Ridiculous laws

We are clearly not morally required to obey laws that tell us to do something immoral. But what about laws that, while not requiring anything immoral, nonetheless have ridiculous consequences?

Here is a fun Texas example. According to Chapter 1702.104 of the Texas Occupations Code:

(a) A person acts as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the person:
(1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information related to: [...]
(D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property; [...]

And according to 1702.101,

Unless the person holds a license as an investigations company, a person may not:
(1) act as an investigations company;
(2) offer to perform the services of an investigations company;

Consequence: Without a PI license, a historian may not apply for or accept a postdoc at a Texas university to work on a book on the causes of the Great Fire of Rome of 64AD.

The semi-eternal itch

Let w be a world where there is only one finite being, George. George has always existed in w. Moreover, each day for George has been just like the previous. Each day, George is mildly happy overall—except he has a minor itch that he can't scratch. Let us suppose that the laws of nature in w are such that they allow one deviation from the endless cycle of repetition from day to day—the itch can disappear (and only in one way, at one particular time of day). After the itch disappears, each day will be mildly happy, and indeed happier than before, and each day, except the first post-itch day, will be just like the previous for George (George won't remember how many days it has been he has lost the itch), forever. Here is an intuition:

1. It is better for George to have his itch disappear tomorrow than to have his itch disappear in a billion years.

But not all theories of time can do justice to this intuition. If time is relational (which also, I think, would imply that the B-theory holds), and we tell the details of the story right, then the world where the itch disappears today if the same as the world where the itch disappears in a billion years—both are worlds where there is an itch for an infinite number of years, and then there is no itch for another infinite number of years. Therefore, either time is not relational or else no situation like the above is possible. But the only good reason to think that no situation like the above is possible is if one thinks that there cannot be indiscernibles or one thinks that it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time. Thus, either time is not relational or there cannot be indiscernible times or it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time. Since I think time is relational, I conclude that either there cannot be indiscernible times or it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time.

It's also not clear that presentism fits with (1). In both of the scenarios mentioned in (1), there is a present itch, and the future does not exist. So why should one of the scenarios be better than the other? If this argument, which I am less sure of, is right, then either presentism is false or it is impossible to have existed for an infinite amount of time.

It would be nice to do better than just getting disjunctive conclusions. For that, we'd need other arguments to rule out of more disjuncts.

Anti-pelagianism

Here are three levels of anti-Pelagianism:

1. No fallen human being can attain personal union (i.e., union of the relevant sort—such as the beatific vision) with God by his own powers.
2. No mere human being can attain personal union with God by his own powers.
3. No mere creature can attain personal union with God by his own powers.

Here, a "mere F" is a being that is an F and that has no nature other than the F-nature. The main point of this qualifier is to exclude cases where God is incarnate as an F. For in those cases we are dealing with an F, but not a mere F. Claim (3) entails claim (2), and claim (2) together with the plausible assumption that in fact every fallen human being is a mere human being entails claim (1).

An interesting difference at least of emphasis between Catholics and Protestants is that Protestants see Pelagianism primarily as a denial of (1), and focus on (1) in anti-Pelagian polemic, while Catholicism, I think, has an emphasis not just on (1), but also on (2)—grace is not only needed now for fallen man, but Adam and Eve needed grace, too, to attain the beatific vision. And even (3) is probably pretty common in Catholicism. E.g., Aquinas would surely endorse (3). His view of the fall of Satan, if my shaky memory serves me, was that Satan wanted to get by his own powers the good that God was going to give to him by grace—i.e., that Satan was a practical Pelagian.

A consideration against Christian materialism

Christian materialism holds that the human being is a fully material entity, with no immaterial soul. Here is a problem for this view: What happened, on this view, when Christ died? After all, death is the destruction of the body.

Option 1: He ceased to exist. This option is distinctly unsatisfactory theologically—Christians have never believed that. On the contrary, Christians believed he descended into sheol to draw out the souls of those awaiting him there. And if God is omnitemporally eternal, it has the consequence that one of the persons of the Trinity ceased to exist, which is contrary to divine eternity.

