2065G
Evil, Suffering, and Pessimism
Readings 1:
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Metaphysical evil; evil that has to do with the way things exist or fail to exist
o Absence theory: lack of an ability is evil; for example, a dog cannot stand on 2
legs. Evil is not a thing (a god).
o Matter theory; Plotinus rejects – so matter is super evil?
o Privation theory; Augustine says god created matter so its not evil. Combination
of absence theory and idea that goodness is relevant to a things kind. As long as
the dog achieves its ends set out by nature; it is fully good – even if its lower on
the chain. Evil is not a being, but rather an absence, so god did not create it.
o Real property theory; evil is some sort of reality – a determinate feature of certain
finite beings. Evil is ultimately dependent on good.
Empirical evil covers bodily pain, damage, disease, suffering, terror, depression, mental
illness. Also oppression, poverty, and structural injustices.
o Absence theory: as the absence of physical-psychological states of pleasure,
health, stability, justice and even life.
o Matter theory: pain, disease, mental malaise, and social ills as effects of our
standing as material beings, vulnerable to the “matter” in our organism
breaking down or coming into conflict with other parts of material creation
o Privation theory:E evil is the absence of some such good which ought to exist
o Real property theory: insists that pain and suffering are positive realities and not
mere absences
Moral evil is metaphysical or empirical evil that arises out of the acts or intentions of
agents: sin, wickedness, trespass, iniquity
Natural evil is metaphysical or empirical evil where the origins are nature – grounded in
the natures of things and/or are the natural laws. Cancer, pandemics, earthquakes, meteor
strikes, aging, (death?)
o Aesthetic responses say that we don’t presently have the right perspective to
see the overall beauty of the natural system, and thus that there really is no
natural evil; Soul-making responses say that this present vale of natural evil is
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justified because it gives us the chance to become virtuous; Skeptical
theistic responses say that given our limited faculties we cannot
reasonably expect to understand why God would allow natural evils
Systemic evil exists at the level of groups, rather than the individual – governments,
corporations, teams, religious institutions
Symbolic evil: an object or act can have far more “symbolic” value to a certain
individual than its exchange or monetary value on some market or other, typically
because of its causal history
To rank the will to happiness, which dominates among men’s motives, above the
unconditioned law that shows itself in reason—that is the root of evil, the
“propensity” which Kant calls “radical evil”
Radical evil: Kant: humans are capable of committing evil acts without any external
influence or motivation
Lecture 1
- Modern period: 1600 to the 20th century
o Early modern (1600-1800)
o Late modern (1800-1900)
- Metaphysis (the theory of what ultimately exists) and epistemology (the theory of what
knowledge is and whether it is possible). Big topics of the modern period
- Ethical systems, political philosophy, and views relating to gender or race were all huge
topics in the modern period.
- Susan Neiman outlined a thought in her book, being to question evil as a lens for reexamining modern philosophy
- Unit 1: the case against God: theodicy and the problem of evil
- Evil: any sort of harm, badness, or misfortune that happens to occur to human beings.
Natural evils (natural disasters, diseases, etc) and moral evils (sin, vices, etc)
- Dilemma that god doesn’t exist, or god is not the god defined as all-powerful and
perfectly god. (Lactantius)
o Historical responses of Christian philosophers: accept that god was limited by an
opposing principle, or question the existence of evil
o Evil could exist, but it is not something god created directly. Non-being or
nothing, that god could have created. Evil is an absence. Our misuse of freedom
in sin has brought upon a corruption in ourself and so we fall short of the
perfection we once enjoyed.
o These approaches only minimize evil.
o Denying the existence of evil just seems naïve (or worse: sinister). The existence
of evil is as undeniable as the reality of its effects—the suffering, the physical and
psychological impacts that result from its occurrence
o Problem of evil can never be solved…
Online Lecture Week 2:
- Rene Descartes: meditations on first philosophy published 1641. 1599-1650. “I think,
therefore, I am” most important physicist before newton; newton argued his points.
o Father of modern philosophy
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o Focus on epistemological issues; questions relating to the nature and possibility of
knowledge. Works on metaphysical issues too.
o Mind body problem
o Not very influential in the problem of evil. Method of doubt.
 Deceiver god hypothesis: god made me in a way that im mistaken about
everything (even 2+2=4). Rejects it because its too powerful of a
hypothesis.
 Evil genius hypothesis: a being lesser than god, but powerful enough to
systematically deceive us about the truth of what our senses discose, or
what we remember as being the case
 He does not consider whether the being’s existence might be
compatable with god’s goodness
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o By 4 meditation; our existence is something that we cannot doubt, and we can
know that god does exist.
 We are responsible for our own errors.
 the intellect is limited (there’s only so much we can know, as finite
beings), the will is unlimited in its extent—we can affirm or deny anything
(or wish to do anything, or resolve to avoid anything). It’s this asymmetry
that leads us into error. Were we to limit our affirmations to those
propositions that are “clearly and distinctly perceived” by the intellect,
then we would never make a mistake. However, our will is not bounded
by our intellect, and so we frequently affirm or deny something that we
don’t know to be the case
o Descartes suggests that the failure to restrict the will to the boundaries of the
intellect is not just responsible for my cognitive errors, but also is the source of
my moral failings (sin)
o Restricts the application of his account of error only to matters of “the true and
false” and not to ‘matters which belong to faith and the conduct of life”
o Doesn’t seem to have taken it seriously, left questions unanswered, and denies
that his account of error has any relevance to moral or practical issues
o .. not anymore the father when it comes to evil as central issue in modern
philosophy
Pierre Bayle, who is responsible for making evil a central problem of modern philosophy.
1647-1706. Wrote a variety of work. Views can be difficult to discern.
o Dictionary; 1696 first ed. 1702 2nd. 4 quarto volumes. Resembles an ordinary
reference work.
Lecture 2
- Bayle supports manichean until he just dismisses it
- Bayle wrote a dictionary by himself, 5 volumes in English. Organized alphabetically.
o All entries devoted to manichaeans and their attempted explanation of the
existence of evil
- Bayle spent so much time arguing for this perspective until he calls it a false system. No
one else at the time believed in it, so its odd he spent so much time studying it. He thinks
manichaeans are absurd.
- Preliminaries
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o What does bayle understand by an explanation of the existence of evil? Looking
for an account that renders the existence of evil consistent with the existence of a
supremely good being
o What does bayle mean by the orthodox view? A single god, whos supremely
good, that’s all knowing and all powerful. But also omnipotent and omniscient
o What kind of evil is bayle interested in an explanation of? Moral evil – sin or
viscous behaviour. Physical evil – punishment for moral evil like suffering… god
is cause of physical evil. Natural evil is different than physical evil. Natural evil is
not problematic.
Overview of bayles argument: elaborates complex argument over 2 articles we consider.
First he argues that the orthodox explanation of the existence of evil fails. He then argues
that Manichaeism succeeds where orthodox fails. He responds to various historical
objections to it. Next he asserts that in spite of offering an explanation of evil,
Manichaeism is manifestly false and even absurd. Finally he offers a sceptical resolution
of this dilemma. Human reason is humiliated.
1. The orthodox view: some theologians deny that evil exists (anselm, Augustine). He
focuses on those that accept it. Bayle says humans are morally viscous. Evil can be
reconciled with gods goodness and power. Bayle tries to explain evil by:
o Evil is necessary for god to manifest his wisdom
 Without evil god cant show his qualities. He wants us to worship him.
Oppourtunity to know who god is.
o Evil is necessary for god to manifest his justice and mercy
o God permits evil because he cannot prevent it without infringing on human free
will
 If people act badly with this free will, they get punishment (physical evil)
– orthodox view
 Denies god knows what we will do with free will, because then its not
freewill (socinians)
 It is entirely possible for god to turn humans away from evil without
infringing upon freedom of will: he can influence us towards the good –
tempting. Scare us from the bad. Incentives to choose right course.
 Given the magnitude of all the consequences of original sin, it would have
been better for god to have not given human beings free will or to have
infringed upon it before they acted wrongly
o Rejecting orthodoxy: Bayle believes any explanation can be refuted.Orthofox
theologians make two assumotions that turn to make it impossible to explain evil
 1. God created humans and free will (allows humans to be evil)
 2. God is supremely good, and all-powerful and all-knowing (god could
have prevented evil)
 Bayle now allows a view that accepts a supremely good being, but rejects
1 and 2 above
2. The Manichaean hypothesis
o Allows god is supremely good but denies all powerful and all knowing – two
opposed supreme beings which limit eachother
o Human being isn’t soley a creation of god, but also the other supreme being
o Rejects old testament – denies gods creation of world/humanity
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o Historical Manichaeism: extinct by Bayles time. Founded by Manes (Mani),
flourished between 3rd and 5th centuries CE. Recognized other big religious
figures. Heavily persecuted.
o Bayle is only interested in the theory of evil within manichaen; not other aspects.
Bayle extracts the isolated hypothesis that the origin of evil can only be explained
by the assumption of two principles. Mix of good and evil requires postulation of
two different original principles to explain them.
o Doesn’t argue much for Manichaeism, mostly just shows how orthodox
alternative falls short.
o Reduction ad absurdum
 5 reasons to justify having two supreme beings; one good one evil
o Lactantius claims that’s its only through evil that we know good. Without evil we
couldn’t know the limits to our own power. Like how true happiness is not real
without sorrow. Through that knowledge we are granted immortality.
 With no evil, we would be deprived of proper real good
 Bayle views this as monstrous… points out inconsistency with other
Christian doctrines. Angels cant be good without bad pasts?
o Fits the experience. Better explanation than orthodox. Fills gaps where orthodox
fails.
3. The manifest falsehood of Manichaeism
o Believes Manichaeism is utterly false and absurd. Doesn’t believe its true, just
that its better.
o Should look at ancient greeks; good and bad gods.
o Says manichaeans are refuted by reasons “a priori” (by considerations
independent of experience)
o A dilemma:
 A) a priori rasons to accept supreme being of perfection… but goodness
not reconciled with existence of evil
 B) a posteriori grounds to accept Manichean; explanation of existence of
evil (if evil exists, this is true and God is not)
 For Bayle, we know that both God exists and evil exists. Matters of facts
that cannot be denied.
 Impasse. Cannot avoid or resolve issue in a conventional way. Only
reveals the limits of human reason.
4. Bayle’s sceptical resolution (term from Hume who was likely inspired by bayle)
o Rejects notion that we could ever understand the existence of god and evil. We
can understand that there is a god, and there is evil, but we cannot understand how
they can coexist. We know it is possible for them to exist together.
o Bayle compares it to an item of faith, or religious belief, rather than knowledge…
obedience of faith; never dispute about some things.
Whats the problem with Bayle’s resolution? Were required to believe things irrationally.
Resolution fairly optimistic: we don’t have to reject the goodness of god ven if we
believe in evil. Manichaean articles highly controversial. He was taken to be so
provocative… irrationality of this key belief amounted to a defense of the rationality of
atheism. Is it even psychologically possible fpr us to be in this position; to hold two
contradictory ideas to be true at the same time?
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o Leibniz thought the canons of rationality were too high a price to pay for a
resolution of the problem of ebil. So he responded to Bayle on behalf of the party
of reason in the Theodicy
Online lecture for next week & readings
Online lecture week 3: English optimism
- The optimist view: a popular line of response to Bayle’s challenge
o The world as a whole is the best despite the evil. The world is morally speaking
the worst; evil and bad outweighs the good – pessimist
o Epistemic (knowledge) grounds: concern what we can know, and what we cant
about the world and its order [english]
 Pope (1671-1744); Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
 Pope’s poetic ‘essay on man’ 1734. An attempt at theodicy; an
effort to vindicate the ways of God to man
 Draws attention to our limited cognitive perspectives as function of
our perception. What might appear disordered from the perspective
of the part might be a function of an order obtaining at the level of
the whole
 Pope thinks that even the possibility of such a grander order
suffices to inspire hope in us—that in spite of disorder and evils
occurring in our lives, there might nonetheless be a larger order in
which these are all accounted for and gain significance in
contributing to some greater end. A higher order inspires hope.
o But what justification or vindication can there be for us
having these limitations?
 More reason = more intelligent = more real : the great chain. What
it is to be human is just to lack the sort of larger perspective
available to greater sorts of beings.
 Accounting for natural evils ; disasters: mot a fault in the order of
the world, but ultimately a product of it; a result of general laws
willed by God
 Accounting for moral evils: result of an order set in place by God.
Imperfect nature, being somewhere between beasts and angels.
More hate on this one.
 We have no claim to an earthly existence of uninterrupted peace
and happiness (whatever is, is right). All a part of gods plan.
 The very desire for things to be different (to have a world without
moral evil, or to be able to have insight into the ultimate order of
things) is sinfully presumptuous and unnaturall
o Objections to English optimism (3)
 1) what is the connection between order and right? Maybe everything in
the world is as God wills it, but why does that imply its right?
 Objection 1: Shaftesbury’s influence: Pope can claim that
“Whatever is, is right” because the world, in virtue of being
ordered, is also beautiful and so, according to the Platonic
equation, good, or right
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2) the invocation of epistemic limits cut both ways
 On what grounds are we justified thinking that in the world, an
order obtains?
 3) pope’s conception of a rationally ordered universe stands in tension
with a traditional conception of God as providentially concerned with
human affairs
 for Leibniz, the “metaphysical optimist,” preserving God’s
personal concern for his creation is a priority and a key feature of
his argument that this is the “best of all possible worlds”
o Metaphysical (what is ultimately the case concerning reality) concerns: drawn
from a view about the nature of reality as such (attributes of god, for instance, and
what is involved in the idea of a world) [german]
Leibniz’s theodicy of 1710
o Rival bayle
o 1) preferace
Week 3 lecture:
- The occasion for the theodicy
o The Theodicy represents the only book-length work Leibniz published in his
lifetime, For the most part, Leibniz wrote brief, pithy essays published in learned
journals (or kept to himself) and engaged in wide-ranging correspondence with
leading European intellectuals
o That Leibniz should be provoked to penning the Theodicy in the first place is thus
already notable. As he explains, what moved him to do so was the threat he
perceived in Bayle’s defense of Manichaeism.
- The main aims of the theodicy
o By way of forestalling these ‘dangerous conclusions,’ Leibniz seeks to respond to
the problem of evil
o Leibniz’s argument can be divided into two main parts (cf. sect. 1, p. 126)
 Explaining the existence of moral evil: that God, as supremely good, could
create a world in which moral evil (human sinfulness) exists (this concerns
the “conduct of God”)
 Providing a justification for physical evil: that the human being is
appropriately held responsible (punished) for their actions
o Leibniz’s discussion of the first issue constitutes his response to Bayle, proper
(the first essay outlines Leibniz’s position and the second draws on it to respond
to Bayle’s specific concerns).
 Leibniz’s answer is that this world is in fact the best of all possible, and
that evil is an unavoidable part of it
o That Leibniz needs to address the second issue is, to some extent, necessitated by
his response to the first. In any case it allows him to engage a question he thinks is
of vital importance: the “labyrinth” concerning the free and the necessary (Preface
p. 55)
 Leibniz’s answer here is that we are justly punished for moral evils which
we perpetrate since we do so freely
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Leibniz on what he demonstrates concerning
o Defends the “orthodox” conception of God (supremely good, as well as allpowerful and all-knowing)
o Shows that God is not the “author” of sin, despite creating the world
o Defends the “privative” nature of evil (that evil is not, strictly speaking, a thing
but a kind of defect/lack)
o God permits moral (and physical) evil, rather than willing it, and that this does not
detract from his goodness or worthiness of worship
o Free actions are not absolutely/logically/metaphysically/geometrically necessary
(that is, they are genuinely contingent)
o God’s choice to create the best world is not absolutely necessary, but neither is it
arbitrary
o Freedom of the will does not involve perfect indifference, i.e., being in a state of
balance with respect to possible choices
Leibniz’s vindication of the conduct of God in the existence of moral evil
o Concerning the first issue (vindicating the conduct of God in the existence of
moral evil), it is important to see that Leibniz’s starting point is just Bayle’s “a
priori” argument
o “The most certain and most clear ideas of order we have, teach us that a being,
which exists by itself, which is necessary and eternal, must be one, infinite,
almighty, and endowed with all kind of perfection [including goodness].”
(Manichees D, 94)
o That is, Leibniz begins by assuming that God is to be understood as a single,
infinite principle, containing all perfections and realities (including goodness) and
that he exists and created the world
o While setting out from this a priori consideration of God, Leibniz offers some
clarifications of key features of Bayle’s position, in line with his own
metaphysical views, all of which he contends help to make the existence of evil
explicable
o In particular, Leibniz has a very specific understanding of what it means that
“God created the world”
What it means that God creates the world
o The first thing to note is what Leibniz means by ‘world’:
 “I call ‘world’ the whole succession and the whole agglomeration of all
existent things, lest it be said that several worlds could have existed in
different times and different places. For they must needs be reckoned all
together as one world or, if you will, as one universe” (I, sect. 8; p. 131)
o So, a world:
 Includes all existent things;
 Includes everything that transpires to these things; and
 Leaves out nothing that exists, such that only a single world can ever exist
(i.e., there cannot be two actual worlds)
o Second, Leibniz has a rather distinctive conception of what God’s creation of the
world amounts to
o Simplified somewhat, Leibniz’s view is that what is involved in creation is that
God takes one possible world and makes it actual
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o Just like any world, a possible world is one possible complete collection of
existent things and that which occurs to them. One possible world is distinguished
from another by what things are contained in it and/or what transpires to them
(even a trivial difference serves to distinguish one world from another)
o This means that an infinite number of possible worlds are conceivable. As a
result, it would take a supreme intellect to survey all possible worlds and to select
one to make actual
 Leibniz sometimes refers to the collection of all possible things/worlds as
the “region of eternal verities” (see for instance sect. 20-21; pp. 138-9).
His point (for our purposes) is just that God has insight, through his
understanding, into all of the things that can possibly exist and what
worlds they might exist in (not everything is compatible with everything
else). After surveying all of the possibilities, God selects one world to
make actual through his will
o The question is, on what basis will God choose one among the infinitely possible
worlds to make actual?
The actual world is the best of all possible
o The answer is that God will (necessarily) choose the best of all possible worlds to
make actual
 “there is an infinitude of possible worlds among which God must needs
have chosen the best” (I sect. 8; p. 131)
o So, why does God choose the best?
 Because, God is supremely good. He is morally perfect and so infallibly
wills what is, morally speaking, the best—moreover, because he is allknowing, he can discern what is best, and given his infinite power he can
bring it about
o But how do we know that there is only one among all possible worlds that is the
best—couldn’t there be two or more that are equally good?
 Here Leibniz invokes the “principle of sufficient reason” (cf. I sect. 44;
pp. 150-1), that for every thing that happens there’s a reason or cause why
it was so and not otherwise. If there were to be two equally good possible
worlds, there would be no reason for God to choose one rather than the
other; therefore, for there to be an actual world requires one to be better:
“since he does nothing without acting in accordance with supreme reason”
(I sect. 8, p. 131)
The explanation of moral evil
o So, given all this, how does Leibniz account for the existence of moral evil in a
world that is made actual by a supremely good being?
o Notably, Leibniz does not deny that evil exists in the actual world (even though
he thinks that metaphysically speaking it isn’t a “thing”).
o Yet, Leibniz’s explanation of evil is fairly straight-forward (he sometimes
characterizes this as reasoning ab effectu—from the result):
 God chose this world to make actual
 Therefore, this world is the best of all possible worlds
 But this world contains moral evil
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Therefore, a world that contains moral evil is better than one that does not
(since God chose to make it actual)
o There is, then, no mystery about the existence of evil. Given that evil exists, it
must be part of the best possible world. And because it is part of the best possible
world, it is hardly inconsistent with God’s supreme goodness
 Moreover, God does not will evil—he wills to make the best possible
world actual, and it is only as a consequence of this that evil comes about,
which is to say that he permits it to exist (I sect. 32; p. 129)
Question: wouldn’t a world that lacked all moral evil be better than ours?
o We might think, however, that a world is possible in which there is no evil
whatsoever—wouldn’t that world be better than the actual one?
o Leibniz’s reply is twofold. First, it’s not clear that a world without evil is possible.
o In the Preface we saw that Leibniz claims that he understands evil as ‘privative,’
so as not really existing (like Augustine). At the fundamental, “metaphysical”
level, Leibniz thinks that evil isn’t really a ‘thing’ but is rather just an
imperfection:
 “Evil may be taken metaphysically, physically, and morally. Metaphysical
evil consists in mere imperfection, physical evil in suffering, and moral
evil in sin.” (I sect. 21; p. 139)
o What Leibniz means by ‘metaphysical evil’ are the imperfections that riddle all
finite beings (like us). Insofar as we are not perfect like God, we necessarily lack
certain perfections, or do not have them to the degree that God does. These
imperfections are the metaphysical root of moral evil
o Given this, it’s not clear that any world can lack moral evil. Every world is a
collection of finite beings, which is to say, beings that are imperfect in some way.
Since moral evil is rooted in imperfection, every possible world will contain some
amount of evil
o But, secondly, even if such a world without evil is possible, Leibniz claims that it
is not necessarily better: “We know, moreover, that often an evil brings forth a
good whereto one would not have attained without that evil. Often indeed two
evils have made one great good.” (I sect. 10; p. 132)
Question: OK, but how about a world in which there is less evil than this one?
o Allowing that every world will have some evil, we might nonetheless wonder
whether our world wouldn’t be better without some sinful act (say a heinous
crime). Couldn’t, or even shouldn’t God make our world better by removing just a
single bad action?
o Leibniz’s response to this is that even the slightest change to a thing or event in
this world would make it into a different world:
 “For it must be known that all things are connected in each one of the
possible worlds: […] the least movement extends its effect there to any
distance whatsoever. […] Thus, if the smallest evil that comes to pass in
the world were missing in it, it would no longer be this world” (I sect. 9;
pp. 131-2)
o So, were God to change anything in this actual world, it would be a different
possible world. But if it’s different than the actual world, then it would no longer
be the best
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Question: How can this world be the best when there are more evils than good?
o Here, Leibniz denies that there are more evils than good in the actual world.
Instead, we just fail to attend to the good things that happen, whereas the evil
draws our attention all the more, given that it is rare
Question: But does this really ‘explain’ evil?
o Even granting all this, it might be objected that Leibniz doesn’t really answer
Bayle’s challenge in explaining the existence of moral evil. We know that it is
part of the best possible world, but we don’t really understand how it contributes
to the goodness of the world
o Leibniz replies to this (and other aspects of Bayle’s Manichaean entries) in Essay
II. Generally, Leibniz concedes that there is much we don’t understand here, but
it’s not because what’s at issue is a mystery
o In sect. 145, Leibniz rejects Bayle’s demand for a full “explanation of evil”—that
is, Leibniz thinks that Bayle asks too much when he demands that we should be
able to understand how the existence of evil is consistent with God’s goodness
 “I have explained it sufficiently by showing that there are cases where
some disorder in the part is necessary for producing the greatest order in
the whole. But it appears that Bayle asks a little too much: he wishes for a
detailed exposition of how evil is connected with the best possible scheme
for the universe. That would be a complete explanation of the phenomena:
but I do not undertake to give it nor am I bound to do so (p. 217)
o Where Bayle goes too far, according to Leibniz, is in demanding that we
understand precisely how individual evils fit into the plan for this world (so that,
for instance, we could see how removing them would make this world worse).
 Such an understanding clearly goes beyond what we are capable of—to be
able to grasp the connection between all of the phenomena in this world
exceeds our finite, limited capacity
 But that there is such a connection is not contrary to reason; rather, it is
simply beyond the capacity of our reason
2. The justification of Physical evil
o At this point (the end of Essay II), Leibniz thinks that he has fulfilled the principal
task of his Theodicy. That is, he has vindicated the conduct of God in creating a
world where moral evil exists. The actual world is the best of all possible, and
whatever evil it contains must be understood only to contribute to its goodness
o This would normally be sufficient to justify physical evil—that is, we suffer
because we are responsible for our sin or vicious actions
o However, Leibniz’s solution to Bayle’s challenge seems to come at a considerable
cost. It accounts for the existence of moral evil but undermines any justification
for physical evil—that is, we can explain why there is sin in the world, but we
cannot explain why we should be punished for it
o This is because responsibility for actions requires freedom of the will, which
Leibniz also accepts. Yet, on Leibniz’s view, there seems to be no room for such
freedom. Leibniz’s system seems to be fully deterministic
 The problem arguably starts at the top, as it would seem that God himself
is determined in his choice to make this world actual
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But even at the level of individual agents (you and I), what we do is
already decided in advance (as part of the best possible world), so it looks
like we lack freedom, and as a result are not responsible for our actions
Is gods choice absolutely necessary?
o Leibniz responds to both of these concerns (the first back in Essay I and the
second in Essay III)
o Concerning the first, there is a sense in which God’s is determined to choose the
best of all possible worlds, that is, he doesn’t have a choice about making this
world actual
 God wouldn’t be God if he didn’t choose the best world to make actual.
The morally good are those from whom we expect the right actions; that
God is morally perfect just means that he would always do the right thing,
without fail
o But the necessity involved here is different than other sorts. That some truths are
logically or metaphysically necessary (2+2=4; that something and its opposite
cannot be true at the same time) is something God perceives by means of his
intellect. That the actual world comes to exist is something God effects by his will
because he is good. So, Leibniz will say, that God is morally necessitated, rather
than logically or metaphysically necessitated to do the best
Are all events in the world necessary?
o Leibniz thinks that this has important implications for the modal status of what
takes place in the actual world, namely, that they are necessary in some sense but
not determined
o Here, Leibniz draws a distinction between two types of necessity: absolute and
hypothetical
 “Yet supposing that God foresees [some event], it is necessary that it come
to pass; this is, the consequence is necessary […]. This is what is termed
hypothetical necessity. But our concern is not this necessity: it is an
absolute necessity that is required to be able to say that an action is
necessary, that it is not contingent” (I sect. 37; p. 147)
o Leibniz understands hypothetical, or conditional necessity as the necessity of
some event given that something else has happened.
 All the events in the actual world are hypothetically or conditionally
necessary—they come to pass because God has chosen to make this world
actual
 Yet, this falls short of making events in this world absolutely necessary—
such necessity would require that other worlds were not even possible (or,
that something that occurs occurs in all possible worlds). But that is not
the case—other worlds were possible, it was God’s goodness that led him
to choose this one
o That events in this world should be determined would mean, for Leibniz, that they
are absolutely necessary, but we’ve seen that this is not the case
But how is human freedom possible?
o Even allowing that events in this world are hypothetically necessary, this only
seems to concede that human beings are not really free. And if that’s the case, we
are not responsible for moral evil and should not suffer physical evil as a result
-
-
o But Leibniz thinks that human freedom is not at all inconsistent with hypothetical
necessity
o To see why, we can consider Leibniz’s account of freedom, which he summarizes
at III sect. 288; p. 306:
 “I have shown that freedom, according to the definition required in the
schools of theology, consists in [1] intelligence, which involves a clear
knowledge of the object of deliberation, in [2] spontaneity, whereby we
determine, and in [3] contingency, that is, in the exclusion of logical or
metaphysical necessity
Leibniz on freedom
o For Leibniz, a free action requires:
 1. Intelligence, or (distinct) knowledge of what we are doing—that is, we
are not ignorant of what we do or of its likely consequences (III sect. 289)
 2. Spontaneity, or (minimally) that the action is voluntary—that is, “our
actions and our wills depend entirely on us,” or, we do the action without
being coerced (III sect. 290, 301)
 Note that this already distinguishes Leibniz’s view on freedom
from a view that takes free action to involve indifference. For some
(Descartes, for instance), freedom consists in a kind of balance of
the will—a state of equipoise between two (or more) alternative
courses of action. Leibniz, for a variety of reasons (cf. I sect. 35; p.
