundation of all moral thinking (p. 253). He is on the side of the right insofar as he makes a world in which acting unjustly is bad and, I'd add, if we take Christian teaching seriously, in that he will judge all things (p. 255).

Given what Davies says throughout the book, I think it is safe that these concluding remarks go a long way to showing that God's Goodness, though not analyzable in moral terms, is meaningful.

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Nine)

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Nine)

Davies begins this chapter by noting the problem pressed by Anthony Flew concerning God's love and the reality of evil, namely, if nothing would count against the assertion that God is loving, then that assertion means nothing. Every meaningful assertion also involves the denial of the negation of that assertion. However, if an assertion doesn't also deny anything, it has no content, being compatible with anything (pp. 222, 223). Davies himself is sympathetic with this point. He writes, "If we insist that God loves us, or that he exists at all, we cannot indefinitely qualify the meaning of the terms we use when doing so. Not just anything can count as love, and that such and such exists is not compatible with every state of affairs" (p. 223). That Davies would agree with this should be evident from what he has argued for previously (e.g., against the possibility of God willing evil as an end and being Good).

Davies agreement only goes so far, however. He does not think that the evil in the world ultimately counts against God. If, for instance, the arguments for God's existence (say, from causation) go through, then God cannot be unreal. He writes, "There is therefore much to be said in favor of what I have called the 'We Know God Exists' line of thinking" (p. 224).

While Davies believes that our belief in God's existence, goodness, perfection, and love are secure, he does not believe that we can go that far in making sense of God and evil, partly because we lack an informative understanding of what God's goodness is. We know that he is Good, "but we have no picture of that goodness". And creaturely analogs only go so far (p. 226). We can have knowledge about God, but not knowledge of what God is in and of himself. Our cognitive faculties, and God's very nature force us to be in this situation: God's essence is not distinct from his existence or reality as an individual existent, which prevents us from measuring his goodness in a way to produce insight into what it amounts to, as we can do of creaturely things (p. 227).

Our knowledge is not entirely negative, though. While we can know that God's relation to evil is not a morally justified one, since moral categories are inapplicable to God, we still do know that the reality of God is not impugned by the existence of evil (p. 228). Davies writes, "Evil does not render God's existence impossible or unlikely" (p. 229). However, this does not make him a fan of typical apologetics anymore than he is of the atheist take on the problem of evil (p. 231).

Returning to the point that our knowledge here is not entirely negative, we must recognize "that it is no mean thing to have recognized that God is good." We may not grasp what this means, except by observing arcane shadows of it reflected in creatures, but this is still positive knowledge, and important knowledge at that (p. 231)! Likewise it is an important discovery to find that God only causes goodness, and freely at that (pp. 231, 232). Moreover, we have discovered that God is present to all things that he creates, which is no mere factoid (pp. 232, 233).

This last point is particularly important, since it shows that what humans try to emulate with feelings of compassion (a unity with those for whom the compassion is felt) is most perfectly had by God, even if God lacks emotions (p. 234). Therefore, we can conclude "that God is never absent from victims of evil. He is always entirely present to them," and, ultimately in control: Goodness is in control (pp. 234, 235). This is no small consolation.

In light of all that Davies has said, can he answer this question: "Can you not, however, say something which can reasonably allow us to think of specific evils as serving good purposes, ones which we can value here and now?" Davies thinks that he can, even if he isn't offering a theodicy on which God is morally justified with respect to the good purposes to which the evils he permits contribute (p. 235). In light of this constraint, points previously criticized when used as theodicies become immediately relevant. He quotes two of them (p. 236):

(1) Evil often allows us to improve ourselves or to do great good to others.
(2) Naturally occuring evils allow us to recognize what we can do to help people or improve things in general.

He says, "We cannot seriously deny that there is a great deal of goodness which, in fact, presupposes what is bad" (pp. 236, 237). God doesn't need these second-order goods, and arguably if he were a moral agent who permitted evils for sake of them, he would be immoral. Still, recognizing that there are such second-order goods (e.g., courage in the face of evil) helps make the evils we encounter less opaque. Moreover, he notes that we should not let the evils in the world distract us from the abundant goods there are, too (p. 237); of course, he includes among such goods the goods that come from evils. Surely this is an important point for those who accept the arguments presented so far, a tool which can be employed when it comes to living with evils which one knows do not disprove God's existence.

