If state-run lotteries are a bad idea, as I have argued, then state-run casinos are even worse. But they are starting to pop up. Moral rot is at the root of all other rot. Overextended abroad, collapsing within, how long can we last? Bread and circuses are the people's pablum supplied by a government whose power and reach are its main concerns, not the common weal.
Month: February 2012
Kennedy, Clinton, and the Sex Business
George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying (Harvest 1956), p. 102:
This woman business! What a bore it is! What a pity we can't cut it right out, or at least be like the animals — minutes of ferocious lust and months of icy chastity. Take a cock pheasant, for example. He jumps up on the hens' backs without so much as a with your leave or by your leave. And no sooner is it over than the whole subject is out of his mind. He hardly even notices his hens any longer; he ignores them, or simply pecks them if they come near his food. He is not called upon to support his offpsring, either. Lucky pheasant! How different from the lord of creation, always on the hop between his memory and his conscience!
Being like the animals is of course no solution, even if it were possible. A strange fix we're in: it is our spiritual nature that enables both our sinking below, and our rising above, the level of the animal.
The delusive power of the sex drive is made all the more delusive and dangerous when aided and abetted by personal magnetism and great political power. Kennedy and Clinton are two examples of how power corrupts.
Pinning Liberalism Down
Michael Liccione nails it. Yes muchachos, this will be on the final.
On the Mormon Concept of God
I should thank (or perhaps blame) Spencer Case for sidetracking me into the thickets of Mormon metaphysics. But I have no cause to complain seeing as how my motto is "Study everything, join nothing." Earlier I made a preliminary response to some of Spencer's concerns about the "facelessness" of the full Anselmian conception of deity. Here I am not concerned to defend that conception in all its aspects. Indeed, I will concede arguendo all of the following for the space of this post: divine simplicity is incoherent; divine simplicity is inconsistent with the doctrine of the Trinity; the latter doctrine is incoherent; and so is the doctrine of the Incarnation. I make these concessions to focus the issue and to make clear that my interest as a philosopher is neither apologetic nor polemical. I want to put Blake Ostler and other Mormons at ease: I am not here interested in attacking their faith or defending the sort of God conception found in Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Philosophy is first and foremost inquiry; its purpose is not to attack or defend any worldview. It does not exist to shore up or legitimate antecedently accepted worldviews or ideologies. (So it is not ancilla theologiae, not the handmaiden of theology or of natural science or of anything else.) Religions are worldviews; philosophy as inquiry is no more a worldview than is mathematics or physics. It is also important to note that if the Augustine-Anselm-Aquinas conception is incoherent it doesn't follow that the Mormon conception is coherent: they could both be incoherent.
The issue I will discuss is precisely whether the following assertion by A. A. Howsepian is true: ". . . nothing countenanced by Mormon metaphysicians could possibly count as God." ("Are Mormons Theists?" Religious Studies, vol. 32, no. 3, Sept. 1996, p. 367) Since I am not familiar with the particulars of Mormon doctrine, I will simply assume that they are what Blake T. Ostler says they are in his response to Howsepian in "Worshipworthiness and the Mormon Concept of God," Religious Studies, vol. 33, no. 3 (Sept. 1997), pp. 315-326. So what I will be doing is examining Ostler's view of the the Mormon conception of God with an eye to deciding whether it is an adequate God conception.
1. The Anselmian Criterion of Deity
Obviously, not just anything could count as God. So we need a criterion of deity. According to the Anselmian criterion, which both Howsepian and Ostler accept, at least in the main, it is a matter of broadly logical necessity that nothing could count as God that is not the greatest conceivable being (GCB). The Anselmian provenience of this notion is clear: God is "that than which no greater can be conceived." The greatness of the GCB consists in its unsurpassibility in respect of all perfections or great-making properties. The GCB possesses all great-making properties and the highest degree of those that admit of degrees. Among these properties are the traditional omni-attributes, e.g. omniscience. Only the GCB is an adequate object of worship.
