Category Archives: Moral philosophy

Retribution and Catholic Philosophizing

Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

Some time ago I asked myself: What is Catholic Philosophy? My answer was:

Catholic philosophy, then, is use of philosophical methods to understand a mystery of Catholicism with the intent of at least getting partial truth about it. In Catholic philosophy scripture may be cited; but only as a motivation for dealing with the topic. It is unlikely that a non-Catholic would engage in Catholic philosophy. A non-Catholic might read through Aquinas’ arguments about the existence of angels merely to appreciate how Aquinas reasoned. You cannot read the philosophy of a Catholic philosopher without thinking philosophcally. But the philosophical thinking required to read Catholic philosophy is not by itself Catholic philosophy A Catholic philosopher is a faithful Catholic who engages in Catholic philosophy.

In several posts, I have been trying to articulate a rationale for retributive punishment. See, for instance, Retributive Punishment is Consistent with the Logic of Moral Thinking. Roughly, the notion of retributive punishment is that harm ought to be brought about simply because a moral law was broken. Trying to show that accepting retributive punishment is consistent with our current moral thinking is simply a philosophic task: not a Cathlic philosophic task. Similarly, arguing that the notion of retributive punishment is justifiable or not justifiable is philosophy: not Catholic philosophy.

I am trying to show that retributive punishment is consistent with moral thinking and that it is justifiable to retain it. So far, I am working as a philosopher. However, my motivation transforms my philosophy into Catholic philosophy. I hope to gain a better partial understanding of the Catholic doctrine that God became man so that He could suffer and die to save humanity from death. I studied the famous Cur Deus Homo? of St. Anselm. I could never be persuaded by his line of thought. Finally, I realized that to appreciate Anselm, I had to accept the intelligibility and even morality of retributive punishment. So, now I switched to Catholic philosophizing about retributive punishment. But I could have done the same kind of thinking about retribution without any Catholic motivation. Once I rationalized retributive punishment, other questions about retribution and Catholic belief arose. For instance, Is retribution required by God? and, if so, would not we have to think of God as somehow being satisfied by human suffering? These are troubling religious questions for they certainly suggest God might be some type of tyrant. So, I try to show that morality itself, in so far as it is a human construction, requires the suffering of retribution. It is we ourselves, as a moral community, who receive satisfaction from the suffering of retributive punishment. However, even these questions about who receives satisfaction from the suffering of retributive punishment could be undertaken without a religious motivation

Punishment = Retribution

Moral harm, Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

The purpose of this post is to provide background for fighting sins with suffering and the review of the moral harm concept.

Punishment is infliction of some mental or physical harm on someone who has broken a law legal or moral. The harm inflicted is activity that without the violation of the law, ought not be done. Infliction of harm requires justification. What is the justification? The justification is ” The violator ought to suffer harm because he violated the law.” Retribution is fullfillment of this obligation to inflict harm for the violation of the law. Retribution is punishment.

But what good is accomplished by taking retribution, viz., by punishing? Retribution (punishment) fulfils the obligation to inflict harm for violation of the law. We have here a condition in which two wrongs make a right. The wrong of inflicting harm in reaction to the wrong of violating the law sets things right. However, Doing what is right does not imply making things better. Morality or legality is satisfied by punishment even if no person is satisfied by improving their lives. So, punishment may not accomplish any good.

There is , however, a reluctance to recognize obligations whose fulfilment produces no improvement in human life. Merely satisfying morality or legality is easily regarded as too abstract to be relevant to improving human life. So various goals are proposed as something good for human affairs accomplished by punishment Indeed punishment frequently attains these goals. What are some?

Deterrence: Being aware of actual punishments may frighten people into obeying the law. In general, obeying laws is good for human flourishing.

Restraint: Some types of punishment such as imprisonment may prevent people from having any oportunity to violate the law.

Reform: Some type of punishment may train offenders to be obedient to the law. The re-education is infliction of a pain in so far as it is involuntary. Here is should be noted if the reform program is enjoyed by the law breaker, there is a sense that his punishment did not fit his crime. Think of a case in which an offender truly enjoys learning a trade in rison and after release becomes a good citizen practicing his trade. Punishment should not be a so-called win-win situation. In such a case, we might say “He wasn’t really punished, even if reformed”

Restitution: Some types of punishment may improve the lives of victions of violation of the law by requiring the offender to repair damage done by his violation.

It is to the credit of human intelligence that we have worked out ways to have obligations to do harm be fulfilled in ways which also produce good. But these ways of getting good from what is done in the punishing are not punishment itself.

