Holy Cyclops

The background for this post appears here and here.

Chad McIntosh (of Doxazo Theos—see links) thinks that the problem with my second argument is that God’s foreknowledge isn’t necessary. He says that I’d be hard-pressed to find a theist who agreed that it was. But I was just reading Alvin Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity, and he argues for just that point—he thinks that in order for a possibly existing entity to count as God, it can’t be omniscient in one possible world but not in another, or omnipotent in one possible world but not in another, or morally perfect in one possible world but not in another. He thinks that God must be maximally great—i.e., maximally excellent in all possible worlds—necessarily maximally excellent. If foreknowledge is part of omniscience, then at least one prominent theist thinks it’s necessary.

Still, I agree that if it’s not necessary, then the second argument, in its short form, fails, since N(Kx) is a premiss of the short form; and I assume that Chad would say that the third premiss of the second argument in its long form, N(Kx) v N(K(~x)), was false, so that it, too, would fail. Denying the necessity of God’s foreknowledge is indeed a way of rendering the arguments unsound.

But I suspect that Chad has in mind not that God isn’t necessarily foreknowing, but rather that his foreknowledge is contingent rather than necessary—that whether God foreknows x or foreknows not-x depends on the agent S’s choice, and is not “written in metaphysical stone” independent of S’s choosing. It is not God’s foreknowing that is contingent; it is what God foreknows that is contingent. And that’s how N(Kx) is false: it’s not N(K(something)) that’s false, but rather N(K(specifically x)) that’s false. Chad might then agree to the truth of N(Kx v ~Kx) but not to N(Kx) v N(K(~x)).

(Chad also notes that God needn’t be foreknowing because there are possible worlds in which, for example, God has not created time; but I am restricting myself to consideration of all possible worlds in which there are human beings making choices. The notion of necessity involved will then be one of relative necessity—necessity relative to a restricted class of possible worlds. Since the class of possible worlds in which there are human beings making choices is exactly the class in which freedom matters, necessity relative to this class seems strong enough to be opposed to freedom.)

I agree with Chad when he writes, “Were S to refrain from x and performed [sic] y instead, God’s foreknowledge would have been different.” I have, in fact, written a defense of that very view here.

What I don’t yet agree with is the necessity of deriving Nx (or Nx v N(~x)). Looking at the first argument I gave:

1. N(Kx—>x) (Premiss—to know that x will occur at t requires that x will occur at t)
2. Kx—>x (1, modal axiom M [or T], i.e., Np—>p)
3. Kx (Premiss—it is known that x occurs at t [since God has complete foreknowledge])
4. x (2, 3, modus ponens)

It seems clear to me that in every possible world in which God foreknows that agent S will choose to perform x at t, agent S will in fact choose to perform x at t, and in every possible world in which God foreknows that agent S will choose to perform not-x at t, agent S will in fact choose to perform not-x at t; agent S’s choice of whether or not to perform x at t is fixed once God’s foreknowledge of which he will perform is fixed. The argument works just as well the other way, of course: Once S’s choice is fixed, so is God’s foreknowledge; and since the relevance of the argument is usually with respect to human freedom of choice, we naturally want to say that as a causal or compulsory matter, that is the way it really works—that God’s foreknowledge is like his looking through a time-telescope and seeing what will happen, rather than like his reaching out and forcing events to occur as they do; and I agree with that; but I do observe that as a strictly logical matter, God’s foreknowledge seems clearly to fix S’s choice. In no possible world can we have both Kx and ~x, and in no possible world can we have both K(~x) and x; what we have, for any possible world in which freedom is a live issue, is N([Kx^x] v [K(~x)^(~x)]). The two—God’s foreknowledge and S’s choice—logically fix each other. This isn’t causation or compulsion, but once you have one, you also have the other. If freedom is supposed to mean that at any time before the choice, the choice is not yet fixed, then this seems to defeat human freedom.

But the real problem with the view that it is S’s temporally later choice of x at time t that causes God’s temporally earlier foreknowledge that S will choose x at t comes about if one tries to combine it with the view that God can interact with the universe in any way whatsoever. If one allows God, who foreknows that agent S will choose to do x at t, to tell agent S beforehand of his future choice, there seems to be a problem: Why can’t agent S, having been informed of his future choice, now decide to behave contrarily and to do not-x at t? Obviously, he can’t so choose, for to do so would violate God’s foreknowledge; but how is he free if he can’t so choose? This argument has force even though Nx would normally be thought of as false. If choice x is the choice to put on a green shirt, we would normally think of it as entirely within S’s power to put on a green shirt and also entirely within his power to put on a blue shirt instead. Even if God foreknows that S will put on a green shirt, it may still be that what God foreknows is really that S will freely choose to put on a green shirt. But if God foreknows S’s choice and also tells S about it, why can’t S choose instead to put on a blue shirt, if he is still free? It seems that the sort of interaction that might lead to S’s choosing differently than foreknown is denied to a foreknowing God, if S is thought to remain free; and it seems that S loses his freedom if a foreknowing God does take part in such an interaction.

Perhaps I need to look around for some characterizations of freedom.

In a comment to my post What’s Wrong with Modal Ontological Arguments, Kenny mentioned the Moorean Shift.  I want to take a few moments to look at it.

The Moorean Shift takes an argument whose form is modus ponens and converts it into one whose form is modus tollens, shifting premiss and conclusion in the process.  Thus, the argument

1.  p—>q
2.  p
Therefore,
3.  q

one of whose premisses is p and whose conclusion is q, becomes the argument

1.  ~q—>~p
2.  ~q
Therefore,
3.  ~p

one of whose premisses is ~q and whose conclusion is ~p.

The idea is that while accepting the premiss p—>q (which is rewritten in its equivalent contrapositive form ~q—>~p), the person making the Moorean Shift finds ~q more likely than he finds p, so instead of arguing from p’s truth to q’s truth, he argues from q’s falsity to p’s falsity. 

I see nothing wrong with this approach.  When evaluating an argument’s soundness, we must evaluate the truth-values of its premisses.  If one finds q more likely to be false than p is to be true, then he will be more inclined to view the second argument as sound than the first one; conversely, if one finds p more likely to be true than q is to be false, then he will be more inclined to view the first argument as sound than the second one.

For example, one might argue

1v.  If tigers are vegetarians, then tigers do not eat meat
2v.  Tigers are vegetarians
Therefore,
3v.  Tigers do not eat meat

But, while accepting premiss (1v), one might think that premiss (2v) is simply not true, and that the argument is therefore unsound; and if he also thinks that the conclusion (3v) is true, he might construct the new argument

1c.  If tigers eat meat, then tigers are not vegetarians
2c.  Tigers eat meat
3c.  Tigers are not vegetarians

Naturally, one finds the second argument sound but the first one unsound.

The difficulty with the Moorean Shift isn’t the Shift itself, which is entirely legitimate, but rather a linguistic problem in Moore’s use of it against philosophical skepticism that has nothing intrinsically to do with the Shift.  The philosophical skeptic thinks that one cannot know that he isn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, or a brain in a vat, or otherwise deluded about what appears to be true.  G.E. Moore argued against philosophical skepticism by holding up his hand and saying, “Here is a hand before me,” and claiming that since he knew his hand was before him, he knew something about empirical reality, and therefore philosophical skepticism was defeated.  He argued, in other words, in the following way (see Wikipedia entry Here Is a Hand):

Let S be an epistemic agent; let p be some skeptical possibility, like S’s dreaming or hallucinating or being a brain in a vat; let q be a knowledge claim about the world, like S’s hand being held before him.  Then the philosophical skeptic argues that

