flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (06/04/84)
>>Admittedly off the subject, but it connects with the problem of evil: >>this is exactly the way that many think that humans should have been >>created, if God is indeed good. One often sees this state [where you >>voluntarily choose the optimal course for your life] denigrated by >>Christians who want to weasel out of the problem of evil as that of being >>a "mere automaton" (and thus for some reason not capable of "true" >>worship, love, etc., so that God creates humans that will mostly fry >>instead). So, why aren't humans created that way in the first place? >> James Jones A good question, and the point can be strengthened too. It might seem that the question has a simple answer: humans aren't created that way (whatever way would make them voluntarily choose good) because they can't be. The stipulation that the choice is voluntary contradicts the idea that they are created in a way that makes them choose good. In short, we have freedom VS determinism, and we aren't created that way because we are made free. This simple answer won't work: the alleged contradiction is absent. There is no opposition between freedom and determinism; between being made good and being made free. Agency is simply the ability to conceive of a norm of action and to guide one's action by it; freedom is the possession and exercise of an optimal degree of such capacity. A free being is one that evaluates its action according to a best justified, consistent set of norms. (I owe these points to Chin-Tai Kim, "Norms and Freedom", *Philosophical Forum* 198(3?).) Being made good would make us more free, not less. The question why we aren't created that way comes back with full force. There is evil in the world: this is a fact of our daily experience with which any Theology must deal. Appeals to free will do not explain this fact, even if one ignores the (less obvious, but still real) fact that not all evil in the world can be attributed to human agents. We still need an explanation for why we aren't created good. Free will is a red herring. The aspiring iconoclast, --Paul Torek, umcp-cs!flink
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (06/04/84)
The reason human beings don't "always do the good thing" is because our behavior is determined by our chemical makeup. Since we evolved from so-called lower animals, we continue to have chemical running through our body that result in "animal" behavior (behavior that enables animals to survive in the "wild"). No one ever asked a carnivorous animal whether it was being "good" or "evil" when it slaughtered another animal in combat. ("How horrible! That great big whatever just killed that extremely cute little whatsit and now it's going to eat it! How cruel!") Kind of strange to try to impose such "good" and "evil" constructs on animals. In human beings, the notion of good (vs. evil) has always depended on who you were talking to when. With our more complex brains, we invent the notion that good is 1) that which pleases me as opposed to causing me harm, 2) [as humans grouped together] that which is beneficial to members of this group as a whole, 3) [eventually] that which is beneficial to a given person without causing harm to another person. (Given the nature of things, one realizes that one cannot find absolute "good" and "evil" in the real world [unless you subscribe to unilateral imposition theories], so you attempt to work it out as best you can.) One nice thing about these more complex brains we have, is that they provide for the development of these sorts of societal constructs, and that they can help us to make a logical determination (or sometimes an illogical one, if you get the wrong info) as to what behavior patterns are worth following. We'll continue to exhibit "animal behavior" as long as we continue to occupy animal bodies, but it's nice to know that we have the intelligence to engage in logical behavior patterning (in some cases called "postponement of gratification", perhaps the first symptom of real intelligent behavior). If only such thinking were applied by more people in more areas of living. -- You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr