Psalm 39 Dixi Custodiam

1. I said I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with / my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked / is before me.  

2. I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even / from the good; and my / sorrow was stirred. 3. My heart was hot within me, while I was still musing the / fire- burned: then spake / I with my tongue, 4. Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, / what it is; that I may / know how frail I am. 5. Behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. 6. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not / who shall gather them. 7. And now, Lord, what / wait I for? my / hope is in thee. 8. Deliver me from all my trans- gressions: make me not the re- / proach of the foolish. 9. I was dumb, I opened / not my mouth; because thou didst it. 10. Remove thy stroke a- way from me: I am consumed by the / blow of thine hand. 11. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like / a moth: surely every / man is vanity. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto / my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: 13. O spare me, that I may re- / cover my strength, before I go / hence, and be no more. 

Intellectual Property Rights: A Defense

(The following is taken from some remarks I recently made on a Facebook friend's wall. For the sake of anonymity, I will refuse to mention that friend's name, unless I am told otherwise.)

       

Imagine the following cases: 

(1) A carpenter builds a shelf.

(2) A novelist writes a novel.

(3) A doctor devises a new pharmaceutical.

and, of course,

(4) A professor writes a paper on some esoteric topic.

Surely, it's at least plausible to think that the carpenter in (1) deserves both the recognition and the profits that he receives from building the shelf. If someone were to take the shelf from him and sell it, it seems the person who did this would be abusing the carpenter's right to the recognition and the profit from building the shelf. One might also say the same about the novelist and a novel. Surely, the novelist deserves both recognition and credit for his writing a certain novel that he writes. And anyone who prints copies of this novel and sells it without acknowledging the writer's first having written it and giving the writer some share of this profit it seems to commit an injustice against the writer. Or similarly, anyone who just makes minor changes to the text of the novel, prints it, and then sells it without acknowledging the author's first having written it and giving the author due credit for it seems to commit an injustice against the author.

                But what, then, makes this case any different from the case in which the carpenter builds a shelf? For it is the very *same* novel that is being sold in each and every case in which one prints one. It might be a different copy in each case, but why should that be relevant? And if the changes from the copy one illicitly makes and sells are minor or not significant, how does this make the case different from one in which someone just copies the novel word for word and then sells it without acknowledgment?

                And if what I've just said is right, it will be hard I think to distinguish the case of the novelist from that of the doctor. The product that the doctor devises is the very same or nearly the very same in every copy that is made and distributed. Perhaps one difference between the two is that the copies of the medicine the doctor makes are used up after every instance in which one uses them. But why should this be relevant for determining whether someone who makes copies of this medicine without acknowledging the doctor does or does not commit an injustice to the doctor in so making copies of it?

                And, of course, if these last two cases are good examples of cases in which someone has intellectual property rights, why would this be any different in the last case, in (4)? Perhaps one will say that no one has a copyright on the truth. And maybe this is true (no pun intended). But it is decidedly unclear what this means. Surely, no one has a copyright that they can claim over something just in virtue of its being true. But this doesn't mean that someone can't claim a copyright on a product that just *happens* to be true, and over which they assert a right in virtue of their having devised or written that product. I can, for example, claim ownership over a medicine that doesn't (very likely not to my knowledge) work or for a paper containing a theorem that is (again not to my knowledge) not right. And in this case, the medicine's not working and the theorem's not being right doesn't affect my ownership rights over either. But then why should the medicine's working and the theorem's being right remove my right from the product?

                But surely, one might protest, I don't have a right to the theorem itself, for surely neither I nor anyone has a right to ownership over anything of that sort, whatever it turns out that a theorem is. This I concede. But I never claimed that I or anyone should have such a right, nor do I think I've claimed anything that implies that I or anyone have such a right. What I have claimed is that, in the case of the theorem, I or anyone else who writes it have a claim of ownership over the paper itself.     

               For assume that one has ownership over a certain piece of intellectual property, i.e., a novel, a certain drug, or an academic paper. Now, the objection is that from:

(1) I have ownership over X,

it follows that:

(2) I have ownership over everything in X.

But from (2), we obtain an absurd result in certain situations, namely, that

(3) I have ownership over a mathematical theorem.

As I mentioned earlier, I readily concede that (3) is absurd, and if my view really implies (3), I should readily abandon it. But in response, I would point out that (2) does not follow from (1). For (2) implies that

(4) I have ownership over the word "London,"

because the word "London" appears in my novel or academic paper. Nor is there any reason that is given as to why someone who affirms (1) is actually committed to (2), i.e., no reason is given as to why someone who affirmed (1) would, in affirming (1), have to affirm (2). Here, perhaps the objector will try to reformulate the objection so to avoid this difficulty. Maybe one should reformulate (2) as

(2*) I have ownership over all the things in X that are represented by words in X.

But (2*) seems actually worse than (2). For (2*) implies that, rather than having ownership over just the word "London," I instead have ownership over London itself; for, clearly, the word "London" represents the entity or thing London, the city.

                Here, perhaps the objector will try to insist that if one does not affirm that (2) follows from (1), one will not be entitled to the claim that one deserves recognition for having first discovered the theorem that appears in one's academic paper. But I don't see why this is the case. If I have the right to the recognition of having written a certain paper, I a fortiori have the right to the recognition of anything new that I discovered and published in that paper. It is just not clear to me why someone would have to claim ownership over, say, a certain theorem in order to be recognized as having first discovered that theorem. And though I have property rights over the paper containing the theorem, it does not follow that I have rights over the theorem itself.