1s.  If S doesn’t know that ~p, then S doesn’t know that q  (If S doesn’t know that he isn’t dreaming, then S doesn’t know putative fact q about the world—in particular, S doesn’t know that his hand is held out before him)
2s.  S doesn’t know that ~p  (S doesn’t know that he isn’t dreaming)
Therefore,
3s.  S doesn’t know that q  (S doesn’t know putative fact q about the world—in particular, S doesn’t know that his hand is held out before him)

and Moore replies

1m.  If S knows that q, then S knows that ~p  (If S knows putative fact q about the world—in particular, that his hand is held out before him—then S knows that he isn’t dreaming)
2m.  S knows that q  (S knows putative fact q about the world—in particular, that his hand is held out before him)
Therefore,
3m.  S knows that ~p  (S knows he isn’t dreaming)

Moore holds out his hand in front of him and says, “Here is a hand.”  Since, he thinks, he knows that there is a hand before him (”S knows that q”), he also knows that philosophical skepticism is false (”S knows that ~p”). 

Put this way, it seems that a simple linguistic or conceptual mistake is being made.  The philosophical skeptic says that if one cannot know that he is not, say, a brain in a vat (or some other skeptical possibility, like being a dreamer or a self-generator of the appearances), then he cannot know any empirical fact; and then claims that one cannot know that he is not, say, a brain in a vat; and therefore one cannot know any empirical fact.  Moore says that one can know an empirical fact, and therefore can know that the skeptical possibility is false; but the philosophical skeptic’s use of the word know and Moore’s use of the word know seem to differ.  The philosophical skeptic’s use of the word seems intended to imply complete and utter certainty, beyond Cartesian doubt.  Moore’s use of the word seems only intended to imply everyday certainty, beyond everyday doubt.  (We don’t, after all, walk around muttering to ourselves, “Is this really my hand before me?”) 

It would be hard to believe that an acknowledged great philosopher like Moore would have missed this, so perhaps we can read his Moorean Shift, as applied to the philosophical skeptic’s argument, differently.  Perhaps all he means is that he finds it more likely that the everyday assertion that there is a hand before him is true than that the pathological assertion that, say, he is a brain in a vat, is true, and that he therefore accepts (1m)-(3m) rather than (1s)-(3s).  Unfortunately, that just seems like another way of saying that his use of the word know doesn’t imply complete and utter certainty, beyond Cartesian doubt, but only implies everyday certainty rather than philosophical certainty.  Lots of philosophical skeptics, I’m sure, would also accept (1m)-(3m), on that same everyday use of the word know—philosophical skeptics don’t go around muttering to themselves, “Gee, I wonder if this is a hand before me,” in everyday life, either.  The philosophical skeptic’s argument is directed at the conceivability of Cartesian doubt—at the conceivability of our being brains in vats, for example—but I imagine that most philosophical skeptics would nevertheless endorse Moore’s argument for the everyday sense of know.  So, it still seems that Moore and the philosophical skeptic are simply not addressing the same point.  Moore seems not to be addressing Cartesian doubt at all. 

But the Moorean Shift remains a perfectly reasonable way of choosing among deductively valid arguments, since what one wants to accept are sound arguments, which involves assigning truth-values, or at least likely truth-values, to a valid argument’s premisses.  And that’s all the Moorean Shift does:  It says, “I find this premiss more likely than that one, and therefore find this argument more likely to be sound than that one.”

In The 70th Philosophers’ Carnival appears The Barefoot Bum’s analysis, here, of what goes wrong with Alvin Plantinga’s “Victorious” ontological argument for the existence of God. Since it’s something I’ve been looking at, I thought I’d take my own shot.

Plantinga’s argument takes differing forms.  For technical reasons, he puts it in terms of the exemplification of properties in possible worlds, rather than in terms of the existence of entities in possible worlds, and in its more detailed form, he puts it in terms of properties that entail other properties.  None of that will really affect my objections to the argument.  I’m going to present the simpler of the forms Plantinga presents in The Nature of Necessity.

Let maximal excellence (ME) be the property of being omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect—i.e., Godlike.

