Teleological suspension of the ethical?

[ThomasToo]

God has the right as Creator to set any moral standard he pleases
God has the right to declare murder moral
God has said that murder is immoral
therefore, God could say other than what he has said
Therefore, God is mutable
On the Contrary, the Church has held that God is immutable
Therefore, God could not say other than what he has said
Therefore, murder must be immoral
Therefore, God could not say murder is moral
Therefore, God cannot as Creator, set any moral standard he pleases.

Or, as a second proof, let us use an statement which logically follows yours

God has the right as Creator, to do anything he pleases
Yet God has said “The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again”
and again “My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done.”
and again “the Son of man must suffer many things”
Therefore, there are things God must do
Therefore, God does not have the right as Creator, to do anything he pleases.

I could have never been able to phrase something like that or anything nearly that… well… Christian. I would have disagreed with him to the best of my abilities but thanks!

 

[ThomasToo]

Shooting people is evil but not necessarily wrong.The deliberate ending of an innocent human life is always and everywhere **evil **but not necessarily wrong. It is evil that I kill you to save 50 people but it is right that I kill you because it is the lesser of two evils….

We have to assume that killing an innocent person is** the only way **to free the 50. Fortunately it rarely, if ever, happens…

If you’re supposing the case where someone shoots an innocent person to prevent the kililing of 50 other innocents unfortunately 49 people extra are going to die. ‘It is always morally illicit to kill an innocent human being’ (Verititas Splendor, 50).

 

[ThomasToo]

I’m glad you agree with me, but I didn’t originally propose the problem, so I don’t know what the original intention was, other than to say it was Tonyrey’s post, so I would check out his response

Sorry, I got myself mixed up but it looks like he was making a ‘shoot the banker and you can all go’ situation, see below.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

God has the right as Creator to set any moral standard he pleases
God has the right to declare murder moral
God has said that murder is immoral
therefore, God could say other than what he has said
Therefore, God is mutable
On the Contrary, the Church has held that God is immutable
Therefore, God could not say other than what he has said
Therefore, murder must be immoral
Therefore, God could not say murder is moral
Therefore, God cannot as Creator, set any moral standard he pleases.

Or, as a second proof, let us use an statement which logically follows yours

God has the right as Creator, to do anything he pleases
Yet God has said “The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again”
and again “My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done.”
and again “the Son of man must suffer many things”
Therefore, there are things God must do
Therefore, God does not have the right as Creator, to do anything he pleases.

G-d is completely actual, and having no potentiality is completely immutable. what G-d did/has done/will do, is eternally ‘now’.

however, nothing in that immutability requires this particular morality to be necessary.

 

[Areopagite]

If we truck with Kant then I’m not quite sure the question has neatly the same weight it does in the other two cases. I think it is from him we also get arguably the best moral system (though my inter hedonist has always been a utilitarian). Right action, according to Kant, is determined by acting with moral maxims that are universalizable; that is to say that we must act such that ‘our maxims may be willed as universal moral law.’ I think in this case your argument below has a couple problems.

In my last post, I made the argument that God can change the factors and circumstances (or conditions) of a situation and make an action moral that would otherwise be immoral under normal conditions. I also said how despite this change of conditions, the moral principles remain in tact and unchanged and “universal.”

Obviously, you agree that conditions play a huge part in determining the morality of an action. The action of killing for example might be moral in certain conditions and immoral in others. Nonetheless, the essential principles of ethics are preserved. Right? Obviously, one cannot possibly disagree with this.

Kant’s ethics are terrible in my opinion. He very much separated morality and happiness. In fact, he said the more miserable you are when you perform your “duty” then the more moral that action is. Happiness and morality are antithetical to each other in his thinking. And really he never explains why one should be moral. And then there is the very odd thing where he claimed our sense of morality entirely comes from the noumenal realm, and yet he says the noumenal realm is completely unknowable … and yet Kant claims to know the basis for morality.

Why be moral in Kant’s opinion? There’s really no reason.