146, III sect. 303; p. 314), thinks that this is impossible—we are
always inclined towards one course of action over another, and our
spontaneity consists in our ability to choose in accordance with
that preference (and not in our capacity to choose contrary to it)
 3. Contingency, or that an action is not absolutely necessary
Leibniz on contingency
o Leibniz has already shown that our actions are contingent in the sense of not
being absolutely necessary
o God’s choice to make this world actual was not absolutely necessary but only
hypothetically or conditionally necessary since it was the result of his moral
goodness
o That an action could be contingent but still necessary (albeit hypothetically) is
admittedly a bit counter-intuitive. But there’s another way to consider it that
might make it easier to grasp
o Another way of understanding a free (and so contingent) action is that it is an
action for which we could have done otherwise. Our choice to do X is free
provided that it was also possible for us to do not-X
o Leibniz thinks that his view allows for actions to be free in this sense. That is, for
all free actions Leibniz thinks that the opposite is possible
 For every action that we perform in the actual world, there is a
conceivable possible world in which that act does not take place—in
which we do not perform that act. So, Leibniz can say that for any act, X,
the opposite of that action was also possible in virtue of being part of
another possible world, even if that act was (hypothetically) necessary in
the actual world
-
o Putting this all together, for Leibniz a free action involves a knowing, voluntary
choice in favour of our preference, but where the opposite remains possible
 Astra inclinant, non necessitant—the stars incline without necessitating (I
sect. 43; p. 150)
The justification of moral and physical evil
o With this, Leibniz concludes that physical evil (suffering) is justified as a
punishment for moral evil, since we freely will moral evil:
 “Now since it is henceforth permitted to have recourse to the misuse of
free will, and to evil will, in order to account for other evils […] [n]ow we
can seek with confidence the origin of evil in the freedom of creatures (III
273, p. 298)
o So, summing everything up:
 The existence of moral evil is explained because it is part of the best of all
possible worlds and God, because he is good, wills that the best world of
all becomes actual
 Physical evil is justified because moral evil, in spite of being
hypothetically necessary, is freely willed by the human being, and so we
rightfully suffer as a result
Week 4 lecture:
- Cugoano’s thoughts and sentiments
- Biography
o Not much is known about the life of Cugoano. Many of the available details of his
early life are provided in his own account of his abduction
o He was born around 1757—this is suggested by his attestation that he was around
13 years old when he was abducted in 1770
o His full given name at birth was Quobna Ottobah (sometimes spelled ‘Ottobouh’)
Cugoano. (After his baptism in England he took the name ‘John Stuart’)
o He was born in Agimaque (Ajumako) in present-day Ghana
- Early life
o According to Cugoano’s account, after the death of the tribal chief, and
succession by his father’s nephew, Cugoano (around 10 years old) became part of
the household of the new chief
o After a couple of years, he was called for by his uncle who lived “a considerable
distance from Agimaque”
o Cugoano resided with his uncle, and came to know his “hundreds of relations”—
other children who were members of the extended family
o It was while Cugoano was playing in the woods “gathering fruit and catching
birds” that he was abducted—apparently on the pretence of having ventured too
far into the woods, “several ruffians came upon us suddenly and said we had
committed a fault against their lord, and we must go and answer for it ourselves
before him”
- Abduction and slavery
o The “ruffians” were Africans, apparently of the same wider tribe (the Fante, or
Akan people) as Cugoano (since he understood their language)
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o “I must own, to the shame of my own countrymen, that I was first kidnapped and
betrayed by some of my own complexion […] but if there were no buyers, there
would be no sellers”
o After threatening the children with violence, they began a week-long journey to
the coast, at first with the original captors, and then those they turned the children
over to (whose language Cugoano did not understand). A variety of pretences
were made for the delay in reaching the ‘lord’
o Eventually, the children reached one of the European forts on the coasts, where
Cugoano saw white people for the first time:
 “Next day we travelled on and in the evening came to a town, where I saw
several white people which made me afraid they would eat me, according
to our notions as children in the inland part of the country”
o Soon, all pretence was dropped as Cugoano was abandoned by his captors and
imprisoned for three days until he was put on a ship. He, along with many other
abductees, were taken first to the Cape Coast, and then made the long sailing to
Grenada, a British colony that was an increasingly important destination for
African slaves
From Grenada to London England
o In a note added to a later edition of the Thoughts and Sentiments, Cugoano reports
that he spent “nine or ten months in the slave-gang at Grenada, and about one year
at different places in the West-Indies”
o In 1772 (at around 15 years old), Cugoano was purchased by Alexander
Campbell, a Scottish planation owner, who took him in his household and brought
him back to England. There, Cugoano secured his freedom (while chattel slavery
was not formally abolished in the British Empire until 1807, it was never
recognized as a legal institution in Britain itself—cf. the Somersett case of 1772)
o In 1773, in London, Cugoano was baptized—he was advised that baptized
Africans could not be re-taken as slaves, and he harboured a desire to return to
Ghana and reunite with his family
o Cugoano could not arrange secure passage, however, and remained in England. In
1784, he was hired as a servant by the painter Richard Cosway
Abolitionist activity and death?
o Cugoano became active as an abolitionist around this time. Along with other
Black former slaves (especially Olaudah Equiano) living in London, he founded
the group the Sons of Africa. In connection with this group, he was involved in a
variety of activities advocating the immediate end of chattel slavery, and was
connected with other prominent abolitionist groups
o Along with his activism, he published his Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil
and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species in
London in 1787. A slightly abridged version, with a new preface, was published
in 1791
o While Cugoano evidently had a variety of plans relating to assisting the
community of impoverished Black people living in London, no more is heard of
him after 1791
Cugoano’s thoughts and sentiments
-
o Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments is fairly lengthy, running to almost 150
pages in the original (I’ve been fairly selective in the version supplied)
o In many ways, it resembles a couple of other sorts of treatises on the topic of
slavery. It is, in part, a slave narrative—a genre of text where a former slave
recounts the ordeals of their captivity. But it is also an abolitionist text, that is, a
treatise that argues against the legality/morality/permissibility of the institution of
chattel slavery
 The latter texts took various forms (form pamphlets to full treatises) and
often, as in Cugoano’s case, were written in response to a treatise that had
made a case for the institution of slavery as part of an ongoing public
discussion
 Cursory Remarks upon the Rev’d Mr. Ramsay’s Essay on the Treatment
and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies (1785, by James
Tobin, an English born planter, and pro-slavery activist)
o Cugoano’s text is thus fairly distinct in its genre. But also in the case it makes for
abolition, I think Cugoano’s treatise is quite original
 So, we find the expected sort of arguments against the justifications
(cultural, moral, biological) offered for slavery (and we’ll look at instances
of these). But Cugoano presses further than this, diagnosing a prevailing
and deadly ‘insensibility’ to the evils of slavery, and suggesting that one
of the causes that has contributed to it is philosophical optimism
Rebutting the specious pretence
o Aside from these points, Cugoano also disputes the ‘facts’ as asserted by the
advocate for slavery—he denies that Africans as a people are ignorant, unsociable
and dispersed, or that they don’t think it a crime to sell another
o Concerning their alleged ignorance, Cuguano points out that while it may be the
case that some slaves (as he did) benefit from access to European science and
technology, this is hardly the intention of those who force them into slavery;
moreover, they also gain exposure to the corruption on the part of professed
Christians, which leaves them more prone to lie and deceive
 “But amongst those who get their liberty, like all other ignorant men,
[they] are generally more corrupt in their morals than they possibly could
have been amongst their own people in Africa” (22)
o As to being ‘dispersed and unsociable,’ Cugoano claims that this rests on a kind
of cultural chauvinism—much of Africa is divided into “kingdoms and
principalities” just like Europe, and that there is conflict between them is hardly
different (25); moreover, the conflict among the tribes is in many cases fomented
by Europeans (27)
o Finally, Cugoano denies that Africans are somehow disposed to sell others, even
their immediate family, into slavery
 Cugoano was, of course, abducted by his own tribesmen; however,
Cugoano claims that the Europeans have “beguiled” them and that they
did not know what they were selling them into (26)
 He notes that while there is a practice of enslaving prisoners of war among
African nations, this is only temporary and a condition that bears no
comparison to the treatment of slaves in the West Indies (25)

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-
-
He also points out that obviously Africans have the same natural
attachment to their kin as Europeans do (27-8)
A scriptural defense?
o Having rebutted the pretence, Cugoano turns to an alleged Scriptural ground for
the enslavement of African people:
 “the supporters and favourers of slavery make other things a pretence and
an excuse in their own defense: such as that they find it was admitted
under the Divine institution by Moses” (29)
o This is an apparent reference to the story of the Curse of Ham in Genesis 9:20-7,
where Noah’s younger son Ham views his father’s nakedness and upon awaking
and finding out what Ham had done, he curses his descendents with the condition
of slavery
o This story was taken by some as a Scriptural justification of the enslavement of
Africans since it was popularly thought that the curse rendered Ham’s skin black.
o Cugoano disputes this “inconsistent and diabolical use of the sacred writings.” As
he stresses, whatever the result of the curse, the sons of Ham were still human
beings, descended from the original couple, and a disputed interpretation of a
Biblical passage cannot obscure what the light of reason reveals: “that no man
ought to enslave another” (30)
A side-note on polygenism
o In response to the alleged Scriptural basis for slavery, Cugoano asserts: “That all
mankind did spring from one original and that there are no different species
among men” (30)
o The claim that there were difference species of human beings was a fairly novel
one. Some philosophers, drawing on recent ‘scientific’ discoveries had claimed
that the morphological differences (largely in skin colour, but sometimes in skull
size and shape) between different populations were evidence that there were
different species (or races) of human beings
 “The Albinos and the Darians—the first originally of Africa, and the
second of the middle of America—are as different from us as from the
negroes. There are yellow, red, and gray races. We have already seen that
all the Americans are without beards or hair on their bodies, except the
head and eyebrows. All are equally men, but only as a fir, an oak, and a
pear tree are equally trees; the pear tree comes not from the fir, nor the fir
from the oak.” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary “Different Races of
Men”)
o That the different races of human beings amounted to different species is known
as the hypothesis of polygenesis (as opposed to ‘monogenesis’—that the human
races are included within a single species)
o Combined with certain claims about the distribution of various psychological and
behavioural traits (intellectual, moral, etc.) among the different races, polygenism
became a powerful (pseudo-)scientific basis for modern racism
Cugoano on ‘Insensibility’
o In addition to rebutting the arguments of slavery advocates, Cugoano diagnoses a
prevalent and profoundly disturbing ‘insensibility’ among modern Europeans

o
o
o
o
“But such is the insensibility of men, when their own craft of gain is
advanced by the slavery and oppression of others, that after all the
laudable exertions of the truly virtuous and humane […] we find the
principles of justice and equity not only opposed […] but that unlawful
traffic […] still carried on with as great assiduity as ever” (20-1)
 “They that can stand and look on and behold no evil in the infamous
traffic of slavery must be sunk to a wonderful degree of insensibility” (589)
 “it is moreover evident that the whole or any part of that iniquitous traffic
of slavery can no where or in any degree be admitted but among those
who must eventually resign their own claim to any degree of sensibility
and humanity for that of barbarians and ruffians” (3)
For Cugoano, insensibility amounts to a literal lack of sense or the ability to
perceive what is present to us. In this case, it refers to a blindness to the evils of,
and associated with, slavery
Most obviously, those directly involved in the traffic of human beings are
evidently blind to the wrongfulness of what they do
 “for the ensnaring of others and taking away their liberty by slavery and
oppression, is the worst kind of robbery, as most opposite to every precept
and injunction of Divine Law” (4)
Further, those involved in “the whole business of slavery” (23)—from the
operators of the forts, those (merchants) who profit from it indirectly (via the
“triangular trade”), to the aristocracy and nobility who are best positioned to
perceive (and rectify) the evil but instead ignore it
 “their forts and factories are the avowed dens of thieves for robbers,
plunderers and depredators” (27)
 “if they can only prosper themselves, they care nothing about the
miserable situation of others; and hence it is that even those who are
elevated to high rank of power and affluence and as becoming their
stations, have opportunity of extending their views afar, yet they can shut
their eyes at this enormous evil of the slavery and commerce of the human
species” (59; cf. also 86)
Cugoano exposes this insensibility for what it is: a convenient and hypocritical
blindness to the evils of slavery. It is only through this insensibility that those who
have a stake in the slave trade can avoid the otherwise glaring contradiction of
their actions with their professed moral values
 “No man will ever rob another unless he be a villain; nor will any nation
or people ever enslave and oppress others unless themselves be base and
wicked men, and who act and do contrary and against every duty in
Christianity” (86; cf. also 59)
 “Every man of any sensibility, whether he be a Christian or an heathen, if
he has any discernment of at all must think that for any man or any class
of men to deal with their fellow creatures as beasts of the field […] are the
greatest villains in the world” (24)
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-
-
o But Cugoano is also interested in how this insensibility comes about—how is it
that those involved in the slave trade can ignore the evils when one, literally, need
only open one’s eyes to see them?
o There’s no question that excessive greed, or avarice, is the culprit in some cases,
as Cugoano often points out. But for most, even giving full scope to their greed
would not lead them to oppress and abuse their fellow human beings. For them,
this is possible only because this insensibility dulls their instinctive resistance to a
practice so abhorrent
o So the question remains—what brings about or promotes this insensibility?
Philosophical optimism and slavery
o Cugoano doesn’t provide an answer to this important question in so many words.
And indeed, the explanation of such an unusual phenomenon is likely quite
complex
o However, one of the culprits that is suggested by Cugoano’s discussion, odd as it
may sound, is philosophical optimism
o This is not to say that optimistic thinkers necessarily held pro-slavery positions
(Leibniz did not, as far as we can tell; Pope was invested in the South Sea
Company, which was involved in the slave trade, but had also mildly denounced
slavery in his poem “Windsor Forest”)
o But some advocates of slavery drew on optimistic positions to argue that the
practice of slavery is justified.
The cursory remarker
o Just such a justification is offered by Tobin, the author of the Cursory Remarks to
which Cugoano’s text is intended as a response. Here’s Tobin:
 “I shall therefore content myself with observing that after all which has
been produced on so fruitful and interesting a theme, slavery may perhaps
be considered as one of those evils which, like pain, sickness, poverty, etc.
were originally interwoven into the constitution of the present world, for
purposes wholly unknown to its short-sighted inhabitants” (Cursory
Remarks, p. 7)
o Tobin’s audacious point is that slavery, like any other evil in the world, is part of
the order willed by God. Thus, while it might appear to us “short-sighted” human
beings that the institution of slavery is a terrible evil, it is actually part of a
grander plan that tends to the goodness of all
o As Tobin continues, to abolish the institution of slavery would be akin to
upsetting the order of things willed by God:
 “that an African […] will enjoy the heartfelt triumph of seeing half a score
white slaves crouching abjectly at his feet […] will undoubtedly furnish a
new and pleasant compartment to that well known […] print called ‘The
world turned upside-down’ (p. 22)
The problem(s) with optimism
o That the resources of optimism might be put to use in the justification of an
institution as evil as slavery is hardly surprising
o Indeed, it is not even clear that it amounts to an obvious misuse of those
resources—after all, the optimist holds that “whatever is, is right”; and that this
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
world which contains the institution of slavery is the best of all possible as it was
chosen by God
Cugoano offers a response to this attempted optimistic justification of slavery. So,
he contends that the enormous and atrocious ills of slavery, properly accounted,
can only outweigh any alleged goods that may accidentally come of it:
 “some [slaves] indeed may fall into better hands, and meet with some
commiseration and better treatment than others, and a few may become
free, and get themselves liberated from that cruel and galling yoke of
bondage; but what are these to the whole, even hundreds of thousands,
held and perpetrated in all the prevalent and intolerable calamities of that
state of bondage and exile. The emancipation of a few […] cannot make
that horrible traffic one bit the less criminal. For according to the methods
of procuring slaves in Africa, there must be great robberies and murders
committed before any emancipation can take place”
 “This must evidence that the whole of that base traffic is an enormous and
wicked thing” (96-7)
So Cugoano clearly thinks the optimistic position is untenable in the face of the
profound moral evils of slavery
But I think his worries about optimism go even deeper, as it also contributes to
that insensibility that enables so many to engage in and perpetuate the institution
The problem with philosophical optimism, as implied by Cugoano, is that it
invites us to deny the fact of evil. When confronted with some circumstance
which we might immediately recognize as wrong/bad/evil, the optimist will
interject to say that what we perceive as an evil, in accordance with our own
limited intellects, is actually a good from the perspective of the whole
Cugoano denies that any amount goodness from the perspective of the whole
could suffice to balance out the evils of slavery, as we have seen. But he also
thinks that the optimistic view encourages a kind of insensibility to evil—a
weakening, even deadening of our natural moral instincts or reactive attitudes
towards evil acts
“The prohibitions against [slavery and associated actions] are so strong, that in
order to break through and to commit the most notorious and flagrant crimes with
impunity, [the defenders of slavery] are obliged to oil their poisonous pretences
with various perversions […] that the acrimonious points of the arsenic may be
swallowed down the better and the evil effects of their crimes appear the less”
(55)
The point, then, is that for Cugoano, optimism is one of these “perversions” that
“oils” the pretences—i.e., it weakens our immediate sense of the wrongs of
slavery and makes one more receptive to the sham justifications (in Scripture,
alleged cultural differences, race-based explanations) that are offered in defense
of the institution
In this way, the defender of slavery makes use of the optimistic denial of the truth
of our immediate apprehension of the fact of some evil to bring about a general
state of insensibility about the manifold harms of slavery

The result is that the greed and corruption on the part of many is given full
scope to act, in spite of their practices standing in glaring opposition to
their (professed) moral values
o It makes sense, then, that one of Cugoano’s aim in the Thoughts and Sentiments is
to make vividly clear for all the evils of slavery, against the optimisticallyinspired rationalizations of its defenders. The point is to puncture the insensibility
that stands in the way of recognizing it for what it is, and consequently abolishing
it
 “this enormous iniquity is not conjecture but an obvious fact […] The very
nature of that wickedness of enslaving men is such that, were the traffic
[…] a thousand times less than it is, it would be what no righteous nation
would admit of for the sake of any gain whatsoever” (98-9)
Online Lecture 4:
- Introduction to English optimism
- Responses to Bayle’s challenge
o Even if few philosophers accepted Bayle’s own (apparent) response to the
problem, Bayle succeeded in putting the problem of evil front-and-centre for
modern philosophy
o Indeed, the challenge was taken up beyond the relatively narrow confines of (selfidentifying) philosophers. The issue was not only taken up in dusty academic
treatises, but also in (relatively) lively literary and dramatic works (including, as
we’ll see by figures like Alexander Pope and Voltaire)
o One popular line of response to Bayle’s challenge is the optimist view
- Philosophical optimism
o In ordinary usage, ‘optimism’ denotes an attitude of hopefulness, or cheerfulness
in the face of some adversity (we tend, I think, not to call someone optimistic
when they are cheeful in situations where things are generally going well)
o The philosophical sense of optimism draws on this, albeit optimism in this sense
is not (necessarily) a personal attitude but a kind of overarching belief or
commitment—the (philosophical) optimist claims, broadly, that the world as a
whole is morally speaking the best in spite of the evil that takes place within it
(from Latin optimus—’the best’)
o The counterpart to the philosophical optimist is the philosophical pessimist who
claims that this world is in fact, morally speaking, the worst (or at least that
evil/badness outweighs whatever good is in it)
o (An old joke) What's the difference between a pessimist and an optimist?
 The pessimist says, "It can't possibly get any worse than this." The
optimist says, "Of course it can!"
- Varieties of (arguments for) optimism
o In this course, we’re going to consider two kinds of optimism (or rather, two
arguments for a philosophically optimistic position).
o The first presents a case for optimism based primarily on epistemic grounds
(‘epistemic,’ from the Greek episteme—knowledge). These grounds concern what
we can know, and what we can’t, about the world and its order

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-
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We could call this ‘epistemic’ optimism, but I’ll refer to it as ‘English
optimism’ since the proponents of this view that we’ll consider are both
Englishmen. (Alternatively, we could note that this constitutes an a
posteriori argument for optimism—one that draws on what is known from
experience)
o The second draws the optimistic conclusion from a set of metaphysical claims
(that is, claims about what is ultimately the case concerning reality). While
epistemic considerations play a limited role in such an argument (the boundaries
of what humans can know about the world is acknowledged), the prevailing
considerations are drawn from a view about the nature of “reality as such” (the
attributes of God, for instance, and what is involved in the idea of a world)
 We could likewise call this ‘metaphysical’ optimism or, sticking with the
geographical theme, ‘German optimism’ since the principal proponent of
the view is G. W. Leibniz, a German philosopher. (Notably, the argument
Leibniz offers is a priori--it does not draw on what is only knowable
through experience—and this is likely because it is explicitly crafted to
respond to Bayle’s challenge)
English optimism
o The two English optimists we’ll consider are Alexander Pope and Anthony
Ashley Cooper (Earl of Shaftesbury)
o Pope (1699-1744); Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
o Pope might be familiar as a famous (and highly quotable) poet; Shaftesbury was a
well-known English philosopher (John Locke was his childhood tutor)
o Pope’s poetic “Essay on Man” was published in 1734; however, it is thought that
Pope borrows heavily from Shaftesbury’s views, as expressed in a philosophical
dialogue, “The Moralists,” originally published in 1709
Pope’s essay on man as theodicy
o We won’t be considering Pope’s famous essay as a literary text, but rather
considering the case for optimism that it advances
o First, we should note that Pope is quite explicit about the intent of the essay. It is
an attempt at theodicy, which means, in Pope’s phrasing, an effort to “vindicate
the ways of God to man” (line 16)
 This is not the first poetical attempt at theodicy—the opening stanza of
John Milton’s epic “Paradise Lost” announces much the same aim:
 “That to the highth of this great Argument/I may assert Eternal
Providence,/And justifie the wayes of God to men.”
o What stands in need of justification for Pope is the apparent disorder of the world.
This is evident for instance outside of us in scenes of conflict and chaos and
seemingly superfluous events around us (the fact that it rains, for instance, on the
ocean), but also within us in the raging of our passions and our temptations to
engage in vice:
 [Man is] “A mighty maze! […] A Wild, where weeds and flow’rs
promiscuous shoot,/Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit” (lines 6-8)
o The challenge, then, is: why would God create a world in which such disorder
seems to run rampant?
Denying disorder
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o Pope’s answer, in brief, is that what appears to us as disorder is actually the
product of order of the highest degree. We fail to recognize this fact as a result of
our own (cognitive) limitations.
 “Say first of God above, or Man below,/What can we reason but from
what we know?/Of Man what see we but his station here,/From which to
reason, or to which refer?/Thro’ worlds unnumber’d tho’ the God be
known,/’Tis ours to trace him only in our own” (lines 17-22)
o Pope’s point is that our perception of disorder is a function of our limited
perspective. Our world is but one “part” of the cosmos (the distinction between
parts and wholes runs through the Essay). So, what might appear disordered from
the perspective of the part might be a function of an order obtaining at the level of
the whole
 Might compare the apparent disorder of a military attack from the
perspective of the soldiers involved with that same attack considered in
the context of a broader strategic objective (you might engage in a costly
battle at one spot to draw the enemy away from another that you’re aiming
to take)
Optimism and hope
o The conclusion of this argument is rather limited—Pope is not contending that
such an order must, or even that it does, obtain, but only that it might
 “So Man[…]/Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,/Touches
some wheel or verges to some goal;/’Tis a part we see, and not a whole”
(l. 56-9)
o As limited as this result is, Pope has at least worked to undermine some of the
apparent evidence for the opposing position. The disorder that we experience may
actually be the product of a larger order, rather than a reflection of the
imperfection in our world. So simply relying on experience, as Bayle does for
instance, does not decide the matter between the optimistic and non-optimistic
position
o Moreover, Pope thinks that even the possibility of such a grander order suffices to
inspire hope in us—that in spite of disorder and evils occurring in our lives, there
might nonetheless be a larger order in which these are all accounted for and gain
significance in contributing to some greater end:
 “What future bliss, [God] gives thee not to know,/But gives that Hope to
be thy blessing now./ Hope springs eternal in the human breast;/Man never
is but always To be blest” (l. 93-6)
An objection and responses
o So, for Pope, experience does not rule out that the world is thoroughly ordered by
God, and even the bare possibility that a larger order obtains is sufficient to
inspire hope of better things in store for human beings.
o However, this position raises (at least) one further problem that needs to be
addressed.
o The argument, such as it is, turns on the assumption that we, human beings, have
a very limited scope to what we can know. We cannot ourselves take the
“cosmic” perspective of God on the world which would reveal its deeper order
and give us certainty instead of mere hope
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o But what justification or vindication can there be for us having these limitations?
Couldn’t God have made us so that we weren’t limited in this way? Isn’t it worse
in the end that we aren’t able to have insight into the ordered character of
creation? Doesn’t this make us susceptible to all sorts of undesirable things
(including despair) as a result?
o A key aim of the “Essay” is to address this additional concern, and Pope outlines
a complex response. His argument begins with the claim that for humans to want
to have been made (much) more intelligent amounts, paradoxically, to the desire
to not be human
The great chain
o The idea here is that God, in creating the world, brings forth the greatest diversity
of things, ranging from bare inanimate matter through unintelligent animals to
intelligent beings (humans, angels, etc.).
o These things can further be arranged in a kind of scale of reality or being. How
this abstract quality is measured is not made clear, but for Pope, things like being
alive, or possessing reason makes a being more real than one that lacks these
traits, and the degree to which one possesses, say, reason, can also make a
difference (more reason = more real). That which has a higher degree of reality or
greater dignity in existence will be higher on the scale, and that which has less,
lower.