Let unsurpassable greatness (UG) be the property of necessary maximal excellence—of being maximally excellent in every possible world—of being Godlike in every possible world. 

Notice that in the widely accepted modal logic S5, which Plantinga uses, any statement that is necessarily true in one possible world is necessarily true in each possible world.  This is because if we had Np in world W[1] but ~Np in world W[2], we would have both P(Np) and P(~Np) (because truth in some possible world is what possibility means, in possible-worlds semantics)—but in S5, P(Np) collapses to Np and P(~Np)=P(P~p)=P~p=~Np, so we wind up with Np and ~Np, a contradiction.  In S5, a necessary truth in one possible world is a necessary truth in all other possible worlds, too.

Let a universal property be one which is instantiated in every possible world or in no possible world.  Note that UG is a universal property.  If UG is instantiated in any possible world, then N(ME) is instantiated in that possible world, so that N(ME) is instantiated in every possible world (because what is necessary is necessary in every possible world), so that UG is instantiated in every possible world.  Hence, either UG is instantiated in every possible world or in none of them.

1)  There is a possible world in which unsurpassable greatness is exemplified.     (Premiss)
2)  The proposition a thing has unsurpassable greatness if and only if it has maximal excellence in every possible world is necessarily true.    (Definition of UG)
3)  The proposition whatever has maximal excellence is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect is necessarily true.      (Definition of ME)
3a)  Unsurpassable greatness is a universal property.  (As noted above)
4)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is instantiated in every possible world.    (1,3a)
5)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is instantiated in the actual world.  (4, universal instantiation)

In more compressed form:

1.  P(UG)      (Premiss)
2.  In some possible world, UG.   (Definition of possibility in possible-world semantics)
2a.  UG is a universal property.   (As noted above)
3.  In every possible world, UG.     (1,2a)
4.  N(UG).      (Definition of necessity in possible-world semantics)

And any being possessing unsurpassable greatness in the actual world is clearly an actually existing God.  Q.E.D. 

What is wrong with the argument?  Well, perhaps nothing is really wrong with it; but it certainly doesn’t give any reason to believe in God.  When one defines UG=N(ME), and then uses the premiss P(UG), he is using the premiss P(N(ME)).  But if he is working in S5, in which P(N(ME))=N(ME), it’s hardly surprising that the assumption of the possibility of the exemplification of universal greatness gets him the existence of God.  Defining UG as N(ME) guarantees, as Plantinga well realizes, that UG is a universal property:  Either UG is exemplified in all possible worlds or in none of them.  P(UG) seems like a tempting premiss, because it’s easy to confuse logical or metaphysical possibility with epistemic possibility.  One might think, “Gee, all I have to assume is that UG’s exemplification is possible?  That’s not much to ask!”  But it is a lot to ask when UG is defined as N(ME).  If one instead assumed the possibility of UG’s non-exemplification, a “proof” of God’s nonexistence would follow:

1)  There is a possible world in which unsurpassable greatness is not exemplified.     (Premiss)
2)  The proposition a thing has unsurpassable greatness if and only if it has maximal excellence in every possible world is necessarily true.    (Definition of UG)
3)  The proposition whatever has maximal excellence is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect is necessarily true.      (Definition of ME)
3a)  Unsurpassable greatness is a universal property.  (As noted above)
4)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is not instantiated in any possible world.    (1,3a)
5)  Possesses unsurpassable greatness is not instantiated in the actual world.  (4, universal instantiation)

In more compressed form:

1.  P(~UG)      (Premiss)
2.  In some possible world, ~UG.   (Definition of possibility in possible-world semantics)
2a.  UG is a universal property.   (As noted above)
3.  In every possible world, ~UG.     (1,2a)
4.  N(~UG).      (Definition of necessity in possible-world semantics)

Therefore, an unsurpassably great being does not exist in any possible world, so there is no God.  (The conclusion that there is no God requires the ascription of unsurpassable greatness to God.  Without it, one simply has P(~N(ME))=P(P(~ME))=P(~ME), so that in some possible world there is no God, but might be one in the actual world.)