This is, more or less, how Aristotle defines ‘the good:’ human flourishing. I, however, have always had trouble with his claim because his argument for this is that ‘the good’ is the thing perused for its own sake and I think Mill and Bentham have a more than legitimate argument that pleasure (and the privation of pain) also fulfill this description. Just as it is nonsensical to ask someone ‘why do you seek the good?’ (the answer is simply ‘it is good.’ so too is it nonsensical to ask someone 'why do you seek pleasurable?

Both Plato and Aristotle would strongly oppose the idea that pleasure should be sought for its own sake. Aristotle said pleasure is a component of happiness, but both Aristotle and Plato would agree that happiness primarily resides in the pursuit of wisdom. They say this because rationality seems to be a thing that defines us … and hence the operation of that power will work to fulfill our nature overall. Aristotle would also say that since we are animals as well, happiness would also at least partially reside in the good functioning of the animalistic functions (some of which pertain to pleasure). However, both Aristotle and Plato would say rationality is our highest function and thus of highest importance to our happiness.

It is quite apparent, I think, that not everyone pursues bodily satisfaction (i.e. pleasure) as the ultimate good. If so, then (as Epicureans even admit) one must betray the ultimate good sometimes to attain the ultimate good, as sometimes you must do something painful in order to achieve something pleasurable. So, the ends justify the means in an Epicurean pleasure-worshipping worldview. Personally, I don’t support that. Maybe you do.

I think that the universalizable moral maxim argument hits here. Let us set aside for a moment the moral rightness of slavery and assume I own someone. It is hardly morally right (in a deontological context), though completely within my power, to put my slave to death because my moral maxim cannot be universalized. The fact that God is as far above the stars as the stars are above us is, frankly, irrelevant since such an ethic does not rely on perfection and fulfillment.

The thing is, slave owners don’t truly own their slaves. God however owns all of us completely and in every sense. If God exists and did create everything, this would seem to follow … no?

I don’t think the rape case is nearly as simply as you say. Rape is not wrong just because it is a misuse of sex; it is wrong because it is, arguably, one of the two greatest breaches of bodily integrity that can be forced on a human soul.

Being killed of course is worse for our bodily integrity, but that can sometimes be moral.

Also, mutilation would also seem to be worse for our bodily integrity, but that can be moral too (e.g. cutting off someone’s hand in self-defense so as to disarm him).

So simply saying that it breaches bodily integrity is not really an argument at all. The immorality of rape, I believe, partially lies in the nature and right functioning of sex. I could be wrong though.

Similarly I don’t think God could rightly and morally ordain torture.

Depends how you define torture. Simply “causing someone pain” isn’t necessarily bad. This is a controversial one. But I suppose we can get into it. Though, admittedly, I’m not particularly looking forward to it.

To allow either such violation completely violates, what I see to be at least, the notion of intrinsically evil acts; if we can conceive of a situation in which the are truly morally licit then they are not intrinsically evil.

Here’s an intrinsically evil act:
Directly killing an innocent human life without permission from God.

Now, to be sure, I want to know whether you believe that an action’s morality is at least partially dependent on changeable conditions. Of course there are universal moral principles, but how those principles are applied are dependent on certain conditions. No?

 

[SenorSalsa]

G-d is completely actual, and having no potentiality is completely immutable. what G-d did/has done/will do, is eternally ‘now’.

however, nothing in that immutability requires this particular morality to be necessary.

To say that God could change morality is to say that God could say the opposite of what he has said previously. This would be God changing.

At this point, it is true that immutability does not require this particular morality to be necessary, however because God has declared this morality to be so, it could be no other way.

For example, if God had declared an alternate morality*, then it would also have to be the case, he could not change it to what we consider to be true morality now.

*I would argue separately however, that God could have issued no other morality

If we were to look at a non-ethical example, look at the covenant God made with the Jews. Even though the Church lives by the new covenant, it recognizes at the same time, that his covenant with the Jews has not been ended.