 “Is the great chain that draws all to agree, /And drawn supports upheld by
God or thee?” (l. 32-3)
 “Vast chain of Being, which from God began,/Natures aethereal, human,
angel, man,/Beast, bird, fish, insect! What no eye can see,/No glass can
reach! From Infinite to thee” (l. 237-40)
o The point, then, is that humans occupy a precise point on this scale or a specific
link in this chain. Were we endowed with greater intelligence (or microscopic
eyes, or wings, etc.), that would remove us from our position in the hierarchy, and
leave a gap in God’s creation
 “Where all must full or not coherent be,/And all that rises, rise in due
degree;/Then in the scale of reas’ning life, tis plain/There must be,
somewhere such a rank as Man” (l. 43-6)
o So, for us to wish to have insight into God’s mind in framing the world amounts
to the wish to not be human. What it is to be human is just to lack the sort of
larger perspective available to greater sorts of beings
Accounting for natural evils
o With all this in mind, Pope turns in the fifth stanza to addressing the problem of
evil directly.
o There he engages in a conversation with personified Pride, who takes the human
being as the centre of God’s creation.
 In Pope’s presentation, Pride, assisted by reason, seems to takes the
position that God might get off the hook for natural evils, but not for the
existence of moral evil
o So, Pride allows that the existence of natural evils (“When earthquakes swallow,
or when tempests sweep”) can be explained through the fact that God works “not
through partial but by gen’ral laws.”
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That Pride concedes that natural evils can be thus explained is perhaps a
reflection of scientific advances in the period. Modern physicists, Newton
foremost among them, had shown that diverse, even apparently
heterogenous phenomena, like the rising of the tide and the phases of the
moon, can be accounted for through universal laws and principles.
 That natural disasters take place, then, is not somehow a fault in the order
of the world, but ultimately a product of that order, a result of general laws
willed by God
Accounting for moral evils
o In any case, Pride finds cause to complain when it comes to the existence moral
evils, that is, the fact that humans can act in sinful ways, committing terrible
crimes against one another like “a Borgia or a Cataline”
o Pope’s response is to deny any particular difficulty here in the case of moral evil.
Instead he rejects any distinction between the two. That is, just like natural evil,
moral evil is the result of an order set in place by God
 Whereas natural evil is a product of general laws that God wills, moral
evil (sinfulness and its punishment) is the expected result of our
imperfection, which imperfection is just a function of our rank or place in
the order of things (the “great chain”)
 That we sometimes act wrongly, or sometimes desire the bad more than
the good, is just a reflection of our imperfect natures, as a being
somewhere between beasts and angels
o In the case of both sorts of evil, then, God does will that they occur inasmuch as
he wills the order that gives rise to them. But he could not will an order in
creation without also willing a set of general laws and the complete diversity of
beings (the entire “chain”). So assuming that an ordered creation is preferable to
an un-ordered one, natural and moral evil cannot be eliminated from the world
without making it worse
Whatever is, is right
o In the end, then, there is no “problem of evil.” The appearance of a problem is
only generated when we adopt a self- or human-centred view of creation (which
magnifies the importance of what occurs to us, at the expense of the universal
order). To avoid feeling the sting of the problem, we simply have to accept our
appropriate (subordinate) role in God’s order: “In both [cases of evil], to reason
right is to submit”
o Once we recognize this, we will see that we have no claim to an earthly existence
of uninterrupted peace and happiness
o The disorder of the world, the oscillation between moments of pleasure and pain,
or bliss and misery, in our lives is just the result of a greater order in which we are
only one among the many parts (and not the most distinguished one at that). To
expect a life of uninterrupted happiness, of eternal cloudless skies and bountiful
harvests would be to elevate ourselves to a position in the order that we simply
have no right to
 “But ALL subsists by elemental strife;/And Passions are the elements of
Life./The gen’ral ORDER, since the whole began,/Is kept in Nature, and is
kept in Man” (l. 169-72)
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o Having shown that all evils, moral no less than natural, are all a part of God’s
plan, Pope draws his famous conclusion at the end of the first Epistle:
 “And spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s spite,/One truth is clear, ‘Whatever
is, is RIGHT.’”
Human presumption in wanting to chage the order of things
o There is (for our purposes) one final point of interest in Pope’s “Essay”: Pope
goes as far as to contend that the very desire for things to be different (to have a
world without moral evil, or to be able to have insight into the ultimate order of
things) is sinfully presumptuous and unnatural
o Pope attributes this desire to reason and a kind of selfish pride that directs it: “In
Pride, in reas’ning Pride our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the
skies” (l. 123-4). That is, we take ourselves to be the centre of Creation—that for
which everything is intended—and proceed to regard the world as badly laid our
to suit our ends. This is to presume to judge God’s order from the perspective of
but one of his many creations
o Pope thinks further that this prideful selfishness is unnatural as it is the product of
European culture, education, and corruption. Strikingly, he cites as evidence of
this unnaturalness the example of the (idealized) indigenous person in the pure
state of nature, and the freed slave who has returned to their homeland far from
European corruption:
 “Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind/Sees God in clouds, or hears
him in the wind;/His soul proud science never taught to stray/Far as the
solar walk, or milky way” (l. 99-102)
 “Where slaves once more their native land behold/No fiends torment, no
Christians thirst for gold!/To be, contents his natural desire,/He asks no
angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire” (l. 106-8)
Some objectives to English optimism
o 1. What is the connection between Order and Right?
 While Pope might claim he has given us reason to think that the world is
more ordered than we perceive (or at least questioned one reason to doubt
this), he hasn’t given us a reason to also think that that order is also right
or (morally) good. He’s shown that evils can be understood as products of
order, but that doesn’t mean the system that yields them is necessarily
good (for us)
 Another way of putting this is that we might concede that Pope has shown
that everything in the world is as God wills it, but why does that imply that
it’s right?
o Response: shaftesbury’s influence
 Pope’s identification of what is (and its ordered character) with rightness,
is rather elliptical. But here is where Pope, I think, is leaning particularly
hard on Shaftesbury. For Shaftesbury, there is a direct connection between
order, beauty, and goodness, which seems to be presupposed by Pope
 Keeping it brief, for Shaftesbury order is always the result of the activity
of some mind, and what we take to be beautiful is the perception of the
activity of some mind in some work. But like Plato, Shaftesbury identifies
the beautiful with the good. He does so for slightly different reasons,
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mostly because he claims that the pleasures we take in each are the same
sort—they “afford contentment and satisfaction always alike and without
variation or diminution” (The Moralists, 238)
 So, Pope can claim that “Whatever is, is right” because the world, in virtue
of being ordered, is also beautiful and so, according to the Platonic
equation, good, or right.
o 2. The invocation of epistemic limits cut both ways
 Pope’s case for optimism assumes that apparent local disorder is offset or
a product of an order that attains universally. It’s just our inalienable
epistemic limitations that prevent us from seeing this
 However, this assumption is hardly uncontroversial. Pope concedes that
our immediate experience is of local disorder, at least in part, so on what
grounds are we justified in thinking that, in the world as a whole, outside
of or beyond what we experience (and can experience), an order obtains?
 Of course, Pope might (and likely would) claim that it is because of our
certainty in the existence of God that we can know that such an order
obtains in all that he creates. Yet, this could raise the possibility of circular
reasoning.
 Shaftesbury for his part endorses the argument from design for
God’s existence—that the existence of order in the world licenses
the inference to the existence of an intelligent architect. It’s not
clear whether Pope endorses this, but if he did, then he would be
guilty of a vicious circle. As he would claim on the one hand that
we can know God exists because there’s order in the world; and on
the other hand, that we can know there is order in the world
because God exists
o 3. Pope’s conception of a rationally ordered universe stands in tension with a
traditional conception of God as providentially concerned with human affairs.
 Pope’s view of God might be compared to that of a (perfect) clockmaker,
who designs and brings about his creation (a perfect machine) and then
sets it to running and then simply leaves it be.
 Indeed, there seems to be little place in Pope’s divinely ordered universe
for things like miracles and other interventions that are typically
associated with God’s providence
 The denial of God’s providential concern for human beings and the
rejection of miracles was associated in Pope’s time with a
theological position known as deism.
 It’s not clear whether Pope does in fact endorse the deistic conception of
God and his relation to creation. But we will see that for Leibniz, the
“metaphysical optimist,” preserving God’s personal concern for his
creation is a priority and a key feature of his argument that this is the “best
of all possible worlds”
Looking ahead to Leibniz
o For our in-class meeting, we’ll be reading a fairly substantial selection from
Leibniz’s Theodicy of 1710.
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o Leibniz’s text is challenging to read, despite being written more-or-less in the
form of a standard philosophical treatise. Like Bayle, Leibniz takes every
opportunity of displaying his own erudition, with lots of names dropped,
digressions on obscure points of doctrine, and plenty of Latin. Leibniz is clearly
trying to rival Bayle in this regard (and he is one of the few thinkers in the early
18th century who might claim to be Bayle’s intellectual equal)
o Moreover, Leibniz’s argument is made over the course of the entire book, which
can make it hard to keep track of. To simplify things, I’ve tried to be very
selective with the reading, cutting irrelevant passages and stitching it back
together. As a result, the pdf you’ll have looks like this in many places
Overview of Leibniz theodicy
o By way of making the text (a little) easier to navigate, here’s an overview of the
sections and their main topics:
 Preface (fairly standard—sets out the problem [that of evil] and outlines
the main theses)
 “Preliminary Dissertation on the Conformity of Faith and Reason” (an
introductory essay where Leibniz takes issue with Bayle’s apparent view
that the claims of faith are contrary to reason—this isn’t terribly important
for our purposes so it’s not included in the selections)
 “Essays on the Justice of God and the Freedom of Man in the Origin of
Evil” (this is the main title for the remaining essays in the Theodicy, which
are divided into three Parts)
 Part One (sect. 1-106—outlines the problem, particularly
concerning God’s will as the cause of moral evil [sin/guilt];
presents the elements of Leibniz’s solution)
 Part Two (sect. 107-240—shows how the system presented in Part
One answers Bayle’s specific objections)
 Part Three (sect. 241-417—turns to the origins of physical evil
[suffering, especially through punishment], and traces its cause to
our misuse of freedom)
 Appendices (among these is one I have included in the reading, but just in
case it might be helpful—a “Summary of the Controversy Reduced to
Formal Arguments”)
Online lecture 5:
- Humes dialogues concerning natural religion
- The problem with optimism
o Between Voltaire and Cugoano, the case against optimism seems fairly damning
 It is not, of course, impossible to remain an optimist while acknowledging
the actuality of devastating natural evil and atrocious moral evil. Indeed,
one wonders whether Leibniz might still remain unshaken in his optimism
in spite of all this
o Even so, acknowledging these terrible evils has the effect of removing one of the
principal motives to adopt the optimistic position
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We’ve seen that some, like Voltaire (initially) and Rousseau sought
comfort in the optimistic view because it had the effect of promoting hope
amid adversity
 But now the optimist is forced to admit that not only is horrific suffering
not ruled out on the optimist view, but it is apparently quite consistent
with it. Indeed, the optimistic mantra that this is the best of all possible
worlds can even be (mis)used by some by way of justifying the existence
and continuation of evil institutions like the transatlantic slave trade
The failure of theodicy
o The failure of philosophical optimism in light of these events gave rise to broader
philosophical concerns about any attempts at theodicy, that is, of justifying the
conduct of God in bringing about a world where evil exists
o This represents a swing of the historical pendulum back to the position of Bayle.
And we’ll find in the readings for this week two philosophers who provide an
updated argument in favour of Bayle’s general conclusion that the existence of
evil cannot be explained by setting out from the assumption of a supremely good
being
o Even so, while supporting Bayle’s broad conclusion in rejecting theodicy, both
end up in rather different places
 On the one hand, Hume (who was a great admirer of Bayle) contends that
the reasons for (natural) evil are rooted in facts about us and the world, the
necessity of which we could never have insight into (and which should
lead us to question the existence of God as such)
 On the other hand, Kant will make the case that the failure of all attempts
at theodicy up until now only goes to show that our faith in God (and his
goodness) must have its ground in morality and not in empirical
observation
David Hume
o 1711-1776
o Published A Treatise of Human Nature, his principal work in philosophy, in 1738
(at the age of 28)
o His contributions range widely over theoretical, moral, and political philosophy.
Additionally, he wrote books of popular essays and a six-volume History of
England
o Best known for his discovery of the “problem of induction” (a challenge to the
rational basis for our confidence that the future will resemble the past)
o Dialogues concerning Natural Religion is one of a number of works to touch on
philosophy of religion.
Dialogues concerning natural religion
o Hume began writing the Dialogues in 1750, only completing them in 1776
o However, because Hume (that is, the character thought to represent Hume’s
views) takes a rather sceptical position regarding established religion in the
Dialogues, he thought it better to suppress the text during his lifetime. In
accordance with his wishes, it was published only after his death, in 1779
 Hume had long been suspected of being an atheist (in the full-fledged
sense of denying God’s existence and being a thoroughgoing naturalist).
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This suspicion even cost him the chance at an academic position early in
his career
o As the title indicates, the Dialogues is written in the form of a dialogue. In the
portions of the text we’ll be looking at, there are three characters involved:
 Philo—an empiricist and a sceptic, and usually taken to present Hume’s
own view
 Cleanthes—a “natural theologian,” that is, a theistic thinker who holds that
key theological truths (God’s existence, etc.) can (also) be known through
reason (Bayle)
 Demea—a theist but who does not think that fundamental religious truths
can be known by reason (sometimes identified as a mystical thinker)
Dialogues part X-XI
o Up until this point in the Dialogues, the discussion has focused largely on the socalled “argument from design.” This is the argument for God’s existence on the
basis of the observed order in the world
 Just as you would infer, upon coming across a well-ordered machine (a
watch), that it had some intelligent designer (a watchmaker), so on the
basis of the observed order in the world we can infer some designer of
sufficient power, intelligence, and goodness to bring it about
o The argument is vigorously defended by Cleanthes, but Philo, Hume’s
mouthpiece, raises a number of challenges to it. Philo particularly challenges the
strength of the analogy: while we have experience of, say, watches and their
causal origin (as human-made artifacts), we do not have experience of any other
worlds nor of how they tend to come about
o This leads into a discussion of the problem of evil, as the existence of evil is
thought to be a further challenge to any argument for God’s existence
o This discussion is broached in Part X, which we’ll return to later in the course
(since it also raises broader questions about the nature and significance of
suffering). For now, we’ll focus on Part XI, where Philo proceeds to challenge the
basis of the theist’s attempt to establish our knowledge of God’s infinite power,
wisdom, and goodness (independently of whether God might exist)
Dialogues part XI
o At the beginning of Part XI, then, the disputants take up the issue of what we can
know about God’s attributes.
o Cleanthes presents a “new theory” to Philo that resembles Bayle’s Manichaean
hypothesis (and this is itself critically discussed at the conclusion of Part XI)
o In any case, the presentation of this theory is just the occasion for Philo to begin a
monologue where he (i.e., Hume) offers his view of what we can know about the
divine attributes on the basis of our experience
 As opposed to the previous discussion of the design argument, which
sought to prove the existence of some supreme being on the basis of
observed order, the topic now discussed is what can be known about God,
that is, about his nature or attributes
Philo on how we (don’t) know the divine attributes
o In presenting his own views on our knowledge of the divine attributes, Philo
contrasts two different perspectives: one where we somehow know these
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beforehand (i.e., antecedent to any experience of the world) and that where we
come to infer God’s attributes only on the basis of experience
o The former corresponds to a (hypothetical) case in which we are informed about
God before we have any experience of the world:
 “if a very limited intelligence, whom we shall suppose utterly
unacquainted with the universe, were assured that it were the production
of a very good, wise, and powerful Being […], he would, from his
conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it from what we find it
to be from experience” (199)
o Hume’s point is that were it the case that in framing our conception of God we
relied on anything but experience, we might be convinced that the world was the
product of a supremely good, etc. being
o Moreover, assuming that we were so assured in advance, on encountering the
world, replete with apparent imperfections, it is possible that we might
nonetheless be convinced that all the imperfections in the world are consistent
with our conception of the divine being as absolutely perfect:
 “Supposing now, that this person were brought into the world, still assured
that it was the workmanship of such a sublime and benevolent Being; he
might, perhaps, be surprised at the disappointment, but would never retract
his former belief […] since such a limited intelligence must be sensible of
his own blindness and ignorance” (200)
Philo on how we (do) know the divine attributes
o However, this is obviously not the order in which we come to frame our
conceptions of God and his attributes
o Instead, we first encounter the world and form impressions of its (im)perfections
through our experience. It is only after that that we frame our conception of God
and accommodate our conception of his attributes to our experience
 “But supposing, which is the real case with regard to man, that this
creature is not antecedently convinced of a supreme intelligence,
benevolent, and powerful, but is left to gather such a belief from the
appearances of things” (200)
o That this represents the “real case” concerning human knowledge of God is due,
in part to Hume’s empiricism—all meaningful ideas that we have are drawn from
experience—but is also just a characterization of our ordinary epistemological
situation. Whatever “a priori” grounds might be offered to us regarding God’s
existence and his nature, these arguments do not precede our encounters with the
world and the conclusions we draw from them. It is not experience that must be
squared with what reason has already discerned about God and his nature, but
vice versa
o In any case, Philo contends that this order and priority of experience “entirely
alters the case” as far as what we can reasonably hold about the divine attributes
Condemning the architect
o In a parody of the design argument, Hume compares what we can know about
God on the basis of the order and events in the world to what we can know about
an architect on the basis of a building:
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o “[Were I to] I show you a house or palace where there was not one apartment
convenient or agreeable; where the windows, doors, fires, passages stairs and the
whole economy of the building were the source of noise, confusion, fatigue,
darkness and the extremes of heat and could, you would certainly blame the
contrivance […].
o Hume’s point is that our experience of the world is that it is in fact poorly
designed to support and promote human life and well-being. There is no corner of
the world where human beings can live free of cares, where securing even the
necessities of life can be done without effort
o Moreover, to defend God’s design by noting that a given inconvenience is
required by the overall design does not satisfy us. Even if it was true, from our
perspective it remains impossible to understand what necessitates some fault or
why God could not have done otherwise, given the resources at his disposal
o “The architect would in vain display his subtility, and prove to you that if this
door or that window were altered, greater ills would ensue. What he says may be
strictly true […]. But still you would assert in general that, if the architect had
skill and good intentions, he might have adjusted the parts” (202)
o Setting out from what our experience discloses, if we assume that God has
“designed” the world for human well-being, then he has done a terrible job, and
we cannot but blame him for it:
o “If you find many inconveniences and deformities in the building, you will
always […] condemn the architect”
Hume’s Baylian conclusion
o From these considerations, Hume does not reject the possibility that God exists
and has the attributes (infinite goodness, power and knowledge) theologians claim
of him. But he does deny that we are ever in a position to rationally infer that is
the case on the basis of the evidence we have
 “I conclude that, however consistent the world may be, allowing certain
suppositions and conjectures, with the idea of such a Deity, it can never
afford us an inference concerning his existence” (203)
o This is to say that, on whatever basis we might believe in God and that he has
infinite attributes (a priori arguments; faith based in Scriptures), our experience
will not support this and will even lead us in a direction contrary to it
o This doesn’t mean that it isn’t the case that such a God exists and can be rendered
consistent with what we know by experience; but it does mean that arguments
from what we experience can never support it:
 “The consistence [i.e., consistency of God’s existence, infinite nature, and
the faults in the world] is not absolutely denied, only the inference [from
experience]”
Humes arguments from natural evil
o Hume goes on to offer another argument for a similar conclusion. Now, however,
we will focus on the existence of natural evils in the world—the previous
argument certainly included natural evils among the “inconveniences” in the
architect’s building, but was not limited to it. Additionally, the conclusion will be
that it is never rational for us to believe that God has the attributes theologians
predicate of him
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o The new argument Hume offers proceeds as follows:
 There are four main sources of the natural evils of the world
 Human reason has no insight into the necessity or unavoidability of these
four sources (that is, we can’t see why they must be part of creation)
 It thus strikes us as entirely possible that a perfectly wise, good, etc.
creator could, and would, have arranged things differently
 Therefore, while it is possible that such a God exists, and that his nature
can be rendered consistent with the necessity of these sources, human
reason cannot have insight into this consistency
o This argument obviously hinges on what the 4 circumstances are that give rise to
natural evils in the world. We will consider each in turn, but bear in mind that the
theist is committed to claiming that each of them is “necessary and unavoidable,”
whereas Hume’s point is that it seems clear to us that each could be omitted from
the world with little cost and great benefit
The first circumstance
o “There seem to be four circumstances on which depend all, or the greatest part of
the ills [i.e., natural evils] that molest sensible creatures” (203)
o “The first circumstance which introduces evil is that contrivance or economy of
the animal creation by which pains as well as pleasures are employed to excite all
creatures to action” (205)
o This circumstance is that sentient beings are so constituted that they are driven to
act by pleasure and by pain. That is, it is a burning sensation that moves us to put
down a hot pan, or a sharp prick that moves us to remove a splinter
o Hume’s point is that the use of pain seems an utterly contingent and needless way
of moving us to act—why couldn’t a slight diminution in pleasure serve the same
purpose? Why couldn’t the possibility of harm or a threat be communicated to us
through some other means than the sensation of pain?
 “It seems therefore plainly possible to carry on the business of life without
any pain. Why then is any animal ever rendered susceptible of such a
sensation?” (205)
The second circumstance
o Even so, we might imagine a world filled with beings susceptible to pain and
pleasure, but where circumstances never arise such that there is a painful
sentiment. It might be the case, for instance, that whenever we were about to
engage in some activity, or undergo something, that would yield a painful
sentiment, God would intervene and ensure that the painful consequence was
never experienced
o Obviously, God does not do this, and Hume thinks that the fact that God opts
instead to govern the world at a distance, as it were, through universal laws
constitutes a further source of natural evil
 “But a capacity of pain would not alone produce pain, were it not for the
second circumstance, viz. the conducting of the world by general laws;
and this seems nowise necessary to a very perfect Being” (206)
o We’ve already seen that Pope (among others) celebrates the ordering of the world
through universal laws and takes this as a mark of divine wisdom. But as Pope
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also admits, natural evils (sometimes disastrous) also inevitable come about as the
result of God willing these laws.
o While it might be simpler and more elegant that God regulates the world through
a few universal laws, it nonetheless seems to us that it would be consistent with
his wisdom and goodness to occasionally supplement them with particular
volitions, at least in cases where it would avoid the worst miseries
 “A fleet whose purposes were salutary to society might always meet with
a fair wind; good princes enjoy sound health and long life; persons born to
power and authority be framed with good tempers and virtuous
dispositions. A few such events as these, regularly and wisely conducted,
would change the face of the world, and yet would no more disturb the
course of nature […] than the present economy of things, where the causes
are secret” (208)
 There might be “good reasons why Providence interposes not in this
manner, but they are unknown to us” (209)
The third circumstance
o Here again, Hume allows that a world with beings susceptible to pain and
pleasure, and regulated by universal laws could still be one in which natural evils
are limited—perhaps just the odd earthquake, or the rare war upon the death of a
good prince. What makes suffering more likely is the fact that these sentient
beings are so poorly provided for, a circumstance that makes suffering inevitable
o “If everything in the universe be conducted by general laws, and if animals be
rendered susceptible of pain, it scarcely seems possible but some ill must arise in
the various shocks of matter […]; but this ill would be very rare, were it not for
the third circumstance, […] viz. the great frugality with which all powers and
faculties are distributed to every particular being” (209)
 The circumstance Hume has in mind is that living beings are only
minimally provided for in terms of their abilities, when it comes to
survival—they have what they need to endure the elements, secure food
and shelter, and defend themselves, but only just:
o “Nature seems to have formed an exact calculation of the necessities of her
creatures and like a rigid master has afforded them little more powers or
endowments that are strictly sufficient” (210-11)
 Hume’s point is that this exceeding thrifty provision leaves us with little
margin for error. The slightest mistake, injury, or accident can be
devastating because we continually need every resource at our disposal to
survive—not just to get what we need but also to secure it from those
competing for the same resources
o Hume thinks that this stepmotherly provision of natural capacities is hard to
understand. Were we given just a slight increase—in humanity’s case, to our
industriousness, or willingness to work—there would be a considerable
improvement in our circumstances without making things too easy for us
 “it is hard that, being placed in a world so full of wants and necessities,
where almost every being and element is either our foe or refuses its
assistance, [that] we should also have our own temper to struggle with and
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should be deprived of that faculty which can alone fence against these
multiplied evils” (214-5)
The fourth circumstance
o “The fourth circumstance […] is the inaccurate workmanship of all the springs
and principles of the great machine of nature.” (215)
o This final circumstance is a bit peculiar but the idea is that the world seems to be
ordered in a way that certain phenomena serve a precise and vital function (rain to
water plants; the circulation of fluids in the body to preserve health; passions
enhance our actions). However, these phenomena often fail to serve these
functions or admit of excesses that are counter-purposive (rain leads to floods, or
the fluids of the body fail to circulate, passions undo us)
 “There is nothing so advantageous in the universe but what frequently
becomes pernicious” (217)
o That these phenomena should permit of this excessiveness strikes us as
unreasonable—why couldn’t they have been more capably regulated so that they
would not exceed the boundaries beyond which they are no longer useful but
harmful?
Skeptical conclusion from the above
o It would seem, then, that as far as we can see, the bulk of natural evils in the
world could have been avoided: “Were all living creatures incapable of pain, or
were the world administered by particular volitions, evil never could have found
access into the universe” (217)
o So what should we infer from this? Philo thinks it would be too hasty to conclude
that the existence of these circumstances is inconsistent with God’s supreme
goodness, wisdom, etc. Rather we have to “be more modest in our conclusions”
o What does follow is that we can never claim to know the divine attributes on the
basis of our experience
 “I am sceptic enough to allow that the bad appearances notwithstanding all
my reasonings [concerning the four circumstances] may be compatible
with such attributes as you suppose: but surely they can never prove these
attributes” (219)
o Indeed, Hume’s conclusion here is more sceptical than he lets on. It’s not just that
we can’t claim to know the divine attributes on the basis of experience. More than
this, Hume thinks that (repeated) experience is the only reasonable basis on which
we can form beliefs, and since our experience is always of imperfections and
inconveniences, it would actually also be irrational for us to hold that God is
supremely good—it would be contrary to what our experience discloses even if
we can’t rule it out completely
Hume vs bayle
o Hume’s sceptical conclusion might remind us of Bayle’s in his Manichaean
articles. Well aware of this, Hume proceeds to distinguish his position from that
of Bayle. Focusing on the “Manichaean hypothesis,” Hume situates it within four
different, and exhaustive, hypotheses regarding the “first causes of the universe”:
o that it/they are perfectly good;
o that it/they are perfectly evil;
o that they are both good and evil (= Manichaeism);
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o that they are neither (i.e., are indifferent)
o Hume agrees with Bayle that the “mixt” character of observed phenomena rules
out the first two. But, against Bayle, he claims that the Manichaean hypothesis is
also unsupported by experience:
o “if we consider […] the perfect uniformity and agreement of the parts of the
universe, we shall not discover in it any marks of the combat of a malevolent with
a benevolent being” (220)
o Hume points out that the Manichaean hypothesis would suggest a rather chaotic
set of phenomena—a conflict between two principles would yield all sorts of
inconsistent events. Instead, we experience a certain regularity in events in the
world that suggests against the Manichaean position
o Instead, the phenomena can be adequately explained by assuming that the first
causes, whatever they are, are amoral—if it is a kind of agency, then it is simply
unconcerned with the well-being of human beings (or it does not share human
conceptions of good and evil)
o “The true conclusion is that the original Source of all things is entirely indifferent
to all these principles; and has no more regard to good above ill, than to heat
above cold, or to drought above moisture, or to light above heavy” (221)
o This would appear to undermine Bayle’s position—he had contended that the
Manichaean hypothesis is the best supported by experience and that it was absurd,
which necessitated a flight to faith. Hume’s reply is that Bayle is simply wrong
about the empirical support of the hypothesis, and accordingly no irrational leap is
needed
Transition to kants essay on theodicy
o Part XI of Hume’s Dialogues thus constitutes a considerable challenge to any
attempt to “vindicate the ways of God to man”
 A consideration of the causes of natural evils will never be made to rhyme
with God’s supreme goodness; and the hypothesis that is best supported
by experience is not one that makes recourse to faith necessary but is, in
fact, that the world, evils and all, has its origin in principles that lack
moral qualities (and likely agency altogether)
o Immanuel Kant is going to offer his own argument for the inevitable failure of
attempts at theodicy, albeit with a rather different conclusion than Hume’s, in his
essay “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy”
o Kant’s essay is from late in his career, at the height of his fame. It is also quite
technical and challenging to read (as all of his mature works are)
o When reading, keep the following study questions in mind:
 1. What are the three types of “counter-purposiveness” Kant lists at the
outset (and what does each mean)?
