Limited Omniscience is compatible with moral perfection

I have a correction to make after reading Richard Swinburne's Providence and the Problem of Evil (specifically p. 231-232).  An argument that I thought was sound is actually not a good one. As has been explained before, Swinburne believes that God doesn't know the future with absolute certainty. He may know what is probable, but he isn't absolutely sure that it will happen. Michael Martin in his book, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification brings up an objection to this. I summarize his argument on my page:

"Limited Omniscience vs. Moral Perfection

If God doesn't know the future, then he can't know whether or not his past actions were morally correct. Whether or not an action is morally correct depends on, in part, what the consequences are. However, God cannot know the consequences of his actions, therefore He can't know that He is morally perfect. God could still choose all the correct actions. However, this would have no relation to his knowledge. He would do the right thing purely on accident. Because no being can be morally perfect on accident, it follows that a being with "limited omniscience" cannot be morally perfect. Since God is supposed to be such a being, it follows that God cannot exist. [2]"

As Swinburne explains however, this objection has a false premise. What makes an action morally correct is, in part, the probable consequences of the act. The actual consequences only matter insofar as they are probable. Someone can't be blamed for what happens if they have no indication whatsoever that it will happen. Since God will know how probable all outcomes are, he can do the act that maximizes the expected value. The act that he does will be the right one.

So, since someone can't be blamed for the actual consequences of an act if there is no indication that those consequences will happen, then what makes an act right or wrong is the probable consequences. Therefore, the argument has a false premise. So, Martin's argument is unsound even though I once thought it worked. I will change it on my site and explain why the argument doesn't work.

It is important to note that this response to the argument only works if we suppose it is impossible for a being to know more than God does about the world. For example, God doesn't know the future on Swinburne's understanding. We also have to give a reason why God cannot know the future in order for this response to stick. Otherwise, one could say that a morally perfect being must know the future which would be a possible thing to know. If one shows that knowing the future is impossible if humans have libertarian free will, then the concept of moral perfection must not require a being to be morally perfect in order to fulfill it; otherwise moral perfection would be necessarily nonexistent.

So, if one defines "moral perfection" in a way that is possible for a being to fulfill it, then one must not need the requirement that the being who is morally perfect knows the future with absolute certainty. If one needs this requirement, then their definition of moral perfection is inapplicable to any possible being. This doesn't show a problem with the idea of God being morally perfect in any sense, just a problem with the sense of moral perfection that the arguer is using. If one defines a concept in a self-contradictory way, one cannot be surprised when it cannot be applied to any being at all.

And for the record, I still think the argument above it titled The Free Will Argument for the Nonexistence of God still works. However, I think it only disproves a God who can know the future. It doesn't disprove Swinburne's God who doesn't know the future with absolute certainty.

If I were a Christian (part 2)

The last post kind of ended early, I figure there's more to say about the type of Christian God I would believe in.

I wouldn't believe that God is the only source of morality. I would believe, however, that he is a source of morality. For example, if God were to say, "Okay all who follow me, I want to see you rape some young girls simply because I like rape," he would be a bad being. Him making this command wouldn't cause the act to be right. He would be evil for making the command. Hence, there are some things that even God cannot change the moral status of (like rape, adultery, etc.).

Saying all that, I would also say that there are some things God could change the moral status of. Since God created us and (presumably) caused there to be no needless suffering, died for our sins, and so on, he is a benefactor. He is actually our ultimate benefactor since our existence is due to him. If someone does you a favor, say takes out the trash every day, then you owe them something. You owe them thanks or perhaps some money if they ask for it. However, there is a limit to how much they can ask of you after they do a favor. The same goes if you wrong someone. If I wrong someone, I need to atone for what I did. This can be done by doing the person a favor, by obeying their request. Of course, like the last example, there is a limit to how much of a request they can make and still demand you to follow it. One cannot demand a million dollars, for example, simply because you stole a candy bar from their shop. So, if we were to wrong God, we would have a debt to him. This debt can be repayed by obeying him. Of course, with any person who is wronged, there is only so much they can ask and still reasonably demand it of us.

So, since God is our benefactor, and since he has been wronged by us, we are in debt to him. So, his requests have some (but not total) moral weight. These requests may be requests of worship, petitionary prayer, and attendance at church. This causes God to be a source but not the only source of morality.