Christ the Good Shepherd

        I am the good shepherd. I know my own- by which I mean, I love them - and my own know me. In plain words: those who love me are willing to follow me, for anyone who does not love the truth has not yet come to know it.
            My dear brethren, you have heard the test we pastors have to undergo. Turn now to consider how these words of our Lord imply a test for yourselves also. Ask yourselves whether you belong to his flock, whether you know him, whether the light of his truth shines in your minds. I assure you that it is not by faith that you will come to know him, but by love; not by mere conviction, but by action. John the evangelist is my authority for this statement. He tells us that anyone who claims to know God without keeping his commandments is a liar. 
            Consequently, the Lord immediately adds: As the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. Clearly he means that laying down his life for his sheep gives evidence of his knowledge of the Father and the Father's knowledge of him. In other words, by the love with which he dies for his sheep he shows how greatly he loves his Father. Again he says: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them; they follow me, and I give them eternal life. Shortly before this he had declared: If anyone enters the sheepfold through me he shall be saved; he shall go freely in and out and shall find good pasture. He will enter into a life of faith; from faith he will go out to vision, from belief to contemplation, and will graze in the good pastures of everlasting life.
            So our Lord's sheep will finally reach, their grazing ground where all who follow him in simplicity of heart will feed on the green pastures of eternity. These pastures are the spiritual joys of heaven. There the elect look upon the face of God with unclouded vision and feast at the banquet of life for ever more. Beloved brothers, let us set out for these pastures where we shall keep joyful festival with so many of our fellow citizens. May the thought of their happiness urge us on! Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way.
            No matter what obstacles we encounter, we must not allow them to turn us aside from the joy of that heavenly feast. Anyone who is determined to reach his destination is not deterred by the roughness of the road that leads to it. Nor must we allow the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall be like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going.

-- St. Gregory the Great,  (Hom. on the Gospels: 14. 3-6: PL 76, 1129- 1130)

Powers or Dispositions Accounts of Possibility: A Puzzle

                On dispositional accounts of possibility, for ◊P at t to be true is just for something to have the power to bring it about, at t, that P (i.e., that ◊P just in case something has the power to bring it about, at t, that P). As Brian Leftow notes in his God and Necessity (note: while I disagree with Leftow was to *why* dispositional account of possibility go wrong, I should note that I do agree with him *that,* in fact, there is some difficulty with them, the point of which I bring up so not to misrepresent Leftow's own view) (pg. 68), which is the inspiration for my present discussion and from which I here partly borrow, such an account does not require that anything cause it that P if it just happens that P (for it doesn't require that causes that make it that ◊P actually bring it about that P). But if there neither is nor has been such a power, ~◊~P.
                Since □P just in case ~◊~P, any P that just happens (i.e., without being caused to happen) will also turn out necessary. But, now departing from Leftow's own criticism of powers accounts, this seems odd to me. For surely actually P → ◊P (i.e., actually P only if possibly P). But ◊P at t is true just in case it is also true that something has the power to bring it about, at t, that P. And so it follows that ◊P → something has the power to bring it about that P. But, recall, the assumption was that there is not anything that either has or has had such a power. And if this is true, it will just be false that ◊P.
                But assume for the sake of argument that something does have such a power or that there has been something that has had such a power. Then it will be true, however, that there is not anything that causes it at t that P and that something has the power to bring it about, at t, that P. And while not contradictory perhaps, the conjunction of these two claims seems odd. 
                For then, or so it will seem, the fact that something has the power to bring it about (at t) that P has no connection with the fact that actually P (at t). And thus it's hard to see how the fact that something has the power to bring it about, at t, that P explains the possibility of P at t. But then, on the dispositional account of possibility, there is nothing that explains that ◊P at t. But this is inconsistent with the claim that ◊P at t just in case something has the power to bring it about, at t, that P. So a dispositional account of possibility is true only if 'it just happens that P' is impossible, which is a problem. For it is difficult to say what it would not be possible. (Considering that this account is one that I'm currently interested in, I actually hope what I say here is wrong. But it also isn't easy for me to see how it can be true.)