 2. What does Kant mean when he says “Job’s friends declare themselves
for that system which explains all ills in the world from God’s justice”?
 3. What does Kant understand by ‘truthfulness’?
Week 5 lecture:
- Kant on the failure of theodicy
- Kant 1724-1804 – koenigsberg, Prussia
o “had no life, therefore no biography”
o Critique of pure reason – 1781 – revolution in metaphysics. Most popular work.
o 1785 The groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, a revolutionary text in moral
philosophy
o 1791 on the miscarriage of all philosophical trials (more interested in religion)
- Kants philosophy
o Kant’s idealism: Kant argues that space and time are mere “forms of sensibility,”
that is, things that are rooted in the ways in which we perceive the world (rather
than things found in the world as such). This leads Kant to distinguish between
the sensible world (or: the world as it appears to us) and the supersensible world
(or: the world as it is in itself, i.e., independently of the ways we sense it)
o Kant’s deontological ethics: Kant’s moral theory is often called deontological
(from the Greek word deon [δέον] for ‘duty’). Kant thinks that the moral worth of
an action does not rest in the goods/ills that are intended but in the fact that it is
done solely because one wants to do what is right (or: “for the sake of duty”).
Fulfilling our duty requires that we struggle against inclinations and adversity, but
succeeding in this is what Kant understands by ‘virtue’
 This view reflected in the moral uprightness of Job in the essay
o Kant on proofs for God’s existence: Kant formulated a now-famous objection to
Anselm’s ontological proof of God’s existence (summed up as: existence is not a
perfection, so it is not part of our conception of God). Kant was generally
sceptical of speculative proofs of God’s existence—proofs that rooted our
conviction in God’s existence on some knowledge claim (like the design
argument). As an alternative, Kant offered a moral ‘proof’ of God’s existence—
that somehow God’s existence is implicated in a set of beliefs related to morality
- Kant’s essay divides into roughly two halves.
o The first (pp. 24-31) argues that all efforts at theodicy thus far have been a failure,
but also tries to show that all that we can attain from such efforts is a sort of
‘negative wisdom,’ i.e., a knowledge that a theodicy is impossible
 The central feature of this part is a systematic classification of all previous
attempts
 “No theodicy has, or can, ever succeed…”
o The second (pp. 31-37) argues that the result of these failures need not shake our
conviction in a moral order of the world—indeed, that it is even expressive of
divine wisdom and moral perfection that such theodicies fail
 This, in any case, is the lesson Kant takes an ‘authentic’ interpretation of
the Biblical Book of Job to reveal
 “…which is what God intends, and that’s fine.”
- 1. The Tribunal of Reason
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o Kant frames his essay as a kind of tribunal, or court proceeding. God is, as it
were, brought before the court and asked to justify his conduct in creating and
ordering the world
 Kant is clear, however, that what presides over the court is human reason
 “The author of a theodicy agrees, therefore, that this juridical
process be instituted before the tribunal of reason”
o This means that the claims on the part of the “plaintiff” (the critic of God) and the
“advocate” (the author of theodicy) are subject to the scrutiny of human reason—
the complaints, but more importantly, the defense of God must be something
comprehensible to us
o This rules out some sorts of defenses of God:
 “[the advocate of God] cannot dismiss the complaints with a concession of
the supreme wisdom of the author of the world, imposed upon the
plaintiff”
 “he must rather attend to the objections and make comprehensible how
they in no way derogate from the concept of the highest wisdom by
clarifying and removing them” (24-5)
o (Note, however, that Kant will himself defend a position that ‘dismisses’
objections to divine wisdom [cf. p. 31], but this is different since in doing so he
doesn’t reject the authority of [practical] reason, and in any case Kant takes it to
be God himself who dismisses such attempts, not human beings)
2. Kant on Theodicy
o Beginning with the first half, the first thing we need to consider is what, precisely,
Kant means by ‘theodicy.’ Kant understands this term in a variety of senses
through the essay, and failing to distinguish them will only yield (more) confusion
o Kant offers one definition at the outset:
 By ‘theodicy’ we understand the defense of the highest wisdom of the
creator against the charge which reason brings against it for whatever is
counter-purposive in the world” (p. 24)
o This might appear to be just the traditional definition but a couple things are
notable. First, Kant claims that what is at stake here is God’s wisdom, though
what he means is God’s moral wisdom—”a will’s property of being in agreement
with the highest good as the final end of all things” (p. 25n)
 In plainer English, by God’s ‘moral wisdom,’ Kant means his wise
arrangement of events in the world to promote the morally best outcome
2. Kant on Counter-Purposiveness
o Second, Kant characterizes the challenge to God’s moral wisdom in terms of the
notion of counter-purposiveness. What Kant means here are events in the
(sensible) world that seem contrary to any morally-wise arrangement. Moreover,
these are events which we know through our experience
o This is summed up in a later definition of theodicy (p. 30): by ‘theodicy’ is meant
“the vindication of the moral wisdom of the world-government against the doubts
raised against it on the basis of what experience of this world teaches”
o A different definition is given soon after: “we cannot deny the name of ‘theodicy’
also to the mere dismissal of all objections against divine wisdom, if this
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dismissal is a divine decree” (p. 31). We’ll return to this sense later (but note for
now, this is a sense of ‘theodicy’ which Kant defends in his essay)
2. 3 kinds of counter-purposiveness
o As indicated, Kant argues that all efforts at theodicy thus far have failed. To make
the case for this he offers a (systematic) classification of the sorts of challenges
that any theodicy has to address
o We’ve seen the general challenge is one of observed counter-purposiveness in the
world, understood as that which cannot be consistent with (moral) wisdom
o But Kant further distinguishes between three different kinds of counterpurposiveness that need to be addressed (and what aspect of our ‘moral concept’
of God they threaten):
 1. Absolutely counter-purposive: something the willing of which (whether
for its own sake or for the sake of something else) can never be reconciled
with a wise purpose
 Moral evil/sin is ACP: It cannot be willed for its own sake, or even
as a means to some other good (and were God to will moral evil at
all, we would deny his holiness, or moral worthiness)
 2. Conditionally counter-purposive: something, the willing of which is
counter-purposive if willed for its own sake, but is not necessarily so if
willed for the sake of something else
 Physical evil/suffering is CCP: it is not inconsistent for God to will
it (to an extent), provided that it served a greater end (were God to
will suffering for its own sake, we would deny his
goodness/benevolence)
 3. Disproportionately counter-purposive: a state of affairs in which there is
no proportion between moral desert and reward/punishment
 A state of affairs in which the good suffer or the bad prosper is
counter-purposive in its proportion (and if God wills such a state of
affairs, we would deny his justice)
2. Three theodical strategies
o A successful theodicy, then, must address all three of these sorts of apparent
counter-purposiveness. (It might be possible to avoid the third sort, however, if
one denies the existence of moral evil altogether, but Kant has little sympathy for
this gambit)
o Conveniently, Kant distinguishes between three different strategies of argument
that might be used to address a putative case of counter-purposiveness
 “the would-be advocate of God [must] prove that either that whatever in
the world we judge counter-purposive is not so; or, if there is any such
thing, that it must be judged not at all as an intended effect but as the
unavoidable consequence of the nature of things; or, finally, that it must at
least be considered not as an intended effect of the creator [but] merely of
[…] human beings
 A) That which appears to us as counter-purposive is not really
 B) The counter-purposive unavoidably piggybacks on God’s
creation
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C) The counter-purposive is either the fault of human beings or
willed by God for their sake (i.e., to improve them)
For a theodicy to be complete, it must have to offer a response to moral evil, physical
evil, and why theres a disproportion between the two.
o
o 2. Positions on Moral evil (1A, 1B, 1C) and Kant’s responses
 Kant also considers responses to the (conditionally counter-purposive)
existence of physical evil on the basis of the same three strategies
 1. Physical evil is not as bad as one might think since, in spite of it,
everyone would “rather live than be dead”
 2. It is part of the nature of an animal (sentient) beings to be more
susceptible to pains rather than pleasures (the former, for instance,
promote survival more effectively)
 3. The pains of the world are intended for the sake of the human
being, as a kind of “time of trial” where their commitment to virtue
is tested
 To these, Kant responds as follows:
 1. The claim is empirically false. Everyone who “has lived and
pondered over the value of life” will have the same response
“when asked […] whether he had the inclination to play the game
of life once more”
 2. This only begs the question: “why the creator of our existence
called us into life when the latter [i.e., life] is not desirable to us”
 3. This is possible, but we cannot have insight into whether it’s the
case: “in this way one can indeed cut the knot loose […] but one
cannot untie the knot”
o 3. Positions on Disproportion between Evil and Suffering (3A, 3B, 3C) and
Responses
 Finally, Kant considers responses to the fact that a (counter-purposive)
disproportion between moral evil and physical evil seems to obtain in the
world
 1. It is not the case that there is such a disproportion. The
conscience of the evildoer punishes them sufficiently for the
commission of sin

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2. That the virtuous should suffer is part and parcel of what it
means to be virtuous—that is, adversity is essential to prove the
character and value of virtue
 3. In this life, our state of happiness/sadness is determined by
things like our technical prowess or ability to choose the right
means to achieve our worldly ends (prudence) and does not depend
on moral goodness/badness; it is only in the next life that we will
see the rewards of virtue or the wages of vice
As in the previous cases, Kant responds to each of these attempts to save
God’s justice:
 1. This is not the case—only those already virtuous suffer the
pangs of conscience to the degree that it serves as a natural
punishment
 2. This puts the virtuous person in the perverse case of suffering
not so that his virtue might be pure but because his virtue is pure,
which does not seem just.
 3. It is a reasonable postulate that the next life will see the rewards
and punishments for actions in this one meted out; but this is not a
vindication of God since there is no basis for this expectation given
what happens in this life (it is rather in spite of what happens in
this life that we hope this is the case)
o Otherwise put, given what happens in this life, we have no
reason to think that this will be the case (why couldn’t the
next life see a similar disproportion?), but we can and
should hope for a distribution of happiness in accordance
with desert
o
3. A negative wisdom
o Kant takes the previous considerations to show that every previous philosophical
attempt at theodicy has not succeeded. On its own, this does not rule out that
some philosopher might later prove successful in this endeavour
o Even so, Kant thinks that there is good reason to suspect that any philosophical
attempt at theodicy must fail. The reason for this, broadly speaking, is that a
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successful attempt would require us to be able to have a kind of insight that we
are fundamentally incapable of
 “our reason is absolutely incapable of insight into the relationship in
which any world as we may ever become acquainted with through
experience stands with respect to the highest wisdom” (p. 30)
o We’ll consider what this means shortly, but for Kant this amounts to a kind of
negative wisdom—an “insight into the necessary limitation of what we may
presume with respect to that which is too high for us”
 Otherwise put: this negative wisdom is the firm knowledge that any such
insight is impossible for us
3. The inevitable failure of theodicy
o Kant’s own explanation for why we cannot possible have the insight required to
vindicate God’s moral wisdom is not exactly straightforward
 “For in the arrangement of this world we have the concept of an artistic
wisdom—a concept which, in order to attain to a physico-theology, is not
wanting in objective reality for our speculative faculty of reason. And we
also have in the moral idea of our own practical reason a concept of a
moral wisdom which could have been implanted in a world in general by a
most perfect creator. – But of the unity in the agreement in a sensible
world between the artistic and moral wisdom, we have no concept; nor can
we ever hope to attain one.” (pp. 30-1)
o We can, however, get a sense of why Kant thinks any theodicy would be
impossible through the following considerations
o Kant thinks that what a theodicy requires is an account of the harmony between
God’s artistic wisdom and his moral wisdom
o God’s artistic wisdom is evidenced in his wise arrangement of the events of the
natural world—his direction of all natural events in accordance with an economy
of natural laws
 God is artistically wise because he is able to direct an infinite diversity of
effects through a few universal laws of nature
o God’s moral wisdom, however, would be evidenced in his arrangement of the
actions of moral beings such that the greatest good comes about through them
 That this should result is not included in the idea of God being artistically
wise—that God is the best craftsmen does not mean that that which he
crafts also serves the best moral end
o But, generally put, the two sorts of “arrangements” involve reference to two
different sorts of laws as governing things
 Artistic wisdom involves the “laws of nature”—the causal relationships
among the things that constitute the world
 Moral wisdom involves the “moral law”—the law that specifies what
actions free creatures are supposed to perform or omit
o Kant’s point, however, is that both sorts of laws are, as far as we’re able to
determine, incommensurable
 One way to put this is that laws of nature are descriptive (explain what
does happen) whereas the moral law is prescriptive (explains what ought
to happen)
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“from it [artistic wisdom] no inference is allowed to the moral wisdom of
the author of the world, for the natural law and the moral law require
principles of entirely different kinds” (p. 25n)
o So, we can know the laws that govern nature, and we can know what the moral
law demands of us, but we cannot know how a world designed to abide by the
former might also serve to satisfy the demands of the latter
o To get a better sense of what Kant is getting at, we might consider this issue from
the perspective of human beings
o Human beings are natural beings insofar as we’re governed by the sorts of laws
that also govern nature; but we’re moral beings insofar as we are also subject to
obligations we must fulfill
 As natural beings, we use our knowledge of natural causal connections
(laws) to pursue our own happiness (something that is possible because of
God’s artistic wisdom)
 As moral beings, we use our awareness of the moral law to determine
what action we should perform to achieve virtue (something that is
possible because of God’s moral wisdom)
o It is inconceivable to us, however, how two such different orders can both obtain
in the same world—how, for instance, acting for the sake of virtue, which
frequently requires that we act contrary to what we desire, might also serve to
bring about our happiness. It is something only God could understand and bring
about.
4. Kant’s theodicy
o In the second half of the essay, Kant changes his tune somewhat. Having shown
that all theodicies have and must fail, he now contends that a theodicy of a
different sort is possible, and indeed, an example of this is given to us in the Book
of Job
o Kant signals this transition by introducing an odd distinction between “doctrinal”
and “authentic” interpretations of Scripture, but we don’t need to worry too much
about what Kant means by this
o What is essential is a distinction between two types of theodicy—one that Kant
has argued is impossible (and which is now called ‘doctrinal’), and another that
Kant thinks can be salvaged
 “Philosophical trials in this kind of interpretation are doctrinal; they
constitute theodicy proper […]. Yet we cannot deny the name of
‘theodicy’ also to the mere dismissal of all objections against divine
wisdom if this dismissal is a divine decree” (31)
4. A different approach to moral wisdom
o As Kant sees it, his argument thus far has proceeded as follows:
 I cannot understand how the existence of evil fits into the order brought
about by God
 I cannot see how, on the basis of the natural order, a moral order of
things is possible
 Indeed, understanding this is beyond the capacity of human beings
 Therefore, I have no basis to hold that God is morally wise (i.e., that he
has ordered things in this world to promote the morally best outcome)
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o However, Kant thinks that this only goes to show that we should abandon this
path to gaining assurance of God’s moral wisdom
 We should “dismiss” these challenges to God’s moral wisdom on the basis
of our lack of insight—we’ll just never understand how evil fits into a
moral order—but that does not mean dismissing the need to justify God’s
moral wisdom altogether (so this is not a rejection of the “tribunal of
reason”)
 (Also, reason is still involved, only now the emphasis changes from
‘speculative’ to ‘practical’ reason)
o We should abandon trying to discern the moral order of things on the basis of the
natural order. Instead, we should see whether we can have insight into the moral
order itself and from there infer that God is morally wise (or something near
enough)
 Moreover, Kant claims that God himself can be understood to assert the
futility of the former path for theodicy, and to suggest Kant’s preferred
alternative in the Book of Job
 (That God himself is taken to suggest this in the Book is why this is taken
as an authentic theodicy)
The book of job
o Very briefly summarized, the Book of Job sees the following events:
 Job was a pious, morally upright, and prosperous man
 One day, Satan challenged God, claiming that Job was only pious because
of his prosperity and without this he would turn on and curse God
 God takes up the challenge, and kills Job’s sons and daughters (not his
wife), servants, and animals. He lets Satan afflict Job with sores all over
his body
 Job is visited by three friends (the “comforters”) who try to console him
by attempting to convince him that he has somehow sinned and this
explains why his suffering is a punishment by God
 Job insists on his righteousness, even as he regrets ever being born, and
claims that he would gladly plead his own case in front of God (thus
seeming to find fault with God’s order)
 This draws God’s wrath. God reveals parts of the natural order that Job
had not imagined—things beautiful and terrible—to show Job the
limitations of human understanding of creation and its order
 But after humbling Job, God reproaches the comforters and restores to Job
what he had lost (apparently finding in Job’s favour after all)
o 4. Kant’s reading of Job
 Kant thinks that the Book of Job confirms his own views on theodicy
 First, negatively, the Book shows the futility of any attempt to know the
moral order on the basis of the natural one
 God’s “ways [are] inscrutable to us, [and] must at the same time
remain hidden—indeed already in the physical order of things”
(33)
 As a result, both Job and his comforters are in error. Both speak of things
“which are too high” for them and are therefore guilty of ignorance

Job purports to know that his suffering is inconsistent with the
natural and moral orders of things (i.e., that his suffering is not
justified in the order of things)
 The comforters, in claiming that Job must be guilty because he
suffers, are presuming some insight into these orders as well (i.e.,
that Job’s suffering is justified in the order of things)
 (Note again, it is God himself, in the story, who reveals this to Job—which
is why this is an authentic theodicy)
 This still raises the question: if both sides are at fault, why does God
favour Job at the end?
 This leads to Kant’s second, positive lesson from Job.
 It is not the respective claim to have insight into the order of God’s
creation that sets Job apart from the comforters (Kant actually thinks Job
would lose if the case was brought before an inquisition)
 Rather, it is Job’s conviction that he was morally blameless for his
suffering:
 “on top of all this (what is most important) [Job was] at peace with
himself in a good conscience” (32)
 Job does not dissimulate the conviction of his conscience—instead he
maintains a sincerity of heart, or a truthfulness, in expressing what he feels
is the case about his own moral uprightness, and it is this that leads him to
question God
 “only sincerity of heart and not distinction of insight; honesty in
openly admitting one’s doubts; repugnance to pretending
conviction where one feels none, especially before God—these are
the attributes which […] have decided the preeminence of the
honest man”
 “[Job’s] friends […] speak as if they were being secretly listened
to by the mighty one” (32)
o OK, but how is this a theodicy?
 So, Job’s sincerity or truthfulness—that he stands by the convictions of his
conscience—is why God favours him in the end. But how does any of this
serve as a kind of theodicy for Kant? How does it show we can be assured
of the moral order of things? Of God’s moral wisdom?
 Kant’s answer, in brief, is that Job’s conviction in his own righteousness,
amidst everything that transpires, is an illustration of the fact that a moral
order obtains in spite of what happens in the natural world. That no matter
what happens, standards of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are immutable and apply
irrespective of the circumstances
 This is precisely what the flexible morality of the comforters
denies—Job must have done something wrong because he’s
suffering for it. But according to Kant, this is what happens when
you ground “morality on faith” and not “faith on morality” (33)
 The demands of morality, of the moral law, are unconditional and
unchanging. They speak, as Kant puts it, as the “voice of God” (32). That
these standards obtain is evidence of a moral order that supersedes the
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natural one (which is why we’d be silly to look to the natural order for
evidence of it)
 Moreover, that such a moral order obtains is not something we know, but
something we feel through our own conscience.
 Conscience, then, immediately discloses a moral order of things to
us, one that cannot be affected by the natural events around us.
God’s moral wisdom is perhaps best evidenced in the fact that he
gives us an insight into this other, higher order (up to which, we
can hold the natural order)
4. A much more simplified version
o What does it mean to “vindicate God’s moral wisdom”?
 Explaining how every evil fits into a divine plan for the morally best
world?
 Kant: “No! Who could even do that?”
 Showing that in spite of what happens in the world, there is a moral
order—an unchanging and unconditional standard for what’s right and
wrong—that morality, as it were, speaks with “the voice of God”?
 Kant: “Yes!”
 Also Kant: “And isn’t losing that—an overarching moral order—
what we were really worried about in the first place?”
Online lecture 6: suffering without sin: problems of physical evil
- The problem of evil
o Our readings and discussions thus far have concerned the “problem of evil.” This
is, as you well know, the reconciliation of the existence of evil in the world with
God’s goodness
o For the most part, the thinkers we have considered have maintained an
unwavering commitment to God’s existence and to his supreme goodness
(Voltaire and Hume are the least contentious exceptions here)
o The principal difference among those who have attempted to “untie” (rather than
“cut”) the knot is the question as to whether we can know, with a certainty based
in reason, that the existence of evil is commensurable with God’s goodness
 Pope and Leibniz (and perhaps Cugoano) all contend that we can know
that the world God brings about is the best in spite of the evil it contains
 Bayle and Kant both contend that we can never conclude that a moral
order obtains on the basis of our experience of the natural order
 Bayle maintains that we nonetheless have an irrational belief, i.e.,
faith, that God is good in spite of the evils disclosed in our
experience
 Kant denies that recourse to such a leap of faith is necessary, and
argues that our own conscience (which he connects with practical
reason) discloses a moral order
- Suffering & sin
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o There are a number of things that might seem peculiar or antiquated about this
debate (for starters, it presumes a commitment to a Christian conception of God
which was not even universally shared at the time)
o But one thing that might strike us as particularly odd is that physical evil (human
suffering) gets so little attention in the discussion. The evil that provokes the
theodicies of Leibniz and Pope, and that Bayle thinks requires a leap of faith in
order to reconcile with God’s goodness, is moral evil
 Leibniz does consider physical evil in Bk. III of the Theodicy, but his
interest in this topic is only by way of reassuring us that his solution to the
existence of moral evil does not come at the cost of our freedom and
responsibility for our own suffering
o So, in the end, the problem of evil is primarily the problem of moral evil—but
why then do these philosophers spend such little time considering physical evil on
its own? Doesn’t it pose a distinct challenge that requires a resolution of its own?
The presumption: we suffer because we sin
o What accounts for this apparent neglect of physical evil is a shared presumption
among these philosophers. This presumption is that suffering is (just) the result of
sinful or vicious action. That is, physical evil is just the consequence of moral evil
o We have already seen this presumption at work in the efforts of Job’s “friends” to
convince him that his suffering was the result of some sin that he had committed
(efforts which Kant ironically exposes as fruitless attempts to hypocritically flatter
God)
o But it is also at work in Leibniz’s discussion of physical evil in the last part of his
Theodicy. His demonstration that this world is the best of all possible risked
undermining the possibility of our freedom, and hence of our responsibility for
the wrongs we commit. And if this were not answered, then the suffering that
follows on our commission of evil actions would not be justified. Thus, Leibniz
needed to show how freedom could be reconciled with the (hypothetical)
necessity of all events, in order to preserve the justification for suffering
 “Now at last I have disposed of the cause of moral evil; physical evil, that
is, sorrows, sufferings, miseries, will be less troublesome to explain, since
these are the results of moral evil” (Theodicy, sect. 241)
Unjustified suffering
o And yet, largely undiscussed by the authors we’ve considered are cases of
apparently unjustified suffering
o Of course, much natural evil is unjustified in the way we’ve considered (as a
punishment). Natural disasters, disease, etc. are not the sorts of things that afflict
people who have engaged in morally wrong actions
 You may recall Voltaire pointing out that the victims of the Lisbon
earthquake were probably less morally debauched than their counterparts
in major metropolitan centres like London or Paris, and so their state of
viciousness couldn’t possibly justify their suffering
o The suffering caused by natural disasters is not necessarily the result of the
commission of sin; yet, some optimistically-minded philosophers would claim
that such suffering is nonetheless justified by other circumstances, whether a
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deeper sinfulness, the finitude of human nature, or human activity that is harmful
if not sinful in itself
 Some with a theological interest might claim that none of us are, in the
end, guiltless, given that we are all contaminated by original sin (and so
the formula that “sin justifies suffering” can be taken to hold)
 Others, like Leibniz, will claim that suffering might not be the result of
(original) sin, but it is the inevitable result of the finite or limited nature of
the beings that constitute the world (so, we are subject to disease because
of our imperfections—a kind of metaphysical original sin)
 And still others, like Rousseau, will allow that natural disasters are not the
result of sin as such but that their harms are magnified by human activity
nonetheless—the fact that we congregate in cities or establish artificial
borders that obstruct the delivery of aid (so, “sin” is not the justification of
suffering but human activity is nonetheless responsible for making it
worse)
o But there are other sorts of suffering, beyond those just mentioned, that don’t
admit of easy, or any, justification
o Most of us will be able to cite examples of this from our own personal experience
that fits the bill. But one sort of physical evil that was discussed in the period was
the seemingly needless suffering that takes place when some (human beings) are
born with excessively debilitating physical conditions or severely restricted
capacities
o For some, the existence of such individuals (referred to with typical 17th century
insensitivity as ‘monsters’—from the Latin monstrum indicating something
inspiring fear or wonder) posed a challenge to God’s wisdom. Their appearance in
the world was hard to account for in terms of God’s broader purposes, and there
was no evidence that their suffering was justified by any deeper moral corruption
o One philosopher who considered such cases of unjustified suffering seriously was
Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche
o 1638-1715
o A philosopher and an ordained priest with an affinity for Augustine. His principal
work, the Search after Truth was published in 1674-5
o Known primarily for his “occasionalist” solution of the mind-body problem
o In a later text, the Treatise on Nature and Grace (1680), he takes up the issue of
unjustified suffering
o Malebranche himself was born with a severe malformation of the spine and
suffered from frail health throughout his life
Malebranche on suffering without sin
o What is interesting about Malebranche’s discussion is that unlike the later
optimists, he does not attempt to trace instances of suffering back to some deeper
moral or metaphysical ground. He’s not trying to show that such suffering can be
justified through moral evil, original sin, or the like
 That is, Malebranche does not deny the fact of suffering—the existence of
physical evil—but instead tries to explain how it comes about in a way
consistent with divine wisdom
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o When it comes to the explanation itself, it is more or less what we’d expect.