The use of unsurpassable greatness, defined as necessary maximal excellence, is a trick.  One might use it to “prove” the existence of unicorns.  Let maximal unicornness (MU) be the property of being one-horned, white, equine, and so on; let unsurpassable unicornness (UU) be the property of necessary maximal unicornness (UU=N(MU)).  Notice that UU, just like UG, is a universal property.  Then

1)  There is a possible world in which unsurpassable unicornness is exemplified.     (Premiss)
2)  The proposition a thing has unsurpassable unicornness if and only if it has maximal unicornness in every possible world is necessarily true.    (Definition of UU)
3)  The proposition whatever has maximal unicornness is one-horned, white, equine (and so on) is necessarily true.      (Definition of MU)
3a)  Unsurpassable unicornness is a universal property.  (As noted above)
4)  Possesses unsurpassable unicornness is instantiated in every possible world.    (1,3a)
5)  Possesses unsurpassable unicornness is instantiated in the actual world.  (4, universal instantiation)

In more compressed form:

1.  P(UU)      (Premiss)
2.  In some possible world, UU.   (Definition of possibility in possible-world semantics)
2a.  UU is a universal property.   (As noted above)
3.  In every possible world, UU.     (1,2a)
4.  N(UU).      (Definition of necessity in possible-world semantics)

And, therefore, unicorns exist. 

Well, obviously not.  The point is that one must have some reason, in Plantinga’s “proof,” to prefer P(UG) to P(~UG).  The two are jointly inconsistent, so you can’t have both.  But one cannot give any reason to prefer P(UG) that is independent of the conclusion that God exists.   So, even if the argument is valid—and the making of St. Anselm’s argument into a valid one is the reason for Plantinga’s labeling it “victorious”—we have no reason to think it is sound.  But more than that, we have no reason to accept its crucial premiss:  P(UG).  Plantinga seems to think that it is rational to accept that premiss, and therefore rational to accept the conclusion that God exists.  But since P(UG)<—>N(UG), it is precisely as rational to accept P(UG) as it is to accept N(UG); how rational can it be to accept N(UG) without reason?  I am not claiming that it is more rational to accept P(~UG); only that I can see no rational reason for accepting either P(UG) or P(~UG).

I was reading Alvin Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity yesterday, and he quoted and analyzed, in great detail, a couple of passages, one from William Kneale and one from W.V.O. Quine, whose quotation and analysis reminded me once again that professional philosophers sometimes make silly mistakes.

The discussion was about essential and accidental (necessary and contingent) properties.  Kneale’s anti-essentialist argument was, in my reconstruction from memory, that one couldn’t say that the number twelve was essentially composite, because surely it is only a contingent fact that the number of apostles was twelve, so the number of apostles couldn’t be essentially composite; but since the number of apostles and the number twelve are the same number, twelve can’t be essentially composite.

I’ve rendered it in more detail than he did in the quoted passage.  But one can easily see the mistake:  An equivocation on the meaning of “The number of apostles.”  Does “the number of apostles” mean “the actual number of apostles (i.e., twelve),” or does “the number of apostles” mean “the possible number of apostles (i.e., twelve or eleven or thirteen or…)”?  “The number of apostles” and “twelve” denote the same number only if “the number of apostles” is intended as “the actual number of apostles (i.e., twelve)”; if one intends “the number of apostles” as “the possible number of apostles (i.e., twelve or eleven or thirteen or…),” then one can no longer equate twelve with the number of apostles.  One may either say

1. Twelve is a composite number.
2. The (actual) number of apostles is twelve.
3. Therefore, the (actual) number of apostles is composite.

or

1. Twelve is a composite number.
2. The (possible) number of apostles might be twelve but might be some other number, like eleven or thirteen.
3. Therefore, the (possible) number of apostles might be composite but might not be.