Let's note that if a being is unsurpassable by any being distinct from itself it does not follow that it is unsurpassable, period. For it might be "self-surpassable in some respects." (Ostler 315) Obviously, a being that was unsurpassable by any other but self-surpassable could not be actus purus inasmuch as it would have to harbor unrealized potentialities. We ought therefore to distinguish an unmodified and a modified GCB criterion:
Unmodified: If a being counts as God, then that being is unsurpassable in point of perfection by any being, including itself.
Modified: If a being counts as God, then that being is unsurpassable in point of perfection by any being distinct from itself.
2. Does the Mormon God Satisfy the Modified Anselmian Criterion?
It is obvious that the Mormon God cannot satisfy the unmodified criterion since that criterion leads to the ontologically simple God in whom there is no composition of any kind, whether of form and matter, act and potency, essence and existence, supposit and attributes. Since Mormons can reasonably reject ontological simplicity, they needn't be fazed by the unmodified criterion. Ostler maintains, however, that the Mormon concept of God can satisfy the modified criterion. It may have a chance of doing so if 'God' is construed as 'Godhead.' (319). This Godhead, Ostler tells us, is the one supreme being. (319) If henotheism is the view that there is at least one God, then the Mormon view as Ostler presents it is henotheistic. If monotheism is the view that there is exactly one God, then the Mormon view is not monotheistic. Ostler tells us that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct Gods. (319) So there are at least three distinct Gods in the Mormon pantheon, which prevents the view from being strictly monotheistic. They are nonetheless one Godhead in that the three "divine personages" are united "in love and unity." (320)
Each of the divine persons is "corporeal" and "located in a particular space-time." (320) The Godhead, however, is not corporeal, at least if Godhead is the same as Godhood. Ostler employs both of these terms without explaining whether or how they differ. (320) My impression is that he is using them interchangeably. If that is right, then Godhead/Godhood is not corporeal. This is because ". . . Godhood refers to the immutable set of properties necessary to be divine. There is only one Godhood or divine essence in this sense." (320-321, emphasis in original) Presumably, an immutable set of properties is not corporeal. The same goes for a set of immutable properties, and a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are immutable properties.
How are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost related? They are related in a "relationship of divine love" which is "contingent and not necessary." (321) It is contingent because "Love is a voluntary attitude freely chosen." (321) "The divine persons can kenotically empty themselves of the divine glory by separating themselves from the divine unity of the Godhead." (321) Despite this ability of the persons to separate themselves from the unity of the Godhead,
. . . there always has been and always will be a God in the sense of divine persons united as one. The divine persons obviously can so plan that there will always be at least two joined as one to govern the universe. (321)
The individual divine persons are subject to "eternal progression," progression in knowledge, power and dominion. (321) Does it follow that "Godhead as a whole" or "God-as-divine-persons-in-relationship" is subject to eternal progression? No it doesn't, says Ostler, and to think otherwise would be to commit the fallacy of composition. This is the fallacy with which Ostler taxes Howsepian.
3. Preliminary Evaluation
My question is precisely this: Does the Mormon conception of God/Godhead, as explained by Ostler, satisfy the modifed Anselmian criterion? The modified criterion requires that a candidate for GCB status be necessarily unsurpassable by another, but allows the candidate to be self-surpassable in some respects. Ostler tells us that
. . .there cannot be a greater being than God qua the divine persons united as one Godhead in Mormon thought. God is necessarily unsurpassable by any other being. (323)
Here is one difficulty I am having. Ostler claims that the divine persons are contingently related to each other. It follows that the Godhead as the unity of the persons contingently exists. Please note that if x always existed and always will exist,it doesn't follow that x necessarily exists. (If x exists at all times in the actual world, it does not follow that x exists in every possible world.) If the divine persons "c an so plan that there will always be at least two joined as one" (321, emphasis added), it doesn't follow that they must so plan. Now if the Godhead contingently exists, then there can be a greater being than "God qua the divine persons united as one Godhead," namely, a being having the same properties bu existing necessarily.