Malebranche thinks that what explains the existence of human beings born with
severely debilitating conditions is that God governs creation through general laws
(or volitions). These are framed to regularly bring about a specific set of effects.
o But, since these laws operate at a general level, and since God does not want to
unwisely supplement these with particular laws or volitions, it happens that cases
of unjustified suffering are generated
o “God, no doubt, could have made a world more perfect than the one we inhabit.
[…] But in order to make this more perfect world, He would have had to change
the simplicity of His ways and multiply the laws” (Treatise, XIV)
o “God, foreseeing before the establishment of natural laws all that must follow
from them, ought not to have established them if He had to annul them. The laws
of nature are constant and immutable and are general for all times and places.”
o “If the rain falls upon certain lands, and the sun scorches others; if a seasonable
time for harvest is followed by a destructive hail, if an infant comes into the world
with a monstrous and useless head growing from his breast that makes him
wretched, it is not because God willed these things by particular volitions, but
rather because He has established the laws […] of which these effects are
necessary consequences” (XVIII)
Malebranche’s contribution: taking physical evil seriously
o There’s obviously much that we might find objectionable in Malebranche’s
account (not the least the premise that the very existence of certain types of
human beings were a challenge to divine wisdom). But what he succeeds in doing
better than nearly all of his contemporaries is foregrounding the issue of physical
evil or suffering over and against the issue of moral evil
o In doing so, Malebranche inaugurates a rather different discussion of evil in the
early modern context, one that is quite distinct from that concerning “problem of
evil”
o As we have already seen, the problem of evil was an explicitly and unavoidably
theological problem. But the discussions surrounding physical evil raise a host of
issues that don’t presuppose a narrow theological context and whose significance
extends well beyond it
The problems of physical evil
o The nature of suffering
 What is the relation between pleasure and pain?
 What sorts of pain/suffering are there?
 Do pains always outweigh pleasures?
 Is anyone ever happy?
o The origin of suffering
 Apart from natural sources, what are the principal causes of suffering?
 Are humans the primary cause of their own suffering?
 How do institutions, cultural practices, etc. cause or exacerbate suffering?
o The significance of suffering
 If pains outweigh pleasures in this life, how should we react?
The nature of suffering; back to bayle
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o As it happens, Bayle again provides an important starting point when it comes to
the discussion of physical evil
o In the article “Xenophanes,” particularly in footnote F, Bayle revisits a debate in
antiquity concerning whether the pains in life outweigh pleasures, that is, whether
human life contains more sorrow than happiness
o Bayle raises this issue in the context of an account of the life and thought of
Xenophanes, a Greek poet-philosopher of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE
(his precise dates are unknown, though apparently he was rather long lived,
according to some even reaching the age of 104)
o Xenophanes is thought of as the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy—the
Greek school of philosophy that included Parmenides (a defender of monism) and
Zeno (author of the famous paradoxes). He was also a critic of popular religion
(especially of anthropomorphic conceptions of the gods)
o For Bayle, Xenophanes is primarily of interest because of his claims regarding
physical evil, namely, “that the sweets of life are not equal to its bitters” (228).
Otherwise put: that pains outweigh pleasures in life. Working off of Xenophanes,
Bayle will argue for this, largely by reflecting on the nature of pleasure and pain
The intensity of pleasure and pain
o Bayle argues that Xenophanes’ claim that pains outweigh pleasures is not to be
understood as claiming that in life we have more pains in terms of quantity. Bayle
allows that over the course of one’s life, most people will count more pleasant (or
neutral) days than bad:
 “[There are] [v]ery few persons, of what age soever we suppose them, but
can compute infinitely more days of health than of indisposition; and there
are many people who, during twenty years, have not had a fortnight’s
sickness” (228)
o Instead, Bayle takes Xenophanes’ claim as justified by the relative intensity of
pains to pleasures. Another way of putting this is that while pleasant days might
outnumber painful ones, the experience of pain has an intensity that far outweighs
that of pleasures (such that the pleasures enjoyed over a long life are
inconsiderable in comparison to the pains experienced at the end)
o Bayle makes use of the metaphor of density (and its opposite, rarity—the quality
of being diffuse) to make this point:
 “To employ a comparison […] porous bodies contain little matter under a
large extent; […] dense bodies contain a great deal of matter in a little
extent”
 “Such is the emblem of sickness and health. Sickness resembles dense
bodies, and health porous bodies. Health is diffused over a great number
of years, and yet it contains but little good. Sickness is spread only over a
few days, and yet it includes a great deal of evil”
 “the good things of this life are less good than the evils are evil” (228)
Anxiety, fear and regret
o The foregoing shows, then, that the intensity of pains can overcome even an
overwhelming quantity of pleasures over the course of a lifetime
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o But Bayle also argues that the experience of pleasure itself is not an
uncomplicated phenomenon. Rather, pleasure is attended by other feelings and
conditions that are themselves unpleasant or sources of pain
o First, the pursuit of pleasure can be a source of anxiety, generated through the
effort we have to expend in order to attain them:
 “anxiety precedes the enjoyment of pleasure” (229); “nature makes us
purchase her presents at the expense of so many sufferings” (230)
o Second, once we have attained the good thing that is the source of pleasure, we
also become subject to the fear of losing it, or feel displeasure when others obtain
the same themselves
 “For those who are called happy are afraid lest [nature] should
afterwards frown upon them, and where such a fear prevails, there is no
solid felicity” (229)
 “we not only are afraid of losing what we enjoy, but we likewise have the
uneasiness to see other persons equal or surpass us” (229)
o Finally, depending on the sort of pleasure we attain, it might be attended by a
consequent feeling of disgust, regret, or repentance: “if anxiety precedes the
enjoyment of pleasure, disgust and repentance follow close after it” (229)
o “Wherever pleasures are, pain is at hand” (229)
Disproportion of causes to effects
o A further consideration introduced by Bayle concerns the diverse effects
(pleasures/pains) that result from good and bad things
o So, attaining a good (some object, a position, or an objective) can be the cause of
pleasure for us; and likewise attaining some bad (or being deprived of a good) can
be the cause of pain/sorrow for us
o Despite this parallel causal connection, Bayle claims that the greatest goods are
the causes of the least pleasure, while even a small evil can be the cause of
considerable pain and suffering
o Regarding goods, Bayle considers “very great goods” as things like attaining a
high position, or winning a military battle; yet, these are either attended only with
moderate pleasure or the pleasure that accompanies them is outweighed by the
attendant concern and worry:
 “the victories gained in some provinces do not correspond with the losses
which are suffered in others; [thus] we have reason to believe that joy is
not pure and unmixed” (231)
 the fate of the prominent “is an assemblage in which evil has a greater
share in proportion to good” (232)
 “A very great good in itself, which should excite but a very moderate
pleasure, ought to be considered only as a moderate or indifferent good;
but a little evil in itself, which should excite an insupportable uneasiness,
grief or pain, ought to be considered as a very great evil” (230)
Manichaeism redux
o Given the nature of pleasure and pain—that pain will always outweigh pleasure in
its intensity, that pleasure is never without some pain, and that even the greatest
goods are only sources of a moderate pleasure—Bayle thinks that it is highly
probable that every human life will involve some pain
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o This leads Bayle (again) to offer another Manichaean hypothesis of sorts, albeit
couched in a Homeric story:
 “Homer […] says that two vessels or urns are placed by Jupiter, the one
containing blessings, the other evils.” (230-1)
o The myth here is that for each individual human being, Jupiter scoops from each
vessel and bestows a mixture of good things and bad things upon them. Like the
original Manichaean hypothesis, Bayle doesn’t actually believe that this Homeric
myth is true, but he does think that it reflects an important truth; namely, that
every human life, even the happiest, will always involve a mix of pleasure and
pain
Bayles conclusions
o The claim that everyone will, in the course of their lives, experience a mixture of
pleasures and pains is not the same as the claim that for everyone pain and
suffering will inevitably outweigh pleasures (which was what Xenophanes had
claimed)
o But Bayle thinks that Xenophanes’ much stronger claim can be supported, as he
details when he lists his own “conclusions” from note F:
 “I. That if we consider mankind in general, methinks Xenophanes might
have said that they have more uneasiness and pain than pleasure.”
 “II. That there are some patient persons whose lives we may suppose are
chequered with a much greater proportion of good than of evil.”
 “III. That there are others who we may suppose meet with much more evil
than good.”
 “IV. That my second proposition [II. above] is especially probable with
regard to such as die before old age and that my [third] appears chiefly
certain with regard to those who live to a decrepit age” (232)
“We must determine that no man is happy”
o So Bayle thinks (I) that, on the basis of the foregoing considerations,
Xenophanes’ claim that pains outweigh pleasures holds in general, that is, on the
whole the amount of suffering experienced by humanity outweighs the pleasures
experienced
o Bayle allows (II) that some few individuals might live a life where pleasures
outweigh pains. However, this is hardly reason to celebrate since he qualifies this
in (IV) by saying that these are cases where one dies in the prime of their life
o But for anyone who lives beyond their youth, and especially for those who live to
an advanced age (i.e., who experience more of life than others), pain and suffering
will outweigh our pleasures (both remembered and currently experienced)
Online lecture 7: Masham and the harms of women’s under-education
- The origin of suffering
o Bayle’s “Xenophanes” presents an argument for the conclusion that pain/suffering
outweighs pleasure solely through the consideration of the nature of
pain/suffering and its relation to pleasure
o But Bayle has less to say about the sources of suffering. Clearly, he thinks that
many of our sufferings (outside of those caused by moral evil) are due to our
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natural desires and wants, the pursuit and satisfaction of which is inter-twined
with painful sensations
o However, he gives little attention to more sophisticated, human-made causes of
unjustified suffering*—the sort of suffering that has its roots in social or cultural
practices, or in long-standing institutions
o * One notable exception are the harms that result from religious intolerance. As a
persecuted religious minority himself, Bayle was well aware of these, and many of
his articles on religions/religious figures (including Manichaeism) can be
understood as an effort to undermine any claim to superiority/privileged access to
the truth on the part of any religion)
Womens education
o One social/cultural practice that was a source of unjustified harms and which
received increasing attention in the 17th and 18th centuries was the lack of formal
educational opportunities for girls and young women
o The model of mass public education, of course, was not yet in place (and
wouldn’t be until the 1800s, and in any case still excluded women). Rather,
education was undertaken in small schools founded for the male children of the
aristocracy, or via private tutors (usually university students or recent graduates).
These students would then enter university in preparation for careers in the state
bureaucracy, military, the clergy, academia, etc.
o Indeed, women were by and large shut out from opportunities at such careers (and
this was often used as an argument against the need for women’s education). Even
those who managed to obtain a decent education in their youth were permitted
only in exceptional cases to attend university. There were, moreover, were subject
to social prohibitions on engaging in the wider intellectual culture (taboos facing
women’s authorship, or ridicule of “overly-intellectual” women)
o The question concerning the particular need for the education of girls and young
women, and what that education should consist in was for the most part left to
female intellectuals to discuss and (very rarely) to implement
A brief history of the “woman question”
o There is some historical background here that might be useful. Perhaps the most
(in)famous philosophical discussion of the question of women’s education occurs
in Bks. V-VI of Plato’s Republic. After having outlined the components of the
best state (the “city in speech”), Socrates is challenged by Glaucon to explain
what role women will play in it:
 Glaucon: “[…] What sort of community of women and children is this
which is to prevail among our guardians? and how shall we manage the
period between birth and education, which seems to require the greatest
care? Tell us how these things will be.”
 Socrates: “Yes, my simple friend, but the answer is the reverse of easy;
many more doubts arise about this than about our previous conclusions.
[…]”
o As many of you will know, Socrates’ response is that women should be educated
in the same manner as the male guardians (and that children should be raised
communally)
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o Little came of this ambitious project, though the debate concerning whether
women should or even could be educated continued long after. This debate—
which issued in a genre of writing all of its own—was known as the querelle des
femmes. It was sparked by a misogynist medieval romance, the Roman de la Rose,
and saw erudite women (and their allies) defending the intellectual capabilities of
women against recurrent misogynist criticism (including some who denied that
women were human beings at all)
Womens education in early modernity
o The situation for women’s education in early modern UK and Europe did not see
much in the way of improvement
o This period did see considerable innovation in educational theory—from John
Locke’s Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693) to Rousseau’s Emile, or On
Education (1762), and many others besides. And yet this was all for the most part
devoted to the improvement of the education of boys and young men
o More important for enhancing women’s access to modern science and philosophy
was the recent innovation of publishing in the vernacular—English, French, or
German—rather than Latin (which could only be learned in schools)
o There were some isolated attempts to found schools for girls that would offer
instruction in languages, writing, music, and other subjects (largely relating to the
reading and interpretation of Scripture), but these were often poorly-subscribed
and short-lived endeavours
o One notable success in this area was the school for girls, the Maison royale de
Saint-Louis, founded by Madame de Maintenon (a former mistress of Louis XIV)
in 1686
Some exceptions
o There were, however, a small number of women who, in spite of the profound
cultural and institutional obstacles, managed to gain an advanced education
o Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-84), received a degree in philosophy in
1678 in Padua
o Laura Bassi (1711-78), received a degree in philosophy and held a chair in
physics in Bologna
o Dorothea Erxleben (1715-62), received a degree in medicine in 1754, and
practiced as a physician in Germany
 Also wrote Rigorous Investigation of the Causes that Obstruct Women
from Study (1741), which made the case for women’s education and
diagnosed the prejudices that were often invoked to justify it
The harms of under-education
o Significantly, these (and other) women were in a position to experience but also to
expose the needless harms caused by denying women access to formal education.
Some, like Erxleben, published treatises advocating for women’s access to
education
o Typically, these treatises are framed rather conservatively—they argue for the
necessity of women’s education on the basis of woman’s traditional gender role,
namely, as wife, housewife, and mother
o It bears noting, however, that upholding this traditionalist view of women was
essential for these treatises to reach the public. Systems of censorship (by the state
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and/or religious entities) were in place to ensure that nothing too radical could be
published.
 And while many female authors of the period would not have disputed
these traditional gender roles anyway, for some few others it was clearly
just something they paid lip service too in order for their treatises to reach
the public
o We will consider the writings of Lady Damaris Masham on this topic, which very
much couches the case for women’s education in terms of upholding traditional
gender roles. But before we consider her text, we will briefly turn to another
female author and early English feminist—Mary Astell
Mary Astell
o 1666-1731
o Born in Newcastle, moved to London where she established herself as one of a
few working women writers
o A proponent of the Cartesian philosophy (particularly its “occasionalist” variant,
developed by Malebranche, among others)
o Published A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697), which debunked myths
about women’s intellectual inferiority and outlined a plan for self-study for
women without access to education
o Also published Some Reflections upon Marriage (1700) which critically reflects
upon the institution of marriage (Astell remained unmarried her entire life), partly
through the example of her neighbour’s “shipwrack’d” marriage
Astell’s serious proposal (1697)
o One particularly interesting feature of Astell’s Proposal is that it sets out from a
rather cynical estimation of the modern woman’s intellectual talents
o Astell thinks that her female contemporaries have minds that have been corrupted
by social forces—women pursue vain trivialities and vacuous diversions, reading
novels and watching plays, rather than cultivating any real intellectual interests or
improving themselves morally
 “There is a sort of Learning indeed which is worse than the greatest
Ignorance: A Woman may study Plays and Romances all her days, and be
a great deal more knowing but never a jot the wiser. Such a knowledge as
this serves only to instruct and put her forward in the practice of the
greatest Follies” (SP p. 81)
o The fault for this, of course, lies in the lack of access to (real) education, which
would train women in the use of their intellect and the proper objects of their will:
 “as Exercise enlarges and exalts any Faculty, so thro' want of using, it
becomes crampt and lessened; if therefore we make little or no use of our
Understandings, we shall shortly have none to use […]. What is it but the
want of an ingenious Education that renders the generality of Feminine
Conversations so insipid and foolish and their solitude so insupportable?”
(SP p. 80)
Astell’s method
o This diagnosis of women’s contemporary corrupted intellectual position serves as
the starting point for Astell’s recommended method for improving women’s
intellect
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o Astell’s method, broken down into a set of 6 rules, is loosely inspired by a similar
set of rules designed to improve the intellect, developed by Descartes (and others
in the broader Cartesian tradition)
o In any case, part of what makes Astell’s rules distinctive is that they are designed
specifically with what she regards as the faults of women’s intellect in mind, and
ultimately with the aim of combatting a persistent scepticism on the part of
women who infer from the current intellectual situation to woman’s natural
unsuitedness to knowledge and scientific pursuits
 Rule 1: “Acquaint our selves thoroughly with the State of the Question,
have a Distinct Notion of our Subject whatever it be, and of the Terms we
make use of, knowing precisely what it is we drive at.”
 Rule 2: “Cut off all needless Ideas and whatever has not a necessary
Connexion to the matter under consideration.”
 Rule 3: “To conduct our Thoughts by Order, beginning with the most
Simple and easie Objects, and ascending by Degrees to the Knowledge of
more Compos’d.”
 Rule 4: “Not to leave out part of our Subject unexamin’d.”
 Rule 5: “Always keep our Subject Directly in our Eye, and Closely pursue
it thro all, our Progress.”
 Rule 6: “To judge no further than we Perceive, and not to take anything
for Truth, which we do not evidently Know to be so.”
Damaris Masham
o Another important contributor to the debate concerning women’s education is
(Lady) Damaris Masham (1659-1708)
o She was well connected with some of the most prominent philosophers of her day
 Her father was Ralph Cudworth, a well-known Cambridge Platonist
 She had a lasting intellectual friendship with Locke, who actually lived in
her family’s home after his return from exile
 She also corresponded with Leibniz (in which letters they discussed
Leibniz’s metaphysics)
o Wrote A Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696), which was part of an
ongoing discussion with Astell about occasionalist themes. Also: Occasional
Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous and Christian Life (1705)
 In addition to containing thoughts about moral improvement, Masham’s
Occasional Thoughts also argues for the necessity of women’s education.
Moreover, particularly important for our purposes, it surveys the manifold
harms—not just to women but to society at large—that result from
women’s lack of education
Masham’s arguments
o Masham offers a number of arguments in favour of women’s education. In the
selection we have, we can distinguish the following three:
 Argument from Religion (pp. 160-9)
 Argument from Woman’s Role as Mother (pp. 185-97)
 Argument from Woman’s Role as Wife/Companion (pp. 203-19)
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o In each case, Masham is going to argue that a vital private or public good that is
typically demanded of women requires that they be educated in order to deliver
and enjoy it
The argument from religion
o Quite appropriately, the first argument contends that some knowledge about
religious matters is required for the sake of women’s virtue and salvation—that
they cannot live a good, Christian life without some education regarding religion
o Of course, it is not as if Masham thinks that women are completely ignorant of
such matters. However, she does think that even women of higher rank are not in
a position to understand and defend their religious beliefs
 “How many of these […] may it be presume’d that there are […] that can
give any such account of the Christian Religion, as would inform an
inquisitive Stranger what it consisted in; and what are the grounds of
believing it?” (160-1)
 “They are, perhaps, sometimes told in regard of what Religion exacts, that
they must believe and do such and such things, because the Word of God
requires it; but they are not put upon searching the Scriptures for
themselves” (162-3)
o This puts women at risk in terms of their personal salvation—”Women have
Souls to be sav’d as well as Men; to know what this religion consists in and to
understand the grounds on which it is to be receiv’d, can be no more than
necessary knowledge to a Woman as well as to a man” (166).
o Moreover, as long as they are not certain about what (and why) they believe, they
may be prone to scepticism or faithlessness
 “Whence it is but needful that they should so well understand their
Religion as to be Christians upon the Convictions of their Reason” (168)
Argument from womans role as mother
o The argument from religion focuses on the private good (of personal salvation) as
a reason for educating women (with the aim, presumably, of primarily convincing
religious and civil authorities of its necessity, though some theologians of the time
who think knowledge unnecessary for true religious belief might also be targets)
o Two further arguments, by contrast, turn on women’s traditional social roles in
contending for the need for education. The first of these argues that in her role as
mother, and primary care-giver and first educator, of her children, a woman
requires education
o Masham conceives of this education as both moral (i.e., helping them avoid
passions that make them miserable—192) but also extending to various subjects,
including Latin, arithmetic, geography, history (195)
o Moreover, mothers are, for Masham, naturally best positioned to succeed in this
since they will not grow “disgusted” with the business of educating their own
child nor will they grow complacent in trying to win the child’s affection (194)
 “[…] this great concernment […] ought to be the Care and Business of
Mothers. Nor do women seem less peculiarly adapted by nature hereunto,
than it can be imagin’d they should be, if the Author of Nature […]
design’d this to be their Province” (190)
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o Masham’s point, then, is that in order to succeed in educating her children, a
mother must herself be educated, and without this, both she and her children
suffer injustice
 “From Womans being naturally thus fitted to take this care of their little
Ones, it follows that besides the injustice done to themselves thereby, it is
neglecting the Direction of Nature for the well-breeding up of Children,
when Ladies are rendered incapable hereof” (191)
Argument from womans role as wife
o The last argument (for our purposes) turns on woman’s role as wife and
companion to a (male) partner
o Masham contends, for instance, that a woman who is educated is less likely to be
led astray (in matters of religion, but also by implication in terms of fidelity) by
someone else:
 “For these believers […] will hardly escape meeting some time or other
with those who will ask them why they Believe, and if they find then that
they have no more Reason for going to Church than they should go to
Mass, or even to the Synagogue […] they must needs […] doubt whether
or no the Faith they have been brought up in is any righter than either of
these” (208)
o Secondly, as it was often women managing the financial affairs of the household,
when she is not educated, she is unable to govern those in a way that preserves the
domestic economy (with cascading consequences):
 “Whence Want, mutual Ill Will, Disobedience of Children, their
Extravagance and all the ill effects of neglected Government and bad
Example follow, till they make such a Family a very Purgatory to every
one who lives in it” (241)
o Lastly, and perhaps most interesting, Masham claims that a wife who is not
educated in the use of her reason is poor company for her husband—they are
unable to entertain or edify one another and thus forego an important pleasure in
life (friendship)
 “yet scarce any virtuous and reasonable Man and Woman who are
Husband and Wife can know that it is both their Duty and Interest
reciprocally to make each other happy [….] since Friendship has been
allow’d by the wisest, most virtuous, and most generous Men of all Ages
to be the solidest and sweetest pleasure in this World” (216)
The cause of all this: the ignorance of men
o Masham proceeds to offer her own diagnosis of the cause of the current situation,
which she traces to the ignorance of men
o In particular, the ignorance of gentlemen (which is to say, their failure to pursue a
proper education themselves, in favour of a life of leisure) combines with vanity
to make men jealous of any woman who might excel them in learning:
 “As for other Science [i.e., beyond religion], it is believe’d so improper
for, and is indeed so little allow’d [women], that it is not to be expected
from them: but the cause of this is only the Ignorance of Men” (169)

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“what wonder can it be if [men] like not that Women should have
Knowledge; for this is a quality that will give some sort of superiority”
(174)
o Interestingly, Masham contends that this ignorance fuels wider social forces that
work to discourage women from even wanting to pursue education (or educate
others):
 Women are subject to ridicule for pursuing education: a woman who seeks
a minimum of knowledge for the sake of educating her children “can
hardly escape being call’d Learned [i.e., in a derogatory way] by the Men
of our days, and in consequence thereof becoming a subject of Ridicule to
one part of them and of Aversion to the other” (175)
 Another social force involved here is romantic attraction, as men
according to Masham do not find learned women appealing: “if Men did
usually find Women the more amiable for being knowing, they would
much more commonly than now they are be so” (204)
o These pressures can even dissuade well-intentioned parents from seeking to
educate their daughters: “For Parents sometimes do purposely omit it [education]
from an apprehension that should their Daughters be perceive’d to understand any
learned Language or be conversant in Books, they might be in danger of not
finding Husbands”
 “Nor probably would even the example of a Mother herself who was thus
qualify’d […] be any great incouragement to her Daughters to imitate her
example, but the contrary” (197)
Masham on the harms of under-education
o Masham thus shows that women’s lack of access to education is a considerable
harm—both to the women who lose that opportunity, but also to her partner and
her children, all of which causes broader social problems
o This exclusionary practice is, moreover, rooted in male ignorance and vice
(primarily vanity and laziness)
 “Vice and ignorance, thus, we see, are the great Sources of those Miseries
which Men suffer in every state. These, oftentimes, mingle Gall even in
their sweetest Pleasures; and imbitter to them the wholesomest Delights”
o But, even as it is rooted in vice and ignorance, what holds this practice in place
are broader social forces—social norms that govern how women, wives, and
mothers ought to comport themselves, what makes them attractive to potential
mates, and how they can fulfill their obligation to their children
o But given that it is ignorance that grounds and perpetuates this practice, Masham
claims, ironically and perhaps a bit forlornly, that the only remedy for it is
precisely that which is being denied to or refused by all those involved: education
 “But what remedy hereto can be hop’d for, if rational Instruction and a
well order’d Education of Youth, in respect of Vertue and Religion, can
only […] rectify these Evils?” (219)
Looking ahead to Astell’s some reflections
o We have already seen that the issue of marriage is closely connected to that of
women’s education—whether it is important for a woman to be educated to fulfill
her role as spouse, and to educate her children
o But the topic of marriage as such—the reasons for which women should seek to
be married, the constitution of a happy marriage, and what recourse a woman
should have in the case of an unhappy marriage—was itself a popular topic of
early feminist writing
o We can already see that Masham was something of an optimist regarding
marriage: “It seems therefore one of the worst Marks that can be of the Vice and
Folly of any Age when Marriage is commonly contemn’d therein” (217)
o We will get a rather different perspective from Astell, in her Some Reflections
concerning Marriage. To guide you in your reading, do keep the following
questions in mind:
o Study Questions
 1. Does Astell think that a happy marriage is possible?
 2. What does Astell mean when she says “the Husband’s Vices may
become an occasion of the Wife’s Vertues”?
 3. On p. 83 of the selection, Astell refers to the ‘Conscience of Duty’—
does she think that women have an obligation to marry?