Option 2: He ceased to exist qua human. But this simply means that the Incarnation ceased for the second person of the Trinity, and he was back to the state he was before the Incarnation. Since the Incarnation was not a gain for him, neither was this any loss. But then the sacrificial meaning of his death is undercut.

Option 3: He continued to exist, because a chunk, or the whole, of his brain was miraculously preserved, and then that brain piece or that brain descended into sheol to draw out the souls awaiting him. This seems implausible. Moreover, unless something like this happens for all of us (Peter van Inwagen played with this option), then his death was radically different from our deaths, which is theologically problematic. And if this is what happens to all of us, then death is not as evil as it seems—it's really just like an amputation of a lot of one's body, but not of all of it.

Option 4: He continued to exist, and so the Logos was the dead body of Christ. This view is similar to the orthodox view that the dead body of Christ was still united to the divinity. But do we really want to take the further step of saying that the Logos was a dead body?

Moral evil and naturalism

The only argument against theism that is worth considering at all seriously as an argument against theism[note 1] is the inductive problem of evil.

The inductive argument from evil holds that it is unlikely that God would have created a world containing the degree, kind and amount of evil that we observe.

Now, one might offer the inductive argument from evil as an argument for some supernaturalistic hypothesis, such as that there is an evil god (either alone or along with a good or neutral one), or that there is an indifferent god, or the like. In that case, what I will say below does not apply. But, among contemporary philosophers, the primary hypothesis competing with theism is not one of these unorthodox supernaturalistic ones, but naturalism. And then the philosopher offering the inductive argument from evil needs to show not just that the degree, kind and amount of evil that exists in the world is unlikely on the theistic hypothesis, but that it is more unlikely on the theistic hypothesis than on the naturalistic hypothesis.

But to show this is tricky. Much of this point comes from C. Stephen Layman (I am grateful to Todd Buras for letting me know of Layman's argument). Let us grant for the sake of argument that the conditional probability of the degree, kind and amount of evil that we observe is, say, 10⁻²⁰ given theism. Denote theism by T and let E is the event of there being the degree, kind and amount of evil that we in fact observe. Then it's granted for the sake of the argument that P(E|T)=10⁻²⁰. Do we know that the probability of the degree, kind and amount of evil that we observe is more than 10⁻²⁰ given naturalism, i.e., that P(E|N)>10⁻²⁰, where N is naturalism?

Many of the evils that we observe are of such a kind that they are only evil because of conscious life—pains are like that. Therefore, E entails the existence of conscious life, but says a lot more than that conscious life exists. Hence: P(E|N)<P(C|N), where C is the claim that there is conscious life. If P(C|N) is no greater than 10⁻²⁰ then we do not have P(E|N)>10⁻²⁰. Thus the naturalist to use the argument from evil against theism must be able to estimate P(C|N) as greater than 10⁻²⁰. I do not think we are in a position to make that estimate. And without it, we are not in a position to know that the inductive argument from evil supports naturalism over theism.

Moreover, many of the evils that we observe are moral evils. That there are moral evils entails that there are morally responsible persons, and that there are moral truths. IF R is the claim that there are morally responsible persons and M the claim that there are moral truths, then in order to use the inductive argument from evil as an argument against theism and for naturalism, one would have to show that P(R and M|N) is bigger than 10⁻²⁰. But I don't think we are in a position to know that. First, it may be very unlikely that persons would arise given N. Second, it seems quite plausible that for moral responsibility one requires persons who engage in a form of causation very different from the natural causation around them—if all we have is the kind of causation that ordinarily goes on in nature, we don't have moral responsibility. If so, then the likelihood of R given N is nil, or perhaps very small. Furthermore, these persons would have to have moral beliefs to be morally responsible. But to secure intentionality for moral beliefs is a tough task for the naturalist. It's hard enough to secure intentionality for empirical beliefs on naturalistic theories, but perhaps some kind of causal theory of content can be made to work. But it does not seem likely that in a naturalistic setting (except an Aristotelian one—and that's not what people usually mean by "naturalism") we could get intentionality for moral beliefs.

And while I do not know of an entirely convincing argument that the existence of moral truths is incompatible with naturalism, the existence of moral truths is not as prima facie likely given naturalism as given non-naturalistic hypotheses like theism. (In fact, theism entails the existence of moral truths.)