I conclude that the Mormon conception as explained by Ostler cannot satisfy the modified Anselmian criterion. For whether God/Godhead is or is not self-surpassable, he must be a necessary being. But he can't be a necessary being if the divine persons are merely contingently related. If they are contingently related, then they are possibly such as to be unrelated. But if they are possibly such as to be unrelated, then their unity is possibly nonexistent, i.e. not necessary. So it looks as if Howsepian is right in his claim that ". . . nothing countenanced by Mormon metaphysicians could possibly count as God."
Does Ostler have an escape via his talk of Godhood as opposed to Godhead? (320-321) Godhood or "the divine essence" is "the immutable set of properties necessary to be divine." This set counts as a necessary being unlike Godhead which we have seen is a contingent being. But although metaphysically necessary, Godhood cannot be the one God who is "the governing power of the enture universe." For no such abstract object as a set can play that role. But, to be charitable, I won't hold Ostler to his talk of a 'set.' Let us take him to mean a conjunctive property the conjuncts of which are the divine attributes. It too is a necessary being, but it too is causally impotent and cannot be the governing power of the entire universe.
In sum, Godhead is powerful but contingent while Godhood is necessary but powerless. To satisfy the modified Anselmian criterion, Ostler needs a being that is both necessary and powerful.
The Latest Outrage from Obama’s Justice Department
We don't often defend the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but Attorney General Eric Holder can inspire strange alliances. Recently, the Justice Department asked the full circuit to overturn the unanimous and enlightened decision of a three-judge panel allowing bone marrow donors to be compensated for their donations.
Why not allow compensation?
. . . allowing compensation would "undermine the efforts to encourage voluntary donations" and that Congress has established that bone marrow transplants "should not be subject to market forces."
This is a perfect example of how contemptibly and willfully stupid leftists are. Allowing compensation would not undermine but enhance voluntary donations. That's obvious. They don't see it because they are blinded by their own lust for power, desire for total control, and hatred of liberty and free markets.
Read the whole piece to fully savor the illogic of the boneheads over at Justice.
Dickens v. Lawyers
A balanced piece; read to the end.
Callicles Anticipates De Sade
At Gorgias 492, tr. Helmbold, the divine Plato puts the following words into the mouth of Callicles:
A man who is going to live a full life must allow his desires to
become as mighty as may be and never repress them. When his
passions have come to full maturity, he must be able to serve them
through his courage and intelligence and gratify every fleeting
desire as it comes into his heart.
[. . .]
The truth, which you claim to pursue, Socrates, is really this:
luxury, license, and liberty, when they have the upper hand, are
really virtue, and happiness as well; everything else is a set of
fine terms, man-made conventions, warped against nature, a pack of
stuff and nonsense!
Now let us consider what the decidedly undivine Marquis de Sade has Mme. Delbene say in Julliette or Vice Amply Rewarded:
. . . I am going to dismiss this equally absurd and childish obligation which enjoins us not to do unto others that which unto us we would not have done. It is the precise contrary Nature recommends, since Nature's single precept is to enjoy oneself, at the expense of no matter whom. But at our leisure we shall return to these subjects; for the nonce, let's now put our theories into practice and, after having demonstrated that you can do everything without committing a crime, let's commit a villainy or two to convince outrselves that everything can be done. (p. 30, emphasis in original, tr. Casavini)
From the cover: "abridged but unexpurgated from the original five-volume work especially for the adult reader." In other other words, the good stuff, i.e., the philosophy, has been cut, but the 'adult matter' remains. I get a kick out of this use of 'adult' — but that's another post.
Obama’s Assault on Religious Liberty
Here is what is particularly worrisome: the state seems no longer satisfied with a slow but steady evolution toward secularity; it is aggressively forcing Catholic hospitals off the stage, for it is creating for them an impossible situation. If they cave in and provide insurance for these verboten procedures, they have effectively de-Catholicized themselves; and if they refuse to provide such insurance, they will be met with fines of millions of dollars, which they cannot possibly pay.