Week 7: Mary Astell on Injustice and marriage
- Transition to unit 2
o Our readings and discussions thus far have concerned the “problem of evil.” This
is, as you well know, the reconciliation of the existence of evil in the world with
God’s goodness
o For the most part, the thinkers we have considered have maintained an
unwavering commitment to God’s existence and to his supreme goodness
(Voltaire and Hume are the least contentious exceptions here)
o The principal difference among those who have attempted to “untie” (rather than
“cut”) the knot is the question as to whether we can know, with a certainty based
in reason, that the existence of evil is commensurable with God’s goodness
 Pope and Leibniz (and perhaps Cugoano) all contend that we can know
that the world God brings about is the best in spite of the evil it contains
 Bayle and Kant both contend that we can never conclude that a moral
order obtains on the basis of our experience of the natural order
 Bayle maintains that we nonetheless have a non-rational belief,
i.e., faith, that the evils in the world can be reconciled with God’s
goodness
 Kant denies that recourse to such a leap of faith is necessary, and
argues that our own conscience (which he connects with practical
reason) discloses a moral order
- Sin and suffering
o There are a number of things that might seem peculiar or antiquated about this
debate (for starters, it presumes a commitment to a Christian conception of God
which was not even universally shared at the time)
o But one thing that might strike us as particularly odd is that physical evil (human
suffering) is treated more or less as an after-thought, or only in connection with
moral evil
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Leibniz does consider physical evil in Bk. III of the Theodicy, but his
interest in this topic is only by way of reassuring us that his solution to the
existence of moral evil does not come at the cost of our freedom and
responsibility for our own suffering
o So, in the end, the problem of evil is primarily the problem of moral evil—but
why then do these philosophers spend such little time considering physical evil on
its own? Doesn’t it pose a distinct challenge that requires a resolution of its own?
The presumption: we suffer because we sin
o What accounts for this apparent neglect of physical evil is a shared presumption
among these philosophers. This presumption is that suffering is (just) the result of
sinful or vicious action. That is, physical evil is just the consequence of moral evil
o We have already seen this presumption at work in the efforts of Job’s “friends”
who tried to convince him that his suffering was the result of some sin that he had
committed (efforts which Kant ironically exposes as fruitless attempts to
hypocritically flatter God)
o But it is also at work in Leibniz’s discussion of physical evil in the last part of his
Theodicy. His demonstration that this world is the best of all possible risked
undermining the possibility of our freedom, and hence of our responsibility for
the wrongs we commit. And if this were not answered, then the suffering that
follows on our commission of evil actions would not be justified. Thus, Leibniz
needed to show how freedom could be reconciled with the (hypothetical)
necessity of all events, in order to preserve the justification for suffering
 “Now at last I have disposed of the cause of moral evil; physical evil, that
is, sorrows, sufferings, miseries, will be less troublesome to explain, since
these are the results of moral evil” (Theodicy, sect. 241)
Unjustified suffering?
o And yet, largely undiscussed by the authors we’ve considered are cases of
apparently unjustified suffering
o Of course, much natural evil is unjustified in the way we’ve considered (as a
punishment). Natural disasters, disease, etc. are not the sorts of things that only
afflict people who have engaged in morally wrong actions
 You may recall Voltaire pointing out that the victims of the Lisbon
earthquake were probably less morally debauched than their counterparts
in major metropolitan centres like London or Paris, and so their state of
viciousness couldn’t possibly justify their suffering
o The suffering caused by natural disasters is not necessarily the result of the
commission of sin; yet, some “optimistically”-minded philosophers would claim
that such suffering is nonetheless justified by other circumstances, whether a
deeper (i.e., original) sinfulness, the finitude of human nature, or human activity
that is harmful if not sinful in itself
o But there’s something deeply troubling about such broad optimistic justifications
of suffering. They seem not unlike the words of “comfort” offered by Job’s
friends in that they infer from the fact of suffering to some underlying condition
of sinfulness. In so doing, they invite the victims of such suffering to contradict
the verdicts of their own consciences that they are blameless for the suffering that
they undergo
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Kant, as we have seen, thinks that admitting that our consciences could err
so thoroughly is a worse result than admitting the possibility of unjustified
suffering
o Perhaps, then, instead of seeking for a perspective that rules out the very
possibility of unjustified suffering, we might admit the reality of unjustified
suffering and think more carefully about physical evil, in abstraction from moral
evil
The problems of physical evil
o The nature of suffering
 What is the relation between pleasure and pain?
 What sorts of pain/suffering are there?
 Do pains always outweigh pleasures?
 Is anyone ever happy?
o The origin of suffering
 Apart from natural sources, what are the principal causes of suffering?
 Are humans the primary cause of their own suffering?
 How do institutions, cultural practices, etc. cause or exacerbate suffering?
o The significance of suffering
 If pains outweigh pleasures in this life, how should we react?
The nature of pain/suffering: back to bayle
o As it happens, Bayle again provides an important starting point when it comes to
the discussion of physical evil
o In the article “Xenophanes,” particularly in footnote F, Bayle revisits a saying
attributed to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, namely, that “that the sweets of
life are not equal to its bitters” (228)
o Bayle argues in favour of a version of Xenophanes’ claim, namely that, in general
(if not in every case), human life contains more pain than pleasure. He thinks this
is so on the basis of the following considerations relating to the nature of pain
(and its relation to pleasure):
 I) We experience pains more intensely than pleasures, even if we more
frequently experience pleasure/the absence of pain: “the good things of
this life are less good than the evils are evil” (228)
 II) Pleasures are always attended with displeasure/pain, particularly
anxiety in their acquisition, fear in their loss once obtained, and regret
after their satisfaction: “Wherever pleasures are, pain is at hand” (229)
 III) The greatest of goods provides little pleasure (and is always
adulterated with concern), whereas even the smallest of evils can be
attended with significant pain
o Note: We will return to this issue in week 8, as Hume offers further considerations
in favour of Bayle’s case for pains outweighing pleasures
The origin of suffering
o While Bayle’s “Xenophanes” offers a fairly detailed treatment as to the nature of
pleasure and pain, he has rather less to say about the sources of suffering
o For the most part, he thinks that many of our sufferings (outside of those caused
by moral evil) are due to our natural desires and wants, the pursuit and
satisfaction of which is inter-twined with painful sensations
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One notable exception are the harms that result from religious intolerance.
As a member of a persecuted religious minority himself, Bayle was well
aware of the suffering that intolerance causes. Many of his articles on
religions/religious figures (including Manichaeism) can be understood as
an effort to undermine any claim to superiority/privileged access to the
truth on the part of any religion)
o However, he gives little attention to other sophisticated, human-made causes of
unjustified suffering—the sort of suffering that has its roots in social or cultural
practices, or in corrupted institutions
Women’s lack of access to education
o One social/cultural practice that was a source of unjustified harms and which
received increasing attention in the 17th and 18th centuries was the denial of
formal educational opportunities to girls and young women
o The model of mass public education was not yet in place (and wouldn’t be until
the 1800s, and in any case still excluded women). Rather, education was
undertaken in small schools founded for the male children of the aristocracy, or
via private tutors (usually university students or recent graduates). These students
would then enter university in preparation for careers in the state bureaucracy,
military, the clergy, academia, etc.
o Indeed, women were by and large shut out from opportunities at such careers (and
this was often used as an argument against the need for women’s education)
o Some women, however, managed to obtain a decent education and even secured a
living as intellectuals outside of the academy. One example is (Lady) Damaris
Masham (1659-1708), a well-connected and influential philosopher. In her
Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous and Christian Life (1705), she
makes the case for the education of girls and young women
 There, she also identifies the manifold harms—not just to women but to
society at large—that result from women’s lack of education
Masham on the harms of under-education
o Masham offers a number of arguments in favour of women’s education. By way
of an overview, we might distinguish the following three:
 Argument from Religion
 Argument from Woman’s Role as Mother
 Argument from Woman’s Role as Wife/Companion
o As is clear, Masham’s arguments are premised on an acceptance of woman’s
traditional gender role (wife, mother, housewife). (And this is by no means
exceptional.) Her point though is that in order to perform these roles adequately,
women require education.
o Women’s lack of access to education thus turns out to be a source of considerable
harm, as a function of women’s essential contributions to domestic life and
society as a whole. It generates harms not only to the women who lose that
opportunity, but also to her partner and her children, all of which causes broader
social problems
o She also claims that this exclusionary practice is rooted in (male) ignorance and
vice (primarily vanity and laziness)

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“Vice and ignorance, thus, we see, are the great Sources of those Miseries
which Men suffer in every state. These, oftentimes, mingle Gall even in
their sweetest Pleasures; and imbitter to them the wholesomest Delights”
Marriage as a source of suffering
o The issue of marriage is closely connected to that of women’s education—as we
have seen, Masham considers whether it is important for a woman to be educated
to fulfill her role as spouse, and to educate her children (within the context of
traditional family)
o But the issue of marriage as such—the reasons for which women should seek to
be married, the constitution of a happy marriage, and what recourse a woman
should have in the case of an unhappy marriage—was itself a popular topic of
early feminist (and misogynistic) writing
 We can already see that Masham was something of an optimist regarding
marriage: “It seems therefore one of the worst Marks that can be of the
Vice and Folly of any Age when Marriage is commonly contemn’d
therein” (217)
o But the institution of marriage also came to be recognized as a source of
unjustified suffering for women. In the case of Mary Astell, the institution of
marriage in its present constitution was a significant source of unjustified
suffering
 A woman in an unhappy marriage, according to Astell, “is as unhappy as
any thing in this World can make her” (30)
Mary Astell
o 1666-1731
o Born in Newcastle, moved to London where she established herself as one of a
few working women writers
o A proponent of the Cartesian philosophy (particularly its “occasionalist” variant,
developed by Malebranche, among others)
o Published A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697), which debunked myths
about women’s intellectual inferiority and outlined a plan for self-study for
women without access to education
o Also published Reflections upon Marriage (1700) which critically reflects upon
the institution of marriage (Astell remained unmarried her entire life), partly
through the example of her neighbour’s “shipwrack’d” marriage
Astell on the purpose and benefits of marriage
o Astell’s position on marriage is not that the institution as a whole is problematic,
but that a number of underlying forces and circumstances contribute to making it
profoundly harmful (to women in particular, but not only)
 “The wise institutor of matrimony [i.e., God] never did anything in vain;
we are sots and fools if what he design’d for our good, be to us an
occasion of falling. For marriage […] is too sacred to be treated with
disrespect” (8)
o Indeed, Astell is quite clear about the myriad social benefits (domestic and
beyond) that are ideally provided by the institution of marriage. These benefits are
such that they hold even outside of a religious context:
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“The Christian institution of marriage provides the best that may be for
domestic quiet and content, and for the education of children, so that if we
were not under the tie of religion, even the good of society and civil duty
would oblige us to what that requires at our hands” (10)
o Even so, Astell identifies a crucial condition that must be met for marriage to
yield these benefits. This condition, also reflected in Masham’s discussion, is that
the choice to marry is based on friendship:
 “He who does not make friendship the chief inducement to his choice [to
marry], and prefer it before any other consideration, does not deserve a
good wife, and therefore should not complain if he goes without one” (10)
Astell on the corruption of marriage
o Astell’s rosy view when it comes to the purpose and the benefits of marriage
contrasts rather starkly with what she views as the reality of the institution in her
day
 “But if marriage be such a blessed state, how comes it […] that there are
so few happy marriages?” (11)
o In fact, Astell claims that this is not surprising—given the reasons for which
marriage is entered into, and how individuals (namely men) are given licence to
conduct themselves within it, what is surprising is that some marriages are happy
 “it is not to be wonder’d that so few succeed, we should rather be
surprised to find so many [that] do, considering how imprudently men
engage, the motives they act by, and the very strange conduct they observe
throughout” (11)
Bitter consolation
o As it stands, the only consolation that women can draw from an unhappy marriage
is that it provides them with an opportunity to develop their own virtues in coping
with adversity. Here Astell offers a litany of such alleged “blessings”
 (Loss of her estate) “She might have been exposed to all the temptations
of a plentiful fortune, have given herself to sloth and luxury” (15)
 (Overbearing/jealous husband) “he makes it necessary to withdraw from
those gaieties and pleasures of life which show more mischief”
 (Forced isolation) “Silence and solitude, being forced from ordinary
entertainments of her station, may perhaps seem a desolate condition at
first…” “[b]ut a little time wears off all the uneasiness and puts her in
possession of pleasures which till now she has been kept a stranger to”
 “There is not a surer sign of a noble mind […] than being able to bear
contempt and unjust treatment […] evenly and patiently” (48-9)
o Rather ironically, Astell concludes that, for women, affliction is “the best
instructor and indeed the only useful school that women are ever put to” (16)
o Astell even thinks that an unhappy marriage can provide women with a kind of
cynical wisdom concerning how the world really works—she can see passed the
appearances of things to the deeper reality, learns not to trust the flattering words
of others, and recognizes that what seems to be a supreme good is in fact only
apparently so:
 “Affliction, the sincerest friend […] rouses her understanding, [and] opens
her eyes […]. She now distinguishes between truth and appearances,
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between solid and apparent good, has found out the instability of all
earthly things and won’t any more be deceived by relying on them” (16)
o All this might serve as a kind of consolation for a bad marriage—that namely “the
husband’s vices may become an occasion of the wife’s virtues”—except that it is
not the rule
 “all injur’d wives don’t behave themselves after this fashion” (17)
Astell on why marriage fails
o Given the importance of marriage, and its nearly universal and wholesale failure,
Astell turns in the Reflections to diagnosing the reasons why marriage, in the form
it is practiced in her day, falls so far short of its intended result.
o To this end, Astell canvasses a wide variety of causes for the corruption of
marriage. While she doesn’t present these in a terribly systematic way, it will be
convenient to divide these into two sets:
 (i) those (psychological) causes that operate at the level of individual
decisions or motives, and
 (ii) those causes that work in the background—what we might call
‘systemtic’ or ‘structural’ sources of the corruption of marriage (and its
consequent harms)
Why marriage fails: individual choice
o At the level of individual choice, Astell faults both men and women for failing to
choose their spouse on reasons founded in friendship.
o In the case of men, Astell contends that for the most part their choice of a wife is
grounded in ‘mercenary’ considerations
 “What will she bring is the first enquiry” (12)
o Yet, that men choose their spouse on the basis of financial benefit amounts to a
misuse of the institution of marriage and so little of its benefits should be
expected: “He who marries himself to a fortune only must expect no other
satisfaction than that can bring” (12)
o Astell also reserves some condemnation for the choices women make in selecting
a spouse. While some might be motivated by a financial incentive as well, others
according to her let themselves fall prey to flattery through the courtship:
 “tho’ we complain of being deceived this instant, we do not fail of
contributing to the cheat the very next. Though in reality it is not the world
that abuses us, tis we [who] abuse ourselves, it is not the emptiness of that,
but our own false judgments, our unreasonable desires and expectations
that torment us” (53-4)
 “If a women were duly principled and taught to know the world [...] and
the traps [men] lay for her under so many gilded compliments […] women
would marry more discreetly” (80)
Why marriage fails: structural/systemic causes
o Astell does not, then, overlook the poor decisions and personal responsibility, on
both sides, that contributes to the contemporary failure of marriage
o However, and significantly, she also considers the deeper role played by broader
social/cultural conditions and structures in corrupting the institution
o Here, we might distinguish between three sorts of structural causes or conditions:

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1. Broader social conventions (access to education) or socio-economic
circumstances
 2. Radical inequality (in law and conventionally)
 3. Prevailing misogyny
o While we can distinguish these structural causes in these ways, it should be kept
in mind that these structural causes interact with one another
 Misogyny justifies, and is in turn reinforced by, social conventions (i.e.:
denying women access to education leaves them comparatively ignorant,
which in turn seems to justify holding them to be inferior)
 Moreover, each of these structural causes exercise a decisive influence on
individual choice (making them arguably more important in Astell’s
analysis)
Structural causes: social conventions/socio-economic circumstances
o Among the structural causes in this category, we might consider, first, that men
are misled into choosing their spouse on financial grounds on the basis of wider
socio-economic forces
o That is, men come to see that a primary route for social mobility (particularly
among the middle and upper classes) is the choice of a bride with means; and the
best way to preserve what one has gained, is through children. These sorts of
‘mercenary’ considerations influence men’s decision to choose a spouse only as a
means to an end:
 “For under many sounding compliments, words that have nothing in them,
this is his true meaning: he wants one to manage his family, a
housekeeper, a necessary evil, one whose interest it will be not to wrong
him […]. One who may breed his children, taking all the care and trouble
of their education, to preserve his name and family.” (34-5)
o On the other side, women are likewise misled by wider social conventions into
thinking that their happiness lies solely in finding a spouse and raising a family.
This generates a kind of urgency in finding a husband which creates a situation in
which women are left without time or incentive to question her suitor’s motives:
 “a woman […] has been taught to think marriage her only preferment, the
sum-total of her endeavours, the completion of all her hopes, that which
must settle and maker her happy in this world” (53)
 “she whose expectation has been raised by courtship, by all the fine things
that her lover, her governess, and domestic flatters say, will find a terrible
disappointment when the hurry is over” (54)
Structural causes: radical inequality
o Of course, a key structural issue, and one that Astell brings up frequently, is the
radical inequality between men and women. This is not solely a social issue,
since in Astell’s time (and for long after), men and women had unequal standing
under law.
o This inequality extended to their respective roles in a marriage. Men were
accorded nearly absolute power over their spouse, who was legally and in fact a
dependant
 “She who elects a monarch for life, who gives him an authority she cannot
recall” (31)
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“how can a woman scruple entire subjection […] if she at all considers it”
(55)
 “she is taken to be a man’s upper-servant” (89)
o This serves to create a situation where a husband’s mistreatment of his spouse and
abuse of his role is far more likely. That he has such authority feeds his “pride and
self-conceit” (29), and gives him little incentive to listen to a subordinate
 “She has made him her head, and he thinks himself as well qualify’d” (39)
 “He who has sovereign power does not value the provocations of a
rebellious subject, but knows how to subdue them […] and will make
himself obey’d” (27)
o There are, moreover, no avenues of legal recourse and the verdict of custom is
often harsh:
 “she puts herself entirely into her husband’s power, and if the matrimonial
yoke be grievous, neither law nor custom afford her redress” (27)
 “For covenants betwixt husband and wife, like laws in an arbitrary
government, are of little force” (37)
o Given the position in which she is placed, Astell concludes that even a ‘prudent’
decision to marry is attended with “Risque” (34)
Structural causes: Misogyny
o A final structural cause, and one which obviously works in tandem with the other
two, is a prevailing attitude of misogyny, or contempt for women
 “But how can a man respect his wife when he has a contemptible opinion
of her and her sex?” (47)
o Concerning this, Astell first points to the ways, both subtle and explicit, in which
misogyny pervades ordinary life. This attitude is reflected in what Astell regards
as a misinterpretation of Scripture and the story that woman was created as a
‘helpmeet’ for man. A prevailing attitude of contempt for women takes what is
intended as a relationship of (reciprocal) assistance and makes it an occasion for
men to treat women as they please:
 “when we suppose a thing to be made purely for our sakes, because we
have dominion over it, we draw a false conclusion”; “how are these lords
and masters helped by the contempt they show of their poor humble
vassals” (47-8)
o This attitude also underlies the “satires” and “jests” relating to the female sex
written by theologians, academics, and popular authors. Given that they already
view women as inferior, Astell wonders why they would bother to satirize women
other than because they also view them with contempt:
 “But that your grave dons, your learned men, and which is more, your men
of sense […] should stoop so low as to make invectives against women,
forget themselves so much as to jest with their slaves, who have neither
liberty nor ingenuity to make reprisals! […] this indeed may justly be
wondered at!” (50-1)
Structural causes: misogyny and male fragility
o For Astell, then, that men hold women in contempt is evident because men go
beyond whatever natural inequality obtains between the sexes to assert a
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complete dominion over them. And it is this contempt that lies behind the fact that
they ridicule those they claim not to be “worth their pains” (51)
o But Astell also speculates as to the cause of this misogynistic attitude. And while
she doesn’t use the term, it seems clear that she locates the source in male
fragility—that men are afraid that, outside of a situation in which women feel
degraded and inferior, they cannot and will not command their esteem and
obedience
o As Astell argues, however, men’s mistreatment of women and arbitrary use of
their authority only demonstrates that they are unwise and unjust, and so
undeserving of esteem:
 “Is it possible for her to believe him wise and good who by a thousand
demonstrations convinces her and all the world of the contrary? [If] the
bare name of husband confer sense on a man, and the mere being in
authority infallibly qualify him for government, much might be done. But
[…] a ‘wise man’ and a ‘husband’ are not terms convertible” (57)
 “a blind obedience is an obeying without reason, for aught we know
against it. God himself does not require our obedience at this rate, he lays
before us the goodness and reasonableness of his laws” (83-4)
Saving marriage?
o In the end, Astell’s Some Reflections is largely critical in intent—she is seeking to
expose the various causes of the corruption of marriage as the institution is
currently practiced. Given that some of these causes are cultural/structural, any
effort to address these would require large-scale systemic and cultural changes
o But, as with Masham, Astell suggests that a key part of any reform would be
providing women access to education. This would put women in a position to
understand, by means of reason, what her duties and responsibilities are (and
presumably what they aren’t), allowing her to more effectively fulfill her role in
marriage. Moreover, this is no more than what the husband owes his spouse:
 “It is therefore very much a man’s interest that women should be good
Christians […]. [W]hat can be more the duty of the head than to instruct
and improve those who are under government?” (84)
o Obviously, educated women risk infringing on male fragility. Astell concedes this
but claims that only those who exercise their authority in a way contrary to what’s
right or what’s wise have reason to fear:
 Some worry that “a philosophical lady as she is call’d by way of ridicule
[…] would be too wise and too good for the men; I grant it, for vicious
and foolish men” (85)
o What is in any case clear for Astell, is that under the current circumstances, no
woman has reason to be “fond of being a wife” (89)
Online lecture 8: Hume on suffering and suicide
- Hume’s dialogues
o We have already seen that in Part XI of the Dialogues, Hume (through his
spokesperson Philo) takes on the problem of evil. There he challenges the
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theist’s claim that we can infer the divine attributes (supreme goodness in
particular) from our experience of the world
o This week, our first reading is the part of the Dialogues which leads up to that
discussion (so obviously the same dialogue characters are still involved—Philo,
Cleanthes the proponent of natural religion, and Demea the mystic)
o However, the topic in Part X is notably different than that of Part XI—it concerns
the topic of suffering, and considers whether there is more suffering or misery in
life than happiness, and if so, what the significance of that is for our actions
o Significantly, this issue leads into the discussion of the problem of evil in Part X
(from p. 188) and Part XI. Philo thinks that we are certain by means of our
experience that life contains more suffering or physical evil than happiness; but
he thinks proving this strong claim is not actually necessary to undermine our
credence in the Christian conception of God, as the existence of any evil
anywhere already suffices to call this into question
 “But allowing you, what never will be believe’d [namely, that] human
happiness in this life exceeds its misery, you have yet done nothing: For
this is not, by any means, what we expect from infinite power, infinite
wisdom, and infinite goodness. Why is there any misery at all in the
world?” (194)
Hume’s dialogues, part X
o The discussion in Part X starts out with Demea’s contention that it is the human
being’s awareness of and reflection upon their own miserable and helpless
situation (rather than a chain of reasoning) that leads them to turn to God and
religion for comfort
 “It is my opinion, I own, replied Demea, that each man feels, in a manner,
the truth of religion within his own breast; and from a consciousness of
his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek
protection from that Being, on whom he and all nature is dependant”
(171)
 “Wretched creatures that we are! What [recourse] for us amidst the
innumerable ills of life, [if] religion did not suggest some methods of
atonement, and appease those terrors with which we are incessantly
agitated and tormented” (172)
o Philo is happy to concede that this is why many turn to religion (largely because,
as we know, Philo thinks that this is ultimately irrational as we have no basis to
claim to know God’s moral goodness and this would be required for religion to
provide us with the comfort we seek)
o But this gives rise to a wider discussion of the relation and proportion of
suffering (pain) and happiness (pleasure) in life—a discussion in which Demea
and Philo are in fundamental agreement that life offers more pain than pleasure
 “The people, indeed, replied Demea, are sufficiently convinced of this
great and melancholy truth. The miseries of life; the unhappiness of man;
the general corruptions of our nature; the unsatisfactory enjoyment of
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pleasures, riches, honours; these phrases have become almost proverbial
in all languages” (172-3)
Return to Bayle and Xenophanes I
o In exploring this theme, Hume (via Philo and Demea) returns to a number of
points with which we are already familiar from Bayle’s treatment in his
“Xenophanes” who, we will recall, contended that what is bitter in life outweighs
what is sweet
o So Demea claims that humans, like all sentient beings, are born into a life filled
with want, conflict, and fear. The portrait Demea paints is of life as a kind of
Hobbesian state of nature, or a state of “perpetual war”:
 “The whole earth, believe me Philo, is cursed and polluted. A perpetual
war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want
stimulate the strong and courageous: Fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the
weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the newborn infant and to its wretched parent: Weakness, impotence, distress,
attend each stage of that life: and it is at last finished in agony and
horror.” (175-6)
o Indeed, Demea claims that even the things that some would claim redeem
human life and offer some recompense of pleasure are not obvious sources of
pleasure. So, after saying that if he wanted to show an alien the ills of human
life, he would take it to “a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with
malefactors and debtors”; but were he to show this stranger “the gay side of
life”:
 “whither should I conduct him? To a ball, to an opera, to [a royal] court?
He might justly think that I was only showing him a diversity of distress
and sorrow” (180-1)
o All of this is readily understood through our own experience, but also through
the testimony of others (Cicero, Emperor Charles V) who were in positions where
apparent happiness did not offset their cares and suffering. As a result, this all
suggests that human life contains more suffering than happiness
Return to Bayle and Xenophanes II
o In addition, and similarly to Bayle, Hume also argues for this conclusion on the
basis of a consideration of the nature of pleasure and pain
o So, like Bayle, Hume stresses that even if the quantity of pleasures in a life
outnumbers that of pains, the intensity of pains easily eclipses the intensity of
our pleasures
 “if pain be less frequent than pleasure, it is infinitely more violent and
durable. One hour of it is often able to outweigh a day, a week, a month
of our common insipid enjoyments” (191-2)
o Moreover, our pains are capable of reaching a height of intensity, a maximum,
that cannot long be matched by that of even a great pleasure:
 “Pleasure scarcely in one instance is ever able to reach ecstasy and
rapture: And in no one instance can it continue for any time at its highest
pitch and altitude. […] But pain often, good God how often!, rises to
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torture and agony, and the longer it continues it becomes still more
genuine agony and torture” (192)
Extending Bayle’s case: Psychic suffering I
o But Hume also adds to Bayle’s case by considering a type of suffering that was
largely left out of Bayle’s discussion: psychic suffering
o This kind of suffering is important because it is something that human beings,
insofar as they have minds, are uniquely capable of. The sorts of suffering Bayle
had considered are types that pertain to any merely sentient being (i.e., a being
with a capacity for feeling). We might, for convenience’s sake, call this physical
suffering
o Hume notes that, unlike animals, human beings have a capacity to surmount a
number of sources of physical suffering (hunger, conflict)—we can band together
and engage in collective action to secure food sources and guarantee our
security. But, Hume will claim that having mitigated the threat of physical
suffering is not the end of the story, as in such cases human beings quickly invent
imaginary concerns and fears and proceed to torment themselves with them
 “Man it is true can, by combination, surmount all his real enemies, and
become master of the whole animal creation: but does he not
immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the demons of his
fan[tasy], who haunt him with superstitious terrors”? (177)
o For Philo, these “superstitious terrors” are clearly the supernatural beings
posited by religious traditions—ancestors, demons, spirits, and vengeful gods
who make our very enjoyment of our newfound security a fresh cause for guilt
and repentance, and a kind of self-inflicted punishment:
 “His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes in their eyes a crime: his food and
repose give them umbrage and offence: his very sleep and dreams
furnish new materials to anxious fear, and even death […] presents only
the dread of endless and innumerable woes” (177-8)
Extending Bayle’s case: Psychic suffering II
o Moreover, it is not just the suffering that proceeds from superstition that afflicts
human beings, but also suffering that proceeds from the “disorders of the mind.”
