Whither virtue?
I’ve been pondering (off and on, mostly off) this question of suffering and compassion – this idea that you can’t have one without the other, or that the one makes the other worthwhile, or acceptable, or the world that includes it more attractive. Swinburne said, as we saw:
Theodicy provides good explanations of why God sometimes – for some or all of the short period of our earthly lives – allows us to suffer pain and disability. Although intrinsically bad states, these difficult times often serve good purposes for the sufferers and for others. My suffering provides me with the opportunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the opportunity to show sympathy and to help alleviate my suffering…Although a good God regrets our suffering, his greatest concern is surely that each of us shall show patience, sympathy and generosity and, thereby, form a holy character.
As noted before, I think that’s disgusting, but it’s also true that I see what he’s getting at, especially in the last sentence. But that’s the part I want to question, and perhaps object to. The traditional theodicy view, if you like: that god wants us to have free will and wants us to have (meaningful, free) good (or holy) characters, which will include such virtues as patience and compassion and generosity, and that therefore suffering is necessary.
But the trouble with that is that, if there were no suffering, would patience and compassion and generosity be virtues? Would they be part of a holy or good character? We think they would, of course; we think they are intrinsically good, and attractive; but if we didn’t need them, would they be? I’m not sure they would. If there were no suffering, which would include hunger and deprivation of all kinds, then what would patience and compassion and generosity even be? What would they even mean? We wouldn’t need them, we’d have no use for them, they wouldn’t even have a context that would make them meaningful. Which sounds horrible – a world where we couldn’t be good in ways that we recognize, where there would be no scope for active energetic effortful goodness, sounds like an appalling flat affectless world, a world of cardboard dolls. But then – that’s because this is the one we know, so we’re conditioned to need it and expect it. We do have suffering and deprivation, so we do consider patience and compassion and generosity to be virtues. But if we didn’t, we wouldn’t. Which amounts to saying we would be completely different kinds of entities, and can’t even really imagine what goodness and badness would be in such a world. But that’s just it. What Swinburne is talking about is a very human idea of what a good or holy character is, because it’s one that matches up with our needs and lacks and all-too-familiar miseries. But why assume that if there is a god, that is god’s idea of a good character? What if god has a quite different idea of good character, one that we wouldn’t even recognize or understand, and one that doesn’t depend on suffering to make it either meaningful or possible?
In fact most of our virtues, perhaps all of them, depend on our mortality and other limitations. They wouldn’t be virtues if we weren’t fragile and needy. Courage, kindness, dedication, loyalty – we wouldn’t need them, so wouldn’t see them as virtues.
That’s another objection I have to Swinburne’s take – it’s just too local, too limited. I think it’s more interesting to try to figure out if there are any virtues that don’t depend on our condition, that really are inherent goods, even if we don’t need them. I can’t say I’ve been able to think of any. If there aren’t, we’re left with a circle, it seems to me. We have to have suffering so that people will be compassionate, but we wouldn’t need or even like compassion if we didn’t suffer, so why do we have to have suffering so that people will be compassionate if we wouldn’t want compassion if we didn’t suffer? I can’t say I can see why.
I have the same problems with the pointlessness of goodness in the abstract, so I’ve tried to imagine what kind of benevolent god would be compatible with our current scientific understanding of how the universe works.
There’s no reason to make life, so I can only imagine a benevolent god with an irrational urge to create life and an irrational instinct to spread goodness. A good god who creates a universe where evil exists isn’t omnipotent.If she has infinite power to create goodness,why create creatures in a deterministic universe who end up doing evil?If a compassionate, life-loving god were all-powerful then why isn’t everything in its final form straight away? Why use evolution to get things running? Why is there so much wasted space? She would have to be a demiurge working with materials not of her own choosing, or a benevolent deity working against a malevolent one in a Manichean cosmos. But why stop at two? Perhaps a polytheistic universe,the physical laws of which were the outcome of many rival powers with different agendas.
I suppose I’m inventing a powerful being rather than a proper deity. But it’s the only hypothetical deity I could get along with.
(Repeat)
God is in charge, and deliberately allows people to suffer and die horribly.
Therfore god is a nasty little shit whom I want nothing to do with.
Thus,if you are going to believe in a god at all, this leads directly to eithe Manichaenism, or Gnosticism.
Both of which are regarded as dangerous heresies by all the mainstream churches.
Oops.
OK, I’m a heretic. This is just a thought-experiment. I’m just wondering if it’s coherent.
It’s very coherent, and lends itself best to exploitation for comic effect — see Terry Pratchett. Its the monotheistic view that makes no sense. I recall an argument somewhere [in connection with gnosticism] that whenever the early church split over a doctrine, the powers-that-be went with the one that made least sense, and required most intellectual gymnastics to account for [e.g. the whole ‘Trinity’ thing, and the counter to the Arians and Socinians that Jesus is neither wholly God, nor wholly Man, but equally and totally both at the same time…], and did so in order to make it difficult to argue against them — disagreement, apart from bringing on the whole ‘burning at the stake’ thing, could also always be dismissed as the incomprehension of the insufficiently mentally able…
I wonder what God had in mind for Ted Haggard. Poor chap’s gay. Suffer the little rent boys to come over me. Interesting clip at http://www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk/?p=606 of a bit from the Dawkins prog in which he came face to face with Haggard. It’s taken from YouTube and lasts about five mins.