John Duns Scotus: Hylomorphism and Pluralism about Substantial Forms

        Famously, Duns Scotus, like most medieval scholastic theologians following after Thomas Aquinas, argue that for an individual animal substance to subsist, such a substance requires two substantial forms -- a bodily form (for the body) and an animating form (its soul). The living animal that results from this combination will thereby have two substantial (i.e., essential) forms. This proposal, however, is open to the following objection, developed some years earlier by Aquinas. If the point of positing a substantial form in an individual substance is to explain the *unity* of that substance, i.e., what gathers together and shapes its matter into numerically one individual of a specific kind, it will now be (at best) difficult to give an adequate account for why one should regard the combination of the individual animals matter + its first form + its second form as a *single* substance. So, in the absence of such an explanatory principle, why some combinations of form/matter entities form substances and others do not will remain (at best) mysterious.
       In an attempt to answer this objection, Scotus suggests that a material substance is a unity if and only if the it has at least one property that its various parts or constituents lack. In consequence, Scotus concludes, following Aristotle, that acts of sensation require the right sort of body (i.e, matter + bodily form of the right type) and soul, the union of which allows the processing of sense data. Scotus also argues that the soul alone is insufficient for being alive; that is, he thinks animal life requires both a body and a soul, such that, when the two are combined, the composite that they form is itself alive.
        But Scotus' principle, I submit, is open to objection. For on the present criterion, it seems a heap of rocks will count as a substantial unity. (Recall, once more, that for Scotus, a material substance counts as a unity, as one *thing*, if and only if it has at least one property that none of its parts alone could have.) For surely, one might argue, the heap has the property 'being a heap' -- a property that none of the rocks taken individually are said to have. My instinct here is that Scotus' Aristotelian hylomorphism would not permit him to countenance such a consequence.
        But in case anyone has doubts, one could simply pile on a piece of wood to the heap, and, according to Scotus' criterion, this heap + the piece of wood would seem to count as a substantial unity (whether it would still count as a 'heap' or not might be open to question -- but that it counted as an assortment of entities that, on Scotus' definition, collectively make up a unified thing, seems beyond question). But this seems clearly wrong. For even if one insisted on calling the heap a 'thing', it would be far-fetched to call it a *unified* thing. It is certainly not unified in the sense in which a living organism, say, is unified.
        Nor would it do to argue that a heap is not a single thing (even though taking such a position is something that Aristotelians in general would also seem to affirm) but merely an aggregate. For the very thing one wants to know is what makes it true that a given aggregate or assortment of entities make up a substantial unity and not a mere heap. That is, why, on Scotus' definition, should one count [one form + another form + a certain hunk of prime matter] as making up a unity, a unified thing, while not counting a rock heap as such a unity? 
       But perhaps the defender of Scotus' definition will deny that there is such a property as 'being a heap.' Perhaps instead such a critic will argue that a heap comes into being from the merely extrinsic properties that all the rocks in the heap collectively share. Here, of course, if one insists that the properties in question are extrinsic, one can consistently deny that the rocks in the heap constitute a single, unified entity. But by 'extrinsic,' one had better not mean merely 'relational.'
       For clearly, it seems, the components or parts of *any* substantial unity that includes any two constitutive entities will be such that its components, when joined, relate to each other in such a way that is necessary for their composing the substantial unity in question. For example, the relation that an animal's body bears to its soul is one of such a constitutive unity -- and an animal exists only if these two constituents are related to each other in just the right way. And clearly this such relationship does not and should not count as extrinsic; for, if the two entities are related only by extrinsic properties, it is very difficult to see how they could possibly constitute or make up a single substantial unity.
        So, here, Scotus will want to insist that the relations that obtain between the rocks in the heap are merely extrinsic, while those between, say, an animal's body and its soul is not. But, one can I think safely conclude, two or more entities make up a substantial unity only if they relate to a third entity -- i.e., the *thing* or individual substance which they collectively make up or constitute. (For, if one of these properties is extrinsic, it is again difficult to see how it could be included among the features or components of a single substantial unity.) And moreover: all these relational properties such entities share are intrinsic only if there is some property which belongs to the whole -- and for which these components are parts -- and which does not belong to any of the components taken individually.
        But which relations count as intrinsic and which count as extrinsic depends on one's already having sharply drawn boundaries or criteria for which groupings of entities count as unified substances and which do not. In particular, such groupings will be determined by either (a) intrinsic-only, (b) extrinsic-only, or perhaps (c) partly intrinsic and partly extrinsic sets of relational properties. (That is, for (c), there will be some groupings that include an arbitrary number n of entities such that some of these entities are related to each other intrinsically and others are related to each other extrinsically.) Here, only the groupings that fall under (a) will count as substantial unities or unified substances. But here is the difficulty: Scotus' definition gives no criteria by which to determine which groupings fall under (a) as opposed to either (b) or (c).
        And clearly, I think, it will not do to protest that only *things* can be substances. For if we have no criteria for what counts as a substantial unity, we have no criteria for what counts as a substance. And if something is a thing only if it is a substance, a claim which Scotus certainly accepts, it follows that without criteria for what counts as a substantial unity, we have no criteria for what counts as a thing. Hence, one has good grounds for rejecting that definition and continuing to press the charge that positing more than one substantial form in an individual substance makes it difficult to explain that substance's intrinsic unity.

At the Lamb's High Feast

A (I think) beautiful Easter Hymn on this, the Third Sunday of Easter:

At the Lamb's High Feast

At the Lamb’s high feast we sing,
Praise to our victorious King,
Who hath washed us in the tide
Flowing from his piercèd side;
Praise we Him, whose love divine
Gives His sacred blood for wine,
Gives His body for the feast,
Christ the Victim, Christ the Priest.

Where the Paschal blood is poured,
Death’s dark angel sheathes his sword;
Israel’s hosts triumphant go
Through the wave that drowns the foe.
Praise we Christ, whose blood was shed,
Paschal Victim, paschal Bread;
With sincerity and love
Eat we Manna from above.

Mighty Victim from the sky,
Hell’s fierce powers beneath Thee lie;
Thou hast conquered in the fight,
Thou hast brought us life and light;
Now no more can death appall,
Now no more the grave enthrall;
Thou hast opened Paradise,
And in Thee Thy saints shall rise.

Paschal triumph, Easter joy,
Only sin can this destroy;
From sin’s death do Thou set free
Souls reborn, O Lord, in Thee.
Hymns of glory and of praise,
Father, to Thee we raise;
Risen Lord, all praise to Thee,
Ever with the Spirit be.

Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion": Some Critical Points

           In her 1971 essay, Judith Jarvis Thomson offers a series of analogies in defense of the permissibility of abortion for women in some cases. The most elaborate and perhaps well developed analogy she relies on involves a violinist for whom Thomson urges the reader to imagine she has been hooked up to, the point of which is that the violinist depends on the reader for his continual survival for the next nine months. The persuasiveness of the analogy hinges on the alleged comparison between this specific case and the general moral criteria relevant for judging the (moral) permissibility of having an abortion. In very short summary, and with the risk of oversimplifying Thomson's argument, Thomson argues that just as the violinist does not have the right against the reader to demand nine months of the reader's time and use of the reader's body, so, too does the fetus lack a right against a woman pregnant with that fetus for the woman not to remove the fetus from her body for the nine months duration in which the fetus depends on the woman for its survival. Here, I will mostly concede for the sake of argument that Thomson's analogy is successful -- that is, I will concede it except for one particular weak point which I believe needs much further argument.
           To her credit, Thomson seems to recognize the weak point I have in mind. But I think she seems to underestimate the extent to which it threatens her argument. And this point in question is that one might challenge the effectiveness of Thomson's violinist analogy on the basis that what is important here is not merely the fact that the fetus is a person, but that it is a person for whom the woman contemplating abortion has a special kind of responsibility for issuing from the fact that she is its mother. (Here, following Thomson's own "for the sake of argument" concession, I will just assume that human personhood begins at conception and that therefore the fetus in question is a person.)
           In response to this potential query, Thomson argues that parents do not have a "special responsibility" for a person of the sort required in the question of abortion, unless they have assumed it. Here, in her own words,

"... if a set of parents do not try to prevent pregnancy, do not obtain an abortion, and then at the time of birth of the child do not put it up for adoption, but rather take it home with them, then they have assumed responsibility for it, they have given it rights, and they cannot now withdraw support from it at the cost of its life because they now find it difficult to go on providing for it (Thomson, 395)."

Presumably, Thomson means to suggest that the parents give to the child certain rights which the child did not have prior to this decision. But what rights does she mean here? For surely the child will have a general right to life, even if this right is not inviolable or unconditional. And surely the parents have some special responsibility to the child just in virtue of their biological tie to it? But this is precisely the point Thomson denies. For

"[if] they have taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence have a special responsibility for it. They may wish to assume responsibility for it, or they may not wish to (Thomson, 395)." 

Here, one might ask, does Thomson mean to say that the parents have no rights they owe to the child just in virtue of their biological tie, or does she mean the more modest claim that "the parents have no rights they owe to the child by virtue of which they would have the duty to preserve the child's life regardless of personal cost or risk"?
          Presumably, she would mean only the former; for the latter appears pretty clearly ad hoc, as does any slightly weakened version of the latter -- such as "the parents have no rights they owe to the child by virtue of which they would have the duty to preserve the child's life regardless of significant personal cost or risk." I say it is ad hoc because there is no reason that Thomson has given as to why parents should lack just these specific responsibilities for their (biological) children, i.e., why just these specific responsibilities are to be excluded, while having other rights they owe to them in virtue of this relationship.
         But it is not because the parents have a biological relationship to the child (qua biological relationship) that, according to Thomson, they don't have any duties to the child. Rather, it is because the parents do not otherwise have a choice over whether they enter into such a rights-giving relationship. And, so Thomson argues, they do not have such duties to the child unless they willingly decide to enter into a relationship with the child, some consequences of which are that the parents now have a duty to try to preserve the child's life.
         Whether this last principle is a good one, however, depends on the further assumption that one has any duties to another only if one voluntarily enters into a "rights-giving" relationship with another. That is, one has duties for another only if one agrees to take on the responsibilities that would imply these sorts of rights to another. (For either this criteria for someone's owing rights to another applies to all cases which involve one party owing the other rights or it does not. If it does, we have the principle in question. If it does not, what reason is there for excluding some cases in which one party owes the other rights while including others?) But this principle is obviously quite implausible. For example, it is clearly false that someone has a right against me not to harm him only if I freely enter into it. For surely this individual has this right against me whether I consent to it or acknowledge it or not. But, then, it is false that one has duties to another only if one voluntarily enters into a rights-giving relationship with this other person.
         And if 'parents have no rights they owe to their child just in virtue of their biological tie to that child' is true only if 'one has duties to another only if one voluntarily enters into a rights-giving relationship with this other person' is true, one must conclude that the former principle if false. Moreover, if the moderate principles we have examined are unacceptable because they are ad hoc, Thomson must either propose some other moderate principle that is not ad hoc (which I do not believe looks very promising) or concede that the parents owe specific rights to their children just in virtue of their biological tie to them. And if there is no moderate principle that Thomson can muster, she must concede that such a right from parents to children extends to either (at best) the duty to try to protect their biological children from harm even at significant personal risk or sacrifice or (at worst) the duty to try to protect their biological children from harm regardless of the personal risk or sacrifice involved. 

*The citation is from Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion," in Today's Moral Issues: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Daniel Bonevac. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1999). 

Blog Intro and Description

          I should have written something on this earlier, but I guess now is as good a time as ever. The following blog is something like a menagerie of my thoughts on a variety of topics in philosophy and theology. The topics include Christian philosophical theology and systematic theology, the philosophy of religion (from a Catholic Christian perspective), metaphysics, and the history of philosophy (especially Late Antiquity and the Late Middle Ages). From time to time, I also include prayers and statements on Christian spirituality that I regard as particularly conducive to reflective thought on the topics I've mentioned.
         My purpose for writing is to try to work out some thoughts I might have on a given topic. Here, I find that making my thoughts public is a good way for making me more careful and clearer in my expression of an idea I might have; and, frankly, I feel I just need the practice. And if what I write succeeds in starting a conversation over such a topic or stimulating the occasional thought in someone else, all the better. I'm trying to aim for a more casual and conversational style for the written posts, but I feel this is something I need more practice with -- at the moment, at least, it's something on the wish list.
         As for the blog's title, a word or two is in order. As will be evident, the philosophical style in which I write here bears some influence from what many have identified as the 'Anglo-American' tradition in philosophy. While this style is not perfect, it does possess a number of what I would regard as important theoretical virtues, and it also I think values these virtues to a somewhat higher degree than many of its competitors. In this vein, these virtues also closely correspond I think to those found in a number of Christian writers who informed the systematic study of theology in the middle ages, beginning with St. Anselm and concluding five centuries later with Francisco Suarez. For, despite their many detractors, the practitioners of medieval scholasticism are often overlooked in the carefulness, systematic attention to detail, and subtlety with which they addressed questions both philosophical and theological. (Nor need one indite them with accusations of lukewarmness for Christ or for spiritual sloth as the well-meaning but I think mistaken Thomas Kempis wrote in his The Imitation of Christ.) And for this reason, far from being an oxymoron, I think the blog's title brings together two names that, in fact, perhaps belong together, or, at the very least, have a much stronger claim to this than many would seem to think.   

From John Paul II's Encyclical 'Fides et Ratio'

               “A quite special place in this long development [longo itinere] belongs to Saint Thomas, not only because of what he taught [ob ea quae in eius doctrina continentur] but also because of the dialogue which he undertook with the Arab and Jewish thought of his time. In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Thomas had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.

             More radically, Thomas recognized that nature, philosophy's proper concern, could contribute to the understanding of divine Revelation. Faith therefore has no fear of reason, but seeks it out and has trust in it.  Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfillment, so faith builds upon and perfects reason. Illumined by faith, reason is set free from the fragility and limitations deriving from the disobedience of sin and finds the strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God. Although he made much of the supernatural character of faith, the Angelic Doctor did not overlook the importance of its reasonableness; indeed he was able to plumb the depths and explain the meaning of this reasonableness. Faith is in a sense an “exercise of thought”; and human reason is neither annulled nor debased in assenting to the contents of faith, which are in any case attained by way of free and informed choice.

                 This is why the Church has been justified in consistently proposing Saint Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology. In this connection, I would recall what my Predecessor, the Servant of God Paul VI, wrote on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the death of the Angelic Doctor: “Without doubt, Thomas possessed supremely the courage of the truth, a freedom of spirit in confronting new problems, the intellectual honesty of those who allow Christianity to be contaminated neither by secular philosophy nor by a prejudiced rejection of it. He passed therefore into the history of Christian thought as a pioneer of the new path of philosophy and universal culture. The key point and almost the kernel of the solution which, with all the brilliance of his prophetic intuition, he gave to the new encounter of faith and reason was a reconciliation between the secularity of the world and the radicality of the Gospel, thus avoiding the unnatural tendency to negate the world and its values while at the same time keeping faith with the supreme and inexorable demands of the supernatural order.” 