Review of My Moral Harm Concept

Divine Command Morality, Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophy, Retributive punishment

I develped a notion of moral harm to provide a rationale for retributive punishment. See my Moral Harm, Retributive Punishment, Punitive Harm and Contrition and Punishment = Retribution. For an essay along the lines of this post, see my Suicide is a Choice that People Ought to be Killed .

In this post, though, I emphasize the notion of defiance of The gist of this notion is that a free choice to disobey a moral law places within morality a specific, an ad hoc, rule that some frustration of human flourishing ought to be brought about. This frustration of human flourishing is infliction of physical or mental pain. This infliction is retributive punishment. The retributive punishment satisfies the ad hoc rule and thereby removes it from morality. Retributive punishment is a partial cleansing of morality: Partial because there are so many of these ad hoc harm requiring rules in the morality of our fallen species.

How does a choice to commit an act contrary to a moral law created a new specific moral rule requiring some harm be done? Consider Tyler Robinson’s choice to assassinate Charlie Kirk. This consideration is “done at a distance.” I take no account of his mental or emotional condition. For I am assuming that Tyler acted of his own freewill. Judgment of his freedom is my decision that what he did can be judged as morally right or morally wrong. The empirical facts for my judgment are the media reports on the assassination in Utah. Empirical facts that he suffered mental illness compelling his action could justify setting aside a judgment that he acted on his own freewill.

The significance of pointing out that recourse to actual facts about Tyler Robinson’s mental and emotional states is that a judgment about his acting freely attributes a rather complex thought pattern to him which most likely he did not actually think. Attribution of this thought pattern is the answer to a question: “What do I mean by saying that Tyler’s action was morally wrong?”

To interpet Tyler’s decision as worth moral evaluation, we have to interpret Tyler’s decision as bipartite. He was not only deciding how to carry out his inclincation to kill someone he hated. He was also deciding to disobey the moral law against killing. He chose to defy the moral law against killing people and let his inclination lead him to killing someone, viz. Charlie Kirk.

What is it to defy a moral law? To defy the moral law “Do not kill” requires more that holding “I may kill.” For merely thinking that “I may kill” is compatible with accepting “Do not kill” but believing that this case presents an exception. Thinking there is an exception is compatible with respecting the moral law but only being mistaken about exceptions to it. Attributing a mistake about the moral law to someone is to cease to blame that person of choosing immorally; stupid maybe, but not immoral. Genuine defiance in morality recognizes that the moral law says an act ought not be done but replies “I may do it” because what I have decided is “This is what I ought to do.” There is a clash on two claims of what ought to be done; not merely a denial of the “ought” of the moral law. For instance, I attribute to Tyler the thought “I ought to kill Charlie Kirk regardless of the moral prohibition of killing.”

This new thought that a killing ought to be is a new obligation put into morality -moral space. It is ad hoc because it was added for this occasion. In some ways it is like ad hoc moral rules put in place by promising. Promises create moral obligations which are removed from morality when the promise is kept. Similarly, ad hoc rules requiring harm are, let us hope, removed from morality when the harm is done. In the The Virtue of Taking Retribution I discuss problems of removing ad hoc rules that harm ought to be.

Why doesn’t the harm inflicted by the immoral act satisfy the ad hoc rule? For instance,, why doesn’t Tyler’s killing Charlie Kirk satisfy Tyler’s “Killing Kirk is what I ought to do?” The actual killing of Kirk is required for the rule justifying it becomes valid. Prior to the actual misdeed the rule is merely a thought of Tyler. Once the misdeed is performed, the perverted moral rule becomes valid and requires punishment to satisfy it.

What Makes Masturbation Wrong?

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

It is morally wrong for a man to masturbate.

The goal of this post is attained by noting that in a discussion of morality there can be a subtle shift from considering what’s wrong with the action to what harm does the action bring about. The subtly of the shift conceals an assumption that the wrongness of the action is to be determined by the harm which it brings about. The concealed assumption is, of course, an assumption of a consequentialist moral theory.

My moral condemnation of masturbation is, in part, placing a heavy burden of proof on those who dissent. Defending consequentialism is a heavy burden.

Masturbation is wrong; morally wrong. I imagine many challenging me with “What’s wrong with masturbation?” I will imagine the debate going beyond pointing out the need to have rules about when, and especially where, men may masturbate. Unregulated masturbation might very well be socially disruptive. Pointing out a need for some restrictions on masturbation is compatible with an assumption that harmfulness of some sort is the standard for an action being wrong. Here we can note that many condemnations of men viewing pornography, which is part of their masturbation, go in the direction of pointing out harm produced by male masturbation.