It is also important to note that goodness, he says, should not "be automatically equated with things such as health, wealth, or bodily comfort". These things are goods, but they are not the highest goods; loss of these goods might be medicinal, the path to our obtaining superior goods, in this life and the life to come (p. 238).

He finishes this chapter with a discussion of how specifically Christian claims shed light on the reality of God and the problem of evil (pp. 239 - 246). In short, it provides further reasons to accept the conclusions made before, or it adds depth of insight to the metaphysical landscape with which we are confronted. For example, we gain deeper insight to what it means for God to be essentially loving: namely that there are Three loving persons in the Godhead (p. 241). We see that God's love extends to the incarnation of Christ (p. 242). And in the incarnation, we see what God's love looks like in human form, as it were; Christ qua man is clearly good and loving, and so Christ qua God must be surpassingly so (p. 244). Neither Christian doctrine nor the prior philosophical reflections gets us any closer to answering questions like why God made the world as he did, despite the relevance they have for the matter at hand (p. 246).

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Eight)

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Eight)

If God is Good, mustn't his goodness be moral goodness? If not, what else would it consist of? These are the sort of questions that Davies addresses in this chapter (p. 197). He uses Paul Helm as a foil against which he articulates and defends his position on these matters.

Could God be good in a functional sense? If this sense involves God being Good as a God, Davies answers no. God is not a member of a class of beings. However, if this sort of functional sense of goodness (as applied to, say, a good knife or a good car, does not necessarily have no relation to the kind of Goodness that God possesses (p. 198). Recalling his remarks from previous chapters, Davies notes that calling things as diverse as cars, plants, knifes, etc., good is to say that they succeed in being in a certain way (qua car, qua plant, etc.). Therefore, Davies concludes that "there is a serious connection between goodness and being" (p. 199).

He quotes Aquinas approvingly, "Goodness and being are really the same. They differ only conceptually. . . . [since] the word 'good' expresses a notion of desirability not expressed by the word 'being'." The meaning is that things are disposed to perfect themselves, to possess the sort of being appropriate to them, as can be seen in the development of living things. To be good is to be actual, which is to say to possess being. Even bad things, such as a sick cat, must be good in some way, for a bad X still succeeds in being an X (p. 200).

Davies rebuffs the claim made by Paul Helm that goodness must either be understood morally or functionally. Rather, both consist in something succeeding to be in a certain way (i.e. possessing the actuality appropriate to the kind of thing it is) (p. 200). Both are kinds of goodness understood thus: in both cases "we are dealing with existence as opposed to non-existence" (p. 201).

Now, it might be supposed that in order for God to be worthy of worship he must be morally good, for otherwise, the Goodness of God would be alien to us and it would be hard to see how it explains God's right to be worshipped. Helm concludes (in his own words), "The goodness of God must be some positive relation to the sort of human actions we regard as good." Here, some remarks Davies makes in the fourth chapter, which he again brings up, are relevant. For instance, Davies does not deny that God does what we would call morally good if done by a human being, so there seems to be a simmiliarity between moral goodness (which is surely applicable to humans) and God's goodness. But this simmiliarity doesn't, by itself, that God does such actions "as one who is obliged to" (p. 201). So, Davies intends to show that God's goodness is like moral goodness, even if it is not a kind of moral goodness as he answers Helm's question: "Why ascribe goodness to God" (p. 202)?

Davies says, "One reason for [calling God Good] lies in the traditional teaching that God is perfect". Predicating perfection of something, like predicating goodness of something, requires graspining what it is that we are talking about. Perfection is not singular in meaning, since what it means for a cat to be perfect is going to be different for what it means for a human to be perfect. Still, as with goodness, there is a common sense behind its various applications. "A perfect X is a wholly realized X, one which cannot have anything added to it to make it better." There is no gap between what it is and what it could be, we could say. And "this notion of 'not being improvable'" writes Davies, "is one we can employ when talking about God," for reasons laid out in the third chapter: God is immutable, etc. (p. 202). God is purely actual and could not fail to be what it takes to be God, and so there is no gap between what God is and what God could or needs to be. This claim may not take us to a positive understanding of what God's perfection consists of, but it shows that it is real enough without ascribing moral goodness to him (p. 203).