 

[ThomasToo]

It is quite apparent, I think, that not everyone pursues bodily satisfaction (i.e. pleasure) as the ultimate good. If so, then (as Epicureans even admit) one must betray the ultimate good sometimes to attain the ultimate good, as sometimes you must do something painful in order to achieve something pleasurable. So, the ends justify the means in an Epicurean pleasure-worshipping worldview. Personally, I don’t support that. Maybe you do.

I don’t, typically at least. I was only trying to make the point that there are differing conceptions of what constitutes the good though everyone can agree ‘the good’ is to be perused.

The thing is, slave owners don’t truly own their slaves. God however owns all of us completely and in every sense. If God exists and did create everything, this would seem to follow … no?

I don’t think it follows at all but that is the question we’re trying to explore.

Being killed of course is worse for our bodily integrity, but that can sometimes be moral. Also, mutilation would also seem to be worse for our bodily integrity, but that can be moral too (e.g. cutting off someone’s hand in self-defense so as to disarm him). So simply saying that it breaches bodily integrity is not really an argument at all. The immorality of rape, I believe, partially lies in the nature and right functioning of sex. I could be wrong though.

I disagree with you on this point, although I suppose we could both be right.

Depends how you define torture. Simply “causing someone pain” isn’t necessarily bad. This is a controversial one. But I suppose we can get into it. Though, admittedly, I’m not particularly looking forward to it.

I don’t quite know how the definition of torture fits into the issue at hand. If we can agree that ‘torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity’ (CCC 2297) then I think it’s simply another case like the one I brought up with rape.

Here’s an intrinsically evil act:
Intentionally and directly killing an innocent human life

I would have put it the above way; I think you’re trying to sneak your answer into your phrasing of the definition.

Now, to be sure, I want to know whether you believe that an action’s morality is at least partially dependent on changeable conditions. Of course there are universal moral principles, but how those principles are applied are dependent on certain conditions. No?

Of course, insofar as there are mitigating conditions which make an act less immoral if not entirely licit (e.g. self-defense in the case of killing above). I do not think, however, that relationship between two beings is or can be one of these factors except only in the opposite direction (e.g. raping one’s daughter is worse than a stranger).

 

[Areopagite]

If Goodness is nothing more than Godness, then what does it mean when Christians say that God is good? I have always taken them to be describing God as being good (in which case, what is the standard for good if not God himself?) rather than defining good to be whatever God is like (which is WSP’s take and makes goodness arbitrary).

There are several uses of the word “goodness.” It’s not used univocally in theology and perennial philosophy. There may be many ways to co-divide the different kinds (all of which are nonetheless analogically related to each other), but here’s one version …

Transcendental Goodness:
Aristotle said goodness is convertible with being. Anything that has being (i.e. essence and/or existence) is good. The more being a thing has, the more goodness it has. An actually existing thing is better than a potentially existing thing because actual existence has more being than potential existence (at least according to Aristotle … I agree with him on this). Likewise, the more positive perfections an essence has (as compared to an essence with less) the greater the goodness that being has. (I could elaborate on this if you want)

Natural Goodness:
Things that help fulfill the nature or purpose of something are said to be good for that thing … just as gas is good for a car (because it makes the car function as a car should). This is somewhat related to transcendental goodness, because a thing has more being and hence is more good when its nature is fulfilled … because it exists more fully as the thing that it is … and quite reasonably, the things that fulfill a things nature can be said to be good for that thing. This admits to some relativity, because some things are good for certain things and bad for others.

Moral Goodness:
This pertains to wether actions of a rational being fulfill that being’s nature. It is a more specialized kind of goodness than the one above. Actions are morally good when those actions help fulfill the agent’s nature, and morally bad if they detract from it. The more immoral actions that are performed, the less fulfilled the being is in its nature and the less it resembles what it’s suppose to be. This is why we say very immoral people are “inhuman” because they resemble less and less what a human is suppose to be.