-- John Paul II, "Fides et Ratio," 43

Immanent Realsim: Another Objection and Another Response

                  One objection to Immanent Realism -- i.e., that universals are not abstract objects but spatio-temporal entities that are in some sense located "in" the various instances that instantiate them -- is that this implies that the very same object, say, the universal 'being yellow,' is located in more than one location at one and the same time. For if (1) universals are the principles of being in virtue of which different predicates that are predicated of or said of different objects are the very predicates that they are and not some other predicates, and also (2) that these principles are located "in" the various instances of which they are predicated, then it seems to follow that (3) these principles will themselves be variously located, depending on the spatial locations of their instances for their own spatial location. But this, it is said, is absurd. For this will imply that the very same thing, i.e., the property 'being yellow' can be wholly located in one location, say, here, on my shirt and also over there, say, "in" my neighbor's car.
                 There are a number of ways I think that the Immanent Realist might reply to this objection. But one that I'll look at just a little more closely here is simply to deny that the entity that is located in each instance of the universal is really identical across the various instances of that universal. The view itself is hardly an original one on my part. It's the view that was originally defended by St. Thomas Aquinas and arguably by Aristotle as well. (It also might have been defended by Aquinas' near contemporary John Duns Scotus. I say "might" here simply because while I don't know whether this is actually true, it is a view that would seem to fit well with Scotus' overall view of universals.)
                 And according to this view, it is only when one abstracts the individual natures (i.e., the multiply instantiated natures or, to use the more contemporary terminology, sortals) of, say, Socrates and Plato from the two men does one get something that is in some sense the same in both Socrates and Plato. For, in reality, according to this view, it is not possible to abstract a thing's nature from its individuating features, i.e., those features it has that determines its being the very individual that it is and its having the very species or kind that it has, without causing that thing to cease to exist. Thus, as these individual natures actually exist -- in the individuals that have them -- the natures themselves are not identical to each other (with identity here taken in the sense of strict identity, as codified in the form of Leibniz's Law), but are merely similar to each other. (By itself, the two-place predicate <the same (x) as> is neutral between qualitative identity and qualitative similarity -- in the present, I mean it in the latter sense. But, if used to refer to numerical identity, then clearly it does not have this leeway, and means only identity in the strict sense.) They are identical only if one abstracts or takes away from them all their individuating features, by means of which one arrives at something, i.e., some entity, that is not particularized or "individualized."
               Because it exists merely as an abstraction, however, such an entity can exist only as a mental entity; there is never a non-individualized human nature that one encounters "out in the world." 'Humanity,' then, exists only as the abstracted concept common to the individual human natures that Socrates and Plato share. It is abstracted because the human nature of Socrates and the human nature of Plato are such that they cannot exist without, respectively, either Plato or Socrates. And thus the universal 'humanity' is a concept because while such an entity exists, it exists only in the mind.
              Thus, contrary to the original assumption, it is false (on the present view at least) that there is something in Socrates that is identical to something in Plato, namely, humanity or human nature. But, then, this will seem to run into difficulty insofar as it commits one to denying the truth of the necessity of identity. Very roughly, the necessity of identity states that two entities x and y are identical only if x and y are necessarily identical. (Adopting them for at least the purpose of convenience, one might say that x and y are necessarily identical only if x and y are identical in all possible worlds in which x and y both exist -- i.e., that they meet the criteria sufficient for 'transworld identity' between one and the other.) But, on the present view, x and y are different entities just in virtue of these specific individuating features. And in this case, it seems true also that if it were the case that y possessed x's individuating features, y would have been x. (And likewise if x possessed y's individuating features, x would have been y.)
             But I think there is reason to question the counterfactual conditional that <if it were the case that y possessed all of x's individuating features, then y would have been x.>. For if the individuating features that are sufficient for x's being the individual associated with those features -- namely, x -- are absent, it is simply false to say that this individual is x. Moreover, if no individual has these features, it is false that there is an individual such as x. And if no such individual exists without its having these features, it is also false that some other individual besides x would have been x if this other individual had had those features instead of x's having them. For, then, this other individual would simply not have existed, and (of the two of them) it would be x alone that exists. (Say that this other individual is named y).
              Now, if y has both (i) all the features that are sufficient for being x and (ii) all the features sufficient for being y, then it follows that (iii) all the features sufficient for being x are the same as -- i.e., identical to -- all the features sufficient for being y. For assume that x and y are not identical. Then it follows that x and y are two distinct individuals and also that x and y are identical. But, by definition, no two individuals that are distinct are identical. So we have a contradiction. And therefore we must reject the assumption that x and y are not identical. And this in turn gives good reason for rejecting the earlier assumption that if x were to possess y's individuating features, x would be identical to y. The upshot of this last point, moreover, is that it gives good grounds for rejecting the earlier assumption that the current proposal -- that universals are abstracted concepts -- entails the falsity of the necessity of identity.

Sellars' Dewey Lectures: Naturalism and Ontology

        Wilfrid Sellars' John Dewey Lectures (an autobiographical series of lectures in which notable philosophers reflect on their philosophical development throughout their career). Just started working through these. It will take a while, but I expect it will be worth it. Sellars' perhaps best known contribution to philosophy is his attack against logical positivism. And, according to Robert Brandom, Sellars' 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind' is one of three texts -- along with Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and Wittgenstein's 'The Philosophical Investigations' -- that most clearly contributed to the sudden and nearly complete death of logical positivism in the 1960s. Another notable contribution from Sellars is his (what I would regard as) brilliant defense of "meta-linguistic" nominalism, the version of nominalism about both universals and abstract objects also defended by William of Ockham.

Here is the lecture:   

Sellars -- Dewey Lectures

Reason, Passion, and Persuasion

             Something I've been thinking about recently. Agree or disagree?: people are naturally passionate about the views they bother to argue for. So, an *obvious* display of passion in defending a particular view should not count in favor of *rationally* persuading someone else to accept it. That is, (1) it doesn't give you "points," so to speak, for passionately arguing for a view versus not passionately arguing for it. Nor, (2), is it permissible (that is, within the person's epistemic rights, so to speak) for someone to accept your view on the basis of your arguing for it passionately.

             It might be unwarranted, of course, to say that passion (in the sense of one's emotions) should not count at all in favor of accepting one view over another. But that is not what I'm saying. Rather, I just want to argue that it is clearly wrong to say that one should accept one view over another just in virtue of the fact that one person displays a greater degree of passion in arguing for their view than someone else who's arguing the opposite or opposed view. 

Hell and the God of Justice

          

             One would arguably be hard pressed to find a recent philosophical theologian who has argued more powerfully and imaginatively for Christian Universalism -- or the view that Christ, like the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7), will strive tirelessly until all human beings come to know him and are saved by him -- than Marilyn McCord Adams. In her article "Hell and the God of Justice," offers an interesting and, I think, partly convincing series of arguments against what she identifies as the "traditional doctrine of hell." That doctrine is one she understands as an articulation of the claim that there are

... certain principles of justice [that] entail that men who are sufficiently sinful ought to be made to suffer everlasting torment incompatible with any happiness.[1]

Advocates of this traditional doctrine, Adams continues, have typically defended this claim by arguing for the further assumption that

God would not measure up to these standards of justice if he failed to condemn such men to hell. Consequently, since God is perfectly just, and some men are sufficiently sinful, God will condemn such men to hell on the day of judgment.[2]

Following this, Adams first offers a brief articulation of the concept of justice that defenders of the traditional doctrine of hell (or TDH) have implicitly assumed. The rest of her essay is devoted to offering arguments against specific principles of justice that defenders of TDH have used to try to bolster the doctrine or make it convincing.