In the first case, “the (actual) number of apostles” is a Kripkean “rigid designator,” if I’m remembering his terminology correctly, always equalling twelve and therefore always composite, just like twelve—rendering the argument against essentialism toothless.  In the second case, “the (possible) number of apostles” is a non-rigid designator, not always composite but also not always equalling twelve—again rendering the argument against essentialism toothless.  Only if one could argue that the number twelve had the kind of fluidity of designation that “the (possible) number of apostles” has could one go on to argue that twelve is not necessarily composite—but, of course, that can’t be done.

Quine’s argument, again in my reconstruction of it, was that whether or not a property is thought to be necessary depends on how we describe the property-bearer—that properties of objects are not essentially necessary or non-necessary but are, rather, only necessary or non-necessary relative to our descriptions of those objects.  His example is as follows:  We might normally say that, in some sense, mathematicians are necessarily rational but are not necessarily bipedal, and that cyclists are not necessarily rational but are necessarily bipedal.  (Let’s set aside any question about either the rationality of all mathematicians or the bipedality of all cyclists.)  But suppose a mathematician is also a cyclist.  Then are we to say that he is both necessarily rational and not necessarily bipedal and also not necessarily rational but necessarily bipedal—a contradiction (a pair of them, really)?  Our assessment changes with our change in description:  We say that the mathematician-cyclist is both necessarily rational and necessarily bipedal.

I’m sure I’m not rendering his argument as persuasively as he did, but its main point is the contradiction given.  Two points can be made about this:  First, it may be that saying that mathematicians are not necessarily bipedal, and that cyclists are not necessarily rational, is saying something too strong.  We do not know of all mathematicians that they are not necessarily bipedal; perhaps some of them (like the mathematician-cyclist) are necessarily bipedal, while others aren’t.  (Similarly for cyclists and the non-necessity of their being rational.)  What we can justifiably say is that mathematicians are necessarily rational and possibly bipedal (and similarly that cyclists are possibly rational and necessarily bipedal).  But then the contradiction vanishes:  The mathematician-cyclist is necessarily rational and possibly bipedal, and he is possibly rational and necessarily bipedal, and that doesn’t contradict his being necessarily rational and necessarily bipedal.  Second—and, in my view, the more important point, and the one that qualifies Quine’s argument for inclusion in a post entitled “Silly Philosophical Mistakes”—is that while it is true that we make our descriptions on the basis of what we know, or on the basis of our present interests or purposes, rather than on the basis of what is true, and that for that reason our ascriptions of modal status with respect to different properties will seem to vary according to our present interests and purposes—in contradiction to the essentialist view that necessary properties, at least, are essential to entities—it is nevertheless also true, in opposition to Quine, that while what we know of an object may change (so that we realize, when we learn that a mathematician is a cyclist, that he is not only necessarily rational, as we had thought, but that he is also necessarily bipedal), and that while our choice of description may vary according to our interests or purposes (so that we may know very well that a mathematician is also a cyclist but may or may not choose to ignore it for the moment, resulting in our sometimes describing the mathematician-cyclist as necessarily rational and possibly bipedal and in our sometimes describing the mathematician-cyclist as both necessarily rational and necessarily bipedal), neither our knowledge change nor our choice of description implies that what is true of the object changes or is somehow malleable.  At best, Quine’s is an argument for description-relativism; it isn’t, as he appears to want it to be, an argument for fact-relativism (or for relativism of modal facts to description).  (Even if Quine thinks that we know the facts about objects, that simply means that a description of the object that expresses those facts must be complete in order to capture all of those facts—an incomplete description, chosen for our own reasons, might fail to capture all of those facts.)   

I would like to think that I live in the best country in the world—the country where everyone else would like to live—the country with the highest standard of living, the fairest courts, the most just laws, the best form of government, the most enlightened populace, the best economic and social system to ensure not only prosperity but also social welfare.  I would like to think that.

I don’t expect perfection.  Really, I don’t.