Divine Goodness:
God’s goodness is related to the ones above in these ways: Since God has all positive perfection and is completely actual, He is Transcendental Goodness itself. Since God has within Himself everything that can fulfill everything else, He is natural goodness Himself (and, likewise, He is completely fulfilled Himself by nature and is good in that sense). Moral goodness is related to Him insofar as our ultimate fulfillment resides in Him, and thus all our actions are morally good if they assist in the attainment of God. All goodness thus in some way finds its source in God, and thus divine goodness is the thing from which all goodness comes.

So I think you still have the same dilemma as before when you say that goodness is essential to God’s nature. Socrates can still ask: s goodness essential to God’s nature because it is good, or is goodness good because it is essential to God’s nature?

I’m saying neither. I’m saying goodness is identical to God’s nature. Goodness is convertible with God. Neither one is a genus or species of the other. They are the same thing.

Non-divine goodness, i.e. goodness that is said to be in creatures, are merely a derivative of the complete and perfect and infinite in the goodness that is said to be found in God.

Well, I tried. I don’t know if that made any sense. I’m sorry if I failed.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Aeropagite,

Bravo!

VC

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Thomas,

I was reading last night before going to bed and I came across something that reminded me of this conversation, and you in particular for some reason. I think perhaps something you mentioned about you and your father. I’d like to share it. It is from a little book entitled What Difference Does Jesus Make by Frank J. Sheed.

I have never met a man who started from total non-acceptance and arrived at the conviction that there is a God. Therefore I know nothing of the process by which such a man would arrive at the goal. Would he have travelled by any of St. Thomas’s Five Ways, or by the ontological line of Anselm, Descartes, Leibnitz, or by the moral imperative of Kant? I have no means of knowing. But after all, we try to do this very thing ourselves – I mean that we try to prove God’s existence by reason, with Faith excluded; and we offer the result to the unbeliever. In my experience he is not impressed by it.

But “prove,” as the word is understood in English, is the wrong word. Arguments have value simply in clearing away obstacles that obscure vision. If they are successful, we find ourselves seeing the whole situation, with the thing to be proved as an evident part of it.

He goes on to describe how this relates to his experience with the argument for a self-existent being. I found it quite fascinating. I hope you found it interesting too. I can unreservedly recommend anything by Frank Sheed. He has tremendous insight into things,and he conveys them in a very practical an pragmatic fashion.

VC

 

[warpspeedpetey]

To say that God could change morality is to say that God could say the opposite of what he has said previously. This would be God changing.

At this point, it is true that immutability does not require this particular morality to be necessary, however because God has declared this morality to be so, it could be no other way.

For example, if God had declared an alternate morality*, then it would also have to be the case, he could not change it to what we consider to be true morality now.

ok

*I would argue separately however, that God could have issued no other morality

If we were to look at a non-ethical example, look at the covenant God made with the Jews. Even though the Church lives by the new covenant, it recognizes at the same time, that his covenant with the Jews has not been ended.

it seems to me that He could have chosen to actualize any possible world, unless we are talking lewis’ realism, it seems that they should be mutually exclusive, not merely succesive. maybe ive missed something.

 

[ThomasToo]

Thomas,

I was reading last night before going to bed and I came across something that reminded me of this conversation, and you in particular for some reason. I think perhaps something you mentioned about you and your father. I’d like to share it. It is from a little book entitled What Difference Does Jesus Make by Frank J. Sheed.

I have never met a man who started from total non-acceptance and arrived at the conviction that there is a God. Therefore I know nothing of the process by which such a man would arrive at the goal. Would he have travelled by any of St. Thomas’s Five Ways, or by the ontological line of Anselm, Descartes, Leibnitz, or by the moral imperative of Kant? I have no means of knowing. But after all, we try to do this very thing ourselves – I mean that we try to prove God’s existence by reason, with Faith excluded; and we offer the result to the unbeliever. In my experience he is not impressed by it.

Interesting though I’m kind of afraid you were thinking about me whilst laying in bed, even if you were just reading.

Seriously though it is interesting. I think the reason he had ‘never met a man who started from total non-acceptance and arrived at the conviction that there is a God,’ is because the path almost universally (insofar as atheists go) runs the opposite way. I think the next time my parents are trying to explain (for the twentieth time…) that ‘proof’ does not mean scientific proof I may need to bust this quote out. Thanks.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Interesting though I’m kind of afraid you were thinking about me whilst laying in bed, even if you were just reading.

Heh. But, I said “I was reading last night before going to bed”. Don’t flatter yourself.

If you have a chance to check out the quote in context it might prove interesting reading. I can’t really do justice to some of the nuance here because it is longish.

VC

P.S. And yes, unfortunately the colloquial expression “going to bed” meant going to sleep, and I was reading in bed.

 

[SenorSalsa]

it seems to me that He could have chosen to actualize any possible world, unless we are talking lewis’ realism, it seems that they should be mutually exclusive, not merely succesive. maybe ive missed something.

I think there are things he could have done differently, for example we could have been able to taste color or fly.

However, I think morality is a different story.

I see morality as coming from God’s essence (an idea that comes from Aquinas), in other words, because of God’s very nature it must be that morality is how it is.

Creation on the other hand, is just based on God’s whim (more or less)

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I think there are things he could have done differently, for example we could have been able to taste color or fly.

However, I think morality is a different story.

I see morality as coming from God’s essence (an idea that comes from Aquinas), in other words, because of God’s very nature it must be that morality is how it is.

Creation on the other hand, is just based on God’s whim (more or less)

ok

 

[Leela]

I’m saying neither. I’m saying goodness is identical to God’s nature. Goodness is convertible with God. Neither one is a genus or species of the other. They are the same thing.

Non-divine goodness, i.e. goodness that is said to be in creatures, are merely a derivative of the complete and perfect and infinite in the goodness that is said to be found in God.

Well, I tried. I don’t know if that made any sense. I’m sorry if I failed.

Hi Areopagite,

Equating goodness with God’s nature is a good rhetorical move as far as it gets some people to drop the question (kinda like like answerring “where does evil come from” with “Satan” which works as long as you don’t then ask “who created Satan?”) To get past this answer and back on point we just have to ask, is goodness essential to God’s nature because it is good, or is goodness good because it is essential to God’s nature?

We are back where we started. “Goodness is essential to God’s nature” still doesn’t answer the question. The question remains, Is doing only good things essential to God’s nature because it is good to do good things, or is it good to do good things because it is essential to God’s nature. It’s really the same question when God is not just a Platonic form but actually acts in the world like the Christian God is supposed to do.

The problem is that you can’t have an omnipotent God who is unable to do evil. You can say that it is against his nature to do evil, but by that you would have to mean that God is capable of doing evil but always chooses to do good. You can’t say that an omnipotent God is good because he CANnot do evil, you have to say that he is good because he WILL not do evil. But then, how does God recognize what is good so that he can always do it?

You’ve avoided the horn of the dilemma which says that what is good is so because it is commanded by God since that would imply that God could have made anything including rape, or stealing, or dishonoring your father or mother a good thing if he had wanted to. (WPS and few others are willing to accept this horn.) That leaves you with the second horn which says that God does not command that something is good but rather recognizes it as such. What is the standard that God uses in this judgment? If God is not the standard of goodness himself, but applies some superior definition of righteousness, then God could not be the ultimate authority as inherently claimed.

In other words, if God’s character is righteous because it adheres to some independent standard of goodness, then humanity could judge evil by that standard independently of whether God exists or not, which demonstrates that ethics are not founded upon God. If God himself is thought to be the standard, then goodness is nothing but Godness and it becomes meaningless (a mere tautology) to say that God is good. Theologians, I think, have meant more than that. They are using good to add something as a description to tell us what God is supposed to be like. If the standard for describing God as good is God himself then saying that God is good is just to say God is God.