            First a comment or two on the concept of justice presupposed by defenders of TDH. According to Adams, some have conceived of justice in such a way that a person is just if and only if (i) he is fair (i.e., treats all cases alike) and (ii) treats no one worse than he deserves to be treated.[3] And as Adams rightly notes, no one who conceived of justice in these terms could rightly argue that God's perfect justice required of him that he condemn certain sufficiently evil men to hell.

On this conception, God will be unjust only if he treats equally sinful men differently or treats some persons worse than they deserve. But God could avoid both of these actions if he awarded eternal salvation to everyone without exception. The fact that he gave eternal salvation to Judas as well as to Peter and John would no more make him unjust on this conception, than it would show that vineyard owner in Jesus' parable (Matthew 20: 1-16) was unjust because he gave a penny both to the men who worked all day and to the men who worked for one hour.[4]

What the defender of TDH actually needs, according to Adams, is that (iii) a just person treats no one better than he deserves to be treated. For, otherwise, God could always treat such sufficiently evil men better than they deserve and decide to rescue them from eternal torment.

            Next, the first two conceptions of justice she articulates, and then criticizes are, first, the familiar principle of 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' or what one might call the retributive theory of justice (RTJ). The basic and familiar idea behind RTJ is that punishment is just if and only if it is in direct proportion to the offense that occasions the punishment. The second principle is from Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, and is what one might call the "worthiness of honor" theory of justice (WHTJ). This less familiar principle calls for proportional retribution against any agent who offends the honor of anyone whose moral status is superior to that of the one who offends. The third and final is, borrowing from St. Thomas Aquinas, based on the idea that someone who, in selecting a temporal good to the exclusion of his ultimate end, actually chooses such that he prefers to eternally enjoy this temporal good over his ultimate end. Thus, Aquinas argues, such a man is thereby justly condemned for eternity in consequence of his choice.

            Adams' arguments against the first two principles, RTJ and WHTJ, strike me as pretty powerful and as prima facie pretty convincing -- especially her criticisms of RTJ. So, therefore, I'll reserve my comments for what she has to say regarding the third principle. And as it currently stands, Aquinas's principle seems open to objection. For as Adams observes, it simply does not follow from the fact that someone wills to do something that in fact results in his eternal condemnation that the person wills to be deprived of happiness forever.[5] (For example, perhaps the person does not know or believe that the action in question has this direful consequence.) Nor does it follow from the fact that someone wills to do something that, as a matter of fact, results in his being forever deprived of happiness that the person a fortiori wills to have forever the good obtained from it.

            But as Adams herself admits, one can, without difficulty, reformulate the principle in such a way as to avoid these objections. At the core of Aquinas' argument is the principle that 'to will a certain evil is just as bad as to do it.' And taking this key insight into account, Adams suggests that

Even if it is true that human beings have only limited power to harm others in this world, they could will to cause unlimited and everlasting harm -- e.g., by willing to make someone totally unhappy forever. And if to will it is as bad as to do it, they could thereby merit an unlimited and everlasting punishment.[6]

Taking this suggestion to heart, moreover, the question, now, is whether there's good reason for thinking that 'to will it is as bad as to do it' is, in fact, true.  

            Ignoring the largely irrelevant social context in which the primary incentive for punishment is simply to prevent some men from harming others, Adams focuses on the point at which 'to will it is as bad as to do it' would be actually relevant for the purposes of settling the present doctrinal query. For, as Christians believe, it is on judgment day that God will mete out reward and punishment to various men on the basis of how well they lived their lives in accordance with his will. And here,

Volitions as well as deeds determine a man's character; and evil volitions as well as evil deeds are contrary to God's will.[7]

But, conceding that what one wills may sometimes be as bad a reflection on one's character as the actual doing, does it follow that this is generally true?

            Not so, Adams argues. And her argument here is based on the plausible assumption that persisting in an evil desire forever is a worse reflection of one's moral character than persisting in it for only a limited time. Using this principle as the hinge of her argument, Adams introduces the fictional case of Brown, who desires to torture another man, Black, for all eternity.  

Suppose that Brown wants personally to torture Black forever. Suppose further that Brown does torture Black for 30 years after which Black dies of his injuries. When Black dies, Brown expresses great disappointment that his opportunity to torture Black has come to an end. Brown's deeds and desires show him to be very wicked. But do they reflect as badly as would the actual everlasting torture? I do not think so. Persisting in an evil desire forever is a sign of greater moral defect that persisting in it for a limited time. Even though Brown strongly desires to torture Black forever and has made a beginning on the project, it remains possible that at some later time the desire will cease. His voluntarily continuing the torture forever, however, involves Brown's forever continuing to desire the torture. If for no other reason than this, torturing Black forever is a worse reflection on Brown's character than simply willing it at some particular time.[8]
 

In conclusion, then, it is not a general truth that willing something is as bad a reflection on one's character as is the actual doing. 