In Swinburne's book, Responsibility and Atonement, he explains these concepts. He also explains how if a person's life is supposed to be a gift from God, then God cannot give very tight moral restrictions for how it is to be used (p. 129). Here's a quote where he explains this:

"No giver can give a present with full instructions on its use; I cannot 'give' you five dollars and tell you what I want you to buy for me with it. It would not then be a gift. Something is only a gift if, maybe within limits, the recipient can choose what to do with it. And a gift is not a generous one if any instructions for its use, though not totally precise, are too detailed."

So, a good God who gave us the gift of life would not subject it too very tight moral restrictions. We would have a certain amount of moral freedom where we can make our own choices.

As for the concept of original sin, I would agree with most Christians I'm sure, that we aren't to be blamed for sin coming into the world. We can't be blamed for what Adam and Eve did. I would agree that humans have a tendancy to sin and hence need atonement for their sins.

I would not agree that Jesus' death in any way "paid the price" for our sins. One person cannot be punished for the sins of another. I do believe, however, that Jesus' suffering and eventual death can be taken another way. That being that Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could see how serious our sins are. A person who is wronged (God) can sacrifice something (his Son) to show us that our sins are very serious. From Swinburne again (p. 153):

"God makes available the sacrifice (of himself), but it is we who have to offer it. Christ's laid-down life is there made available for sacrifice, like a ram caught in a thicket. Any man who is humble and serious enough about his sin to recognize what is the proper reparation and penance for it may use the costly gift which another has made available to him to offer as his sacrifice...the sinner has to use Christ's death to obtain forgiveness."

He says we must identify that Jesus' life was perfect and one that we ought to have lived. We can offer Jesus' life to God as the life we should have lived. I think Swinburne's interpretation of Jesus' life and death is better than other interpretations.

If I were a Christian (part 1)

On the bus ride home yesterday, I was reading Richard Swinburne's Providence and the Problem of Evil. This got me thinking, if I became a Christian, what type of Christian would I be?

First, I would generally agree with Swinburne's view of the Christian God. He believes that God is all-knowing but doesn't know the future with absolute certainty. The reason why he holds this view is that he believes no being can have an incorrigible belief about what a free being will do in the future. This is because for a being to truly have free will, he must have the power to make any person's belief about his future actions false. Say for example that God believes I will go to school tomorrow. Sure, there is a high probability that this will happen since I have class tomorrow. However, since I have free will, I must have the power of not going to school tomorrow. I must be able to make false God's belief that I will go to school tomorrow. So whatever belief God may have about my future actions, I must have the power to make them false. Therefore, as long as it's possible that God's beliefs about my future actions are false, he cannot know them with absolute certainty.

There is a couple ways around this but none of them seem plausible. One can say that my future act caused God to have a past belief about my future act. So, my future act of going to school tomorrow caused God today (and forever stretching back into eternity) to have the belief that I will go to school tomorrow. The problem that Swinburne shows with this in his book The Christian God is that causes must always precede their effects. You can never have an event at a certain time t cause something to happen at a time before t. Another way to get around the free will problem is to say that God is outside of time so he sees all the events that have and will happen at once. However, as Swinburne points out in The Christian God, it is hard to make sense of the idea that a being can be outside of time.

In general, I would agree with Charles Seymour's idea of hell that he gives in A Theodicy of Hell. Generally, Seymour believes that God sends some people to hell to punish us for our past sins. Since we only committed a finite number of sins and each sin is only finitely wrong, we can only receive a finite amount of punishment. However, once the damned get to hell, they still have the free will to sin and God will punish them for those sins too. It is possible for those in hell to get out of hell and into heaven if they become good enough such that at some point in the future, they would have experienced all the punishment they deserve. I agree with Seymour that this view is compatible with a loving God. Here, I wrote a review of the book and here is a link where Charles Seymour summarizes it.

I think one can believe in the Christian God and still believe in evolution, as Swinburne does. I don't think there is much problem with interpreting some of the bible as fiction or interpreting some of it in a non-literal way. For example, one could believe the Garden of Eden never existed but still believe that there was a first man (call him Adam) who committed the first sin. This latter belief is compatible with evolution.