Davies also rejects the speculations of perfect being theology that a maximally perfect being would be morally good. True, a perfect human would be morally good, but it doesn't follow that a perfect being would be; given the arguments made so far, we have reason to think God would not be like that (p. 204).

Davies writes, "Another reason for saying that God is good arises from the fact that, being the Creator, he is the maker of all creaturely goodes." He is not saying, however, that God must make good things for him to be good. If God is essentially Good, but needn't create anything at all, this is clearly a mistaken claim. Rather, God's goodness is seen in created things (p. 204). The idea is that all things 'desire' or are aimed toward their perfection, and now, given the principle of proportionate causality (that an effect must exist somehow in its complete cause), the perfection of a thing must exist in the cause of that thing. Now, God is the universal cause, so the perfection of all creatures exists in someway in God. So, in pursuing their own perfection, creatures are pursuing what is in God: that they may partake of God in some way (pp. 204, 205).

Davies clarifies what he means by saying that effects resemble their causes (which is a formulation of the principle of double effect) against various objections. I expressed it by saying that an effect must preexist in its complete cause in someway (not necessarily in the same way); for example, a house may preexist in the mind of its builder, but clearly not as a material object let alone an actual house. Davies expressed it in a complementary way: an effect expresses its cause in being, as it were, the cause in action. For example, the nature of alcohol is manifested in a drunk man. Alcohol has a power to cause drunkenness, which is manifested in actual drunkenness when someone has had too much to drink. The drunkenness was present (as a power) in the cause of the man's being drunk (the alcohol) Importantly, this doesn't lead us to conclude that, since God produces morally good beings that God is himself morally good. He also produces stones, but he is not a stone. (pp. 206 - 208).

Now, what of the related question - is God loving? What does Davies say? Clearly he is not if what we have in mind is an emotional state, for emotions involve change and arguably corporeal existence, but God is immutable and incorporeal (p. 209). Nor is God loving if we suppose that genuine love must be had between equals (pp. 209, 210). However, insofar as the essence of loving is to will some good for the beloved, God is clearly loving, and indeed, loves all things, for he brings about goodness in all that exists. Moreover, God's will is, in fact, the cause of the goodness in the things he loves, something that cannot be true about us; in this sense, God is loving in a way we can never be (p. 211).

However, this means that God loves if he creates. What if he did not create? Is he essentially loving (p. 211)? Davies argues that, yes, God is essentially loving. For love involves the recognition of something as good. If God can recognize himself as good, then he can rightly be said to love himself; how could he fail to love himself? Only a fool would consider God, who is absolute Goodness, loving himself narcissistic. On the contrary, it is ordinate love (pp. 212, 213).

Given all this, we still may desire an explanation of why God allows evil. If we cannot access God's reasons or motives, wouldn't this tell against God's Goodness or existence (p. 214)? Davies will answer: no. Though, only after he sets the stage by examining things like what it means to act for a reason (p. 215).

Acting for reason implies that there is an answer to the question 'Why did you do, or fail to do, that?' One performs some action as means to an end they want. Often, these wants will coincide with needs or morally praiseworthy things (pp. 215, 216). If this is what it means to act for reasons, we need to inquire as to whether it makes sense to suppose God has needs the require the creation of the world. Clearly, creation cannot give to God anything that God lacked, for creation only has what it has from God. If God lacked it, he could not give it to creation; if God has it, he would not need it from creation. So, Davies thinks that we should back off saying that God acts for reasons as we do (p. 216).

Yes, God might make people so that they might have communion with him. However, this doesn't meet a need in God anymore than his creating clouds to provide rain for the earth. The clouds meet the needs of the crops they water, not God's needs (pp. 216, 217). All of this is to say that God does not engage in practical reasoning (which Davies rightly distinguishes from theoretical reasoning), which involves planning to secure our needs or wants by means suitable to them. Since God cannot lack anything needed to be God, he is beyond practical reasoning (p. 217). Indeed, any process of reasoning is inapplicable to God, since God is beyond time. Reasoning involve successive states, such as when we go through the premises of an argument, whether a deductive or practical syllogism, but God knows all things in a single, timeless act of knowledge (p. 218).

Interestingly, Davies writes, "Of course, one might certainly say that God has arranged (or willed) that X should come to pass because of Y". But that is not God acting for a reason as humans do. Neither X nor Y contribute anything to God, and neither X nor Y need to be. God grasps that plants needs water, and arranges the world such that plants get water. But God doesn't have a reason to ensure that there are plants and water to begin with (p. 218).

Davies draws what many might find as disappointing conclusions from this. He writes, "I fear that there is no intelligible answer to to questions like 'Why did God do this to me?'" (p. 218) We can understand that, if God intends X where X requires Y, he will also produce Y. But this doesn't get to the answer we want: why X to begin with?

Not only might this conclusion be disappointing, it might seem obviously wrong. Part of this aversion to the conclusion, I think, lies in a failure to grasp what exactly Davies means by 'acting for reasons' and the relation between not acting for reasons and our inability to say why God brought about the world in the way he did. If this is the case, a more careful attention to what was said in this chapter should clear things up a bit. Moreover, Davies promises that he will qualify (and so clarify) what he means when he says that 'acting for reasons', while applicable to us, is inapplicable to God (p. 219). I'd also add that nothing Davies says implies that the creation of the world is unintelligible (i.e., a brute fact). God doesn't need X, but X is good and so it is a live option to will; it's goodness explains why it is a possible object of God's will. While certain possible worlds may be more fitting than others, we can't pin down why God chose this one.

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Seven)

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Seven)

In this chapter, Davies discusses God's causal relation to the world as it concerns evil. In short, the question of whether God causes evil. If so, at least if he wills evil as an end (for its own sake), then it is clear that God cannot be good in any sense, even in the non-moral-agent sense that Davies think is proper to God (p. 173).

Davies begins his assessment by accepting the distinction between pain and suffering inflicted onto things by other things and the sort of evil that consists in morally evil actions, though not without any qualification: in short, the two are not always separate. For instance, notes Davies, if I settle on a rather active fault line (say, not because it is only in that town that I can find work), and an earthquake strikes and I am injured, it is not only natural processes which are responsible for my suffering. My choice is involved, too (pp. 173, 174).

Davies also makes an important anti-consequentialist point with respect to moral evil. He writes, "moral evil has nothing to do with the consequences of people's actions." Merely to note that a certain action produces bad results does not tell us about the moral status of the agent who performed it. Rather, it is something internal to the agent, their intentions, for example, that makes them and their actions bad.[1] What makes something bad as the kind of thing it is (such as a bad person) has to be something internal to them, and the effects of an action are only part of what the agent is, or internal to them, insofar as they are intended by the person in question (p. 175).

With these points in mind, Davies accepts the distinction between natural evils and moral evils, or as he styles them: evil suffered and evil done (p. 176).

Davies considers it important to note that the evilness of the evils suffered are privations of a due good, a point he established in the previous chapter (p. 176). Evil is a real negative aspect of the world, but evilness is not something out there, nor are their individual beings that are evils. Despite the claim that to say 'X exists' is to say that 'Such-and-such is an X' it doesn't hold universally. That is we are not predicating something about an individual being whenever we say that 'X exists'. To say that 'evil exists' is just to affirm that somethings are evil, not as they ought to be given the kind of thing they are, instead of saying that 'Such-and-such a being is an evil'. "When it comes to evil suffered, therefore, we are dealing with what, though no illusion, does not, in a serious sense, exist," concludes Davies (p. 177).

From this conclusion, Davies immediately makes the further conclusion "that the evil in evil suffered cannot be caused by God." God causes being, but the evilness of evils suffered is precisely the lack of being (p. 177). Evils have only parasitic existence on the things whose evilness they are, just as holes have no existence except insofar as walls that have them exist. Evilness can be predicated of things, but it doesn't possess any existence (p. 178).

