Month: January 2020

When I Recall My Moral Failures . . .

. . . I find it hard to doubt 

a) My strict numerical identity over time.  When I regret what I did, I regret what I did, not what some other person did, and not what some earlier temporal part of me did.  The fact that the passage of time does not lessen my sense of guilt is evidence that I am strictly the same person as the one who did the regrettable deed, and also that I am not a whole of temporal parts, but a substance, an endurant in contemporary jargon, wholly present at every time at which it exists.

b) The freedom of the will in the 'could have done otherwise' sense.  My sense of moral failure entails a sense of moral responsibility for what I have done or left undone.  Now moral responsibility entails freedom of the will. 

c) The absoluteness of moral demands.  

There are arguments against all three points. And there are arguments that neutralize those arguments. The philosophers disagree, and it is a good bet that they always will.  So in the end you must decide which beliefs you will take as guideposts for the living of your life.  My advice is that you won't be far off if you accept the above trio and such of their consequences as you can bring yourself to accept.

The first two, for example, support the immaterial and thus spiritual nature of the self. The third points us to God.

What if you are wrong?  Well, you have lived well!  For example, if you treat your neighbor as if he is not just a bag of chemicals but an immortal soul with a higher origin and and an eternal destiny, then the consequences that accrue for him and you will be life-enhancing in the here and now, even if the underlying belief turns out to be false.

Understand what I am saying. I am not saying that one should believe what one knows to be false because the believing of it is life-enhancing. I am saying that you are entitled to believe, and well-advised to believe, that which is life-enhancing if it is rationally acceptable or doxastically permissible.

The Quietist on the Delights of Escapism

There are the undeniable and readily accessible delights of escapism into scholarship, and science, and research and inquiry of all sorts.  When 'reality' becomes too much to bear, what is wrong with retreating into an ivory tower?  Who can rightfully begrudge us our right to peace and quiet and happiness?

You say that there are more pressing concerns than the nature and extent of the influence of Avicenna on Aquinas' De Ente et Essentia?  No doubt.  But do you really believe that your becoming hot and bothered over these 'pressing concerns' will lead to any improvement?  Are you sure about that?  And isn't your political activism your mode of escape from something or other?  I like peace and quiet; you like 'drama' and contention.  To each his own.

Thus spoke the quietist.

“I Will Pray for You”

In many but not all contexts, to say "I will pray for you" to a person manifests the following passive-aggressive attitude on the part of the speaker: (a) I have strongly negative feelings toward you but I will not directly express them, either because I fear a confrontation, or fancy myself above such negative feelings, or because it would not be expedient for me to express them; (b) I consider myself morally superior to you, and you so inferior to me as to need divine assistance; (c) in truth, I have no real concern for the state of your soul, but by saying that I will pray for you, I posture as if I really do care.

What inspired this observation was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's repeated  talk of praying for Donald Trump. I call this passive-aggression via the misuse in the political sphere of religious language. The sanctimonious insincerity of the dingbat is galling. 

What Trump should tweet to Nancy: Let's make a deal, Nancy. You pray for the state of my soul, and I'll pray for the state of your intellect!

Related: Nancy Pelosi and the Divine Spark

UPDATE (1/2/2020)  Dave Gudeman comments:

At first I thought you were being overly critical, but on further thought it's hard to imagine saying "I will pray for you" as a rebuke to a casual acquaintance. The only time I can think of where it would be appropriate is when said by a fellow church member, a close friend, or a family member to someone engaging in behavior or expressing opinions that they themselves would have considered immoral very recently. In this context, it can be a heartfelt and genuine expression of concern over their move away from a morality that you both shared, but if you don't have a relationship where the other person can reasonably be expected to listen to your rebuke or if what you are rebuking the person for is a long-standing difference, then it becomes what you described, nothing but a passive-aggressive criticism.

I'll add that claiming you love someone after you have attacked them as viciously as Nancy Pelosi has attacked Trump is shockingly hypocritical.

BV: When Pelosi says  "I will pray for you," or "I pray for him all the time," she is not rebuking Trump in so many words.  Her overt speech acts do not express her inner attitude, but mask it, or attempt to mask it. To any astute observer, however, she fails to hide her inner attitude which is as I have described it above.  This passive-aggressive mendacity is what I am objecting to.  

There is also the misuse of religious language in a political context, a Pelosian trademark.  I'll write more about that later.

As Gudeman suggests above, there are uses of 'I will pray for you' that are unobjectionable.  A thorough discussion would sort out different cases.   There were people we genuinely loved the 'evangelical' atheist Christopher Hitchens and who told him that they would pray for him.  That is an entirely different type of case, and it needs a different analysis.  This sort of case, even if mildly objectionable, does not come close to the Pelosian level of self-deceptive hostility that cannot discharge itself in an overt way.