But when I realize that I live in the only major industrialized nation that lacks guaranteed health care for everyone; when I realize that I live in a nation that restricts not only how many people one may marry but also whom; when I realize that I live in a nation that elected a man who deliberately ignores the scientific consensus on global warming president not once but twice; when I realize that I live in a country whose system encourages the working of overtime and the buying of completely unneeded goods while at the same time permitting some children to go to school in buildings that are falling apart; when I realize that I live in a nation whose mass media seem to care more about a presidential candidate’s preacher than about his political record; when I realize that I live in a country where the death sentence is still allowed; when I realize that European countries seem to care more about the quality of life than the United States does; well, my assessment of this “best country in the world” is tarnished.

And when I then read an article like the one in the May twenty-sixth Newsweek about the protests and resignations not of defense attorneys but of prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay—well, should I be pleased that some people are speaking up and refusing to use coerced confessions or to allow their integrity to be compromised, or should I despair because their superiors are trying to get them to do so?  It isn’t just President Bush.  It’s a subculture that says that it’s somehow OK to capture, imprison indefinitely, torture, prosecute on the basis of coerced confessions, convict, and quite happily execute people.  These are human beings, and it is not all right to deny them due process; these are human beings, and it is not all right to mistreat them, or to let their mistreatment go on for months and years.  The dearth of actual charges brought and cases tried should tell us that we’re not dealing with obviously guilty terrorists; as Newsweek puts it, “From the start, [Air Force lawyer Lt. Col. Robert] Preston says, there was a gap between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s public portrayal of the Guantanamo detainees as the ‘worst of the worst’ and the evidence contained in the files.  Most of the detainees appeared to be low-level Qaeda and Taliban suspects whose prosecution for anything substantial would prove difficult.”  Even if we were, they would still be human beings, and human beings should be treated fairly and decently, whether we like them or not.  Even if they were obviously guilty terrorists, they’re in custody, and once in custody cannot harm us; what is the excuse for our harming them?  We reduce ourselves in so doing to the level of barbarians, who have no sense of compassion for their enemies and who have no sense of decency toward their fellow human beings and who certainly have no sense of due process. 

The entire military-commission system was badly flawed from the start.  It was an excuse to ignore the legal and human rights of detainees, which is simply wrong.  And it’s a horrible idea to show other countries how fair and just the United States is by denying detainees the very rights we publicly tout.  How can we possibly expect other countries to institute the sorts of procedural protections we say we want them to if we don’t respect the human rights of detainees?  It makes our words ring very hollow indeed.  It should have been obvious to everyone right from the start that this was a bad idea.  So, why wasn’t there more of an uproar about it?  How could these commissions not have been strongly opposed right from the start?

And why was the president who instituted them re-elected?  Did half of the American populace just not care—or, worse, agree that these commissions were a good idea?  I have to hope that Americans’ apparent apathy toward the abuse of human rights that the prison at Guantanamo represents is more the result of ignorance or of having a limited amount of energy to spend on social protest than of a lack of moral outrage. 

My only consolation is that the prosecutors written about in the Newsweek story have spoken up and have resigned—which, unfortunately, leaves the people who don’t care as much about human rights to run the show.  I would think that “the best country in the world” wouldn’t commit such abuse of human rights.  I am saddened.

By way of introduction (possibly at too-great length):

Here, I wrote, in part,

“The simple argument for the incompatibility of God’s foreknowledge with human freedom of the will, using ‘Np’ to represent ‘metaphysically necessarily p,’ ‘Pp’ to represent ‘metaphysically possibly p,’ ‘x’ to represent ‘x occurs at time t,’ and ‘Kx’ to represent ‘it is known that x occurs at time t,’ is

1.  N(Kx—>x)    (Premiss—to know that x will occur at t requires that x will occur at t)
2.  Kx—>x          (1, modal axiom M [or T], i.e., Np—>p)
3.  Kx                (Premiss—it is known that x occurs at t [since God has complete foreknowledge])
4.  x                   (2, 3, modus ponens)

Hence, if we assume that event x at t is foreknown, we know that event x at t occurs—and, therefore, not event not-x at t.  But where is human freedom if what is foreknown dictates what occurs?”  I then proceeded to argue that while this argument did not actually imperil human freedom of the will, God’s foreknowledge combined with God’s telling a purportedly free agent what he would do—or, more broadly, God’s initiating any chain of events leading a free agent to choose to do otherwise than God foreknew—would pose a problem:  If God says to person S, “You, person S, will choose to do x at t,” why couldn’t S be contrary and choose to do not-x at t instead?  If he can’t, where’s his freedom?