By these, Hume refers to the kinds of emotions that arise from our capacity to
reflect on our past behaviours or uncertainty about what might lie in our future.
These emotions can also deeply unsettle even the most prosperous person
 “Remorse, shame, anguish, rage, disappointment, anxiety, fear,
dejection, despair; who has ever passed through life without cruel
inroads from these tormentors?” (179)
o But even in cases where we have nothing in our past to regret, or no future state
to be anxious about, Hume thinks we still undergo a kind of psychic suffering.
We suffer, namely, when we achieve what we want, or even when we don’t do
anything at all, we suffer from a kind of let-down or a vexatious boredom:
 “an anxious languor follows [one’s] repose; disappointment, vexation,
trouble, their activity and ambition” (182)
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o So, when we act, we suffer insofar as we are disappointed, frustrated, or
troubled with the result; but when we do not act, when we simply keep to
ourselves and mind our own business, we grow anxious, uneasy, and bored,
which are forms of (psychic) suffering, even if arguably milder than other types
The objection: If life is so bad…?
o Philo thinks that it is now evident, from this consideration of physical and psychic
forms of suffering, that life contains more miseries than pleasures and that no
one can ever be truly happy.
o At this point in the dialogue, things take a rather darker turn
o Philo now imagines a sceptical opponent who denies that happiness is
impossible, and that those who “complain incessantly of the miseries of life”
simply suffer from a particularly “discontented, repining, anxious disposition”
(181)
 This would be to say something like: the folks who claim loudly that life is
full of sorrow just suffer from depression or some other mental ailment
that makes them focus on the bad over the good
o Philo (replying to his own imagined opponent) thinks that having such a
disposition, where one would be highly sensitive to the miseries of life, would
count as a source of misery in its own right (so that the depressed person is not
simply imagining their suffering).
o Against this, Philo imagines the following reply on the part of his opponent:
 “But if they were really as unhappy as they pretend, says my antagonist,
why do they remain in life?” (181)
o That is, if the individual who complains about the miseries of life really thought
this, then they would not want to live anymore and would take the necessary
actions to exit this life
Hume’s “On suicide”
o This obviously raises the issue of suicide, which is touched on at a couple of
points in the middle of Part X of the Dialogues (pp. 181-85)
o However, this was a rather taboo topic to talk about in Hume’s day (as it
arguably still is in our own). As a result, it is never explicitly mentioned and Hume
does not here make evident what might be thought to be the natural conclusion
of his discussion (instead he abruptly transitions on p. 185 to the critique of the
theist on the problem of evil)
o We’ll return to Hume’s brief treatment of suicide in the Dialogues at the end of
this lecture. For now, we will look at Hume’s considered views on the topic of
suicide, which he expressed in an essay entitled “On Suicide.” Unsurprisingly,
given the taboos associated with the topic, this essay was among the works that
Hume wrote but suppressed during his lifetime (much like the Dialogues itself),
and was only published posthumously at the discretion of the executor of his will
o “On Suicide” gives us a better sense of Hume’s own opinion on suicide (since
there are no dialogue characters to make things ambiguous)
o There are some who have argued that suicide is an appropriate response to the
preponderance of pain over pleasure in this life
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Such a view was reported, if not endorsed, in Bayle’s “Xenophanes,” note
D: “[Pliny] does not omit the reflection, which many have made, that it
would be extremely happy for man not to be born, or to die very early.
[…] He affirms, in another book, that the greatest blessing, which God has
given to many among the punishments of this life is that they can lay
violent hands upon themselves” (226)
o In his essay, Hume does not go quite this far and commend suicide. But he does
argue that it is not “criminal,” which is to say, that the act of committing suicide
is not deserving of sanction (“guilt or blame”)
o As we will see, there are some cases in which Hume thinks that suicide can be
‘prudent’ (that is, a reasonable decision based on the circumstances) and even
‘courageous,’ even if he stops short of claiming that it is a universally appropriate
response to a life that promises more suffering than happiness
Hume on the permissibility of suicide
o Hume’s focus in the essay is on showing that none of the traditional arguments
for the criminality of suicide are successful
o Hume considers three sorts of reasons for the criminality of suicide:
 1. It is a transgression against our duty to God
 2. It is a transgression against our duty to our neighbours (i.e.,
family/those closest to us) or society
 3. It is a transgression against our duty to ourselves
o But, beyond this critical discussion, Hume clearly thinks that any strict
prohibition on suicide is unjustified—that the prohibition on suicide is ultimately
an attempt by systems of “superstition” to exert control over their followers.
They play up the miseries of this world and then offer their system as the only
possible source of comfort
o The ultimate goal of Hume’s discussion, then, is to loosen the hold of systems of
superstition over us and to restore us to a kind of freedom to dispose over
ourselves as we please
 “Let us here endeavour to restore men to their native liberty, by
examining all the common arguments against Suicide, and showing that
that action may be free from every imputation of guilt or blame” (3)
1) that suicide violates our duty to God
o Many religious traditions contend that suicide is impermissible because it
violates a duty towards the supreme being—that we are, as it were, the property
of God and a vehicle for His purposes in creation; as a result, that we should
destroy ourselves would be contrary to His purposes for us and so an act of
defiance
 “you are placed by Providence like a sentinel, in a particular station, and
when you desert it without being recalled, you are equally guilty of
rebellion against your almighty sovereign” (10)
o Hume offers a variety of considerations against this sort of argument:
 The act of suicide abides by the same general laws of matter and motion
through which God governs the rest of creation (it is not a violation of
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these), and these sometimes result in the destruction of a being. Selfdestruction as such is not inconsistent with the order of things (6)
 The power to end our lives is a natural power God has bestowed on us.
Making use of it, then, cannot be inconsistent with divine purposes (7)
 To think that the voluntary end of one human life could impact God’s
ability to realise his purposes is to over-estimate the significance of a
single human life in the cosmos (7)
 Ending one’s life need not be an act of defiance of God, but an act in
which there is gratitude for the pleasures already enjoyed but an
understanding that the future promises only suffering (8)
 If God forbids suicide, then he would also have to forbid our willingly
putting ourselves in situations where our death is likely, but this would
mean that there would be no acts of heroism (9)
 We cannot know whether an individual’s act of suicide isn’t in fact in
accordance with the divine plan (9, 10-1)
2) That suicide violates our duty to our neighbours/society
o The act of suicide is also sometimes taken to violate our duty to our neighbours
or society. Namely, that community/society is essentially a co-operative
undertaking, so when I voluntarily remove myself from this, I cause harm to my
fellows (I no longer “shoulder my load”)
o Against this, Hume argues that duties to neighbours or society are, as far as we
can tell, reciprocal—the receipt of a benefit is conditional on the
payment/contribution of what I owe
 “All our obligations to do good to society seem to imply something
reciprocal. I receive the benefits of society, and therefore ought to
promote its interests” (12)
o Hume notes, however, that the person who commits suicide no longer enjoys the
benefit society confers (i.e., security of goods, protection from others). Rather,
they remove themselves from society entirely and as such remove themselves
from any debt/obligation
o Moreover, Hume contends that in some cases a suicide is a public good—when
for instance I am a “burden” to society (“my life hinders some person from being
much more useful to society”—12) or, less controversially, a public official who is
taken hostage and knows that they will divulge state secrets under torture
decides instead to commit the act (13)
 “In such cases, my resignation of my life must not only be innocent, but
laudable” (12)
3) that suicide violates our duty to ourselves
o With respect to a putative violation of a duty to ourselves, the worry here seems
to be that suicide is (always) contrary to our own “interests,” but we have a
natural duty to promote our own interest
o Hume denies this, and claims that there are obvious cases in which ending our
lives is within our interest, and so does not violate our duty to act in accordance
with them:

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“That suicide may often be consistent with interest and with our duty to
ourselves, no one can question, who allows that age, sickness, or
misfortune may render life a burden and make it worse than even
annihilation.” (13)
Hume the Pessimist?
o Hume’s conclusion in the essay, then, is that suicide is not an act deserving of
moral condemnation; far from it, there are even circumstances where it is
consistent with our duty and interest, and where we might even praise someone
for the prudence or courage that undertaking such an act involves:
 Far from being criminal, “both prudence and courage should engage us to
rid ourselves at once of existence, when it becomes a burden” (14)
 This is to say, that the act of suicide can be a reasonable (prudent)
decision when life promises more sorrow than happiness, and it can be
courageous in cases where we sacrifice our life for the good of others.
But that the act can have this character is only possible if we accept that
suicide is not itself a criminal, or morally reproachable act
o On its own, this result of Hume’s considerations in the essay is perhaps only of
limited significance. However, when it is combined with the claims Philo makes
in Part X of the Dialogues, then the result is rather more controversial
 We have already seen that in Part X Philo argues that, due to physical and
psychic suffering, human life does, in most cases, promise more pain than
pleasure
 But if suicide is not only permissible, but even prudent, when this is the
case, then is a consequence of Hume’s argument that, for the most part,
suicide is a permissible and even prudent choice, given the
preponderance of suffering in human life?
o But if this is all the case, then, returning to the challenge raised by the imaginary
opponent in Part X of the Dialogues, why is it that more people do not commit
this act of self-destruction?
o Hume’s answer is that our natural fear, even terror of death is the only thing that
prevents us from taking this final step
Back to Philo on suicide
o Returning to the Dialogues, in response to the challenge of the imagined
opponent, if someone’s life is full of suffering why do they remain in life?, Hume
(Philo) begins by quoting the following line: “Not satisfied with life, afraid of
death” and continues:
 “This is the secret chain, say I, that holds us. We are terrified, not bribed
to the continuance of our existence” (181-2)
o That we are not “bribed” to continue living, means that it is not in virtue of
expected pleasures that we remain in life and endure its miseries. In fact, Philo
goes on to claim that the belief that the future promises more pleasure to offset
the suffering we have endured in the past is irrational:
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“Ask yourself, ask any of your acquaintances whether they would live
over again the last ten or twenty years of their life. No! but the next
twenty, they say, will be better” (184-5)
 But to think that the rest of one’s life holds out the possibility of
pleasures that one could not obtain in the first part is, according to Philo,
irrational. The best chance for us to attain a taste of happiness is, as
Bayle would agree, the first part of our life, and if we haven’t got it then,
then it is foolish for us to hope for it later
o Instead, Philo claims that our decision to remain in life is a result of our “terror”
of death. The fact that someone who experiences profound suffering does not
exit this life is not evidence that their sufferings are only feigned. Instead, it is
evidence that their fear of death overpowers or outweighs the sufferings they
endure.
o Returning to Hume’s essay, it is because of the power that this fear naturally has
over us that we can also be sure that most of those who decide not to “remain in
this life” have not come to this decision as a result of trivial considerations:
 “I believe that no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping.
For such is our natural horror of death, that small [i.e., insignificant]
motives will never be able to reconcile us to it” (13)
Grounds for optimism? Rousseau’s second discourse
o Hume’s conclusions in Part X of the Dialogues and the essay “On Suicide” seem
to leave us in a rather pessimistic place. Life is, on the whole, worse than it is
better, and suicide is a permissible, even reasonable course of action in light of
this. The only thing that preserves us in existence, however, is a terror of death
that makes us afraid of taking matters into our own hands. And this terror of
death is itself a further source of (psychic) suffering that only makes life worse
o It’s hard to think about what might serve to alleviate the concerns that Hume
(and Bayle) raise. But one attempt is that of Rousseau in his “Discourse on the
Origin of Inequality,” also know as the “Second Discourse” (a previous discourse
on the arts and sciences was published previously)
o The way in which Rousseau arguably responds to Hume is by contending that the
primary sources of suffering (including the psychic variety) are man-made—they
are functions of the corruptions that ensue when human beings congregate into
societies and thereby leave their preferable, solitary natural state
 You might recall Rousseau’s response to Voltaire on the Lisbon
earthquake which was right along these lines—human action significantly
amplifies the physical harms caused by the natural disaster
o For Rousseau, human psychic suffering stems from a system of inequality that
we ourselves introduce. But he thinks this has the optimistic consequence that
we might rectify the situation through human action (i.e.: we broke it so we can
fix it). Whether Rousseau comes across as an optimist is, in any case, a question
you might keep in mind as you read the Second Discourse
Lecture 8: J.J Rousseu
- Who is Rousseau?
o Philosopher
o Born in Geneva (1712-1778)
o Also known for his book Social Contract (1762), which is why you are likely to
read him in a political theory/philosophy course.
o His ideas influenced the French Revolution.
o Freedom is fundamental guiding principle.
o The people, not monarchs, have the legitimate power to legislate laws for
themselves.
o Perhaps his most famous quote:
o “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (Social Contract, Book 1,
chapter 1).
o He favoured direct democracy as this was the best way to ensure human
freedom and authority. Only laws given to ourselves by ourselves can secure our
freedom.
o Social Contract theory.
 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
 John Locke (1632-1704)
 Rousseau (1712-1778)
 Rawls (1921-2002)
- Why Rousseau for this course?
o If Rousseau is read as a primarily political philosopher, why study him in a course
on evil, suffering and pessimism?
o Because he has much to say on the human condition.
o An account of unhappiness and of our miseries, of what has gone wrong with our
lives.
o While he is not attempting to answer any fundamental questions about the
nature of existence itself, make claims about the ultimate value of life or offer a
metaphysical view of existence, he does provide insights into suffering
- Reading the second discourse
o Complete title: Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among
Mankind (1755).
o The First Discourse is called A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and
Sciences (1750).
o The Second Discourse was written in response to a question posed by the
Academy of Dijon:
o What is the origin of inequality among mankind and does natural law decree
inequality?
o In other words, where does inequality come from? Are we naturally unequal? If
so, why? How? If we are not naturally unequal, then (again) where does
inequality come from? Is it justified?
o Natural inequalities: health, strength, so on.
o These are not philosophically very interesting.
o Moral and political inequality.
o This is the question. Why do some have authority over others? Why do some
have more wealth, honour, influence, power and privileges than others? How
can this be justified?
o The points:
 Moral inequality is not natural
 Inequality is a human invention
 Human misery is the result of society
 Therefore: the root of all our predicaments are found in our relations
with others, in society itself
o How, where do we start to answer the question of moral inequality and start to
arrive at the answer we have just seen?
o Suppose there was a time before any established authority existed, a time
before we were governed and coerced into acting in certain ways and refraining
from acting in others. Call this the state of nature.
o How was life in the state of nature?
o How would we live with no authority above us?
o What would we do? Not do?
o What would be right? Wrong?
o Would any of this impact our happiness? Why?
o Would we suffer more or less?
o Do we generally, agree with Rousseau?
o “(...) it is no such easy task to distinguish between what is natural and what is
artificial in the present constitution of man” (82).
o This is a common problem. How do we get around it?
o Many of our behaviours are often justified because they are natural in us.
Competition, a degree of selfishness and so on are often described as natural
tendencies in us.
o How can we know this??
o “(...) it is no such easy task to distinguish between what is natural and what is
artificial in the present constitution of man” (82).
 This is a common problem. How do we get around it?
o Many of our behaviours are often justified because they are natural in us.
Competition, a degree of selfishness and so on are often described as natural
tendencies in us.
 How can we know this??
o “If we consider human society with a calm and disinterested eye, it seems at first
sight to show us nothing but the violence of the powerful and the oppression of
the weak” (85).
o “ (...) nothing is less stable in human life than those exterior relations (...)
weakness or power, poverty or riches” (85).
 What do we think?
o “If I consider him (...) such as he must have issued from the hands of nature (...) I
see him satisfying his hunger under an oak, and his thirst at the first brook; I see
o
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o
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him laying himself down to sleep at the foot of the same tree that afforded him
his meal; and there are all his wants completely supplied” (90)
(...) it appears that no other animal naturally makes war on man, except in the
case of self-defense or extreme hunger” (92)
 Are humans our major threats?
“(...) In proportion as he becomes sociable and a slave to others, he becomes
weak, fearful, mean-spirited” (94)
 Do others bring out the worst in us?
“(...) the man who first made himself clothes and built himself a cabin supplied
himself with things which he did not need much, since he has lived without them
till then” (94)
 How is this familiar to us today? Do we still do this today? Why?
We humans are motivated by perfectibility –the faculty of improvement (96).
This is what differentiates us from other animals.
Perfectibility is progress.
We are not content, satisfied with simply being, with only existing.
If this is true, what does this say about us and existence?
 “It would be a melancholy necessity for us to be obliged to allow this
distinctive faculty [to be] the source of all man’s misfortunes” (96).
But it is, or not?? Sad. Perhaps. To admit this.
 “this faculty (...) produces his discoveries and mistakes, his virtues and his
vices, and, in the long run, renders him both his own and nature’s tyrant”
(96)
“the knowledge of death, and of its terrors, is one of the first acquisitions made
by man, in consequence of his deviating from the animal state” (97).
 This is a mistaken claim about animals, but setting this point aside for
now, what is the main point here? What do we think about this?
“In civil life we can scarcely meet a single person who does not complain of his
existence” (104).
“Was ever any free savage known to have been so much tempted to complain of
life, and do away with himself? (104)
 Do we all complain at some point? Do we all have some sort of existential
crisis? Do we get depressed and fall into ennui (weariness, discontent).
In support of the claim that, overall, we have a disposition to reject cruelty and
harm:
 “the pathetic picture of a man, who, with his hands tied up, is obliged to
behold a beast of prey tear a child from the arms of his mother, and then
with his teeth grind the tender limbs (...) what horrible emotions must
not such a spectator experience at the sight of an event which does not
personally concern him? What anguish must he not suffer at his not
being able to assist the fainting mother or the expiring infant?” (107)
 A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1971.
What about Love?
 Love is a social creation as well.
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“As his mind was never in a condition to form abstract ideas of regularity
and proportion, neither is his heart susceptible of sentiments of
admiration and love” (109).
 “the jealousy of lovers and the vengeance of husbands every day produce
duels, murders, and even worse crimes; where duty to fidelity serves only
to propagate adultery” (110)
Takeaways thus far:
o We strive (perfectibility)
o We give ourselves objects and things we do not need.
o We come to know death
o We start to complain about existence
o Even love (the noblest of emotions) is a creation that causes more harm than
good
How did we get here? Why did we leave our happy lives in nature behind and create a
society where laws, customs, social expectations and morality encroach themselves
upon us and create misery in our lives?
o The answer?
 “The first man, who after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his
head to say, this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him,
was the real founder of civil society” (113).
o What negative impacts did private property bring about?
 All the ones we have seen, plus:
 The establishment of the nuclear family which meant dependence
(117).
 The reliance on objects. “To lose them was a misfortune, to
possess them no happiness” (117).
 Comparisions. “Everyone began to notice the rest, and wished to be
noticed himself; and public esteem acquired a value. He who sang or
danced best; the handsomest, the strongest, the most eloquent, came to
be the most respected” (118).
 Division of labour. We became dependent on others, power and
authority arise. Inequality entrenches itself.
“The rank and lot of every man established, not only as to the amount of property and
the power of serving or hurting others, but likewise as to genius, beauty, strength or
skill, merits or talents (...) it became the interest of men to appear what they were really
not” (122).
o This was not what life was like in the state of nature.
 How accurate is this description of life in society today?
Now, “in consequence of a multitude of new needs, [we are] brought into subjugation,
as it were, to all nature and especially to his fellows” (122).
o Thus, society and its laws are in place to benefit the powerful and ensure that
inequality is entrenched.
 There is nothing natural about this
Online week 9 lecture: Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)
- Born in Recanati, Italy. Lots of health issues.
- His family belonged to the land-owning aristocracy. Born into wealth.
- Educated at home
- His father, Monaldo, owned an impressive library of over 10000 books. It was open to
the public in 1812.
- He taught himself Greek, then Hebrew.
- Numerous health issues, among them were a hunchback formed in his teens, and
deterioration of his spine.
- His magnum opus: Zibaldone (1898, posthumously): all his work collected over his
lifetime. A compilation of thoughts. Poetry, philosophy, literature, general thoughts.
- Why Leopardi?
o A poet and philosopher
o Widely read. Schop, the foremost pessimist philosopher said of him in regards to
the misery of existence that “no one has treated this subject so thoroughly and
exhaustively as Leopardi in our own day. He is entirely imbued and penetrated
with it; everywhere his theme is the mockery and wretchedness of his existence.
He presents it on every page of hus works, yet in such a multiplicity of forms and
application, with such a wealth of imagery, that he never wearies us”. (WWR2,
588).
 These are remarkable works of praise, given that shop had a reputation
for being a harsh critic of philosophers he considered charlatans (Like
Hegel)
o Leopardi therefore offers the best gateway to pessimism
o So was he a pessimist?
 Not really. Depends how you define it. But he did not think highly of life.
Rather, he thought happiness was not possible at all.
- We will look at two texts found in moral fables (1824). This is a series a fables an
dialogues on existence and suffering
o 1) the history of the human race; origin of humanity
o 2) nature and an Icelander; dialogue between a traveller and nature
- The history of the human race
o An alternate account of human “fall from grace:
o Reveals truths about the human condition
o Reveals why existence is filled with pain and struggles
o Life was one, it seemed, good… too good perhaps? “… and the idea of being
content with what they enjoyed at present, without the promise of any increase
of their well-being, did not attract them” (3)… like the garden of eve, being
perfect? Did not interest humans as there no room to increase our well-being.
 Life was too easy, everything was known.
 “an overt distaste for their existence took universal possession of them”
(4). Boredom. “this situation horrified the gods – that luving creatures
preferred death to life and that life itself in some of its own subjects (…)
should be the instrument of their destruction” (4).
o Jove wondered: “how is it not enough for them, as it is for other creatures, to be
alive and free from all bodily aches and pains (…) since they always desire in all
circumstances the impossible, this desire troubles them the more” (6)
o Our minds, our thoughts and desires are the source of our predicaments. We are
our own tormentors.
o Life was made difficult NOT as a punishment but as a solution. Difficult was
introduced in order to love life.
o Jove desired to preserve humanity through two means: fill their life with real ills,
and involve our lives with a thousand toils to keep them occupied and distracted
from their own minds (6)
o “So he began by spreading among them a multitudinous of diseases and an
endless array of other misfortunes. He wished, by varying the conditions and
chances of mortal life, to obviate satiety and increase the value of benefits in
contrast to ills; and he hoped that the lack of pleasure in those now accustomed
to worse things should prove to be much more bearable than it had in the past”
(7). Made difficult for us to find pleasure in life.
o As a further compensation for these new-found difficulties, phantasms (illusions)
were introduced into the world. Love-Justice-Virtue-Patriotism-Wisdom
o Humans were now willing to fight and give there lives for these phantasms
 Q: Are there any ideals or principles we would be willing to die for?
o Alas, once again we become unsatisfied with life. Once societies were firmly
established, boredom and sloth reigned again among us. “There was a
resurgence of that bitter desire for a happiness unknown and alien to the nature
of the universe” (9).
 Q: Can we ever be satisfied and not have desires? What else do we want?
o At this point, Jove gave up on us. “He was certain by now that no measures could
provide, no condition be suitable, no place satisfactory (…) ultimately their
stupidity and arrogant demands roused the wrath of the god (…) he resolved to
lay all sympathy aside and punish the human race forever by condemning it for
all future ages to wretchedness” (10,11)
o In the end, truth was sent to live among us. Truth became our “perpetual
director” (11). Truth revealed all our “unhappiness and keep it continually before
(our) eye, representing it as not merely the result of chance, but something they
could by no accident or remedy escape – nor ever, while they lived, interrupt”
(11). Truth revealed all our unhappiness
 We can never change the fundamental feature of existence. This is a
central pessimist claim.
o The truth, therefore, is dangerous. We will realize that “human life will lack all
value, all rectitude, in thought as in deed” (12). We may wage war of all against
all or become extinct through some other measure.
 Q: Is it true that if happiness in life is impossible, then life lacks value? For
whom? For the child born in a warzone or that perishes in an
earthquake? Is it valuable for us, lucky enough to not live in a war torn
country ravaged by natural disasters?
-
Nature and an Icelander
o An Icelander flees society, trying to flee nature itself, searching for a peaceful
tranquil life
o The main points:
 Nature (the world) is not interested in us or our well-being
 The world was not made for our sake (71)
 Life is a cycle of production and destruction (72)
o The Icelander: “I often marvel not a little that you (nature) have inspired in us so
great and constant and insatiable a craving for pleasure”
 - again, desire and pursuit appear to be reasons for the misery of life.
Keep this in mind.
o Nature: do you think I built this villa for you? Or that I keep these children of
mine, and these servants, to minister you? I certainly have other things to think
about than amusing you and keeping you in luxury.
o Icelander: Look, friend, just as you have not made this villa for my use, so it was
in your power not to invite me here. But since of your own free will you have
asked me to live here, do you not have an obligation to ensure, so far as you,
that I at least live here without suffering and without danger? I now ask whether
I ever begged you to place me in this universe. Or whether I forced myself into it
with violence and against your will? (72)
Week 9: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1869)
- What is philosophical pessimism?
o It is not a mood, a temperament, a phycological predisposition. Not everyone
that claims life is bad or miserable is a pessimist. Not all philosophers that argue
this are pessimists.
o It is a view about the essence of existence. Pessimists have a metaphysical view.
This view holds that suffering, pain, and misery are inescapable features of
existence itself.
 In virtue of this; nonexistence is preferable to existence. The retches
character of existence is a philosophical truth that is to be debated and
argued against on philosophical grounds.
o There are many different approaches to pessimism
- Schopenhauer
o Born in Danzig, Prussia (now Poland)
o The first systematic pessimist philosopher
o His book The World as Will and Representation (1818) is where his complete
pessimist system is laid out. All other pessimists that followed him are in a
conversation with the WWR. They agree, expand, disagree and/or dispute the
points he presented there.
o His metaphysical system is essential in order to have a fair understanding of his
pessimism. A transcendental idealist working within the Kantian tradition.
 We need to have a notion of the will. So what is it?

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Very summarized: That which is reality beyond how we perceive
it. Its defining feature is to want and endlessly desire. Makes it
possible that we have images and representations of things. We
can understand will as a source of life – what gives rise to all the
objects we see.
o After reading his views, everyone can agree that he makes very clear points and
he is a good writer.
