tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post8718516555565916055..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: Must Goodness be Independent of God? (Part 3): Alston and the Divine Metre StickJohn Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-24013352248427502542010-05-23T19:54:01.597+01:002010-05-23T19:54:01.597+01:00Bogdan,
No, I'm not saying they don't exi...Bogdan,<br /><br />No, I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm saying that they exist as non-natural (Platonic) entities. That is to say, they cannot be reduced to physical or natural entities. Sure, there are physical objects that resemble or approximate triangles, but the actual state of "trianglehood" exists in a non-natural realm.<br /><br />I wouldn't dare to suggest that this is an uncontroversial theory of mathematical (in this case, geometrical) ontology, but it is a plausible theory nonetheless.<br /><br />What I am suggesting in the post with this triangle-analogy is that moral properties do not need to have a naturalistic or divine metaphysical foundation. They can exist independently in a brute manner. See the post on Wielenberg's non-natural non-theistic moral realism for more on this idea.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-5511402068783558732010-05-23T18:34:30.882+01:002010-05-23T18:34:30.882+01:00John,
you said: "we frequently use Platonic p...John,<br />you said: "we frequently use Platonic properties - e.g. trianglehood - for pragmatic reasons without labouring under the misapprehension that triangles actually exist in the physical world"<br /><br />Could you please expand on this a bit? Are you saying triangles don't exist?Bogdanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15449119709471870254noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-8890444845217532122010-04-11T19:32:45.758+01:002010-04-11T19:32:45.758+01:00So, I think I agree. In most circumstances where w...So, I think I agree. In most circumstances where we use paradigm cases to define certain predicates end up talking about Platonic properties (or at least very close to Platonic properties). <br /><br />Morriston actually does talk about this a little bit in the article I was summarising. He seems to be aware that the way we define "metre" (or "meter") is more complicated than Alston seems to realise (I may be doing a disservice to Alston there since I have not read the original article).<br /><br />A good example of how we use paradigms for Platonic properties can be seen in one of Daniel Dennett's talks on evolution. At the end of it he goes tells the story of the "straight edge". Worth checking out if you have the time. <br /><br />Re: sovereignty. If you say God can do all possible things, and that morality can only possible be one way then I am not sure how God is "sovereign" over the domain of moral truth.<br /><br />The problem, I think, is this: some theists want it to be the case that morality is impossible without God. In other words, they want Divine Command Theory to be the only coherent metaethical position. But if Ockhamism is undesirable, then morality simply has to be independent of God's will (determined by some Platonic property of goodness that is instantiated in his being). And if it is independent of God's will, then it is not "up to him" to determine what is right or wrong.<br /><br />I'm unlikely to do anything on Kuhn in the near future. Sorry. Will do some more stuff on philosophy of science, but I am more likely to focus on causation and experimental methodologies since I am interested in that kind of thing at the moment. <br /><br />I did study Kuhn and the whole postmodernist sociology of science debate a few years back. The general consensus appears to be that Kuhn was less radical than those who (over)interpreted the significance of his work.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-33315795853903383722010-04-10T03:06:41.845+01:002010-04-10T03:06:41.845+01:00Also, any chance you'll do some stuff on Kuhn?...Also, any chance you'll do some stuff on Kuhn? I don't know if that is your interest, but I am interested in the tension between paradigm shifts on the one hand, and the notion that science does make forward progress on the other. And at least according to Reddit, there is a quote out there that Kuhn did believe in something like true forward progress.<br /><br />Consider it a request, at least.josefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06650991894634101445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-89250177364948938702010-04-10T02:21:28.048+01:002010-04-10T02:21:28.048+01:00I'm skeptical of the idea that anything superv...I'm skeptical of the idea that anything supervenes on anything else without in an important sense being identical to what it supervenes upon.<br /><br />For me the painting metaphor is tough because I think the aesthetic qualities probably supervene on certain brain states and that the only thing objective about the aesthetic quality of a painting is that it contains within it the possibility of provoking certain cognitive reactions and excluding others.<br /><br />I bring that up because I think the "aesthetic qualities supervening on paintings" is a metaphor that benefits Alston's argument because it may encourage a perspective on supervenience that I disagree with.<br /><br />If I'm right, then goodliness and godliness still aren't that different and this is indeed similar to a form of platonism (which is supposed to be bad).<br /><br />As for paradigm cases...<br /><br />My college physics book tells me that France in 1799 legally defined the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole. And that this was abandoned for not being precise enough as science advanced. Then the meter was defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange-red light emitted from a krypton-86 lamp. Then it was the distance traveled by light in 1/299,792,458 seconds. And then there's the platinum-iridium bar.<br /><br />It seems like a paradigmatic grounding of what is a platonic concept. And we just swap out paradigms when we judged them to be insufficient standard bearers for our platonic conception of what was being measured, because we don't 'really' want to commit to platonism.<br /><br />So if a paradigm has some sort of shadow-platonism lurking in it, it is not the paradigm we care about but what we strive to encapsulate with it. Or, as it relates to Alston's argument, this would indeed show that God was good according to some standard outside himself. While I think that's possible in principle, it doesn't appear to be the case here.<br /><br />I don't think the arbitrary choice of a paradigm is necessarily a problem, as long as you don't accept that there was any "choice" being made. To say that there was a "choice" to be made, and to insist the choice must not be arbitrary, you have to say there are some sort of standards by which to judge the choice. If that's true, there is some standard of good outside god. So it seems like Alston concedes everything by appealing to maximality.<br /><br />One could get out of that by asserting that we have to accept the paradigm for its own sake and that's that. There was no real "choice" at all, the paradigm is the paradigm (but this sounds utterly platonistic). <br /><br />This would be akin to saying there is something intrinsically good about knowing the relationship between a bar of platinum-iridium and all manner of objects we compare to it in the language of meters, irrespective of any platonic concept of distance. I find this at least conceivable, but that would be flagrant platonism.<br /><br />Regarding divine sovereignty, couldn't Craig/Alston reply the same way that Aquinas did in response to the omnipotence paradox? Since morality is in some sense "grounded in" God's nature, it is simply not possible that morality could be other than it is, and God's sovereignty consists in his being able to do all <i>possible</i> things.josefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06650991894634101445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-25852715601177288742010-04-10T01:42:17.213+01:002010-04-10T01:42:17.213+01:00What a treat! You're providing excellent expos...What a treat! You're providing excellent expositions of the most important recent work in philosophy of religion. Keep up the good work!exapologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09915579495149582531noreply@blogger.com