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

I’ve been reading some about Kierkegaard and a series of questions he raised in Fear and Trembling have been giving me trouble and if any of y’all have insight it would be much appreciated. I’ve already stumped one priest who I asked in passing then the question slipped my mind until just now.

Kierkegaard writes about the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22) and offers alternative re-tellings of the story. He ends up with a couple of questions–which may in a way go back to Plato (I’ll expand below).

1. Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical? (I.e. is Abraham’s intention to sacrifice Isaac truly good given that human sacrifice is intrinsically evil?)
2. Is there an absolute duty to God [beyond what is ethical]?

I think the question may, somewhat at least, boil down to that asked by Plato in the Euthyphro ‘Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?’ (10a). In other [Christian] words, is the good commanded by God because it is morally good or is it morally good because it is commanded by God? (cf. John Austin’s command theory of law).

Emil Fackenheim wrote a fascinating response to this problem in Encounters between Judaism and modern philosophy; a preface to future Jewish thought. I wish I remembered what he wrote! I *think *his position (or is this Kierkegaard’s? or both? anyway…) was that Abraham was in a unique position: that no, there was no teleological suspension of the ethical (SK says that the answer simply lies beyond reason and rests in trust, correct?), but that such a relationship of pure implicit trust was no longer possible after Abraham. Why? Because the story itself recounts the inauguration of a new era (i.e., level of maturity/knowledge) in man’s relationship with God. So, considered abstractly, there is an absolute duty to God, beyond what is ethical; BUT that absolute duty has been concretely (historically) *bound *to the ethical, and this binding is irrevocable, it cannot be dissolved.

 

[ThomasToo]

Emil Fackenheim wrote a fascinating response to this problem in Encounters between Judaism and modern philosophy; a preface to future Jewish thought. I wish I remembered what he wrote! I *think *his position (or is this Kierkegaard’s? or both? anyway…) was that Abraham was in a unique position: that no, there was no teleological suspension of the ethical (SK says that the answer simply lies beyond reason and rests in trust, correct?), but that such a relationship of pure implicit trust was no longer possible after Abraham. Why? Because the story itself recounts the inauguration of a new era (i.e., level of maturity/knowledge) in man’s relationship with God. So, considered abstractly, there is an absolute duty to God, beyond what is ethical; BUT that absolute duty has been concretely (historically) *bound *to the ethical, and this binding is irrevocable, it cannot be dissolved.

Can you clarify this for me? Are you saying that we have a duty [possibly] to do the unethical but are irrevocably and indissolubly bound not to do so?

 

[tonyrey]

If you’re supposing the case where someone shoots an innocent person to prevent the kililing of 50 other innocents unfortunately 49 people extra are going to die. ‘It is always morally illicit to kill an innocent human being’ (Verititas Splendor, 50).

It is always morally illicit to kill an innocent human being** in normal circumstances** but the principle of choosing the lesser of two or more evils must always take priority. To allow 50 people to die rather than kill one person is, in my opinion, a greater evil because it implies that the life of that person is more valuable than that of the 50.

It is not our fault if we are obliged to make such a decision but according to the Church our ultimate authority is our conscience. Even if we disagree on this issue we cannot be blamed for making the wrong decision - provided we do so after consultation and careful consideration of the views of others.

 

[Betterave]

Can you clarify this for me? Are you saying that we have a duty [possibly] to do the unethical but are irrevocably and indissolubly bound not to do so?

No, that’s not it. I said: considered abstractly, there is an absolute duty to God, beyond what is ethical; BUT that absolute duty has been concretely (historically) bound to the ethical, and this binding is irrevocable, it cannot be dissolved. This means that we have an absolute duty to God, first of all, but God has made it clear that that duty must be concretely realized in the ethical domain, because God has made it clear that His own nature, absolute source of being and goodness (and so, in turn, of our ethical nature - we creatures, endowed with a God-given and God-reflective capacity for reason and love), is Love in Truth (reason). (Sorry Leela, try not to get freaked out by the capital letters. )