Why God is probably good: a response to the evil-god challenge

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
CALUM MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Good And Evil

AbstractA number of philosophers have recently defended the evil-god challenge, which is to explain relevant asymmetries between believing in a perfectly good God and believing in a perfectly evil god, such that the former is more reasonable than the latter. In this article, I offer a number of such reasons. I first suggest that certain conceptions of the ontology of good and evil can offer asymmetries which make theism a simpler hypothesis than ‘maltheism’. I then argue that maltheism is itself complex in a variety of ways: it is difficult to articulate a simple precise version of maltheism; maltheism posits a mixture of positive and negative properties; maltheism posits a more complex relationship between moral motivation, practical reason and action; and maltheism relevantly parallels other epistemically ‘complex’ sceptical scenarios.

Kant's Account of Motivation: A Sartrean Response to Some Hegelian Objections

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (01) ◽  
pp. 86-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sorin Baiasu
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Rational Person ◽  
Good Will ◽  
Habitual Responses ◽  
Acting From Duty

Ethical motivation represents an important aspect of Kant's practical philosophy, one without which much of Kant's distinctive position would be lost. Not surprisingly, it is also one of those aspects of Kantianism to which Hegelian criticism directs its focus with predilection. Central to Kant's account of moral motivation is the distinction between acting merely in accordance with duty and acting from duty. When he introduces this distinction, in the Groundwork, Kant also points to the epistemic difficulties of properly drawing the distinction. A key concept here is, without any doubt, that of duty, and Kant begins with a preliminary definition: the notion of duty is a notion ‘which contains that of a good will though under certain subjective limitations and hindrances’ (G: 4: 397). What this definition tells us is that, although beings which are only governed by practical reason without any admixture of inclinations and sensuous drives, that is, purely rational beings, will also have a good will, such beings do not have duties precisely because they lack the ‘subjective limitations and hindrances’ of sensuous motivating forces, such as desires, passions, habitual responses. If a person spontaneously and necessarily acts as duty requires, then it does not make sense to talk about an obligation for this person to act as duty requires. Such a person must be a purely rational person, since only she can always and necessarily act as (practical) reason requires. By contrast, beings with limitations and hindrances, like us, act spontaneously and necessarily as natural laws require and, hence, it does not make sense to talk about our obligation or duty to observe the laws of nature.

Schiller's Critique of Kant's Moral Psychology: Reconciling Practical Reason and an Ethics of Virtue

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Friedrich Schiller ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Kantian Morality ◽  
Kantian Moral Theory

Mention of the name of Friedrich Schiller among both critics and defenders of Kant's moral philosophy has most often been with reference to the well known quip:“Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure.Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person.““Sure, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely,And then with aversion to do what your duty enjoins you.''This attention, however, has served to obscure the fact that Schiller truly intended his remark as a joke, representing a serious, if understandable, misinterpretation of Kantian morality. Though Schiller's various attempts to articulate a theory of moral motivation include important divergences from Kant's account, they represent a response to a set of problems that arise in the context of Kantian moral theory. As such, they may be of greatest interest to moralists who are working within the Kantian tradition. In this paper, I clarify certain points of Schiller's critique of Kant's account of moral motivation and place them in the context of his broader project of reconciling Kantianism and an ethics of virtue.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 108-112
Author(s):  
Craig A. Boyd ◽  
Kevin Timpe
Keyword(s):  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Moral Sentiment ◽  
The People ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Genealogy Of Morals

This concluding chapter highlights some criticisms of the virtues. David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche both challenged the traditional construal of the virtues and their role. Hume’s approach to morality was based upon ‘moral sentiment’ where moral feelings were central to one’s deliberation about ethics and so one’s practical reason was simply a means to best secure the satisfaction of one’s various desires. Nietzsche argues that the traditional virtues are merely terms used and cultivated by the weak to control the strong. He draws up a ‘genealogy of morals’ and concludes that terms like ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have no real meaning apart from self-descriptions of the people who employ them.