So, where does this leave us with respect to evils suffered? Writes Davies, "evil suffered can only reasonably be regarded as 'due' to God because of goodness that he is producing." God creates things that, to the extent they exist, are good. That there is a gap between what they are and what they could be, that they lack some goodness appropriate to them as the kind of thing that they are, means that evils suffered really are in the world (p. 178). He does not, however, suggest that such evils must be; there can be good things that lack any defect (pp. 178, 179).

Since "to be good is to succeed in being in some way", God is the cause of all that is, but God does not produce evilness, even if he could have made a world in which the things that in our actual world which are evil lack such evil. In this sense, God does not will evil as an end. God's will and his creative activity results in their being things that exist, that they be good in some way, but evils suffered do not exist (p. 180). There might be some things that exist, positively speaking, that make a cat sick, but the badness of a sick cat is not some positive feature of reality (p. 181).

Interestingly, Davies comments that evils suffered are only the shadows of goodness. They can only exist if there are things that, positively speaking, exist and so are good, and/or are produced by the flourishing of something else. Concerning the latter condition, Davies gives the example of a lamb being eaten by a lion. The lamb is worse off, but the lion flourishes as the kind of thing it is (p. 181). A result of this is that apparently gratuitous evils are not as they appear. Recall that some, such as William Rowe, argue that a fawn dying a forest fire suffers a pointless evil, one which need not be. In a sense, says Davies, he is right. God needn't have made a world in which that fawn dies. However, the fawn's death is explicable in terms of natural causes and, so, is not gratuitous with respect to these. The fawn's death "arises because something other than the fawn is flourishing at some level," which is to say that such things exist at the expense of the fawn, just as the fawn existed at the expense of other things (p. 182). Even if we'd prefer a world with less evils suffered, says Davies, "it remains that evil suffered cannot be cited in defence of the claim that God wills evil as an end in itself" (p. 183).

Things get a bit more complicated when it comes to evils done. Specifically, writes Davies, "in the case of evil done there is no concomitant good". A lion flourishes when it eats a lamb, but I don't flourish when I act wickedly. Again, Davies notes that the evilness of evils done lie in the agent who commits them; that is what make them moral evils as opposed to merely natural evils (p. 183). "How, then, should we think of God's causal role when it comes to" these, asks Davies (p. 184).

Davies answers by appealing to a distinction made by Aquinas between the 'act of sin' and the sin itself. God causes all that is real, all that has being, in any agent, but that doesn't mean he is responsible for the evilness of the evils done by that agent (p. 184). Moral evil involves the lack of some goodness that I ought to be exhibiting, and even evil acts exhibit skill that, in different contexts, might be thought of as good. (Think of an assassin and the skills required to successfully fulfill his objective.) What makes immoral acts or immoral omissions evil is not that the presence of some being or positive reality, but rather such evils done consist in a failure to be, which is to say a failure for me to act as I ought to as a rational being (p. 185).

Davies is not saying that God is not causally involved in evils done, only that he is not causally responsible for the fact that they are evil, since their evilness is not some positive feature of such actions, but rather a disorder within the agent committing them as they pursue what, in of itself, is good in a wrong way. They employ skills or whatever that, fine in of themselves, are co-opted toward a disordered end (pp. 186, 187). The evilness of such actions lies in the agent insofar as they do such things in the specific way that they do. Since they exist and since they employ their casual powers to some end, God must be causally involved, for such things possess being; he causes the 'act of sin', but not the evilness of the act of sin (p. 187). Acts of sin involve change, and God is the ultimate cause of all change (p. 188). But precisely since change involves becoming and evil is the negation of being, God is not the cause of the evilness of the acts of sin of which he is the ultimate cause.

In this respect, evils done and evils suffered both involve privations (in the thing suffering the evil or committing the evil, respectively). However, "privations are not creatable things. So God does not make them to be even if he makes a world in which they can be noted as being the privations they are" (p. 190).

