There are courageous souls who will say publically what others think but are afraid to say. True. But the courageousness of the saying does not underwrite the truth of what is said. Courage does not validate content.
Muhammad Atta and the 9/11 terrorists had the courage of their false and murderous convictions.
As a corollary, passion is not probative. The passion with which a proposition is propounded is no proof of it. It is scant praise of a person, and perhaps no praise at all, to say, as is often nowadays said, that so-and-so is passionate about his beliefs. So what? Hitler was passionate.
We have need of dispassion these days, not passion. William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, first stanza:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the
falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
I pointed out earlier that forgiving is triadic: x forgives y for z. There is the forgiver, the one to whom forgiveness is proffered, and that which is forgiven. Nominative, dative, accusative. It is of course correct English to say 'I forgive you,' but this fact about usage cuts no ice since 'I forgive you' is elliptical for 'I forgive you for what you did or what you failed to do.' 'I forgive you' is not evidence that forgiving is in some cases dyadic any more than 'Tom is married' is evidence that marriage is monadic. Forgiving is then at least triadic: it is a three-place relation. 'X forgives y for z' has three argument-places. But it doesn't follow that forgiving is in every case a three-term or three-relata relation. For if one one can forgive oneself, then x and y are the same person. Compare identity, which is a two-place, but one-term relation.
Why did I write "at least triadic"? Because we need to think about such examples as 'I forgive you both for conspiring against me.' That appears to involve three persons and one action. I set this issue aside for later discussion.
At the moment, the following aporetic triad is at the cynosure of my interest:
1. There are cases of self-forgiveness and they are instances of genuine forgiveness.
2. If a person forgives himself at time t for doing or failing to do z , then he cannot help but be aware of and admit his own guilt at t for doing or failing to do z.
3. Genuine forgiveness is unconditional: it is consistent with a non-admission of guilt on the part of the one who is forgiven.
Each limb of the triad is plausible. But the limbs cannot all be true: the conjunction of ( 1) and (2) entails the negation of (3). Indeed, the conjunction of any two limbs entails the negation of the remaining limb.
To solve the problem, we must reject one of the limbs.
(1)-Rejection. One might maintain that cases of self-forgiveness are not instances of genuine forgiveness. One might hold that 'forgiveness' in 'self-forgiveness' and 'other-forgiveness' is being used in different ways, and that the difference between the two phenomena is papered over by the sameness of word.
(2)-Rejection. I would say that (2) is self-evident and cannot be reasonably rejected.
(3)-Rejection. One might maintain that genuine forgiveness need not be unconditional, that there are cases when it depends on the satisfaction of the condition that the one forgiven admit his guilt.
I would solve the problem by rejecting both (1) and (3). As I see it at the moment, genuine forgiveness is an interpersonal transaction: it involves at least two distinct persons. Self-forgiveness, however, remains intra-personal. What is called self-forgiveness is therefore a distinct, albeit related, phenomenon. It is not genuine forgiveness the paradigm case of which is one person forgiving another for an action or omission that is in some sense wrong, that injures the first person, and that the second person admits is wrong.
I also maintain that forgveness cannot be unconditional. For forgiveness to transpire as between A and B, B must accept the forgiveness that A offers. But B cannot do this unless he admits that he has done something (or left something undone) that is morally or legally or in some other way (e.g., etiquette-wise) censurable. Thus B must admit guilt. That is a condition that must be met if forgiveness is to occur.
One who accepts both (1) and (3) will, via (2), land himself in a contradiction.
In my last post on this topic I advanced a double-barreled thesis to the effect that (i) unconditional forgiveness is in most cases morally objectionable, and (ii) in most cases conditional forgiveness is genuine forgiveness. But now we need to back up and focus on the very concept of forgiveness since deciding whether (i) and (ii) are correct depends on what exactly we take forgiveness to be. So here is my preliminary stab at an analysis. After this task is completed, it may be necessary to back up once more and ask how I arrived at my analysis. Ain't philosophy fun?
1. Forgiveness has a triadic structure: to forgive is for someone to forgive someone for something. X forgives y for z, where x and y are persons (usually but not necessarily human) and z is typically an action or an action-omission. We typically forgive deeds and misdeeds, but perhaps states can be forgiven, for example, the state of being insufferably arrogant. An interesting side-question is whether x and y could be the same person. Is it possible to forgive oneself for something? I mention this question only to set it aside.
2. Only those we perceive to be guilty can be forgiven. Necessarily, if x forgives y for z, then x perceive, whether rightly or wrongly, y to be guilty of doing or having done z, or guilty of failing or having failed to do z. The necessity of this necessary truth is grounded in the very concept of forgiveness.
3. It follows from (2) that only what one rightly or wrongly takes to be a moral agent can be forgiven or not forgiven. For anything one takes to be morally guilty one must take to be a moral agent. I can neither forgive nor not forgive my cat for sampling my lasagne. Not being a moral agent, my cat cannot incur guilt.
4. It also follows from (2) that what I forgive a person for must be a wrongful act or act-omission. Tom, unlike my cat, is a moral agent; but it is not possible to forgive Tom for feeding his kids.
5. Forgiving works a salutary change in the forgiver: it alters his mental attitude toward the one forgiven. True forgiveness is not merely verbal but involves a genuine change of heart/mind (a metanoia if you will) that is good for the forgiver.
6. Forgiving cannot remove the guilt of the one forgiven if he is indeed guilty. Suppose you steal my money. You don't admit guilt or make restitution. But I forgive you anyway. Clearly, my forgiving you does not remove your moral guilt. You remain objectively guilty of theft. The demands of justice have not been satisfied.
7. Forgiving cannot retroactively make a person innocent of a crime he has committed. Suppose again that you steal my money. You admit guilt and you make restitution. My forgiving you does not and cannot change the fact that you wrongfully took my money. Forgiveness does not retroactively confer innocence. It follows that you remain guilty of having committed the crime even if you do admit guilt and satisfy the objectve demands of justice by making restitution, etc.
Assuming that the above analysis is correct, albeit not complete, does it allow for the possibility of unconditional forgiveness? It does. Suppose again that you steal my money, but don't admit guilt let alone make restitution. If I forgive you nonetheless, then I do so unconditionally, as opposed to on condition that you admit guilt, make restitution, etc.
Note that unconditional forgiveness is not an inter-personal transaction between the forgiver and the person forgiven, but something that transpires intrapsychically in the forgiver. This is because unconditional forgiveness doesn't require the one forgiven to acknowledge anything or even to be aware that he is the recipient of forgiveness. One can unconditionally forgive dead persons and persons with whom one has no contact. Since unconditional forgiveness is merely intra-personal as opposed to inter-personal, one may question whether it is forgiveness in the strict sense at all. Accordingly, one might add to the list of the concept's features:
8. Necessarily, if x forgives y, then y perceives himself as having done something wrong and admits his wrongdoing to x.
Now I don't think that features 1-7 are controversial, but #8 is. For it rules out unconditional forgiveness. The underlying issue is whether forgiveness is an inter-personal transaction or merely an attitude change within the mind/heart of the forgiver. If forgiveness is inter-personal, the one forgiven must accept forgiveness. But he can do that only if he acknowledges guilt.
But if unconditional forgiveness is possible, and not ruled out by the very concept of forgiveness, it doesn't follow that it is morally acceptable. I say it is not. To forgive unconditionally is to refuse to take a stand against it. But I will leave the elaboration of this point for later.
The other main question is whether conditional forgiveness is genuine forgiveness. I say it is.
One might think that there is nothing left to forgive after the offender has admitted guilt, made reparations, etc. But there is something left to forgive, namely, his having committed the offense in the first place.
A second consideration. If unconditional forgiveness is possible, then what makes forgiveness forgiveness has nothing to do with the the one forgiven: it does not require his admission of guilt, his doing penance, or even his being guilty. If I forgive a person, I must take him to be guilty, but he needn't be in fact. Unconditional forgiveness is merely an alteration of the forgiver's mental state. Now if forgiveness is what it is whether or not there is any non-relational change in the one forgiven, then it doesn't matter whether or not the conditions are satisfied. So conditional forgiveness will be just as much forgiveness as unconditional forgiveness is.