 “Nothing is easier than writing so that no one can understand it, just as
conversely nothing is harder than to express meaningful thoughts so that
everyone must understand them. Unintelligibility is related to
unintelligent, and it is always infinitely more likely that it conceals a
mystification rather than a great profundity.” (PP2, pg 465).
 This is a criticism of Hegel (and Fichte and Schelling).
 Keep this in mind while writing philosophy papers and exams
Parerga and paralipomena
o Parerga means subordinate work, and paralipomena means passed over.
o Fame and recognition was achieved with this (1851), something he wanted and
thought he deserved.
 Was a best seller
o Written in an aphoristic style, more accessible to the general public. It is not a
continuous ongoing argument as WWR is.
o Largely a posteriori (after experience) arguments, whereas WWR is…
o For some, evil is privation, absence of good, like darkness is absence of light. In
this way, then, evil is not a thing created by God.
o But for Schopenhauer, pleasure, not evil, is the privation (pleasure is a privation,
an absence). We always experience and feel pain and only when we do not feel
pain do we feel the absence of pain, which is to say pleasure. For example, we
never directly feel health, only pain. When we say we feel health we are really
saying we feel an absence of pain. Health is a negative, a momentary retreat of
the will.
o “All happiness and satisfaction, is the negative, that is the mere suspending of
desire and ceasing of pain” (S. 149). This is related to his claim that everything is
will, the will is always present.
o We feel hunger, but when hunger is satisfied (it retreats), we no longer feel
hungry.
o “We painfully feel the loss of pleasure and enjoyments, as soon as they fail to
appear (…) we do not become conscious of the three greatest blessings of life as
such, namely health, youth, and freedom, as long as we possess them, but only
after we have lost them (…) we notice that certain days of our life were happy
only after they have made room for unhappy ones” (WWR 1, 575)
 What is it like to feel youth? Freedom? Health?
 Do we actually directly feel these things when we are young, healthy, and
free? Do we feel free or do we feel unimpeded? DO we feel health or do
we feel nothing?
o His theory of the negativity of pleasure is, rightly so, disputed by other pessimists
(Hartmann in particular), but his pessimism does not live or fall on this claim.
o S. 152: If everything came to you so simply and you had everything you want,
there would be no purpose. A fool’s paradise.
o S. 148: life was designed around pain and not pleasure. Suffering is the base of
life. You can be happy, but you will be unhappy. It’s a pretty bad design.
 Is it true that, in general terms, the dangers and pains are numerous
(infinite), but pleasures are few, limited and unique to each one?
o From WWR2, he says that if we look at this world, its full of needy creatures.
o An essential point for pessimists is that the misery of existence is not an
anthropocentric concern.
o When pessimists denounce existence for its wretchedness they really do
denouse all of existence, not just human existence.
 WWR, 199. He says its all about humans, but were not that different from
other animals.
 Animals also suffer, and some humans suffer more than other humans.
 Not just in nature, but today in factory farming. Animals die and live
miserable lives.
 How much pleasure is one animal getting from food as compared to all
the suffering the prey animal went through? More suffering than pain.
o Existence as a whole is filled with pain, work, sacrifice, and misery. Its how
nature works. WWR1, 325.
o Animals, much more so than we, are satisfied by mere existence (S.153)
 Is mere existence tolerable or desirable? Or just be?
o “One should try to imagine that the act of procreation were neither a need, nor
accompanied by sexual pleasure, but instead a matter of pure rational reflection;
could the human race even continue to exist?” (S. 156)
 If having children was a decision left purely to reason and logic, would we
procreate?
o Schopenhauer was one of the first European philosophers to seriously consider
eastern philosophy. Looked at buddhism and Hinduism.
o Pessimism and compassion
 Compassion is an important attitude in pessimism. Due to the essential
miserable character of existence and therefore that we are all bound to
suffer, he argues that to inflict even more harm on others is misguided.
This is also related to his monism (the oneness of the will).
 S. 156
 Life is essentially a state of distress and often misery, where everyone has
to struggle and fight for his existence and therefore cannot always put on
a happy face S.156
 Be nice to others, we’re all going through this together. Its terrible
for everybody. Be understanding. We’re all one at bottom, theres
no real difference between you and I.
Online lecture week 10: James Sully 1842-1923
- Pessimism, a history and a criticism. James is English, a psychologist and a philosopher.
- A history
o Some important points to keep in mind:
o Pessimism, a History and a Criticism was published in 1877
o James Sully was primarily a psychologist. This is an important fact to keep in
mind because it may be relevant to his overall critique of pessimism.
o This book represents the first comprehensive study of 19th Century German
pessimism
o This is the most important historical period for pessimism.
o In Germany, for reasons not totally known, there occurred a unique event:
pessimism was a popular topic.
o As Frederick Beiser says in his book Weltschmerz (2016) “Beginning in the 1860s,
and lasting until the end of the 19th century, the dark cloud of pessimism hung
thick over Germany. This bleak and black mood spread far and wide. It was not
confined to decadent aristocratic circles; it could also be found in the middle
classes, among students at universities, workers in factories (…) pessimism soon
became fashionable, the talk of the town, the theme of literary salons“. (1)
o This period is known as the period of Weltschmerz. This is a German word that
means worldpain (Beiser, 1).
 Largely forgotten today, it is currently experiencing a renewed interest.
 Important figures in that period (from left to right):
 Arthur Schopenhauer
 Olga Plümacher
 Philipp Mainländer
 Agnes Taubert
 Julius Bahnsen
 Eduard von Hartmann
o Sully’s book is important for two reasons:
 It introduced German pessimism (in real-time) to the English speaking
world.
 It made direct criticisms to pessimism that were later answered by Olga
Plümacher. We shall look at some of her replies in the next in-person
lecture.
 So what did Sully say about pessimism?
- A criticism of pessimism
o Rightfully so, he says that to most people pessimism “is nothing like a
philosophical creed or a speculative system“.(1)
o But, as he acknowledges, it is (a philosophical system). At least partially so.
o Recall the distinction I made between philosophical pessimism and psychological
pessimism and how I defined it (in class lecture on Schopenhauer).
o For Sully, it is mistaken to draw such a clear difference between them. Why?
o “At first sight it might seem that these two kinds of pessimism, the popular and
instinctive, and the philosophical and reasoned, have nothing to do with one
another (…) it is true that German pessimism as a philosophy of existence must
be examined and estimated on its own grounds and be accepted or rejected [on
its merits, but] at the same time the full significance of this speculative doctrine
cannot be understood except by reference to a pre-philosophical pessimism.
Systems of philosophy do not spring from pure isolated intellect, but are the
products of concrete times made up in part of certain emotional and moral
pecularities“ (2,3)
o As a consequence, he says:
 “I propose, therefore, to interpret the terms optimism and pessimism in
their widest meaning. Any theory which distinctly attributed to the world
and to human life a decided worth, representing it as something good,
beautiful (…) will be included under optimism (…) similarly, pessimism will
cover all doctrines (…) which distinctly deny this value to life“ (5).
o What we can say for now is that Sully’s background in psychology certainly
seems to be play a role here insofar as he views pessimism (and optimism for
that matter) as philosophical systems that can only result from minds that are
predisposed to negativity (or positivity in the case of optimism).
 This line of criticism, however, is not very fruitful.
 To think about: is there any philosophy not made possible by one’s own
predispositions, temperaments, interests?
o Sully ultimately considers pessimism (and optimism) to be extremes.
o The problem with pessimism:
 “an impartial view of the facts of life and the teachings of science
properly so called has led us to believe that happiness, interpreted in a
rational sense, is and has been attained by some indeterminable
proportion of mankind” (398)
o Recall what we learned about pessimism: it is not only about human suffering.
Even if human existence has largely achieved happiness, animal life would need
to be taken into consideration before any definitive evaluation about the worth
of life and the amount of happiness that exists is possible.
o Sully ultimately considers pessimism (and optimism) to be extremes.
o A better position is what he calls meliorism.
o He gets this term from English author, George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans, 18191880). She wrote Middlemarch (1871).
o “Our line of reasoning provides us, then, with a practical conception which lies
midway between the extremes of optimism and pessimism, and which, to use a
term for which I am indebted to our first living woman-writer and thinker,
George Elliot, may be appropriately styled Meliorism. By this I would understand
the faith which affirms not merely our power of lessening evil—this nobody
questions—but also our ability to increase the amount of positive good” (399)
o To think about: arguments are never extreme. They are valid, invalid, sound,
unsound, strong or weak. Keep this in mind when evaluating pessimism (and
optimism for that matter).
o A conclusion may be extreme. But if it is, then that is in virtue of some premise
(reason) that is already extreme (by extremes we can mean something to be
wholly unreasonable, unjustifiable, outlandish, abusive, discriminatory and so
on). But if the premises are plausible then given a sound argument the
conclusion is also plausible. Read Sully with that point in mind: “As we have
seen, neither optimism nor pessimism can lay any claim to be a strictly logical
belief—that is to say, the pure result of observation and induction” (403).
o Setting aside whether or not any philosophical system can ever be strictly logical
(that is devoid of any personal biases, predispositions or other subjective
preferences that may taint ones approach to an issue) it is still the case that the
strength of the arguments is an essential aspect that needs to be considered
when evaluating a system. Pessimism and/or optimism should be able to stand
on the strength of its arguments –even if they are not strictly logical. The
personal temperament or psychological predispositions of the thinker should
take second place. To think: Is there anything extreme or unplausible in the
pessimist argument?
o "Pessimism is the natural outcome of the carping, fault-finding disposition (…) to
perceive the defects of our dwelling-place is to set ourselves above it, to prove
the superiority of our conception to the actual object before us. By how much,
one wonders, would the amount of human criticism be diminished if men no
longer derived from the process any agreeable feeling of intellectual elevation"
(423).
 So what is sully saying? Pessimism is not the result of an analysis of
arguments, but it is the natural outcome of a fault finding disposition.
Result of people with negative attitudes to life. There is some pleasure
that some people obtain when they complain about life and struggle for
existence.
o "Again, although all men dislike pain itself, most men like the credit of bearing it"
(423).
o "According to this, we are hopelessly enchained by the very nature of things, and
all our struggles to get free from misery are destined to be futile" (424)
o Although this is not quite accurate, the point is well taken.
o "In truth pessimism flatters him with a portrait of himself, in which he appears as
another Prometheus, suffering tortures from the hand of the cruel Zeus (…)
pessimism enables its adherent to pose as some wronged and suffering divinity,
to the admiration of himself at least" (424).
 What to make of this line of criticism?
o It seems to me that this criticism misses the mark and is largely due to a
misunderstanding of pessimism.
o Pessimism is not a self-centred philosophy. The questions are really different
ones:
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Is life, overall, a happy fulfilling experience?
How much suffering is there in all existence?
Why is there so much suffering?
What are we to do about it?
 If anything, this line of criticism could be addressed to Nietzsche
insofar as he did indeed claim that suffering and pain provided us
with the means necessary to achieve greatness and give our lives
meaning and purpose. To bear pain is a sign of greatness. We
shall see more on Nietzsche during the last week of March.
Lecture week 10: Olga Plümacher and Eduard von Hartmann: scientific pessimism and
extinction
- Need a good understanding of Schopenhauer metaphysics for further concepts. He is
first pessimist philosopher. Hartmann was last great pessimistic philosopher.
- Plümacher 1839-1895
o Born in St. Petersburg, Russia
o Important philosopher pessimist actively involved in the pessimism controversy.
o Working from Hartmann’s pessimist philosophy. Defends, develops, and expands
Hartmann’s pessimism.
o Engaged with Sully’s criticism of pessimism.
 Sully has misread Hartmann.
 Recall what sully said about pessimism more generally: that as a
philosophy it is largely possible only where there already is a
psychological predisposition to see the negative in life
 As she says, “the result is, to give the reader not only an inadequate, but
a decidedly distorted view of Hartmann’s great book.”
 She does clarify that Hartmann’s pessimism, as Schopenhauer’s, follows a
priori from certain metaphysical claims. In both cases, the will. In doing
so she defends the relevance of metaphysics.
 So, while Hartmann’s pessimism is largely meant to be supported
by empirical a posteriori claims, metaphysics, Plümacher clarifies,
still matters and factors in.
 The fact of happiness does not defeat pessimism.
 Quotes from slides***
o (73)
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o Sully says: “we have the fact that happiness has been and
is now being realized. By this fact alone the fundamental
idea of modern pessimism is amply refuted.”
o The reply (82)
So is happiness preferable to nothingness?
If it is, then how much more happiness than pain must we
experience in order to make life preferable (justified)?
To think about: Why does the psychological critique faul in its
criticism of pessimism?
o 1. My life is good, but is it about my life? No. Think of all of
humanity. Wars, famine, disease, death…
o 2. But what If now (or at some point in the future)
humanity achieves a level of development whereby all (or
most) of our ills are overcome? But is it about the life of
humanity? No.
o 3. Think of animal life. In nature. In our use of them. The
numbers of death and suffering are staggering. Recall: 63
billion land animals are slaughtered each year plus 100
billion aquatic animals. This alone can support the claim
that the vast majority of life is a decidedly miserable
experience.
Death is an evil, a source of suffering and not, as Sully suggests,
something pessimists would welcome.
o Quote
Hartmann 1842-1906
o Born in Berlin
 Actively developed a pessimist theory that was different to Schop
 His pessimism was meant to be scientific – this is to say a pessimism
susceptible to empirical verification. By looking at the actual lived
conditions of our lives and the sorts of being we are, pessimism follows.
 His most important work was Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869)
 This book was a bestseller. Hartmann became a public celebrity. As Beiser
said, “Hartmann’s philosophy became the hot topic in literary circles, and
droves of articles, reviews, pamphlets and whole works appeared, either
attacking or defending it” (122)
o Hartmann and the Unconscious
 Largely a posteriori, there is still an important a priori argument
 The essence of the world is what he called the unconscious.
 Complicated philosopher to understand; not a great writer
 The unconscious plays the same role that the will does in Schops
philosophy
 This means that the world, existence itself is at bottom constituted by a
force that, in turn, has two components: will and reason.
 Will: an irrational, purposeless and insatiable force
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Reason: arises because the will needs it in order to give content to
the will. In other words: the will needs an object of desire (it cant
simply will in abstract) and so reason supplies the will with that
object
o Hartmann on pleasure and pain
 Our biology makes pleasure difficult. It also makes pain easily felt
 This has to do with, among other things how our nerves work. Think of
any pleasure we may experience. We get easily accustomed to and
require ever higher exposure to sustain the levels of pleasure: more likes,
more praise, more drugs, more money, more, more, more.
 Most pleasures require work. They are acquired. In other words, there is
struggle and sacrifice involved at first, think of riding a bike. Appreciating
literature, music, art, food. Learning a new language.
 Pain has no such requirements. It always makes itself felt straightforwardly, We do not have to learn to feel pain.
 Would you like to taste the worst flavour, followed by your favourite?
Worst smell, followed by your favourite? Worst smell, followed by your
favourite? Hartmann thinks we would always say no, showing that
nonexperience (non-being) is the better choice to experience (being).
 Life is decidedly a miserable experience
 Let us imagine death to draw nigh this man and say “thy life-period is run
out, and at this hour thou art on the brink of annihilation; but it depends
on thy present voluntary decision, once again, precisely in the same way,
to go through thy now closed life with complete oblivion of all that has
passed. Now choose!”
 Death says you can have a chance to relive your life, but you wont
remember it. Would you?
 Leibniz: yes, we would, given different circumstances but same
amounts of goods and bads.
 Neitzsche: We should aim to say yes, so live life so as to make that
yes something we would fully embrace and welcome.
 Hartmann and possible worlds
 Hartmann says that this is the best of all possible worlds
 Wait! Is this not what optimists say? Why would a pessimist agree
with this? Precisely because the unconscious has a rational side
 Reason tries to tame and guide the will to lessen suffering and
makes the best of what it has to work with
 “for the reason the question therefore is to repair the mischief \
done by the irrational will” (126)
 And, so far, this is the best that reason can accomplish. So it is
indeed the best possible world and look at how bad it is!
o Hartmann on extinction – if life is so bad, then why do we continue to exist?
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To Hartmann’s credit he dealt directly with what is known as the question
of redemption. That is, what (if anything) can we do to eliminate
suffering?
 The answer: given how this world is (unconscious) and the sorts of
being we are, there is no possibility of ever achieving a good life.
Nonexistence will always be preferable (insofar as we want to
avoid pain and suffering).
 Another question: so if this is the case and we are irremediably lost, why
do we continue to exist? Why do we procreate?
 The answer: Once again, to his credit, he addressed this question
head-on and offered an explanation.
 Three illusions keep us alive
 We continue to live and favour life because we have not yet come
to realize the truth of pessimism. Reason will, however, one day
reveal this to all of us
 1. We think we are already happy, but this is an illusion insofar as
a more reasoned look at our lives reveals that happiness is not
possible (recall pain and pleasure). The past is always better or
the future is filled with hope. Humans have a tendency to forget
past bad moments and romanticize the good things… but its bad
because we don’t have the ability to objectively evaluate our lives.
 2. We think that happiness is possible in the other world… role
that religion plays. We suffer and endure hardships here. Yes. But
the after-life is the promise of that happiness that is denied to us
in this world.
 3. If happiness is not possible now and there is no after-life, then
happiness is possible in the future. Collective matter – humanity
as a whole an progress and obtain happiness in the future.
o Personal happiness is no longer main concern. Serve
society for all happiness. Sacrifice self for the greater good.
Conservative politics comes from this.
o But destined to failure. No matter how much progress we
will never berid sickness, age, dependence on will and
power of others, want, discontent (103)
o Even education (a valued good) only increases discontent.
The more we know, the more we see through illusions and
understand the misery of existence.
o (114)
o Redemption?
 Are we hopelessly lost?
 What can we do about this?
 Can suffering be erased?
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YES> We should all cease to exist. Total disappearance of everything that
exists in the universe. Extinction. Nonexistence is preferable to existence.
 However this does not entail killing or murdering  violence is
ruled out
 To be peaceful, informed and voluntary affair
 Peaceful: perhaps ceasing procreation?
 Informed: a thorough knowledge of our situation and
understanding the natyre of the unconscious and how life unfolds
through history
 Voluntary: after understanding………
Schop recommended each individual adopt the ascetic life-style. Don’t
listen to will. Hartmann disagrees (131).
The collective is very important for Hartmann.
 1. Reason will eventually reveal that happiness is not possible
o 127
 2. …
(133) (134) as a consequence, we must participate fully within this
universal unconscious and devote ourselves to its deployment
Do last couple slides from ppt
(135) (137) (139)
Week 11 lecture: Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900, Röken, Prussia
- Philologist (study of language, interpretation of texts within a historical context) and a
philosopher
- Nietzsche and Schopenhauer; A tale of suffering, pessimism, and life
o Nie was initially captivated by Schop
o He greatly admired his courage, strength and honesty
o In his eyes, schop challenged traditional morality, was an atheist and was
relentless in the pursuit of truth
 He has an essay called “Schopenhauer as Educator”
 Praises schop’s pessimistic views
o Later, distanced himself from Schop. He took a different view of human
existence, the “problem of suffering”
o Still he continued to engage his ideas with Schop?
o Differences:
 Nie has no system, and no grand metaphysical architecture
 His philosophy ends up being life-affirming; about achieving individual
greatness
 Rejecting ascetism, quietism, passivity and any ethics of renunciation
o The birth of tragedt
 His first published work 1972
 Became very critical of it in his later works – too endebeted to Schop
 Many readings possible
 Is it a work about the origins/development of Greek Tragedy?
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Is it an attempt to explain why Greek Tragedy disappeared?
Is it an attempt to show how Western culture can recover the spirit
that was lost when tragedy ended?
 Is it a work of aesthetics?
 All of the above
Four our purposes in this course:
 Pessimism and suffering are universal concerns
 The Greeks dealt with these questions in a way that allowed them
to live and achieve greatness
 How did they deal with this?
(19)
 There is a duality; not revealed in philosophy but in art.
 Metaphysical principles are lived principles.
Big on re-assessing his work; self-criticism. He used schops terms because
he didn’t have the courage to use his own
(21) what does apollo represent? Apollos principle of individuation;
giving sense to objects which gives structure. Apollo more represents
appearance, strength, beauty, courage, wisdom. The divine image of all of
these – what we aspire to be. God of the Sun.
 Stands for representations: strong, powerful, calm
 As we learned from Schop, the world is WILL and
REPRESENTATIONS and Nie buys into this
 Enter Dionysius (22). What are those forces??
o Energy, desire, the flourishing of life
Music, dance, frenzy. Connection with the vital energies of life (23).
Dance gestures communicate an entranced state. A thirst for life.
The boundless force of life came, apparently, to Greek society from the
outside
The Greeks were, for a time “completely sheltered and shielded by the
figure of Apollo who stood tall and proud among them and who with the
Medusa’s head warded off this grotesque barbaric Dionysian force, the
most dangerous power it had to encounter. (25)”
The Dionysian spirit, however, only achieved a high artistic expression in
Greek culture and was not bare and uncultured as it was in those that were
at the door of Greece
The outside Dionysian forces were largely incomprehensible o the Greek
Apollonian culture
What was unique about Greek culture?
(25)(26) how these two forces are merged in Greek art
Through this artistic expression, we become one in the Dionsyian
 “Music expresses … with the greatest distinctness and truth, the
inner being, the in-itself, of the world” (WWWRI, 264)
 “Here I believe I have accomplished this task in his [Schop] spirit
and in his honour” (37)
 Music is an expression of the will itself; of the vital forces and
energies of life itself
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The Olympian gods were seen as a collection of happy, calm, and serene
Gods, looking over humanity
 Recall Apollo is one of them
He provided protection from the forces of unbounded life “knocking at the
doors”
But Nie says that the Dionysian forces were always, however, present in
Greek culture, living side-by-side with the Apollonian even though Apollo
cast a veil over the Dionysian so as to conceal it from the Greeks
This was the result of a cultural vital need, because the Greeks knew the
truth and they channeled it through their Gods
“The Greeks knew and felt the terror and horrors of existence” (28)
 They needed help to face this.
 “… through the Apollian drive towards beauty, the Olympians’
drive divine reign of hoy developed in a slow series oftransitions
from the original Titan’s divine reign of terror”(28)
 The Gods were always there to make life possible for the Greeks.
HOW?
o Greek gods are more relatable to humans
(26)
 Regardless of whether it is good or evil***
 It is life itself that must be deified
(28) x2
 Because of the ways the Greeks could balance Apollo and
Dionysius they were able to revert the idea that death is the best
option. These gods are not conceived of beings above human
affairs and always good – since they don’t have these
characteristics, the Greeks were able to better face existence. In the
Gods they saw life itself reflected.
As defined by the Dionysian forces, life is pain, suffering and struggle
 The will redeems itself (gives meaning and purpose to itself) by
creating us, appearances … *QUOTE
Schops pessimism and its denial of the will is challenged because
redemption is not achieved through denial
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“For only as an aesthetic phenomenon are existence and the world
justified to eternity”
 If you want to redeem yourself, you don’t do it by denying the will
but you reaffirm appearances (apollo). Affirm existence.
(91)
So what happened? Why did the tragedy die?... Because of the theoretical
man
 We want knowledge obtained through reason. We elevate
rationality, We seek to concquer the world and tame it.
 Quote
Socrates, the theoretical man, “the archetype of the theoretical optimist”
(83)… (82)… (100)
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We can know individual things (the world of objects, as it appears
to us), correct them, manipulate them and this has lead to the
current situation whereby we think we can master the world
Make the contrast with pessimism in general but with Schop in
particular. In essence, existence is one – suffering, pain. But for
Schop the way to deal is will denial (renounce life desires and
individualism), Nie suggests how Greeks dealt with same terrors
we all deal with in a way that brings about greatness.
Online lecture week 11: The world as will and representation
- Representations
o What is a representation?
o “everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only
object in relation to subject, perception of the perceiver, in a word,
representation” (3).
o “For with the exception of the Sceptics and Idealists, the others in the main speak
fairly consistent of an object forming the basis of the representation”. (95).
o “This object indeed is different in its whole being and nature from the
representation, but yet is in all respects as like it as one egg is like another” (95).
o Natural sciences and math cannot reveal to us what the basis, what the object of
representations is
o “But in this way we do not obtain the slightest information about the inner nature
of any of these phenomena” (97)
o “we want to know the significance of those representations; we ask whether this
world is nothing more than representations. In that case, it would inevitably pass
but us like an empty dream, or a ghostly vision not worth our consideration” (99)
o “… the forms and laws of the representation must be wholly foreign to it (the
object itself)” (99)
o “here we can see that we can never get at the inner nature of things from without”
(99)
o What can we do?? Is the divide unbridgeable?
- In a world of objects. Are there any objects that we can know from the inside, that is
beyond how they merely appear to us?
- The body
o We are embodied beings. We, as bodies, occupy a place in space in time.
o “… this body is a representation like any other, an object among objects [our
movements] would be equally strange and incomprehensible to him, if their
meaning were not unravelled for him in an entirely different way” (99)
o “To the subject of knowing, who appears as an individual … this body is given in
two entirely different ways, It is given in intelligent perception as representation,
as an object among objects, liable to the laws of these objects. But it is also given
in a quite different way, namely as what is known immediately to everyone, and is
denoted by the word will” (100)
o “We do not have such immediate information about the nature, action, and
suffering of any other real objects” (103)
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The principium
o “I shall call time and space the principium individuations (principle of
individuation), an expression borrowed from the old scholasticism, and I beg the
reader to bear this in mind … for it is only by means of time and space that
something which is one and the same according to its nature and the concept
appears as different, as a plurality of coexistent and successive things” (113)
Phantoms?
o “Now if the objects appearing in these forms are not to be empty phantoms, but
are to have meaning, they myst point to something, must be the expression of
something, which is not … representation, something existing merely relatively,
namely for a subject. On the contrary, they must point to something that exists
without such dependence (…) in other words, must point to something that is not
a representation, but a thing-in-itself” (119)
Will
o “But if now we analyse the reality of this body and its actions, then, beyond the
fact that it is our representation, we find nothing in It but will (…) therefore we
can nowhere find another kind of reality to attribute the material world” (105).
Trying to picture it
o Will (the thing-in-itself): not subjected to space and time. Principium
individuationis does not apply.
o Representations: In space and in time. Principium individuationis applies
Suffering?
o We already know Schop is a pessimist. So does any of this have any bearing on
his pessimism?
Will and suffering
o “The will dispenses entirely with an ultimate aim and object. It always strives,
because striving is its sole nature, to which no attained goal can put an end. Such
striving is therefore incapable of final satisfaction; it can be checked only by
hinderance, but in itself it goes on forever” (308)
 Remember, space and time do not apply to the will.
o “For all striving springs from want or deficiency, from dissatisfaction with one’s
own state or condition, and is therefore suffering so long as it is not satisfied”
(309)