Abstract
In his Finite and Infinite Goods, Robert Adams puts forward a theistic framework for ethics according to which finite objects of value become good through resembling God who is the infinite Good and is the source and criterion of goodness. One question that immediately arises regarding this theory is whether any resemblance to God is sufficient for goodness or not. Adams’ answer to this question is negative. He puts forward further qualifications that resemblances to God have to meet so that they can constitute goodness in finite objects of value. In his God and Moral Law, Mark Murphy objects to these qualifications as inadequate for addressing the sufficiency question and puts forward his own suggestion as to how Adams’ theory has to be amended. In this paper I will first argue that Murphy’s suggestion for fixing the goodness as Godlikeness thesis is not an alternative to Adams’ proposed qualifications on resemblances to God and is best understood as an insightful interpretation and elaboration of Adams’ proposed qualifications. I will then show that as it stands, Murphy’s suggestion is not up to this task and itself is in need of reconstruction. Drawing on Judith Thomson’s discussions of goodness and virtue in her book Normativity, I will try to reconstruct Murphy’s suggestion and come up with an interpretation of Adams’ goodness as Godlikeness thesis that is more elaborate, informative, and plausible than Adams’ original formulation.
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Notes
In what follows I will use the terms “good” and “Excellent” and also “goodness” and “excellence” interchangeably.
It is worth mentioning that Adams’ claim here is ambiguous between the claim that only holistic resemblances are truly resemblances and the view that resemblances to God that constitute excellence have to be holistic. As Murphy (2011, p.157) convincingly shows the former claim is implausible and is unnecessary for Adams’ purposes. Accordingly, I will stick with the latter interpretation of Adams.
Italics are Adams’.
Italic is Adams’.
Italics are Adams’.
Here Murphy makes a further statement that seems to me to be wrong. He says “It is, I think, an improvement on Adams’s axiology to hold that no created thing is simply good; it is always X-ly good (or bad), where the X is filled in by the kind to which the thing belongs.” (Murphy, 2011, p. 159). I think this is wrong because according to his own view, all those things that are X-ly good are also excellent which is to say that they are good simpliciter. Goodness of a kind need not force goodness simpliciter out of the picture. It can come to the picture to help us identify the properties in each object that make it good simpliciter.
Footnote 9 of Chap. 6 in Murphy (2011).
For another account of the ought of kind membership that is almost entirely concerned with kinds of living organisms see Foot (2001). Her account is based on Michael Thompson’s work.
It is quite apt to use Thomson’s theory of goodness to reconstruct Murphy’s suggestion since as I mentioned above Murphy believes his view of goodness is akin to Geach’s view and Thomson is also a follower of Geach in her theory of goodness.
Thomson’s term.
Also see Chap. 2 of Foot (2001).
Appealing to best members of a kind for determining whether it is excellent fixing or not is inspired by the Aristotelian idea that we should look at non-corrupt members of a kind in order to evaluate its goodness. Baker (2017, fn. 21).
Adams, 1999, p. 30.
An Anonymous reviewer of this paper suggested that this point can be made more plausible by bringing the doctrine of divine simplicity into the picture. According to that doctrine God’s attributes are “interchangeable” and “mutually definable”. This implies that no finite object can image God unless its properties are holistically compatible with the totality of God’s attributes. I am sympathetic towards the doctrine of divine simplicity and I find the suggestion of the referee to be plausible, but given the fact that the doctrine of divine simplicity is a controversial doctrine, even among theist philosophers, I prefer not to tie my arguments in this paper to that doctrine. I believe the way I have articulated my ideas in this paper makes them acceptable independent of whether the doctrine of divine simplicity is true or not.
See Armstrong (1989, pp. 82−4) for arguments against negative properties being interesting properties that commit us to the existence of universals.
References
Adams, R. M. (1999). Finite and infinite Goods. New York: Oxford University Press.
Armstrong, D. M. (1989). Universals: An opinionated introduction. Westview Press.
Baker, S. (2017). The metaphysics of goodness in the ethics of Aristotle. Philosophical Studies, 174, 1839–1856.
Foot, P. (2001). Natural goodness. Clarendon Press.
Geach, P. (1956). Good and evil. Analysis, 17(2), 33–42.
Lear, G. (2020). “Plato on Why Human Beauty is Good for the Soul”, in Victor Caston (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 57.
Murphy, M. (2011). God and moral law: On the theistic explanation of morality. Oxford University Press.
Thompson, M. (2008). Life and action: Elementary Structures of Practice and practical thought. Harvard University Press.
Thomson, J. J. (2008). Normativity. Ithaca: Open Court.
Acknowledgements
I thank the Institute of Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) for supporting my PhD studies and my research on this paper. I also thank the professors, researchers, and students of the School of Analytic Philosophy in IPM for their useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Above all, I am grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Amir Saemi, for his guidance and very insightful comments on my work and on this paper and to Dr. Mahmoud Morvarid, a member of my dissertation committee whose insightful comments on the earlier drafts of this paper greatly improved its quality.
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Kazemi, S.A. Adams’ theory of goodness as Godlikeness amended. Int J Philos Relig 94, 281–298 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09881-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-023-09881-2