So for these two reasons conditional forgiveness counts as genuine forgiveness.
Finally, a post on forgiveness. 🙂 But my spirit within me won't permit me to forgo responding to what you've written. You characterize the paradox this way: It is morally objectionable to forgive those who will not admit wrongdoing, show no remorse, make no amends, do not pay restitution, etc. But if forgiveness is made conditional upon the doing of these things, then what is to forgive? Conditional forgiveness is not forgiveness. That is the gist of the putative paradox, assuming I have understood it.
That is not quite right.
The problem is this. Forgiving unconditionally — forgiving someone without their apology, repentance, penance, etc. — seems to amount to little more than condoning what they've done; it's hardly forgiveness but more of an acceptance of the wrong. On the other hand, forgiving on the condition that the wrong has been atoned — the wrongdoer has apologized, repented, made reparations, performed penances, etc — seems to be superfluous, insofar as after atonement has been made, the wrongdoer is not guilty of anything any longer and thus there is nothing to forgive, nor would continued resentment be appropriate.
BV: That's exactly what I said, though in a lapidary manner. So I think we agree as to what the putative paradox is. I call it 'putative' because I don't see it as a genuine paradox.
You write that, The first limb strikes me as self-evident: it is indeed morally objectionable to forgive those who will not admit wrongdoing, etc. But this is contentious; not everyone sees this the way you do. For instance, Jesus seems to forgive wrongdoers unconditionally on two occasions, once in the pericope adulterae (at John 7.53-8.11) and again at Luke 23.34 when he is being crucified. A significant number of contemporary philosophers (e.g., David Garrard, Eve McNaughton, Leo Zaibert, Christopher McCowley, Cheshire Calhoun, Glen Pettigrove) defend the practice of unconditional forgiveness, as well. So it's unacceptable simply to accept the first horn of the paradox as is; there is the argumentation of all these philosophers to deal with!
BV: Yes, my assertion is debatable, but then so is almost everything in philosophy and plenty of what is outside of philosophy. I don't think bringing Jesus in advances your argument. Either Jesus is God or he is not. If he is not, then he lacks the authority to contravene the existing law and forgive the adulteress. If he is God, then two problems. First, your argument then rests on a highly contentious theological presupposition. (I will remind you that in conversation you said that you were not trying to work out the Christian concept of forgiveness, but the concept of forgiveness in general.) Second, granting that God has the authority to forgive and forgive unconditionally, that has no relevance to the human condition, to forgiveness as it plays out among mere mortals such as us. For one thing, God can afford to forgive unconditionally; nothing can touch him. But for us to adopt a policy of forgiving unconditionally would be disastrous.
At Luke 23:34, Jesus is reported to have said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Note that Jesus is not forgiving his tormenters; he is asking God the Father to forgive them. So this passage is not relevant to our discussion. Besides, there is nothing here about unconditional forgiveness. Jesus could have been requesting his Father to forgive the killers after punishing them appropriately.
Your mention of contemporary philosophers who support your position is just name-dropping. To drop a name is not to give an argument. I would have to see their arguments. Is it unacceptable for me to hold to my understanding of forgiveness according to which it is morally objectionable to forgive the unrepentant in advance of studying the arguments of those you mention? No more unacceptable than holding to the view that motion is possible in advance of studying the arguments of Zeno and his school, or holding to the reality of time despite my inability decisively to refute McTaggart. I might just stand my Moorean ground: "Look, I just ate lunch; therefore time is real!" Similarly with forgiveness: "Look, it is a wonderful thing to forgive, but only on condition that the offender own up to his wrongdoing, make amends, etc."
You also write, I admit that once the miscreant has paid his debt, he is morally in the clear. His guilt has been removed. But I can still forgive him because forgiveness does not take away guilt, it merely alters the attitude of the one violated to the one who violated him. You are forgetting another important aspect of forgiveness beyond the change in attitude, however, namely that it is a way of responding to wrongdoers as wrongdoers. Another way of putting this is that forgiveness is only possible when someone stands before us as guilty for some wrong done and is thus an appropriate candidate for resentment, anger, etc. If someone has atoned for their wrong and is no longer guilty, then there's no ground for resentment and thus there's nothing more to forgive! So the change in attitude after atonement has been made may resemble forgiveness, but it's hardly genuine forgiveness since there's no wrong to forgive any longer.
BV: This is an interesting and weighty point, but I disagree nonetheless. You may be conflating two separate claims. I would say that it is a conceptual truth that if X forgives Y, then X perceives Y as having done wrong, whether or not Y has in fact done wrong. This truth is analytic in that it merely unpacks our ordinary understanding of 'forgiveness.' But it doesn't follow from this conceptual truth that there is nothing left to forgive with respect to a person who has atoned for his misdeed. I say there is: the mere fact that he has done me wrong in the first place. Suppose he stole my money, but then apologized and made restitution. In that case the demands of justice have been met. But there is still something left to forgive, namely, his having stolen my money in the first place. The apology and restitution do not eliminate the whole of the guilt, for the offender remains guilty of the misdeed. After all, his apology and restitution do not retroactively make him innocent. He remains guilty as charged. The fact of his having committed the misdeed can in no way be altered. Though contingent at the time, it now has the modal status of necessitas per accidens.
There is obviously a difference between one who is guilty of an offence and one who is innocent of it. That distinction remains in place even after the guilty party pays for his crime. Your position seems to imply that punishment retroactively renders the criminal innocent — which is absurd.
Consider this. Forgiveness is commonly thought of as gracious; it is a generous way of responding to wrongdoers that goes beyond strictly what they deserve. How is it at all generous to change one's attitude towards a wrongdoer only once atonement has been made and she is effectively no longer a wrongdoer?
BV: I agree that forgiveness is gracious and not strictly a matter of desert. It is nevertheless generous to forgive even after atonement has been made. For one is forgiving the offender of having committed the misdeed in he first place. I deny that the offender is no longer a wrongdoer after the penalty has been paid. Again, your position seems to imply that punishment retroactively renders the criminal innocent.
Remember the Derrida quote I cited:
Imagine, then, that I forgive on the condition that the guilty one repents, mends his ways, asks forgiveness, and thus would be changed by a new obligation, and that from then on he would no longer be exactly the same as the one who was found to be culpable. In this case, can one still speak of forgiveness? This would be too simple on both sides: one forgives someone other than the guilty one. In order for there to be forgiveness, must one not on the contrary forgive both the fault and the guilty as such, where the one and the other remain as irreversible as the evil, as evil itself, and being capable of repeating itself, unforgivably, without transformation, without amelioration, without repentance or promise? Must one not maintain that an act of forgiveness worthy of its name, if there ever is such a thing, must forgive the unforgivable, and without condition? (On cosmopolitanism and forgiveness, pp. 38-9)
BV: John Searle once said of Derrida that he gives bullshit a bad name. So an appeal to the authority of Derrida will have as little effect on me as an appeal the supposed authority of Paul Krugman in an economic connection. The Derrida passage smacks of sophistry what with the rhetorical questions and the typically French amorphousness. He seems to be advancing the following sophism. If one forgives the one who has atoned, then "one forgives someone other than the guilty one." But that is to confuse numerical identity with qualitative identity.
Thus I have to hold, pace tua, that genuine forgiveness must be unconditional, and conditionalized forgiveness is less than true.
BV: And I continue to maintain, pace tua, that only conditional forgiveness is morally unobjectionable and that conditional forgiveness counts as genuine forgiveness.
What makes for a good marriage? It is not enough to like your spouse. It is not enough to love her. The partners must also admire one another. There has to be some attribute in your spouse that you don't find in yourself (or not in the same measure) and that you aspire to possess or possess more fully. Must I add that we are not talking mainly about physical attributes?
What is admiration?