I'd say that's about it, that's the most plausible view of the Christian God I can see. (There's more to Swinburne's beliefs like those concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation that I didn't talk about here. I think those beliefs are plausible as well)

Moral Responsibility

Just posted a paper on my site critiquing Galen Strawson's argument. He argues that moral responsibility is impossible. Here's an excerpt:

"In order to be responsible for the way you are, say at a given time T3, you had to at an earlier time, say T2, choose how you were going to be. However, at T2, the choice of how to be would be dependent on who you were. Your beliefs, desires, emotions, etc. would determine that choice. So, there would have to be an earlier time, T1, where you choose to have the character that you had at T2. But then, at T1, your character would cause you to make a certain choice. And so on.

You never get to a time where you chose how you would be that didn't depend on an earlier choosing of yours. If you do get to such a point, say when you were born, you cannot be held responsible for how you were at that point. You can only be held responsible for what you choose, and when you were born, you were "given" your desires. They weren't the result of any choice. So, since who we were initially caused us to choose our character again and again, it follows that to blame someone for their current character is equivalent to blaming someone for their initial character. However, since one isn't responsible for their initial character, one can't be responsible for their character at any other time, and hence cannot be held responsible for any act that they commit (given (1)).

...

I think the infinite regress can be stopped when we take into account the fact that praise, blame, reward, and punishment are to be used to change people's desires. These tools work just as well regardless of how those desires got there. It is also important to note that when we blame someone for their present desires, we are blaming them because they are, in part, their present desires. When one says, "You are responsible for your actions" I think it means no more than, "Your character, which can be changed, is the cause of your actions." The infinite regress fails because it attempts to make a distinction between a person and their character. Strawson does this when he says that a person, at a given time, must choose their character. I think there is no distinction to be made and a person is constituted by their character. A person having a bad character is equivalent to the person being bad.

For the paper, go here.

The Divine Tight-Rope Walker

Faith, Hope and Doubt
Louis Pojman

"Suppose you are fleeing a murderous gang of desperados, say the Mafia, who are bent on your annihilation. You come to the edge of a cliff which overlooks a yawning gorge. However, there is a rope spanning the gorge, tied to a tree on the cliff on the opposite side of the gorge. A man announces that he is a tight-rope walker who can carry you on the rope over the gorge. He doesn’t look like he can do it, so you wonder whether he is insane or simply overconfident. He takes a few steps on the rope to assure you that he can balance himself. You agree that it’s possible that he can navigate the rope across the gorge, but you have doubts whether he can carry you. But your options are limited. Soon your pursuers will be upon you. You must decide. While you still don’t believe that the “tight-rope walker” can save you, you decide to trust him. You place your faith in his ability, climb on his back, close your eyes (so as not to look down into the yawning gorge) and do your best to relax and obey his commands in adjusting your body as he steps onto the rope. You have a profound, even desperate, hope that he will be successful.
"This is how I see religious hope functioning in the midst of doubt. The verific person recognizes the tragedy of existence, that unless there is a God and life after death, the meaning of life is less than glorious, but if there is a God and life after death, that meaning is glorious. There is just enough evidence to whet his or her appetite, to inspire hope, a decision to live according to Theism or Christianity as an experimental hypothesis, but not enough evidence to cause belief. So keeping one’s mind open, the hoper plumbs for the better story, gets on the back of what may be the Divine Tight-Rope Walker and commits oneself to the pilgrimage. Perhaps the analogy is imperfect, for it may be possible to get off the tight-rope walker’s back in actual existence and to get back to the cliff. Perhaps the Mafia will make a wrong turn or take their time searching for you. Still the alternative to the Tight Rope Walker is not exactly welcoming: death and the extinction of all life in a solar system that will one day be extinguished. We may still learn to enjoy the fruits of finite love and resign ourselves to a final, cold fate.
...
"But if there is some evidence for something better, something eternal, someone benevolent who rules the universe and will redeem the world from evil and despair, isn’t it worth betting on this world view? Shouldn’t we, at least, consider getting on the back of the Tight-Rope Walker and letting him guide us across the gorge?"

I'm not saying I buy this argument, but it does seem interesting (of course, presuming that there is some evidence for the existence of God).

Louis Pojman

Louis Pojman is a well-known ethicist who has written many good books on the topic. He taught at WestPoint Academy for 9 years before his death. I have read one of his books and found it to be the best introduction to ethics I have read. That being Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 5th Edition. He died on October 15th of last year of liver cancer, cirrhosis, and hepatitis C. More on his life and death can be seen here.

He has taught me many things about ethics as I'm sure others would say who have read his work. It is fortunate that he existed and it seems left the world a better place than it otherwise would have been.