In either case, they are forced out of business as Catholic. And this seems, sadly, to be precisely what the Obama administration wants.
At the University of Notre Dame, on the occasion of his receiving (controversially enough) an honorary degree of laws, President Obama publicly and vociferously pledged that he would provide for a "conscience clause" for those who wanted, for religious reasons, to opt out of a policy they find objectionable. But with this recent mandate, he has utterly gone back on his word.
The secularist state recognizes that its principle [sic! read 'principal'] enemy is the Church Catholic. Accordingly, it wants Catholicism off the public stage and relegated to a private realm where it cannot interfere with secularism's totalitarian agenda. I realize that in using that particular term, I'm dropping a rhetorical bomb, but I am not doing so casually.
It's not a rhetorical bomb but the plain truth. The Left is totalitarian by its very nature, a nature manifested every day. The author ought to ask himself whether it makes sense to be so polite and civil toward an administration that is not only the enemy of what he represents, but also mendacious in its hiding of that fact.
John Hick
John Hick has negotiated that mysterious transition that awaits us all. Here is one take on his passing. I saw him in action only once. I recall him questioning whether Jesus ever claimed to be God. An ill-mannered colleague of mine attacked him for that, churlishly. Hick retained his equaninimity, projecting a superiority that was yet without a trace of superciliousness. That impressed me and furnished me with yet another insight into the hierarchy of the spirit and the inequality of human beings.
Hick's An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent is required reading for philosophers of religion. I have two posts on Hick.
John Hick on Religious and Naturalistic Definitions of Religion
On the Dictionary Fallacy
A reader inquires:
I am looking into the dictionary fallacy for an essay, and your blog post is the only thing I could find. Do you happen to know some other sources on the fallacy?
As far as I know, I invented the dictionary fallacy, or rather, I invented the label and provided some preliminary analysis of this typical mistake in reasoning. If anyone knows of something similar in the literature, please shoot me an e-mail.
On Calling Obama a Socialist
It is a tactical mistake for libertarians and conservatives to label Obama a socialist. For what will happen, has happened: liberals will revert to a strict definition and point out that Obama is not a socialist by this definition. Robert Heilbroner defines socialism in terms of "a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production." To my knowledge, Obama has never advocated such a thing. So when the libertarian or conservative accuses Obama of socialism he lets himself in for a fruitless and wholly unnecessary verbal dispute from which he will emerge the loser.
It is enough to point out that the policies of Obama and the Democrat Party lead us toward bigger government and away from self-reliance, individual responsibility, individual liberty, and sound fiscal policy.
It is even worse to label him a 'communist.' Every communist is a socialist, but not every socialist is a communist. If our president is not a socialist, then a fortiori he is not a communist. It is intellectually irresponsible to take a word that has a definite meaning and turn it into a semantic bludgeon. That's the sort of thing we expect from leftists, as witness their favorite 'F' word, 'fascist,' a word they apply as indiscriminately and irresponsibly as 'racist.'
Religion and Superstition
Julian Baggini asks: Can a religion survive being stripped of its superstitions?
Baggini does not tell us explicitly what he understands by 'superstition,' but the context suggests that he takes the term to apply to any and all supernatural elements in a religion, whether these be beliefs, practices, or posits such as God and the soul. The supernatural, in turn, is anything beyond or 'outside of' the system of space-time-matter, or anything that makes reference to such things. God conceived of as a bodiless person, as in mainstream Western monotheism, would then count as a supernatural being. Accordingly, belief that such a person exists would count as a superstitious belief, and prayer in all its forms (petitionary, intercessory, contemplative, etc.) would count as a superstitious practice.
Supposing (counterfactually) that this is true, one might be tempted to make the journey to the East in quest of a religion free of superstition. One of Baggini's points is that Buddhism as actually practiced by millions is rife with it, as witness motorized prayer wheels, etc. Baggini's main thesis is that a religion stripped of supernatural elements ceases to be a religion. A Buddhism naturalized, a Buddhism disembarrassed of all such elements, is no longer a religion but something acceptable to secularists and atheists, "a set of beliefs and practices to cultivate detachment from the impermanent material world and teach virtues such as compassion and mindfulness."