I think my favourite line in this whole Haggard affair so far has been:
“We all hoped that they were all lies,” said church member Christine Rayes, 47. “We all have to move forward now. This doesn’t make what Ted accomplished here any less. The farther up you are, the more you are a target for Satan.”
“disagreement, apart from bringing on the whole ‘burning at the stake’ thing, could also always be dismissed as the incomprehension of the insufficiently mentally able…”
That’s very interesting. Sheds a whole new light on Tertullian and the ‘credo quia absurdum’ line. Cf Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘I love to lose myself in an “O altitudo”‘ – which somehow I’ve always liked, even though in reality it’s a terrible idea.
“a bit from the Dawkins prog”
Ya, I’ve had that bit in mind ever since the story broke. Mind you, that’s the only time I’ve ever seen Haggard. Ridiculous fella.
Based on the little that I know, I’m sympathetic to the Socinian idea of an “evolving” God whose omnipotence and omniscience is restricted. In terms of theodicy, I think that idea is more fruitful than Swinburne’s attempt to combine the existence of evil with a wholly omnipotent God.
So if there’s a god with limited power and knowledge (you can’t really have restricted omnipotence and omniscience, surely – that’s a contradiction in terms), what’s it for? What does it do? What purpose does it serve? Is it just something like humans but a step up?
“They wouldn’t be virtues if we weren’t fragile and needy.”
I am reminded of the relationship between need and value when considering that our most vital life saving commodity is in fact normally free, unless you happen to be a diver, alpinist or high flyer. That doesn’t make it valueless. But it might make my offering you some fresh air superfluous and therefore not a virtuous act. You are right, in a land of milk and honey, who needs virtue, unless too much of a good thing is better than just enough.
A conclusion I could draw from Swinburne is that life itself, (not the afterlife), is the ultimate good, thus even a wretched life is preferable to nonexistence (so that some good remains in the non-suffering bit, not actually in the suffering itself, though this can facilitate opportunity for compassion etc).
I suspect it might be argued from there that if there can be genorosity in the rich man’s club and there can even be genorosity between academics, where no one is hungry or needy in the most basic senses, surely anywhere short of immortality, there will be a place for the virtues you describe, increasingly being good in themselves (though never absolutely). So maybe it is a spiral and not a circle? Also I think you need to start with suffering followed by compassion, never the other way about.
“unless too much of a good thing is better than just enough.”
Except that the question is whether in those circumstances it is a good thing at all. Don’t get me wrong – I’m just as convinced as anyone else that it is a good thing – but I also can’t help thinking it is a good thing for us, because of our situation. I can’t figure out what compassion would even be, or mean, if there were no suffering. And I don’t think it is a good thing even if not needed. Surely we all know that – it’s well known that pity is often resented. It’s not clear what the difference is between pity and compassion – except that pity is more pejorative; so pity just means compassion that is resented. But isn’t all compassion that’s not needed, resented? Picture yourself sitting on a mountainside terrace enjoying the view eating a chocolate bar feeling as happy as possible. Do you want someone to sit down next to you and say damply ‘Are you all right?’
“surely anywhere short of immortality”
But that’s my point. Of course, anywhere short of mortality, but that’s the point. Compassion is a virtue to us precisely because we are mortal and we do suffer. But Swinburne’s claim is that compassion is a good thing in itself, a good thing that makes suffering worth the price, because it produces compassion. But it seems to me that that doesn’t work, because if we didn’t suffer, we wouldn’t think compassion was a good thing. So no, I don’t think it is a spiral not a circle.
“Also I think you need to start with suffering followed by compassion, never the other way about.”
But that’s my point, again. Of course that’s the normal way, the usual way, the familiar way – but that’s just the point. The idea needs to be defamiliarized. Once it’s defamiliarized, the idea looks less convincing (at least I think so). And surely the idea that we have to start with suffering is precisely why Swinburne’s claim is circular.
“Do you want someone to sit down next to you and say damply ‘Are you all right?'”
actually that could depend on the someone! In human relationships perhaps you can have too much of a good thing – isn’t that part of what unconditional love is? Which is where I see a spiral as I don’t think you ever come around to exactly where you were before, if there can be net balance of good.
If suffering is a degree of death, and if death is inevitable and the extinction of what is good in a life, its staving off could be adding to that good.
Argh – well nailed. I meant to say ‘a stranger’ – for precisely that reason. (Because affection complicates the issue, and it’s the compassion I want to isolate.)
“If suffering is a degree of death, and if death is inevitable and the extinction of what is good in a life, its staving off could be adding to that good.”