"I don't want it, therefore they should stop it."

Many people use this argument when it comes to things that will inconvenience them. They shouldn't raise taxes because I don't want to pay them. They shouldn't raise tuition because I don't want to pay it. They shouldn't put a dump in our town because I don't want it. They shouldn't start mining in Sand Canyon because it'll create more traffic (trucks in the mining company) on the freeway and I don't want that. They should stop building more houses in my town because then more people will be here which will cause more traffic. They should lower gas prices because I don't want to pay them. And so on.

However, simply because people or a group of people don't want higher taxes, that doesn't imply that higher taxes aren't necessary. The same goes for dumps. Dumps are a necessary thing and they have to be put somewhere. If they're not put in your town, they will simply be put in another town where the people don't speak up (and of course, it might cost you more taxes because your trash will have to get shipped out further).

It amazes me how people don't bother looking into whether the tax, raise in tuition, dump, or mining, is actually necessary. They don't care if it's done for a good reason. They automatically assume that it's done for a bad reason and therefore, they don't want it to happen.

I would suggest that anyone who is against something because it will inconvenience them to actually look into the issue and see if the measure is necessary (i.e., done for a good reason). If (and only if) it is done for a bad reason (technically, if it's a measure a good person would be against), then one should be against it. Whether or not it inconveniences you or the general public is something of relevance, but is something that (given a good enough reason) can be overridden.

"At a single stroke, Buffett has given purpose to his life"

On Happiness, Money and Giving it Away
Peter Singer
Project Syndicate, July, 2006

Would you be happier if you were richer? Many people believe that they would be. But research conducted over many years suggests that greater wealth implies greater happiness only at quite low levels of income.

People in the United States, for example, are, on average, richer than New Zealanders, but they are not happier.

...

Consider, in this light, the life of the American investor Warren Buffett. For 50 years, Buffett, now 75, has worked at accumulating a vast fortune. According to Forbes magazine, he is the second wealthiest person in the world, after Bill Gates, with assets of US$42 billion. Yet his frugal lifestyle shows that he does not particularly enjoy spending large amounts of money. Even if his tastes were more lavish, he would be hard-pressed to spend more than a tiny fraction of his wealth.

From this perspective, once Buffett earned his first few millions in the 1960s, his efforts to accumulate more money can easily seem completely pointless... Coincidentally, Kahneman’s article appeared the same week that Buffett announced the largest philanthropic donation in US history — US$30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and another US$7 billion to other charitable foundations. Even when the donations made by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller are adjusted for inflation, Buffett’s is greater. At a single stroke, Buffett has given purpose to his life.

Introductory works on ethics

I want to list a couple of good resources for the person who would like to study ethics. Ethics is a subject I think everyone should devote much time and effort to. Deciding what is right or wrong is probably the most important decision to decide. It is not something people should take lightly and just "go with their gut" or "go with what their parents believe" or "go with what their religion teaches" or "go with what most of society believes." However, our gut, religion, parents, and society, are not as reliable as sound argument.

One might say that studying ethics is pointless. Why read papers on abortion or capital punishment? There's always a way out of every argument and there's always an excuse to give on why one won't accept a given argument. What makes little sense is even if studying ethics was pointless, these people will simply resort to one of the above ways of deciding what is right or wrong. I'll use my gut or what a thousand-year-old text says or what my parents/society has taught me, etc.

I also see little merit in the idea that "there is always a way out of every argument. Therefore, there is no point to looking at both sides of the issue because in the end, you just believe what you want anways." I have a hard time believing this because I have found it to be false time and time again. I have had my mind changed by arguments that people have given. I have been able to recognize my mistakes by looking into the issue. I have also been able to strengthen my beliefs by doing the same. It is often the people who have never looked into ethical issues substantially who say this. This shows that they are simply not concerned with the truth and are to blame for it.

So, it is true that there may be a response one can always give to an argument. The question, however, is whether it is a good or bad response. The question is not whether there exists arguments, but whether they are good or bad arguments. If you look at people debating issues and say, "Oh no this is too hard for me, everyone is arguing. There can't be any use in looking into this anymore," then you have given up on the truth.

It is good to study ethics mainly because of the danger of living a lie. I would hate to have lived my life during the Civil War fighting for slavery, believing with all my heart that it was my duty. I would hate to have been an accomplice in the Holocaust, believing that God really did command me to kill the Jews. I would hate to have ruined innocent lives simply because I was too blind to see the truth.