            But whether Adams' argument succeeds depends on what exact sense of "wills" or "willing" the argument requires. For there is an ambiguity in the thesis that "it is not generally true that what one wills is as bad a reflection on one's character as what one actually does." Relevant to the present discussion, it could, one, possibly mean that 

(a) "it is not generally true that what one wills, irrespective of the particular occasion and irrespective of the particular time, is as bad a reflection on one's character as what one actually does on a given occasion and at a particular time," 

or it could mean that 

(b) "it is not generally true that what one wills, on a given occasion and at a particular time, is as bad a reflection on one's character as what one actually does irrespective of the particular occasion and irrespective of the particular time,"

or it could also mean that 

(c) "it is not generally true that what one wills, irrespective of the particular occasion and irrespective of the particular time, is as bad a reflection on one's character as what one actually does irrespective of the particular occasion and irrespective of the particular time," 

or, finally, it could mean that

(d) "it is not generally true that what one wills, on a given occasion and at a given time, is as bad a reflection on one's character as what one actually does irrespective of the particular occasion and irrespective of the particular time. 
     

Adams argument against the thesis is effectively that Brown's torturing Black forever reflects worsely on his character than his willing it at a particular time. And here she takes the example of Black dying before Brown can torture him forever as an effective counter-example to the thesis in question. This, in turn, requires that Adam's thesis should be interpreted in the sense of (b).

            But taken in the sense of (b), it is not obvious that the principle is true. For it is further ambiguous as to whether "on a given occasion and at a particular time" from (b) means "at a specific time such that this time can include no further time," or whether it allows one to group together several times under the heading or the category of a single time. If taken in the sense of "at a specific time such that this time can include no further times," Adams' principle seems either correct or at least prima facie plausible. If taken, however, in the sense of one's grouping together several times under the heading or category of a single time, then it's not obvious that the principle is true.

            For while it may be considered an at least plausible principle with respect to relatively small groupings of times, Adam's principle would require I think much further argument to establish its conclusion for anything larger than a small grouping. But here is a problem. When compared to an infinite period of time, taken here as all times t - n after t, any grouping of time will be considered an equally small grouping of time. For, when compared to any infinite sum, any finite sum x that is less than any other finite sum y, the infinite sum will have infinitely more members than either x or y. But if the infinite sum has infinitely more members than either x or y, it follows that y is not greater than x with respect to the infinite sum. For the infinite sum will exceed either finite sum by an infinite number of its members. And if this is right, one will be simply unable to make any effective distinction between a grouping of times that is short with respect to, say, human reckoning with a grouping of time that is not short with respect to human reckoning when the comparison is between the finite time and the infinite time.

            And indeed one cannot take the "particular time" that Adam uses in her example in the sense of "a specific time such that this time can include no further time." For, here, Adams would need to give a plausible reason why one should include this reading while excluding the "grouping of times" reading. And it is just not easy to see what such a plausible reason could be. For once one grants (1) that "particular time" can include groupings of times and (2) that all groupings of time are small when compared to an infinite amount of time, it is unclear whether one can affirm that willing to cause an infinite length of suffering for or throughout a finite duration of time actually reflects worse on one's character than one's willing to cause an infinite length of suffering for or throughout an infinite duration of time. And if the main force behind Adams' counterexample was the intuition that willing something bad for a single time or an instant does not reflect as badly on one's character as one's willing it for all times after a certain time, it is unclear whether one should be able to affirm the same for 'any' amount of finite time.  
           For this would require that the character-deforming effects of the total consecutive times in which Brown tortures Black are straightforwardly additive, and this principle is not only one that does not seem very plausible in itself; it is also one that Adams herself has explicitly denied (i.e., she herself denies that harms or the effects of harms are straightforwardly additive in her reply against the Retributive Theory of Punishment). That is, even if one grants that it is true that Brown's actually torturing Black for all times is worse than Brown's willing, for *any* amount of finite time, to torture Black for all times, Adams cannot consistently say that it is *because* of the fact that one includes an infinite amount of time and the other does not include an infinite amount of time that makes the one worse than the other.

            I therefore conclude that Adams' argument against Aquinas' reformulated principle is not successful. In this, my final paragraph, however, I want to identify one point where Adams might renew her attack. Here, I do not necessarily agree with Adams that Christian Universalism is true. I do, however, share her conviction that there are some potential objections to TDH that require one to reformulate the doctrine somewhat if it is to survive sustained attack. Assuming that Adams is correct that the defender of TDH needs something like (iii) a just person treats no one better than he deserves to be treated the defender of TDH will possibly find himself in serious trouble if he insists on defending the doctrine of hell on the basis of doctrinal orthodoxy (which, in practice, seems perhaps like the most likely motivation for defending it).

            For, in addition to TDH, Christians (at least those in the Latin West) have traditionally also accepted the view that no human being is such as to have the power for meriting grace, without which no one can attain eternal salvation. But from the fact that no one has it in his power to merit grace, it seems to follow that no one has it in his power to deserve grace. For, surely, no one deserves a certain good unless he merits it. But, according to (iii), God is unjust if God gives to human beings anything better than they deserve. So, it follows, God is unjust for giving grace to any human beings. Here, the options for a defender of TDH seem to be either to (a) attack one of the premises in this last argument or to (b) find some alternative principle that is just as plausible as (iii) with which to replace (iii). But that is a task for another time.   

---

[1] Marilyn McCord Adams, "Hell and the God of Justice," from Religious Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4 (December, 1975), 433.

[2] Adams, 433.

[3] Adams, 434.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Adams, 444.

[6] Adams, 445.

[7] Adams, 445.

[8] Adams, 446.