Moral motivation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Jay Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
History Of Ethics ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

Questions about the possibility and nature of moral motivation occupy a central place in the history of ethics. Philosophers disagree, however, about the role that motivational investigations should play within the larger subject of ethical theory. These disagreements surface in the dispute about whether moral thought is necessarily motivating – ‘internalists’ affirming that it is,‘externalists’ denying this. The disagreement between externalists and internalists reflects a basic difference in how the subject matter of ethics is conceived: externalism goes with the view that ethics is primarily about the truth of theories, construed as sets of propositions, while internalists see morality as a set of principles meant to guide the practical deliberations of individual agents. Internalists interpret questions of objectivity in ethics as questions of practical reason, about the authority of moral principles to regulate our activities. Here controversy has centred on whether the authority of practical principles for a given agent must be grounded in that agent’s antecedent desires, or whether, instead, practical reason can give rise to new motivations. There are also important questions about the content of moral motivations. A moral theory should help us to make sense of the fact that people are often moved to do the right thing, by identifying a basic motive to moral behaviour that is both widespread and intelligible, as a serious source of reasons. Philosophers have accounted for moral motivation in terms of self-interest, sympathy, and a higher-order concern to act in accordance with moral principles. But each of these approaches faces difficult challenges. Can egoistic accounts capture the distinctive character of moral motivation? Can impartial sympathy be integrated within a realistic system of human ends? Can we make sense of responsiveness to moral principle, as a natural human incentive?

Cosmopolitan Wisdom and the Enactment of Moral Intelligibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-290
Author(s):  
Philip J. Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
World Order ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Outer World ◽  
The World ◽  
Good And Evil

Abstract Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy pays little explicit attention to the concept of ‘wisdom’ in its taxonomy of the functions of human reason in its work of rendering intelligible the world and the human place in the world. On the basis of some crucial texts in Kant’s writings, this essay argues that wisdom has a role to play in the task Kant assigns to practical reason; this task is to make the world in which humans dwell intelligible morally, i.e., to make sense of the world as locus in which good and evil take form in function of the exercise of human freedom. In such a world, the function of wisdom is ‘cosmopolitan’ in that it provides a horizon of a social hope that recognizes human solidarity, vulnerability, and otherness, as signal instances of the inclusive moral relationality necessary for sustaining both an ‘outer’ world order for peace and the ‘inner’ dynamic of full moral relationality that Kant terms ‘the ethical commonwealth’.

scholarly journals The Ashari Theological School and the Authority of Human Reason in Ethics

ICR Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-125
Author(s):  
Javad Fakhkhar Toosi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Independent Reason ◽  
Theological School ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The One ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Rational Reasoning

This article endeavours to show the compatibility of significant trends in the largest Islamic theological school, namely the Ashari, with the authority of reason in ethics. On the one hand, this authority requires reason to understand moral values while, on the other, proving that this authority does not conflict with the creation of actions by God. Asharism has accepted the ability of reason to understand moral values, while also accepting practical reason. Moral values and their antithesis are examples of good and evil and can be understood by rational reasoning. Nevertheless, Asharism also regards acts as the creation of God, yet without negating the ability of reason to understand good and evil. This article explains the differences between the Asharites and Mutazilites regarding the authority of independent reason in ethics. The negation of the ability of reason to discern God's acts and commands, thereby accepting the need for religion, has made the Asharite theological school unique. Accordingly, religion and reason are the two references in ethics within this school. This article concludes that the authority of reason is compatible with Asharism if we base our reading on the view of many prominent Ashari scholars. Furthermore, this foundation could be used to study the compatibility of Islam with modern ethical theories.

The Soul of Nietzsche'sBeyond Good and Evil

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maudemarie Clark ◽  
David Dudrick
Keyword(s):  
Good And Evil
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