Does God have any responsibility to prevent evils done? He certainly could have made a world in which no one actually sins. But he is also not a moral agent to which we can assign blame, for he does not have obligations to create anything, let alone a world in which there are less or no privations of any kind (pp. 190, 191). If God does not have an obligation to create, and only creates being / goodness, and never wills evil as an end, but only 'produces' it in a roundabout way, God is not acting wrongly in making the world we actually live in. And it is not like God is able to will evil as an end, for the nature of evil prevents this possibility. Also, if we remember that creation, the production of good things, is entirely gratuitous, this objection loses force (p. 191).

Davies concludes this chapter by raising the question he will answer in the later on in the book: in what sense is God Good (p. 193)? Once he answers this question, his claim that God is not evil will be complete.

[1] I'd add that the foreseen consequences of one's actions that are not the aim of the action still fall within the agent as the indirect intention.

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Six)

The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (Chapter Six)

In this chapter, Davies argues that a number of other (non means-ends) arguments used to defend God against the reality of evil fail. Specifically, he addressed the following seven positions (p. 140):

(1) The universe is better with some evil than no evil.
(2) There actually is no evil, so God cannot be blamed for it.
(3) Evil as we know it is justly inflicted punishment.
(4) There might be a moral justification for God allowing evil but we may not be in a position [to] see what that amounts to.
(5) People are not always as happy as they could be. But this is no reason to criticize God.
(6) Our world, with its various evils, is, in fact, the best possible world.
(7) God also suffers.

Concerning (1), he notes that some argue that "evil can indeed contribute to the goodness of the universe" so that such evil is not, ultimately, a negative thing. An analogy for this position would be how discord can contribute to great pieces of work in such a way that they would be not as great if such discord was not present. Davies concedes that it is true that, in aesthetics, what is off-putting of itself can contribute to a whole to make it better than it would be without it. However, this doesn't do anything to justify God with respect to the evil in the actual world, for it is surely possible that there could be a world that contains no evils and yet would be supremely good (p. 141). Moreover, we can note that God contains no evil and yet is infinitely good (p. 142).

Davies agrees that often times our encounter with evils can increase our appreciation for the goods we have, but this does nothing to show that what is need be anything other than good. He writes, "To say that X is good is to say what X is, and it seems far from obvious that something cannot be good unless it is also somehow bad." So the existence of goodness does not depend on the presence of badness. (p. 142).

He also criticizes the attempt to assess whether a universe qua universe is good or better than another. It is one thing to say that you or I, beings within the universe, might be better or worse than each other, but the universe is not that sort of a thing: an item within it. As a world the universe cannot be better or worse, since a world (e.g., possible worlds) are not a kind of thing, but merely the totality of all that is. So, while they might differ from each other, they are not better qua worlds. Besides, there could be worlds where there is no evil (p. 142).

Concerning (2), he makes an important distinction. One can take (2) to mean that evil is an illusion, which position he labels (a), or one can take it to mean that evil is not a positive aspect of reality, but rather "an absence or privation of a due good", which position he labels (b). He commends the latter to us, but rejects the former (p. 143). Since (a) is hardly a popular route to take, I will not comment on his three paragraph refutation of it.

Concerning (b), however, what he has to say is quite important. For this position does not deny that evil is a real aspect of reality, but rather it is a claim about what evil amounts to. His start off point is goodness (for evil, as should be noted above, is defined in relation to goodness), and goodness is defined in relation to the kind of thing that is said to be good. To ascribe goodness to the various things we call good is to aim to accurately reflect something about them, though clearly, what that is cannot be the same for all things that we call good. The goodness of a thing is relative to the kind of thing it is (pp. 144, 145).

Consider how 'yellow' names a property had by all yellow things. If we say, "That is a yellow bus," we can analyze our claim (or split it up) as: 'That is a bus' and 'That is yellow' and what 'bus' and 'yellow' means will be perfectly clear to us without conjoining them together. While we can split up 'That person is a good' to 'So-and-so is a person' and 'So-and-so is good' we cannot understand what 'good' means apart from what we attribute it too. In this way 'good' differs from 'yellow' (p. 145).