Moreover, among the evils that E reports, there are some truly horrendous moral evils. While bare-bones theism may have difficulties with explaining these, naturalism likely has a difficulty with explaining them, too. But theism, unlike naturalism, is at least compatible with positing a supernatural tempter, a devil, to help explain these horrendous moral evils. So, once again, it is not clear that naturalism does better.

Of course one can tell stories about the evolution of persons, responsibility and even the capacity for horrendous moral evil. But are these stories any better than stories that the theist can tell—stories about divine design, the value of human and demonic freedom, etc.?

If I am right, then the argument from evil does not support naturalism. The naturalist can still offer the argument as an ad hominem, but if she is serious about thinking that the argument is a good reason to reject theism, she needs to be open to the possibility that it is a good reason to abandon naturalism.

Artificial Intelligence and Personal Identity

Today at Baylor's Science and Human Nature conference I am giving a talk where I argue that absurdities follow from the assumption that a robot is a person. For a quick argument, note that the question of how many persons there are ought always to have an objective answer, but the question of how many robots there does not always have an objective answer. (Think of a larger robot made up of smaller ones, for instance.)

Quiz on "... or ..."

I am holding out to you my two closed fists. Let us suppose that I know that you know that I know which, if any, of my fists are empty and which are full (for simplicity, I take "full" to be the denial of "empty"). You don't know which, if any, of my fists are empty and which are full. In which of the following cases would I be telling you a lie if I said: "My left hand is full or my right hand is full" while competently using English? (Choose "depends" if you think the answer depends on factors that I didn't include in the description of the case.)

1. In fact my left hand is full and my right hand is full: lie not a lie depends don't know
2. In fact my left hand is empty and my right hand is full: lie not a lie depends don't know
3. In fact my left hand is full and my right hand is empty: lie not a lie depends don't know
4. In fact my left hand is empty and my right hand is empty: lie not a lie depends don't know

An argument against contraception

Suppose a couple uses contraception but conception nonetheless occurs. Then it is true that the couple have put obstacles in the way of their own child's life, indeed that they have engaged in activity directly opposed to their child's life. To stand to one's child in the relation of having directly opposed Johnny's life fits poorly with having an unconditional love for Johnny, unless one has repented of having opposed Johnny's life. But if the act of contraception was morally unproblematic and rational, then one cannot repent of it, since a part of repenting of an act is recognizing that the act was not to be done.

Therefore, contracepting couples take the risk (for surely there is always a chance of pregnancy) of standing in an inappropriate relation to their child—in the relation of having striven against that child's life.

I don't know how much this argument establishes. In the case of 100% effective contraception (e.g., complete removal of the ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus), the argument is silent. In the case of typical contraception, whose effectiveness is less than 100%, the argument either establishes that the contraception is wrong, or that at least there is a very strong moral presumption against it.

Does the argument say anything about the couple who uses natural family planning (NFP)? Well, there are two ways conception can occur despite NFP. One way is because the couple engage in marital union despite the fact that the NFP method tells them that there is a significant chance of conception. If Johnny is conceived in this way, then the couple has not done anything that hindered or opposed Johnny's conception. (One might think that by abstaining on other days they hindered Johnny's conception. But Johnny could not have been conceived on those other days—they abstained from conceiving other children then.) In fact, in this case, it is right to say that the couple wasn't using NFP on the relevant day.

The other, and apparently rarer, case is where the couple mistakenly believe that they are infertile on a given day, but in fact they are fertile (either because they incorrectly used the NFP method or because the NFP method made a mis-prediction). In this case, I do not think we can say that the couple hindered Johnny's coming into existence. But we can say that they hoped Johnny would not come into existence, and that they would have refrained from bringing Johnny into existence if they knew there was a significant risk. The relation of having hoped one's child would not come into existence, and of its being the case that one would have refrained from bringing the child into existence, is not an ideal one. Thus there is a presumption against risking being in such a position, and hence there is a presumption against using NFP (which is closely related, I suppose, to the Catholic claim that a couple needs to have serious reasons to use NFP). But this is not a relation that is as morally problematic as the relation of having actively tried to hinder one's child's coming into existence. It is one thing not to have striven to further a child's life and another to have striven to hinder it.