Of course. But all this is about us – mortal beings who suffer. But that’s just why it is circular. (It’s not circular as an experience in real life, but it is circular [it seems to me] as an argument; as Swinburne’s argument.)
interesting whether real affection can be distinguished from compassion entirely, I’m not sure it can. Which is why you probably can have a surplus of the good over the ill it would otherwise only ever just cancel out -that seems a particularly gloomy view of life! Actually I had briefly imagined that being a complete stranger on the mountain terrace!
OB – So if there’s a god with limited power and knowledge (you can’t really have restricted omnipotence and omniscience, surely – that’s a contradiction in terms), what’s it for? What does it do? What purpose does it serve? Is it just something like humans but a step up?
It’s a contradiction in terms, but I think it nevertheless is more clarifying than ‘limited power and knowledge’ – what I am thinking of is a kind of Deity who is barred from e.g. knowing the future in an indeterministic universe beyond perhaps probabilities, and barred from forcible intervention in natural processes as well as human action. Such a Deity could, nonetheless, still be the ’cause’ of the cosmos, and transcend it. So it wouldn’t be just a step up from humans.
charlie, why do you think affection can’t be distinguished from compassion? I think we can. (Affection is something that still makes sense in a world without suffering, whereas compassion seems not to. There’s one distinction right there.)
I said real affection can’t be distinguished from compassion entirely as wouldn’t human affection normally include some empathy? In this world without suffering or our being ‘fragile and needy’, what need of reproduction and companionship so any affection would be inanimate and trivial.
Hmm. I don’t think human affection necessarily includes some empathy – especially not in the sense of being indistinguishable. I think we mean different things by them, so they can be distinguished. (It may be hard to separate them – but that’s a little different.)
I was trying to figure out that question about need and affection, though, awhile ago. But I think it’s possible to imagine a world where we don’t lack anything but we still enjoy a variety of things; in that case affection would be possible. But it sounds like a horrible flat world, just the same – inanimate and trivial, as you say. But then, that’s because it sounds inhuman, and we’re human. Anything that alien is bound to sound horrible in one way or another. Which I think is interesting. (There’s also the likelihood that it would sound a great deal less horrible if we were for instance in Darfur, or Congo, or Zimbabwe, or southern Afghanistan, or Baghdad. It would probably sound blissful.)
The sentence fragment “… a good God regrets …” already contains a contradiction (oxymoron?). No need to analyse further to determine the validity of the proposition.
A world where we couldn’t be good in ways that we recognize, where there would be no scope for active energetic effortful goodness, sounds like an appalling flat affectless world, a world of cardboard dolls.
[dons Cynical Right Wing Bastard’s hat]
Speak for yourself, Ophelia – if such an ‘affectless’ world gave me more time to indulge in armchair philosophy and riding my racing bicycle, I would have no problem with it. Pursuing active energetic effortful goodness just isn’t in my genes. Let them eat cake – it’s not my fault the poor unfortunate wankers don’t know how to use a condom, etc. etc.
But even if such a world were indeed as horrible as you imagine, wouldn’t a world in which virtue is purely instrumental – Swinburne’s world –be even more horrible still? In Swinburne’s theodicy, the exercise of virtue is basically a means towards an end – namely salvation of the soul so as to have an opportunity to adore the Great Director of the Universe for all eternity.
One might argue that Swinburne’s ‘holy character’ is an otherworldly opportunist awaiting posthumous returns for her earthly investments in good works – a smooth operator, a smart aleck, a utility maximizer with a halo round her head and rosary beads in her hands.
No thanks.
You know, all this discussion assumes that God has free will… That seems a mighty big assumption.
Sans a concrete world, God exists only as a knowledge of possibilities: being omniscient, Ve knows all that could ever be – but God’s knowledge is static: without a universe, Ve has no time; without time, Ve cannot reason: Ve has no awareness. Without undertaking the act of creation, knowledge is all God is. Every possibility is equally real, and none is, for no potential action ever takes place.
The only way for God’s knowledge to acquire meaning is for Ver to create.
Thus God creates: with full knowledge but no understanding. With the onset of time, God brings Verself to full existence – and in this sense, the universe is God personified. But simultaneously awareness srikes Ver; Ve no longer knows merely all possibilities, Ve knows precisely what the imports of Ver act of creation will be.
Only with creation does God become aware, thus God cannot be said to have a ‘purpose’ in creation any more than we have a ‘purpose’ in being. We are born: God creates.
Meaning, purpose… these come after.
Does God have free will? Do we?
I can’t see such affection not having an element of compassion and/or empathy. It is part of the way we are. So your hypothesis generally is to ask would things be different if we were fundamentally different. The answer I will presume to be a yes. Whether there can be any good surplus over bad, I would certainly like to hope so, even if it part of our dilusional tendency, or optimism.
I find outeast’s theology/thodicy interesting.
There is also the Gnostic heresy: God is a fallen “fragment” of a transcendent spirit/God. As a flawed fragment, the world he creates is itself flawed/filled with pain (Note: a very crude description of Gnosticism, but it still answers the question of evil better in my poorly educated mind than conventional theology)