We should not conclude, however, that there is no common meaning that 'good' has when we use it of a diverse array of things. That common sense, while differing from the sense 'yellow' has when predicated of all yellow things, is this. "We are saying that it matches up to what we expect it to be given the kind of thing it is," writes Davies. Given this, we can say the same sort of things about the meaning of 'bad', only that it denotes when a thing fails to be as it ought to be given the kind of thing it is (p. 146). This is what (b) is claiming: "evil is an absence or privation of a due good". It is not unreal, but it simply is not a being or quality in its own right (p. 147).

He considers some objections to this understanding of evil. Given that evil can arise out of the presence of something, such as something obstructing the working of some machine, surely this means that evil can be a positive feature of reality, too. He responds that, while evil may arise in this fashion (and not merely because something is missing from the thing in question), it remains the case that the evilness of that thing is precisely its failure to measure up to the expectations of how it ought to be given the kind of thing that it is. This defect may be caused by the presence of something, but this presence only is objectionable given its effects, that it diminishes the thing in question from fulfilling its role, say. Otherwise the presence would be neutral, not harmful (p. 147).

Concerning (3), evil as punishment, he notes that evil can often be accounted for in terms of punishment (p. 148). However, it fails to provide a complete account of the evil present in the world; for example, it won't do to say that the suffering of non-rational beings is something they deserve (p. 149). The same can be said about some humans, too, he says. Nor will it do to say that Scripture envisions all suffering as punishment; sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. Davies notes the germane example of the blind man healed by Jesus in John ix (pp. 150, 151).

Does some understanding of the doctrine of original sin justify the view that evil is justly inflicted punishment (p. 151)? While it is clear that punishment can have bad repercussions for those who are not punished, and while the sin of Adam has had various negative effects on his descendants, original sin cannot morally exonerate God (pp. 152 - 154). First, if animals suffered before Adam sinned, then it is hard to say that this was the result of Adam's sin. Second, Davies does not believe that one can exonerate a moral agent who plans for there to be evil and suffering, who intends it. Third, God is in a position to avert the negative side-effects of punishment suffered by those who are not themselves being punished in a way that a human judge is not. What negative repercussions it is permissible for a judge to cause when he sentences a criminal are things he cannot prevent, but God can prevent the negative repercussions of Adam's sin from harming the innocent. Concerning the second point, Davies alludes back to what he says in chapter five (p. 155).

Concerning (4), Davies concedes that the mere inability to see a reason for why God might allow apparently pointless and unjustified evils is not proof that no such reasons exist. Surely anyone who sees how the events of history unfold in utterly unpredictable ways, or how small factors produce outsized impacts can agree with this claim (p. 156). However, he isn't saying that our ignorance doesn't vindicate the claim that God is morally good, even if it might make us slow to conclude that he is morally bad (p. 157).

Davies gives an example of an evil which he thinks God could have prevented without preventing greater goods or allowing worse evils, him trapping his thumb in a door, a painful experience. He runs down the list of possible goods it could have produces, such as teaching him (to be more careful, for example) and concludes that it was not necessary to bring that about (for he already knew to be careful). Besides, he kept it private until now, and could have continued to do so, so it doesn't seem to help anyone else (p. 157).[1]

His point is that if God could bring about small evils which bring about no further goods or which prevent no worse evils, then the same can be said about greater evils. If we require that God must have reasons behind the permission of all evils, then we are out of luck, despite the fact that we don't know the entire picture (p. 158). Of course a defending of the argument that we simply aren't in a position to see the reasons God has for letting evils occur may not be moved by this, since after all the fact remains that we are not omniscient, Davies thinks that it provides a good reason to reject this position. Moreover, there are cases where the victim is not compensated for the evil they suffer, for example, nonrational animals (p. 159).

Concerning (5), the claim that God is not to blame because we are not as happy as we can be, Davies says that it is plausible. Clearly subjective happiness is not the overriding factor behind moral actions. So if God fails to bring about the greatest amount of such enjoyment to us, he is not obviously at fault (p. 160). Moreover, God could have created beings who had a greater capacity for enjoyment than we do, and created beings who had a greater capacity for enjoyment than them, and so on forever. There is no level where God could have made beings who could enjoy the greatest amount of happiness; there is always n+1, as it were. So God cannot be faulted for doing what is logically impossible (pp. 160, 161). However, this doesn't provide a moral justification for God, since there are plenty of evils that God could prevent, even if they produce some good, for reasons that Davies spells out in chapter five (p. 161).