Chad McIntosh replied, “The simple solution for the defender of divine foreknowledge to the argument as you outlined it is to point out how, even if sound, the argument doesn’t negate creaturely freedom. This is because the necessity in (1) does not carry over to the conclusion, (4). But carrying necessity to x, at least in the argument as you’ve outlined, would be guilty of an invalid modal operator shift. As it stands, all that follows is x, not Nx. In other words, (4) still allows for possibly ~x, which is entirely consistent with creaturely freedom. What you need is an argument that establishes Nx.”

To which I replied, “It seems to me that although Nx is not established, it is also not needed. In every possible world, we have Kx—>x and K(~x)—>~x, so whether x or ~x is foreknown (in particular, which is foreknown by God) fixes whether it is x or ~x that occurs.

“As long as neither Nx nor N(~x) has been established, one may say, as I suggested, that the foreknower’s knowledge is the result of the agent’s freely choosing x or, alternatively, freely choosing ~x, even though there is no escaping the complete correlation between what is foreknown and what is chosen; one may say that although the agent’s choice is temporally fixed before he makes it, it is ultimately metaphysically fixed by his own choice, which in turn makes the foreknower foreknow what he foreknows. But a problem does arise if the foreknower (in particular, God) tells the agent which choice he is going to make. Why can’t the agent, upon being told which choice he’ll make, simply be contrary and choose the opposite? That’s where the problem arises.”

End of introduction.

While I still agree with what I wrote, it has occurred to me that one can rather easily get the conclusion that Chad McIntosh claims I need, with only slightly different premisses:

1.  N(Kx—>x)    (Premiss—to know that x will occur at t requires that x will occur at t)
2.  N(Kx)          (Premiss—it is necessarily foreknown that x will occur at t)
3.  Nx               (1, 2, modal modus ponens)

(Modal modus ponens states that from N[p—>q] and Np, one can conclude Nq.)

Anyone who thinks that God necessarily foreknows all events, including the outcomes of all human choices, will have to endorse the argument.  Of course, we, not knowing whether x or not-x will occur at t, would have to fill in the second premiss as “N(Kx) or N(K(~x)),” but a foreknowing God would know which one he foreknew.  If he foreknew not-x, then we’d simply rewrite the argument with “~x” replacing “x.”  Anyone not happy with thinking of it that way would instead write

1.  N(Kx—>x)             (Premiss—to know that x will occur at t requires that x will occur at t)
2.  N(K(~x)—> ~x)       (Premiss—to know that not-x will occur at t requires that not-x will occur at t)
3.  N(Kx) v N(K(~x))     (Premiss—either it is necessarily foreknown that x will occur at t or it is necessarily foreknown that not-x will occur at t (a consequence of God’s necessary foreknowledge))
4.  N(Kx)—>Nx             (1, Modal Distribution)
5.  N(K(~x))—>N(~x)   (2, Modal Distribution)
6.  Nx v N(~x)             (4, 5, 3, Constructive Dilemma)

Whether Nx or N(~x) is the case will, of course, depend on whether God foreknows that x will occur at t or that not-x will occur at t. 

Naturally, I, not being a believer in God, do not endorse the claim of God’s necessary foreknowledge; but it seems to me that those who do will have to live with human beings’ lack of metaphysical freedom (even though we may very well choose how to act on the basis of conscious deliberation and of evaluation of possible consequences of our actions).