To love is not to admire. If God exists, he loves us. But he certainly doesn't admire us. For what does he lack? He doesn't aspire to possess any attribute that we have and that he lacks. Closer to the ground, one can easily love a sentient being, whether animal or human, without admiration.
To value is not to admire. Prudence is a valuable attribute; so if you are prudent, I will value you in respect of your prudence; but if I am as prudent as you, then I don't admire you in respect of your prudence. Admiration is for attributes the admirer does not possess, or does not possess in the measure the admired possesses them.
To respect is not to admire. I can and ethically must respect the rights of those who are inferior to me in respect of admirable attributes.
My suggestion, then, is that a necessary though not sufficient condition of a good marriage is that it be a two-membered mutual admiration society.
Your first mistake was to admire him inordinately, your second, after he proved less than wholly admirable, was to swing over to contempt. No one is worthy of unqualified admiration, and no one is wholly contemptible.
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain That we could sit simply in that room again Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat I'd give it all gladly If our lives could be like that.
Wishing and hoping are both intentional attitudes: they take an object. One cannot just wish, or just hope, in the way one can just feel miserable or elated. If I wish, I wish for something. The same holds for hoping. How then do the two attitudes differ? They differ in terms of time, modality, and justification.
1. The object of hope lies in the future, of necessity. One cannot hope for what was or what is. In his dream, Dylan wished to be together again with his long lost friends. But he didn't hope to be together with them again. Coherent: 'I wish I had never been born.' Incoherent: 'I hope I had never been born.' Coherent: 'I wish I was with her right now.' Incoherent: 'I hope I was with her right now.'
Although hope is always and of necessity future-directed, wishing is not temporally restricted. 'I wish I were 30 again.' 'I wish I were in Hawaii now.' 'I wish to live to be a hundred.' I cannot hope to be 30 again or hope to be in Hawaii now. But I can both wish and hope to live to be a hundred.
Can I hope to be young again? That's ambiguous. I could hope for a medical breakthrough that would rejuvenate a person in the sense of making him physiologically young and I could hope to undergo such a rejuvenation. But I cannot hope to be calendrically young again.
2. One can hope only for what one considers to be possible. (What one considers to be possible may or may be possible.) But one can wish for both what one considers to be the possible and what one consider to be impossible. I can hope for a stay of execution, but not that I should continue to exist as a live animal after being hanged. ('Hanged' not 'hung'!) I can hope to survive my bodily death, but only if I consider it possible that I survive my bodily death. But I can wish for what I know to be impossible such as being young again, being able to run a 2:30 marathon, visiting Mars next year.
3. There is no sense in demanding of one who wishes to be cured of cancer that he supply his grounds or justification for so wishing. "Are you justified in wishing to be cancer-free?" But if he hopes to beat his cancer, then one can appropriately request the grounds of the hope.
If I both wish and hope for something I consider possible that lies in the future, then the difference between wishing and hoping rests on the fact that one can appropriately request grounds for hoping but not grounds for wishing.
I'll end with my favorite counterfactual conditional: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.'
Existence elicited nausea from Sartre's Roquentin, but wonder from Bryan Magee:
. . . no matter what it was that existed, it seemed to me extraordinary beyond all wonderment that it should. It was astounding that anything existed at all. Why wasn't there nothing? By all the normal rules of expectation — the least unlikely state of affairs, the most economical solution to all possible problems, the simplest explanation — nothing is what you would have expected there to be. But such was not the case, self-evidently. (Confessions of a Philosopher, p. 13)
We find something similar in Wittgenstein: Wie erstaunlich, dass ueberhaupt etwas existiert. "How astonishing that anything at all exists." (Geheime Tagebuecher 1914-1916, p. 82.)
What elicited Magee's and Wittgenstein's wonderment was the self-evident sheer existence of things in general: their being as opposed to their nonbeing. How strange that anything at all exists! Now what could a partisan of the thin conception of Being or existence make of this wonderment at existence? Or at Sartre's/Roquentin's nausea at existence? I will try to show that no thin theorist qua thin theorist can accommodate wonderment/nausea at existence, and that this fact tells against the thin theory.