So, I do not want to cause any undue harm to others or to myself. In being concerned with this, as I imagine most others are as well, this gives me good reason to study ethics and to, as honestly as I can, look at both sides of any given issue. I encourage you to do the same.

Now for the list of good introductory works.

Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong ,Fifth Edition by Pojman is my favorite introduction. A cheaper version of the book, the fourth edition, is available here.

Alonzo Fyfe's online introduction can be viewed here, his is extremely good as well.

For a good set of introductory ethical readings, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, Seventh Edition is recommended. Here is a link to the cheaper sixth edition. Here is a link to the fifth edition, which seems to be selling for about ten bucks cheaper.

On a sidenote, I really want to get some philosophy t-shirts. I would like them to be fairly nice and say things like "Aristotle" on the front and perhaps a quote on the back. Then, I could find the philosopher's birthdays and wear the shirt on that day and it would be Aristotle Day or Kant Day. Wouldn't that be neat?

"You can't be pro-war and pro-life"

Yesterday, I noticed one of my co-workers had a sticker on her car proclaiming this statement. It was most likely against political conservatives who are generally against abortion (pro-life) and also for some wars (pro-war). Whether either of these positions is tenable is not something that will be addressed. What will be addressed is whether someone can hold both positions and be consistent.

Definitions

There is a definition of each term that, when it is used, creates a contradiction. However, these definitions are ones that no one would use in normal discourse. If by "pro-life", one meant, "It is always wrong to kill any human being," then that would clearly contradict with the statement that it is sometimes permissible (or obligatory) to kill a human being (as it is in some wars).

However, when someone is pro-life, they do not need to agree that all killing is morally prohibited. They only need to agree that killing a fetus (in general) is morally prohibited. They may base this on the judgment that in general, it is wrong to kill an innocent person (and of course stating that fetuses are persons).

If someone is "pro-war", they do not need to agree with any and all wars that may occur. One can (if I understand the term correctly) be pro-war and agree that some wars shouldn't have taken place and some are inevitable. This would be better characterized by the term "pro-some-wars."

Reconciliation

So, if one believes that in general it is wrong to kill an innocent person and one also thinks that some wars are necessary, how does one reconcile the two statements? One way they can do so is to claim that in the wars that are justified, the people who are to be killed are not innocent. They may give an example of the people who committed the Holocaust (or were fighting to defend the Holocaust). Were they innocent people? Clearly not.

However, that is not the only way the two statements can be reconciled. Many wars cause innocent bystanders to die (wives, children, good soldiers, etc.) who had nothing to do with the crimes committed. In this case, one can still respond that, sure some innocent people had to die but that there was an overriding reason to go ahead with the war. To bring back the example of the Holocaust, one may say that some US soldiers and perhaps some German (and other nationality) children died that shouldn't have. However, in sacrificing their lives, we have stopped and punished those who have killed many more lives. We also stopped them from killing even more people.

Most people are best characterized as "anti-war." They agree that war is something that is bad and in general, should be avoided. However, they would agree that some wars are necessary. They are best characterized as "pro-some-wars." Some of the people who are "pro-some-wars" are also "pro-life."

Killing the Innocent

The majority of people are against killing the innocent in most cases. If this were coupled with the belief that a fetus is an innocent person, then one would have to be against most instances of killing fetuses. Where the battle comes down to in the abortion debate is whether the fetus is a person or not. If one agrees that the fetus is an innocent person, and is against killing innocent people, then one would have to be pro-life.

If one is against killing innocent people, they will not be against all wars. Some wars occur (or can occur) at too great a cost. If too many innocent people die and not enough good comes of it, then the war is not worth it. They will then be "pro-war" in the sense that they believe some wars are (overall) good and some wars are (overall) bad.

Conclusion

So, there is no necessary contradiction between the two positions of being "pro-life" and "pro-war" given that both terms are used in the way that most people use them. If someone believes that, in general, killing innocent people is wrong, they can be pro-life and pro-war given that "pro-war" doesn't mean "for any and all wars that are (and can be) committed."

The statement, "You can't be pro-war and pro-life" is only true if one defines "pro-war" in a way that characterizes nobody. No person is for any and all wars that can happen. Given this, it is possible to be both pro-war and pro-life.