Aristotle Part 4 - Aristotle, Philosophy and Science

Aristotle's commitment to knowledge by experience gives rise to the question, "How do we distinguish philosophy from science?"

In his work entitled Posterior Analytics, Aristotle addressed the concept of "episteme" by which term Aristotle referred to scientific understanding.

According to Aristotle, primary among philosophy's tasks is to discover certain principles that are more basic than others. Aristotle argued we have a faculty that gives insights into these fundamental and basic principles and he designated that faculty as "intellect" or "nous" which is the Greek term for "mind."

He argued that it is with this faculty of the mind, the intellect, that we grasp these first principles. Aristotle also argued that it is with this faculty that we gain a kind of insight into the explanation role of the fundamental status of principles by use of our experience and by using this faculty to give scientific explanations.

Aristotle attempted to map out the sciences. He isolated a subject area as a field of inquiry, such as botany or biology. In his metaphysics he addressed "substance", which was an important word for Aristotle, though the origin of the term is somewhat trivial and simply was used to refer to those books in his library which came after his works on physics, therefore "meta" physics or "after" physics.

The term metaphysics in Aristotle's work, however, came to refer to all of reality as opposed to individual dimensions of reality such as identity, continuity, logical form, time, space or matter.

Aristotle Part 3 - Aristotle and the Principle of Non Contradiction

With regard to the principle of non-contradiction, Aristotle argued, for example, that a dress couldn't both be blue and not blue in the same respect at the same time.

This was a basic principle for Aristotle.

But how do we justify this fundamental basic principle?

Aristotle argued that we couldn't actually justify the principle of non-contradiction outside of our experience since we actually use it in experience. Aristotle argued that the principle of non-contradiction is fundamental and inherent to our discourse.

He proposed that we ask an opponent if he wants to say anything,. If not, then dismiss that person.

If the opponent does say something definite then show that person that he or she is in fact making use of that very principle in asserting something definite. In the opponent's saying something definite he is ruling out the not saying of something definite.

Aristotle was eager to say that we cannot provide a foundation for what we believe outside of our perceptual scheme.

We can designate a thing in speech when it impinges on something in experience only and he argued that we couldn't talk about things that haven't entered our experience at all.

Aristotle's work became very influential during the period of the Middle Ages especially in the work of Thomas Aquinas. During the Middle Ages Aristotle was thought of as "the" philosopher or "the" master.

He was very flexible in his opinions and presented philosophy as an ongoing search or quest for truth.

Aristotle was never content with his discoveries and was always developing his findings.

With regard, for instance, to the issue of "time" Aristotle began with ordinary beliefs about time. He investigated further however in order to discover if there were inherent contradictions in the common assumptions about "time".

In addition, Aristotle distinguished between the world and discourse about the world.

The notion of appearances was prominent in Aristotle's theories. He argued that sometimes we rely more on the sense while at other times we rely more on beliefs of sayings about the world.

One general unifying notion to which Aristotle clung was his idea that all perception is interpretive.

In some sense Aristotle's approach may be perceived as somewhat "flat footed" in that he confines his interpretations to the world of experiences rather than getting behind the surfaces with the intention of discovering what is actually taking place behind all of perceived reality.

It is in this sense that Aristotle is perceived by some to be different from Plato in that Plato attempted to get behind what appears to be reality.

Plato therefore assumed a sort of transcendent "backdrop" to what is taking place within the external world.

Aristotle argued two things. First, he argued that experience is the object of wonder and beauty and, second, he also argued that we could never coherently go beyond our experience.

Aristotle Part 1 - Biography

The two great figures of ancient Greek philosophy were Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle was the son of a physician and a student in Plato's Academy for 20 years. He spent the years afterward in political exile and during this time was absorbed in biological work.

He became a tutor to Alexander the Great and also founded his own school that he called the Lyceum.

Aristotle died in 322 B.C. at the age of 62.

One fifth of his work survives today and is so abundant that it fills 12 volumes.

In his work Aristotle touched on a great and diverse range of knowledge bur unfortunately many of his works have been lost.

All that remains for the study of Aristotle's thought are his lecture notes.

Unlike Plato, Aristotle's work displays no great literary skills but the work is of tremendous quality and Aristotle's conclusions have influenced thought until the present day.

Aristotle covered a broad range of areas including science, biology, and scientific explanations of the events of nature, the philosophy of nature, metaphysics, the issue of the nature of substance, identity, continuity as well as ethics and political theory.

Part 10 - Divine Command Theory: Evaluating Plato's Argument

The concluding premise of Plato's argument is: Therefore, even from a religious point of view, a standard of right and wrong that is independent of God's will must be accepted.