But could one perhaps say that the NFP-using couple in the second case was trying to abstain from the act that would have produced Johnny, and trying to abstain from conceiving is an active opposition to life? But it seems to me that if it is an opposition to life at all, it is a much lesser one than active hindrance—just as it is one thing to try to abstain from giving an extraordinarily burdensome medical treatment (this may be hard—it may require a struggle for a conscientious health professional to refrain from offering the treatment) and another to kill. And perhaps the intention in abstaining is not to prevent Johnny from existing, but to prevent oneself from acting against the virtue of prudence (by having potentially fertile marital relations when one has grave reasons to the contrary).

Perfection and purgatory

Our Department's (unofficial) weekly Bible study is on 1 John. We meet for about 55 minutes every week. The last three weeks, we've been struggling through 1 John 2:28-3:10 (last week we "covered" only two verses). The dilemma is that the text seems to be telling us that if we are children of God, then we do what is right and love our brother, and if we do not do what is right or fail to love our brother, then we are not children of God. This makes it seem that unless we are perfect, we have no hope of salvation. But we are not perfect (or at least, I am not, and none of my colleagues wanted to claim perfection)—and, besides, 1 John begins by warning us against claiming we are perfect.

I am beginning to wonder if this isn't the right place to bring in the notion of purgatory.

Unique sermon

The first part of today's sermon was quite unique (actually, so were the second and third parts, but it's only on the first that I want to comment). It was on All Souls'. I can't remember any noteworthy All Souls' sermons ever before. I am guessing that they were warm and comforting. But our pastor was quite blunt. The souls we commemorate on All Souls' are the souls who are in purgatory because they loved something other than God more than they loved God (I would add the qualifier: in some respect). They are not to be emulated. We should look forward to meeting them in heaven, but should try to avoid their purgatorial route.

Friends and future selves

According to Jennifer Whiting, our relation to our future selves is like that to our friends. But this view is subject to a particularly clear form of the self-sacrifice objection. For suppose that I can rescue a stranger from a bear, but I foresee that in doing so I will acquire fatal wounds that will cause death within a few hours. If I had no conflicting duties, e.g., to my children, this would be a heroic and laudable thing to do. But if Whiting is right, then it seems this action is analogous to sacrificing the life of a friend for that of a stranger, without having asked the friend, since the future self who will die in a few hours is like a friend. But it's surely wrong to sacrifice the life of a friend, without special permission, to save a stranger.

Objection: The future self has the same values as I do, and hence if it were the case that I am such that I would choose to die for the stranger, I can assume that he, too, would choose to die for the stranger.

Response: There are several problems with this objection. First, the relevant future self is the one who is going to be dying from the fatal wounds. Can I really be sure that at that time there will be no regrets, but consent? Second, this answer assumes that anybody with the same values as me would have chosen the same thing. But that assumption is plausibly false. I have certain values which imply that it would be a fine thing to give up my life for the stranger. But it is not certain that each time I would act on those values. It could well be that I would only sometimes choose to act on those values. But that fact would not affect the permissibility of acting on the values. Third, consider this. What if in fact I do not love my future self as much as I love myself? Plausibly, the self-sacrifice would still be permissible. But in that case, it cannot be presumed that my future self would choose to have himself be sacrificed—for, presumably, he loves himself more than I love him. Fourth, when it comes to sacrificing the life of a friend to save a stranger, more than merely knowing that the friend has values that make the sacrifice likely is needed. The choice has to be made by the friend.

"If... then..." and material conditionals

I will argue that if the indicative "If p, then q" in English has mind-independent truth value (a somewhat vague phrase, admittedly), then this truth value is the same as that of (not-p or q) (i.e., the material conditional). The way I shall argue this is as follows. Assume that "If p, then q" has mind independent truth value. Now, I will show that (i) if (not-p or q) is false, then "If p, then q" is false, and (ii) if (not-p or q) is true, then "If p, then q" is true. Claim (i) is easy. For if (not-p or q) is false, then p is true and q is false, and it clearly cannot be the case that "If p, then q" (modus ponens would be violated).