Baggini's claim is that what is specifically religious about a religion are its superstitious beliefs, practices, and posits. To put it another way, every religion is essentially superstitious. But of course 'superstitious' is an adjective of disapprobation: a superstitious belief is a false or groundless belief; a supersitious practice is one that is ineffectual; a superstitious posit is one that does not exist. So in claiming that religion is essential superstitious, Baggini is claiming that it is essentially false, ineffectual, and devoid of reference to reality.
Of course, I disagree. For one thing, I reject what Baggini assumes: naturalism. But I also disagree because he rides roughshod over a fairly elementary distinction.
There is religion and there is pseudo-religion. Superstition is pseudo-religion. That adherents of religions are often superstitious in their beliefs and practices is undeniable. But to the extent that they are superstitious they are pseudo-religious.
Let's consider an example. A believer places a plastic Jesus icon on the dashboard of her car. It seems clear than anyone who believes that a piece of plastic has the power to ward off automotive danger is superstitious. A hunk of mere matter cannot have such magical properties. Superstition in this first sense seems to involve a failure to understand the causal structure of the world or the laws of probability. A flight attendant who attributes her years of flying without mishap to her wearing of a rabbit's foot or St. Christopher's medal is clearly superstitious in this first sense. Such objects have no causal bearing on an airplane's safety. It is magical thinking to attribute to bits of plastic and metal the powers the superstitious attribute to them.
But no sophisticated believer attributes powers to the icon itself, or to a relic, or to any material thing qua material thing. The sophisticated believer distinguishes between the icon and the spiritual reality or person it represents.
Well, what about the belief that the person represented will ward off danger and protect the believer from physical mishap? That belief too is arguably, though not obviously, superstitious in a second and less crass sense. Why should the Second Person of the Trinity care about one's automotive adventures? Does one really expect, let alone deserve, divine intervention for the sake of one's petty concerns? How can religion, which is about metanoia — change of mind/heart — be justifiably hitched to the cart of the mundane ego?
I don't think it can be denied that much petitionary and intercessory prayer is superstitious. Someone who prays to win the lottery is superstitious as is a person who, upon winning, exclaims, 'There is a God after all.' The nauseating egotism of such a remark is antithetical to genuine religion. But suppose I pray for a friend who has contracted a deadly disease. I pray, not for some divine intervention into the course of nature, but that he be granted the courage to endure his treatments, and should they fail, the courage to accept his death with hope and trust and without rancour or bitterness. It is not obvious that such an intercessory prayer (or a similar petitionary prayer should I be the sick man) is superstitious despite its invocation of a transcendent power to grant courage and equanimity. 'May the Lord grant you peace' is a prayer for a spiritual benefit. Unless one assumes naturalism — which would be question-begging– there is nothing obviously superstitious or pseudo-religious about that. An even better example would be, 'Let me see my faults as clearly as I see the faults of others.' Such a prayer is a prayer for the weakening of the ego and to that extent not motivated by any crude materialism.
The sophisticated non-superstitious believer is not trying to achieve by magical means what can only be achieved by material means; he is aiming to achieve by spiritual means what cannot be achieved by material means but only by spiritual means. Perhaps we can characterize superstition as pseudo-spiritual materialism.
Getting back to the icon on the dashboard: what if the icon serves to remind the believer of her faith commitment rather than to propitiate or influence a godlike person for egoistic ends? Here we approach a form of religious belief that is not superstitious. The believer is not attributing magical powers to a hunk of plastic or a piece of metal. Nor is she invoking a spiritual reality in an attempt to satisfy petty material needs. Her belief transcends the sphere of egoic concerns.