I have already exposited the thin theory ad nauseam, if you will forgive the pun. So let's simply consider what the head honcho of the thin theorists, Peter van Inwagen, has to say about wonder at existence in "Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment" (in Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology, eds. Chalmers et al., Oxford 2009, pp. 472-506) He begins by pointing out (478) that everything we say using 'exists' and its cognates can be said without using 'exists'and its cognates. 'Dragons do not exist' can be put by saying 'Nothing is a dragon,' or 'Everything is not a dragon.' 'God exists' can be put in terms of the equivalent 'It is not the case that everything is not (a) God.' 'I think, therefore I am' is equivalent to 'I think, therefore not everything is not I.' Here are some further examples of my own. 'An honest politican does not exist' is equivalent to 'No politician is honest.' 'A sober Irishman does exist' is equivalent to 'Some Irishman is sober.' 'An impolite New Yorker does not exist' is equivalent to 'Every New Yorker is polite.'
From examples like these it appears that every sentence containing 'exists' or 'is' (used existentially) or cognates, can be be replaced by an equivalent sentence in which 'exists' or 'is' (used existentially), or cognates does not appear.
Now let's see how this works when it comes to the sentences we use to express our wonder at our own existence or at the existence of things in general.
Suppose I am struck by a sudden sense of my contingency. I exclaim, 'I might never have existed.' That is equivalent to 'I might never have been identical to anything' or, as van Inwagen has it, 'it might have been the case that everything was always not I.' (479)
To wonder why there is anything at all is to wonder "why it is not the case that everything is not (identical with) anything." (479)
Now I could mock these amazing contortions whereby van Inwagen tries to hold onto his thin theory, but I won't. Mockery and derision have a place in polemical writing, as when I am battling the lunkheads of the Left, but they have no place in philosophy proper. But really, has anyone ever expressed his wonder at the sheer existence of the world using the sentence I just quoted from PvI? But of course I need a more substantial objection that this, and I have one.
When I wonder at the sheer existence of things I am not wondering at the fact that everything is identical to something, or wondering at its not being the case that everything is not identical with anything.
Why not? Well, the truth of 'Everything is identical to something' presupposes a domain of quantification the members of which are existing items. Surely what I find wonder-inducing is not the fact that every item x in that presupposed domain is identical to some item y in that very same presupposed domain! That miserable triviality is not what I am wondering at. I am wondering at the existence of anything at all including the domain and everything in it.
What I am wondering at is that there is something and not nothing. How can a Quinean such as PvI express that something exists? Is 'Something exists' equivalent to 'For some x, x = x'? No. Existence is not self-identity. For x to exist is not for x to be self-identical. Otherwise, for x not to exist would be for x to be self-diverse — which is absurd. My possible nonexistence is not my possible self-diversity.
Suppose there is only only one thing, a, and that I am wondering at the existence of a. Why is there a and not rather nothing? Am I wondering at a's self-identity? Obviously not. I am wondering at a's sheer existence, that it is 'there,' that it is not nothing, that is it, that it has Being.
And so I conclude that a thin theorist qua thin theorist cannot experience wonder at the sheer existence of things. All he can experience wonder at — if you want to call it wonder — is that things presupposed as existing are self-identical — which is surely not all that marvellous. Of course they are self-identical! Necessarily if a thing exists, it is self-identical. But existence is not self-identity. If existence were self-identity, then nonexistence would be self-diversity and possble existence would be possible self-diversity.
Some of us experience wonder at the sheer existence of things. As old Ludwig puts it, Ich staune dass die Welt existiert! When I experience this wonder I am not experiencing wonder at the trivial fact that each of the things presupposed as existing is identical to something or other. I am wondering at the existence of everything including the presupposed domain of existents. This then is yet another argument against the thin theory. The thin theory cannot accommodate wonder at existence, or Sartrean nausea at existence either.
