But anyway, on the issue of the good I really think it obvious that all men seek the good.

I think that if we do enough gymnastics we can probably defend the thesis that all men seek the good, but I don't share the intuition that all men seek the good. I find it just as obvious (and on some days more obvious) that men seek various other things (and think we can probably defend that thesis too).

But this is part of the problem with arguing from intuitions. They differ between people.

"Will to power" as a concept itself could only make sense if first thrre is something like the good which is that which we desire.

I don't see this (nor, of course, does Nietzsche). Perhaps if you read in Thomistic views about the nature of human action? Anyway, you're going to have to unpack what you're saying here.

seigneur wrote:

Intuition in both philosophical and (Jungian) psychological sense is not something that can differ between people so as to permit its dismissal.

I mean “an a priori insight not based on reasoning”, which is more or less the common English use of the word, in that paragraph. (I'm not sure about psychologists, but philosophers talk about their intuitions in this sense conflicting with each other's all the time.)

Another point is that of a difference between an intuition and the articulation of it. It's the same difference as that of a thought and its articulation. When I say "I think..." this is its articulation, not the actual thought in my mind. The actual thought cannot be taken and put on the table for discussion. Only its articulation can, and the articulations of the same thought can vary. The articulation has a radical distinction from the thought and the articulation could be inadequate. It's a good idea to bear in mind the distinction and to perfect the articulation. The articulation of the thought may change, while the thought doesn't.

The same way, there may be a better articulation to a specific intuition, without changing the intuition. At a very general level, all people have the same intuition, they only articulate it differently, with varying degrees of adequacy.

Perhaps, but (since the individuals with conflicting intuitions all think they're interpreting their intuitions correctly) this wouldn't affect the core point of the argument.

(I find it dubious that people with flatly contradictory intuitions are simply interpreting or articulating those intuitions wrong, but no matter.)

Hypatia wrote:

Miguel wrote:

I don't think that answes my argument. I gave an inductive, probabilistic argument for God's being benevolent in a significant but also very simple way.

Keep in mind that the initial question was not whether or not there are good reasons for arguing that God is omnibenevolent, but if God could exist at all without an objective standard of goodness. A probabilistic argument cannot really be used to rule out other options--you can say that our moral intuitions make more sense if God cares about goodness and justice, but I do not see how you can say that our moral intuitions require that God care about such things. That is what you would need to do in order to argue that a God that is beyond good and evil could not exist.

Miguel wrote:

It'd be irrational to just say it's God's nature to create a contingent universe, and reject that there could be a specific explanation for God's creative act.

I don't reject that there could be a specific reason behind the existence of our contingent universe--I very much hope that you're right, but I have lingering concerns that this explanation is altogether too conveniently suited to the human condition, and I don't think it's reasonable to say that what appears true from our perspective must in fact be true. Nor is it a brute fact to argue that it's simply in God's nature to create contingent universes. This would be the equivalent of saying that the underlying nature of reality is infinite creativity, which seems to have a certain amount of explanatory power as well.

Sometimes I wonder what is even meant by the word "Good" in the theological sense at all. I do not know Thomism very well, but I've seen Pure Act characterized as a perfection, and this sort of value laden approach to metaphysical concepts confuses me. Sometimes the definition of perfection has a moral dimension to it, and sometimes it does not (or at least not in a sense that would be applicable to any human theory of morality).

Miguel wrote:

The second problem with the idea that "it's just in God's nature to create the universe" is that it would seem to imply that the universe is also necessary, which is just false.

Is it? For a Spinozist the universe would in fact be necessary. I view the universe as contingent, but I do not consider other models completely incoherent.

My inductive argument was in response to your douts about God's benevolence, not about God's existence being good itself or God being able to exist without goodness. If we conclude that God cares about virtue in a manner similar or analogous to us humans, then how important would be the "moral antirealism" objection? In the end God would be benevolent in a meaning close and relevant to the one we use for others and that religious people use for God. And it would strongly suggst God cares about us. We could even extend that to an inductive argument for moral realism, in fact - as God's benevolence would make more sense under a robust moral realism. But regardless, my argument was for God being benevolent, and I still see no way to avoid the conclusion that the univrse being the way it is, with a moral landscape, is evidence for God caring about virtue and morality.



"Nor is it a brute fact to argue that it's simply in God's nature to create contingent universes. This would be the equivalent of saying that the underlying nature of reality is infinite creativity, which seems to have a certain amount of explanatory power as well."

That does seem to me very much like an unintelligible brute fact. Why would the nature of reality be infinite creativity? The very nature of a contingent reality is the fact that it doesn't have to exist, that there's nothing in it that would imply or require existence. What sense could there be in the idea that the nature of reality is essentially directed towards creating contingent things? It seems entirely unintelligible and brute to me, if not outright suggestive of a contradiction with contingency. Again, the only way to make sense of some natural tendency towards creation of contingent things would be an *axiological* one, which is why Pseudo-Denys (and neoplatonists in general, and Aquinas following Pseudo-Denys as well) held that God creates because it is in the nature of the Good to be diffusive. And why I think Rescher insists that the only answer to the existential question could be found in the domain of value.

There are other problems with the suggestion that the underlying nature of reality just is infinite creativity, but I won't go there for reasons of space. And of course someone could also accept Spinozism, but that's an obvious cost I'm assuming most people would want to avoid, as necessitarianism faces serious problems. I said it's false because it's what I think and it's shorter. And anyway, I don't even think spinozism avoids the issues I mentioned here.

Perfection has value, but that's because for a thomist being is itself convertible with goodness and truth. The problem is people often think of good as some sort of non-natural property attaching to things, which is not the aristotelian view.

Last edited by Miguel (5/06/2018 4:50 pm)

seigneur wrote:

What you are talking about are hunches or guesses or assumptions that, being contradictory, require arguments or evidence for them in order to arrive at who is right - because they cannot all be right. It is grossly inappropriate to call such hunches or guesses or assumptions "intuitions" instead of what they are, namely hunches or guesses or assumptions. In any elaborate philosophy that involves psychology, intuition is a whole different thing on a different level compared to hunches and guesses and assumptions.

I've literally given you a standard definition of intuition in English philosophical discourse. I pulled it from Ewing's commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, where he contrasts it with a sense more common on the continent (Anschauung). Having stipulated what I mean in the paragraph, I'm not going to wrangle with you over definitions.

Intuition and its articulation is analogous to the sense of vision compared to particular acts of seeing. Some people are blind or blinded for a time, while others are not, thus resulting in contrary visual perceptions. Do you conclude from this that, as a rule, it's problematic to argue by the things one sees?

I answered in my earlier comment about Nietzsche and the idealists. The point can be made in terms of people who both have perfect sight as well, or even one person who does.