How should we evaluate Plato's concluding premise?

Premise 1. This premise does two things:

a. It assumes the three claims about God implid by Divine Command Theory (which all compiled together claim, "God commands us to do what is right")
b. It takes this assumption to imply that either Horn 1 (Divine Command Theory is true: right conduct is right because God commands it (or approves of it) and wrong conduct is wrong because God forbids or disapproves of it.) or Horn 2 (Divine Command Theory is false: God commands or approves of right conduct because it is right and forbids or disapproves of wrong conduct because it is wrong.) is true.

Premise 4: This premise is a conclusion that is supported by premises 1, 2, and 3.

Premise 6: This is a further conclusion, supported by 4 and 5.

With this overview of Plato's argument in mind, we should now ask, "Is this a sousnd argument?" This call for assessment breaks down into two distinct questions:

1. Is the argument value?

Examine the form of the argument. The form consists of the following:

Step 1:
1) Either (a) or (b)
2) If (a) then (c)
3) If (b) then (d)

Step 2:
4) Therefore, either (c) or (d) [supposed to follow from 1, 2, and 3
5) Not (c)
6) Therefore, (d) [supposed to follow from 4 and 5]

Notice that there are two distinct steps or inferences in Plato's argument:

Step 1: From 1, 2, and 3 to 4 (premises 1, 2, and 3 are supposed to imply line 4)
Step 2: From 4, 5, to 6 (premises 4 and 5 are supposed to imply line 6)

If both steps are valid, then the entire argument is valid and the fact is that both steps of the Platonic Argument are valid, so the entire argument is valid. If there is anything wrong with the argument, it must be that one of its premises is false.

2. Are the premises all true?

To answer this question we ask whether lines 1, 2, 3 and 5 are true (Remember that lines 4 and 6 are conclusions that definitely follows from the other premises. In other words if 1, 2, 3, and 5 are true then 4 and 6 have to be true as well.)

So the question arises as to whether 1, 2, 3, and 5 are true?

It has been concluded that at the very least, this argument shows that there is potentially a serious problem with Divine Command Theory. If Divine Command Theory is to be salvaged there must be some way of "going between the horns of the dilemma." In other words, there must be some way of accepting Divine Command Theory without having to accept that god's commands are morally arbitrary and without giving up on the doctrine of the goodness of God. In order to do so this, you must be able to give good reasons for thinking that premises 1, 2, 3 and/or 5 are false.

Part 9 - The Platonic Argument Against Divine Command Theory

A moral formal presentation of the Platonic argument against Divine Command Theory may be presented as follows:

1. Suppose God commands us to do what is right. Then either (a) the right actions are right because he commands them or (b) he commands them because they are right.

2. If we take option (a) then God commands are, from a moral point of view, arbitrary; moreover, the doctrine of the goodness of God is tendered meaningless [i.e., empty or trivial]

3. If we take option (b) then we have acknowledged a standard of right and wrong that is independent of God's will [and therefore committed ourselves to the claim that God is not omnipotent]. We will have in effect given up the theological conception of right and wrong.

4. Therefore, we must either regard God's commands as arbitrary, and give up the doctrine of the goodness of god, or admit that there is a standard of right an wrong that is independent of his will, and give up the theological conception of right and wrong.

5. From a religious point of view, it is undesirable to regard God's commands as arbitrary or to give up the doctrine of the goodness of God.

6. Therefore, even from a religious point of view, a standard of right and wrong that is independent of God's will must be accepted.

It is important to notice how this argument concludes. Point 5 claims that for a religious person, the consequences of accepting Divine Command theory are even worse than the consequences of rejecting Divine command theory. Remember these consequences:

1. To accept Divine Command Theory is to admit that there is an inherent arbitrariness to the rightness or wrongness of moral standards.

2. To accept Divine Command Theory is to reject the understanding of God as good.

Most religious individuals regard these two consequences as intolerable and therefore Divine Command Theory should be rejected.

So, the argument concludes, religious people should actually accept the consequences of rejecting Divine Command Theory and therefore reject Divine Command Theory completely.

Part 8 - Divine Command Theory and Horn 2

Horn 2 leads to the conclusion that Divine Command Theory is false. Specifically horn 2 of Plato's Dilemma contends that God commands or approves of right conduct because it is right and forbids or disapproves of wrong conduct because it is wrong. In short, right is right prior to divine fiat and so also is the case with moral conduct that is wrong. God simply endorses what is already right and what is already wrong.