I like Dennis Prager, but he is sometimes sloppy in his use of language. He will often say that high self esteem is not a value, or words to that effect. It sounds as if he is against people having high self esteem. But what he really wants to oppose, or rather what he ought to oppose, is not self esteem or high self esteem, but the silly notion of many liberals that high self esteem is a value, a good thing, regardless of whether or not it is grounded in any actual accomplishment.
Suppose my high self-esteem, in general, or in some particular respect, is justified by actual achievement. Then I am entitled to my high self esteem, and my having it is a good. When a person of high achievement suffers from low self esteem we consider that an unfortunate state of affairs.
Another example of Prager's sloppiness is his use of 'Ponzi scheme.' He said one day on his show that the welfare state is a Ponzi scheme. I know what he means, and what he means to say is true, but he ought to say what he means. What he means is that the welfare state is economically unsustainable in the long run like a Ponzi scheme. But if X is like Y, it doesn't follow that X is Y.
Ponzi schemes are set up by people with fraudulent intent. But neither the architects of the modern welfare state nor the architects of the Social Security system in particular had fraudulent intent. Nor do current supporters of the welfare state or SS have fraudulent intent. They really think that these schemes are good and workable.
Why is this important? Well, because one ought not demonize one's opponents, or, less drastically, impute to them unsavory motives, unless one has very good evidence of the unsavoriness of their motives. I am not saying that one ought never impute evil motives to one's opponents, but that one ought to be very careful about doing so.
That we grieve over the loss of a finite good shows our wretchedness. But the cure for grief is not the substitution of attachment to another finite good. We should not distract ourselves from our grief, but experience it and try to grasp the root of it, which is our inner emptiness, rather than the loss of a particular finite good. The proximate cause of my grief, the death of a beloved companion, is not grief’s ultimate cause. The inner emptiness, infinite in that nothing finite can assuage it, has but one anodyne: the infinite good, God.
If God be denied, then either the inner emptiness must be extinguished, or we must learn to fill it with finite goods. The latter, common as it is, is a miserable stop-gap measure and no ultimate solution. But to extinguish the inner emptiness, we must extinguish desire itself. This, the solution of Pali Buddhism, cuts but does not untie the Gordian knot.
So I count three solutions to grief: seek God; Pascalian divertissement; Buddhist extinction. Perhaps there are others.
The evil event will either occur or it will not. If it occurs, and one worries beforehand, then one suffers twice, from the event and from the worry. If the evil event does not occur, and one worries beforehand, one suffers once, but needlessly. If the event does not occur, and one does not worry beforehand, then one suffers not at all. Therefore, worry is irrational. Don't worry, be happy.
Am I saying that that one ought not take reasonable precautions and exercise what is pleonastically called 'due diligence'? Of course not. Rational concern is not worry. I never drive without my seat belt fastened. Never! I never ride my mountain bike without donning helmet and gloves. But I never crash and I never worry about it. And if one day I do crash, I will suffer only once: from the crash.
Worry is a worthless emotion, a wastebasket emotion. So self-apply some cognitive therapy and send it packing. You say you can't help but worry? Then I say you are making no attempt to get your mind under control. It's your mind, control it! It's within your power. Suppose what I have just said is false. No matter: it is useful to believe it. The proof is in the pragmatics.
You envy me? What a wretch you must be to feel diminished in your sense of self-worth by comparison to me! I have something you lack? Why isn't that compensated for by what you have that I lack? You feel bad that I have achieved something by my hard work? Don't you realize that you waste time and energy by comparing yourself to me, time and energy that could be used to improve your own lot?
You ought to feel bad, not that I do well, but that you are so willfully stupid. Vices vitiate; they weaken. You weaken yourself and make yourself even more of a wretch by indulging in envy.
Feeling compassion for the earthquake victims, he was pleased by his sensitivity, but his warm feeling did not motivate him to do anything such as make a monetary contribution to the Red Cross. His feeling remained mere sentiment and to that extent mere self-indulgence.
Better to feel compassion than to define it. Better still to act upon the feeling. But now an interesting question arises. Would it not be even better to act in alleviation of the other's suffering without feeling the negative affect? This line of thought is explored in Spinoza on Commiseratio.