Concerning (6), the claim that our is the best possible world, Davies notes that it is prima facie impluasible (p. 162). The rationale behind this argument, however, does look impressive. It lies that God, who is perfect, would not fail to act for a sufficient reason, and that reason would have to be according to hsi perfect goodness: that is, the reason God chooses to actualize this possible world and not any others is that it is the best, for how can God fail to do the best that he can (p. 163).

Davies canvases several objections to this argument, including its presuppositions that God exists. Isn't this one of the points in question? True, but it may still work as a defense against the claim that God could not possibly exist. Neither does it explain how God and evil relate, only that they can relate, that is, coexist. However, none of this objections get to the heart of the matter, namely, the dubious status the expression 'the best possible world' has. Why suppose it has any actual referent any more than 'the greatest prime' has a referent? Writes Davies, "Given any world one might think that one can conceive of, one can always think of one that contains an additional good member (an additional healthy cat, for instance)." (p. 164). Yes, God cannot make a thing better than the kind of thing it is, for in that case he would not be making that thing, but rather something else entirely. However, God make the things that are be better than they actually are, or that he might more of them, or make things that include greater goods. So this defense of God's goodness on account that this is the best possible world fails (pp. 164, 165).

Concerning (7), the claim that God suffers, Davies notes that it confuses the distinction between Creator and creatures. In fact, Davies writes, "I take it to be idolatrous." Moreover, he claims that its defenders do not so much as back it up with philosophical arguments as they do with an intuition that such a God would be more admirable.[2] Or it might be thought that genuine love implies the ability to suffer (p. 166).

Davies notes that suffering as such is not valuable. It may be valuable secundum quid, that is, in a derivative way, but not for its own sake. Suffering afflicts those that are limited, but qua God, He is not limited. Moreover, while love amongst creatures often leads to suffering, suffering is not essential to love, just as one may have compassion on another without actually suffering their pain. Love is the willing of what is good for the other precisely as the other, which can be done whether or not one suffers (p. 167). To this I'll add the following remarks. Consider a world in which God makes nothing, so that only he exists. God surely has love in this world. Specifically, the Father loves the Son and Spirit, and the Son and Spirit love each other and the Father. But they could never disappoint each other, which is the source of suffering that arises out of love.

It might be said that a God who does not suffer is uninvolved in our world. But that is not so (p. 167). I'd offer my own example above. The Father is clearly present to and involved with the Son, whether or not they create. However, he cannot suffer. Davies notes that if God creates, then clearly he is not uninvolved in what he creates. He quotes Herbert McCabe, "It makes perfect sense to say both that it is not in the nature of God to suffer and also that it is not in the nature of God to lack the most intimate possible involvement with the sufferings of his creatures." God is the cause of all things, knows all things, etc., and so is present to those who suffer in a way that no creatures could possibly be (p. 168).

Davies concludes this chapter here. I think his remarks are entirely correct. Before concluding I would like to note that with respect to (7), the claim is not that the Son qua man cannot suffer, but that qua God, he cannot suffer, as neither the Father or the Holy Spirit can. It might be appropriate for God to become incarnate to suffer because he loves, as he in fact did, but that does not mean that in order to be loving God must actually suffer, let alone suffer qua God.

[1]Though, it seems like it has produced a good - he is able to draw upon it to make a philosophical point. But we can substitute a similar experience of our own, which we have never told anyone else; still, it will be for us, a nice philosophical datum to consider. But I don't think this discredits his point.

[2] I offer this analogy. It might be said that a brave God is better than a God to whom bravery or cowardice cannot be attributed, but that fails to consider that virtues perfect rational beings who could fail to be moral. God, however, cannot fail to be as he is, and so is absolutely perfect. Virtues do not apply to him, not becasue he is less than we, but because he is far greater.