I now argue for (ii). The easiest way to do this is to specialize to the case where p and q and their denials do not tell us anything about what beliefs and credences people have (the proposition that there are dogs satisfies this constraint; the proposition that nobody believes anything does not satisfy this constraint). If (ii) holds for propositions satisfying this constraint, it will hold in general, surely (assuming "If... then..." has mind-independent truth value). Suppose that you rationally assign a probability very close to 1/2 to p as well as to q, and neither believe nor disbelieve either of these, and rationally assign a probability very close to 1 to the claim that (not-p or q), and, moreover, you know this disjunction to be true. Given the constraint on p and q, it should be quite possible to have a set of evidence that makes one have these probability assignments, and having this set of evidence should not affect the truth values of p, q or the indicative "If p, then q".

You then reflect on the following valid argument:

1. p (premise)
2. not-p or q (premise)
3. Therefore, q.

You want to summarize what you've learned from this argument. You know (2) to be true, and you assign very high probability to it. You don't know (1) or (3) to be true, and you in fact do not have a belief either way about either of these. It seems quite right to summarize your current position as: "If (1) holds, then (3) holds." After all, you've got a valid argument from (1) to (3) given an auxiliary premise, namely (2), which you know to be true. But once we agree that "If (1) holds, then (3) holds", surely we likewise have to agree that "If p, then q." Hence, if the disjunction (2) is known with probability close to 1, and neither p nor q is known or has high or low probability, then "If p, then q" is true. But if "If... then..." has mind-independent truth value, then the assumptions about knowledge and probability are irrelevant to its truth value, and hence we can simply conclude that if (2) holds, then "If p, then q."

The conclusion might be taken as a reductio of the claim that "If... then..." has mind independent truth value.

Instantaneous stages

Perdurantism holds that we either are four-dimensional entities, stretching like worms through spacetime, or temporal stages of these. Most worm-theorists also believe in temporal stages—they just do not identify us with the stages, but with the whole. (I myself am attracted to stageless worm theory.)

Now here is something that strikes me as a bit interesting. The founding intuition of four-dimensionalist theories is that there is a very close analogy between space and time, and four-dimensionalists pay a lot of attention to science. But, then, positing stages goes against the spirit of four-dimensionalism. For if we pay heed to the space-time analogy intuition, we would have to posit something analogous to temporal stages, stretched out through time the way temporal stages are stretched out through space. While temporal stages are three-dimensional (maybe with a bit of thickening), spatial stages would be one-dimensional (maybe with a bit of thickening), stretched out through time—basically cores cut from the worm along timelike curves. And just as the four-dimensional worm is made out of temporal stages, we would have to think of it as made out of the spatial stages.

But that would be mistaken. The only plausible way in which we could be composed of spatial stages would be if we were made of particles, and we could trace the trajectory of each particle through spacetime. But even if there are particles, the uncertainty principle makes the possibility of such tracing dubious. And quite possibly, physics will dispense with localized particles altogether.

Happiness, friendship and eternity

When one is not tired of a friend, the expected approaching loss of union with the friend makes one miserable. To be tired of a friend would not be compatible with full human happiness, and neither would it be compatible with full human happiness to have no friends. Full human happiness is grounded in truth—it is not full happiness when one's delight depends on ignorance. Therefore, when one is not tired of a friend, an approaching loss of union with the friend one is not tired of is not compatible with full human happiness, whether the loss is expected or not. But neither is it compatible with full human happiness to be tired of friends or lack them. Thus, in full human happiness, one never approaches the loss of union with a friend. But if one were to cease existing, one would thereby lose all union with one's friends.

It follows that full human happiness requires unending life with at least one friend. Moreover, it requires a well-grounded security in this unending life (this point I learned from Todd Buras).

We can conclude from this that naturalism is false if we add the premises:

1. People have a natural desire for full human happiness.
2. What people have a natural desire for is possible.
3. If naturalism is true, then it is not possible to have well-grounded security in unending life.

One might think this argument can be simplified by arguing that if naturalism is true, unending life is impossible. But if the universe goes on expanding forever and quantum indeterminism holds, unending life is not impossible, just highly improbable (it gets less and less probable as the universe gets colder and colder). But such an unending life is insecure because of the improbability of its continuation.

New blog on abortion

Here is a new blog on abortion, by a physician and a friend of mine.