Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Good and Evil', 'Nature and Utility of Religion' and 'There is no a Priori'

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12 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities

9354	Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt]
	Full Idea: Why should we accept that necessities can only be known a priori? Prima facie, some necessities are known empirically; for example, that water is necessarily H2O, and that Hesperus is necessarily Phosphorus.
	From: Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
	A reaction: An important question, whatever your view. If the only thing we can know a priori is necessities, it doesn't follow that necessities can only be known a priori. It gets interesting if we say that some necessities can never be known a priori.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts

9353	We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt]
	Full Idea: We have no need to turn to an a priori explanation of our knowledge of mathematics and logic. Our intuitions that this knowledge is not justified in some direct empirical way is preserved. It is justified in an indirect holistic way.
	From: Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
	A reaction: I think this is roughly the right story, but the only way it will work is if we have some sort of theory of abstraction, which gets us up the ladder of generalisations to the ones which, it appears, are necessarily true.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 11. Denying the A Priori

9356	The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt]
	Full Idea: The whole idea of the a priori is too obscure for it to feature in a good explanation of our knowledge of anything.
	From: Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §3)
	A reaction: I never like this style of argument. It would be nice if all the components of all our our explanations were crystal clear. Total clarity about anything is probably a hopeless dream, and we may have to settle for murky corners in all explanations.

22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good

22489	'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
	Full Idea: Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro
	A reaction: [In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it.

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique

21332	We don't get a love of 'order' from nature - which is thoroughly chaotic [Mill]
	Full Idea: Even the love of 'order' which is thought to be a following of the ways of nature is in fact a contradiction of them. All which people are accustomed to deprecate as 'disorder' is precisely a counterpart of nature's ways.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
	A reaction: The Greeks elevated the idea that the cosmos was orderly, but almost entirely based on the regular movement of the planets. They turned a blind eye to the messy bits of nature. As you magnify nature, order and chaos seem to alternate.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil

21333	Evil comes from good just as often as good comes from evil [Mill]
	Full Idea: If good frequently comes out of evil, the converse fact, evil coming out of good, is equally common.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.117)
	A reaction: Mill surmises that on the whole good comes from good, and evil from evil, but the point is that the evidence doesn't favour the production of increased good.

21335	Belief that an afterlife is required for justice is an admission that this life is very unjust [Mill]
	Full Idea: The necessity of redressing the balance [of injustice] is deemed one of the strongest arguments for another life after death, which amounts to an admission that the order of things in this life is often an example of injustice, not justice.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874])
	A reaction: It certainly seems that an omnipotent God could administer swift justice in this life. If the whole point is that we need freedom of will, then why is justice administered at a much later date? The freedom seems to be illusory.

21334	No necessity ties an omnipotent Creator, so he evidently wills human misery [Mill]
	Full Idea: If a Creator is assumed to be omnipotent, if he bends to a supposed necessity, he himself makes the necessity which he bends to. If the maker of the world can all that he will, he wills misery, and there is no escape from the conclusion.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.119)
	A reaction: If you add that the Creator is supposed to be perfectly benevolent, you arrive at the paradox which Mackie spells out. Is the correct conclusion that God exists, and is malevolent? Mill doesn't take that option seriously.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / d. Natural Evil

21329	Nature dispenses cruelty with no concern for either mercy or justice [Mill]
	Full Idea: All of this [cruel killing] nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.115)
	A reaction: The existence of an afterlife at least offers an opportunity to rectify any injustice, but that hardly meets the question of why there was injustice in the first place. It would be odd if it actually is justice, but none of us can see why that is so.

21328	Killing is a human crime, but nature kills everyone, and often with great tortures [Mill]
	Full Idea: Killing, the most criminal act recognised by human laws, nature does once to every being that lives, and frequently after protracted tortures such as the greatest know monsters purposely inflicted on their living fellow creatures
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.115)
	A reaction: We certainly don't condemn lions for savaging gazelles, but the concept of a supreme mind controlling nature forces the question. Theology needs consistency between human and divine morality, and the supposed derivation of the former from the latter.

21330	Nature makes childbirth a miserable experience, often leading to the death of the mother [Mill]
	Full Idea: In the clumsy provision which nature has made for the perpetual renewal of animal life, ...no human being ever comes into the world but another human being is literally stretched on the rack for hours or day, not unfrequently issuing in death.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
	A reaction: This is a very powerful example, which is rarely cited in modern discussions.

21331	Hurricanes, locusts, floods and blight can starve a million people to death [Mill]
	Full Idea: Nature often takes the means by which we live. A single hurricane, a flight of locusts, or an inundation, or a trifling chemical change in an edible root, starve a million people.
	From: John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
	A reaction: [second sentence compressed] The 'edible root' is an obvious reference to the Irish potato famine. Some desertification had human causes, but these are telling examples.