But there is also an undesirable consequence to taking this position. God commands actions because they are morally right but then there is a standard of morality that is independent of God's commands. God does not control morality; rather he knows which actions are right or which actions are wrong and communicates that information to s in the form of commands. But this threatens the claim that God is omnipotent and herein resides the problem with this proposal. The characteristic "omnipotent" refers to God's being all-powerful and capable of doing anything. The implications of this should not be overlooked since they are extremely significant. In short, this conclusion leads to the nullification of the theological conception of right and wrong since God is not omnipotent or all-powerful.

Remember that while this particular claim does not threaten the claim that God is omniscient or all knowing, it does threaten the claim that God is omnipotent or all-powerful.

Part 7 - Divine Command Theory and the Goodness of God

Horn 1 of the dilemma posed by Divine Command Theory argues that "Divine Command Theory is true and therefore right conduct is right because God commands it (or approves of it) and wrong conduct is wrong because God forbids or disapproves of it."

But this proposal leads to 2 problematic implications.

Implication (1) If right conduct is right because God commands it, then God's commands are morally arbitrary.

Implication (2) If right conduct is right because God commands it, then the doctrine of the goodness of God is empty or trivial.

We will first give consideration to implication 2.

The doctrine of the goodness of God says God is a morally good being and in fact God is a morally perfect being. If Divine Command theory is true, then no matter how God behaves he is morally good as long as he approves of himself. If this is the case then to say, "God is morally good" means that "God approves of himself."

The idea that God is morally good is a central doctrine of Christianity and seems to be a very important belief for most Christians. It is a primary reason why Christians believe that God is worthy of being worshipped because he is so good.

But if his goodness amounts to nothing more than his approving of himself it no longer seems a characteristic worth praising. If Divine Command Theory is true, then this very important doctrine turns out to be utterly and absolutely trivial. It seems that this understanding of the goodness of God is essentially nothing less than cosmic narcissism.

Part 6 - Divine Command Theory and the Arbitrariness of God

Horn 1 of the dilemma posed by Divine Command Theory argues that "Divine Command Theory is true and therefore right conduct is right because God commands it (or approves of it) and wrong conduct is wrong because God forbids or disapproves of it."

But this proposal leads to 2 problematic implications.

Implication (1) If right conduct is right because God commands it, then God's commands are morally arbitrary.

Implication (2) If right conduct is right because God commands it, then the doctrine of the goodness of God is empty or trivial.

We will first give consideration to implication 1.

If actions are right only because God commands them, then there is nothing to an action being moral other than God commanded it. This implies that God could command anything at all and it would be morally right. If God were to command rape or torture, then these things would become morally right.

If you are tempted to object by saying, "But God would never command rape or torture, you have to answer the question, why not? The answer cannot be, "Because rape and torture are wrong, after all, If Divine Command Theory is true (as you propose) then something is wrong only if God forbids it or disapproves of it and there is nothing actually to immorality besides being forbidden by God.

If Divine Command Theory is true, then God can have no moral reason for command us to do one thing rather than the exact opposite; in other words, God's commands turn out to be morally arbitrary or in other words God's commands are not based on moral reasons. He cannot have a moral reason not to command rape and torture and this is because those things are not moral or immoral unless he commands or forbids them.

Yes, God might have some other non-moral reason not to command those things. For example, his reason might be that he knows that doing such things will ultimately make most of us unhappy and he wants us to be happy. But if God were very different, e.g. were he not to love us, he might command us to do things that were harmful to others and ourselves. Were he to have commanded those things, then those things would have been morally good.

The philosophical problem here is that if Divine Command Theory is true, then no matter what God were to command or approve of that action would be morally good. It is irrelevant to whether God has actually commanded things that make most of us happy in the long run.

Part 5 - Divine Command Theory and the "Horns" of Plato's Dilemma

The two "horns" of Plato's dilemma are:

1. Divine Command Theory is true: right conduct is right because God commands it (or approves of it) and wrong conduct is wrong because God forbids or disapproves of it.

2. Divine Command Theory is false: God commands or approves of right conduct because it is right and forbids or disapproves of wrong conduct because it is wrong.

Interestingly, each option has consequences that most religious people will find troublesome.

There are at least two undesirable consequences of taking the position of Horn 1, "Divine Command Theory is true. Those undesirable consequences are:

1. God's commands are therefore morally arbitrary if Horn 1 is true. This requires some explanation.

2. The doctrine of the goodness of God is empty or trivial if Horn 1 is true. This also requires some explanation.

Each of these will be explored in the next section along with the implications of each of these troublesome consequences for Divine Command Theory.