To sum up. Assuming that religion necessarily involves supernatural elements, religion and naturalism are incompatible. So if naturalism is true, then religion is buncombe, a tissue of superstitions. But there are powerful reasons for rejecting naturalism. In any case, that all of religion is bunk is rather hard to swallow given its prevalence and usefulness. (Here one can mount a pragmatic argument premised on the consensus gentium.) It is a good bet that there is something true and right about a cultural and a symbolic form that has won the adherence of so many distinguished people over all the earth in all the ages. But if we are to make sense of religion as a cultural form that has a core of rightness to it, then we need the distinction between religion and pseudo-religion (superstition) — the very distinction that Bagini clumisly rides roughshod over. (Can one ride in a clumsy fashion?)
Companion post: Grades of Prayer
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Gerry Rafferty
The Guardian obituary has him born on 16 April 1947 and dead on 4 January 2011. I recall his smash Baker Street from the far-off and fabulous summer of 1978. It came over the car radio in my quondam girl friend's Toyota many times as we drove from Boston, Mass to Dayton, O to secure me an apartment there. I hated leaving the Athens of America for the dreary Midwest, but I had landed a tenure-track job and one goes where the jobs are. In retrospect, I was extremely lucky to get that job. Was I the best of the 100 people who applied for it? Not even I believe that.
Is Religion for the Weak?
We haven't heard much from Jesse Ventura recently, leastways not on the topic of religion, but I recall him some years ago saying in effect, 'Religion is for the weak!' at which provocation various religionists jumped up and retorted, 'No it's not!' Such knee-jerk opposition avails nothing. Ventura is in fact right. What Ventura doesn't appreciate, however, is that we are all weak. The correct response to Jesse 'The Body' Ventura is not one of diametrical opposition but one of ju-jitsu-like concession.
We are all weak relative to a standard of true strength. We are weak in body, in mind, in will. We vacillate in our affections. A body that can lose its strength in a split-second due to a brain aneurysm, say, is only relatively, contingently, and temporarily strong. Such strength is nothing to crow about. Or is Ventura's strength so awesome that it is proof against every contingency? Can he maintain it indefinitely? Is he causa sui? If not, then why is he so proud of his prowess?
The great religions teach the simple truth about our weak and indigent condition. (Whether these religions provide a genuine solution to it is another question.) The proper counter to Ventura is to point out to him that the sense in which he thinks that religious people are weak is not the sense in which they know that we are all weak. Religion is not a projection of the merely contingent weakness of some of us, but a sober recognition of the necessary weakness of all of us. Religion doesn't exist to make good the deficiencies that we can and must make good by our own efforts, but to ameliorate the deep-going deficiencies that none of us can ameliorate individually or collectively by our own efforts.
Cottingham, Wittgenstein, and the Religious Impulse
John Cottingham, On the Meaning of Life (Routledge 2003), p. 52:
. . . the whole of the religious impulse arises from the profound
sense we have of a gap between how we are and how we would wish to
be . . . .
This is not quite right, as it seems to me, even if '"would wish to be" is read as "ought to be." The sense of the gap between 'is' and 'ought' is undoubtedly part of the religious impulse, but there is more to it than this. It must be accompanied by the sense that the gaping chasm between the miserable wretches we are and what we know we ought to be cannot be bridged by human effort, whether individual or collective, but requires help from beyond the human-all-too-human. Otherwise, the religious sensibility would collapse into the ethical sensibility. There is more to religion than ethics. The irreligious can be aware of the discrepancy between what we are and what we should be. The religious are convinced of the need for moral improvement together with a realization of their impotence in bringing it about by their own efforts.
I had an undergraduate professor whose symbol for religion was:
I like that because it conveys that religion is for the sick. And sick we are. An awareness of our root sickness is an element in the religious sensibility. Dubious as Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion is, he is absolutely on target in the following observation:
People are religious to the extent that they believe themselves to be not so much imperfect (unvollkommen), as ill (krank). Any man who is half-way decent will think himself extremely imperfect, but a religious man thinks himself wretched (elend). (Culture and Value, U. of Chicago Press, 1980, tr. Winch, p. 45e, emphasis in original)