But honesty requires admitting that millions of masturbatory actions lead to no readily recognized harm. It is easy to think of masturbatory actions which lead to no harm; no physical or emotional harm. Masturbation is, hence, not intrinsically harmful. However, without assuming some consequentialist moral theory, we cannot infer “Masturbation is not intrinsically wrong” from “Masturbation is not intrinsically harmful.”

Here again honesty sets a requirement. Those of us who continue to condemn harmless acts of masturbation, need to admit holding an assumption about what makes an act wrong apart from the harm, if any, it brings about We need to justify a clear persuasive non-consequentialist moral theory.

Here is a sketch of such a theory. Some acts, for example, attainment of a human male orgasm, are for the sake of a basic human good of marriage and children. These acts may also be chosen for the sake of non-basic human good such as pleasure. but which are incompatible with the basic human good. For instance, the choice of the pleasure of masturbation is incompatible with the basic human good of marriage and children. One cannot think of masturbation accomplishing what coitus with a spouse can accomplish. So, a masturbation orgasm is intrinsically incompatible with what male orgasms are for. This incompatibility with the good which it is for makes such an orgasm wrong..

The theory I sketched is a teleological moral theory insofar as acts are evaluated with reference to what is good. They are evaluated whether they are directed toward that good; not primarily on how they accomplish that good.

Conception is not Sexual

Abortion, Moral philosophy

In my book on sexual morality1, I divided sexuality into the triad: Courting, mating and bonding. Fifteen years later, While planning to revise my book, I find that division appropriate. Also, fifteen years later, most abortions in the United States are chemically induced miscarrigages. Classifying conception, perhaps implicitly, as an area of sexuality, can lead to a fallacious rationalization for chemically induced abortions.

Conception as a process may be sexual as a part of mating. However, conception as a product is not sexual; the product is a human being at its first stages.

Ignoring the process/product ambiguity of “conception” together with an assumption of the moral neutrality of sexuality can have deadly consequences. At least the consequences are deadly for many humans at their earliest stages. The moral neutrality of sexuality is an assumption that no sexual actvity is immoral apart from considerations of its consequences. Hence, using birth control pills to prevent the process of conception occurring is immoral only if it has very bad consequences whicy is usually not the case. So, those who follow the dominant strand of our culture about sexuality hold that use of contraceptive pills are morally permissible. In other words, they hold “It is morally permissible to use pills to stop conception.” However, it should be read as “It is morally permissible to use pills to stop conception as a process.” If people are not aware of, or ignore, the process/product of “conception, ” it is very easy to accept use of pills to stop, abort, the product of conception,

  1. Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism, Mustang OK, 2014, p.44

Jesus Would Not Have Reasoned as a Consequentialist

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

This essay supplements my essay on Jesus’ sexual morality. In that essay, I argued that Jesus would never have masturbated because he was a moral genius. I elaborate on notion of moral genius and emphasize that the reasoning of a moral genius, especially in his early years when he would be a moral prodigy, is not that of a utilitarian or more broadly: a consequentialist.

His genius was possessing from a very early age perfect applied moral reasoning of a type frequently called natural law moral reasoning. Applied moral reasoning is primarily knowing how to do good and avoid evil. It is knowing, on a particular occasion how to organize the facts characterizing the situation and the values relevant to the situation into an intention to do good and avoid evil. The genius, as brought out below, invariably has the will to carry out his intention.

For instance, consider how I argue that a moral genius would resist a temptation to replicate the sensation of an unintended orgasm? He would recognize that he could aim at getting a pleasure and that since he had a desire for that pleasure it would be good. He would also recognize that he could manipulate himself to attain that pleasure. And, perhaps less clearly, he would recognize that such manipulations could be done whenever he wished. He was also at a stage of life when he knew of the role of male orgasms in reproduction. This knowledge of “the facts of life” brought with it recognition that lifelong monagamous bonding of a male and female for reproduction and mutual care was a basic human good. A basic human good is one which ought never be intenitonally set aside. Along with the recognition of the basic goodness of marriage, there would be the recognition that the pleasure of an orgasm is one of the features which make for marriage’s basic goodness. With this meagar but crucial information, the moral genius knows how to form an intention not to masturbate because an intention to masturbate would beintending what is evil – not good. The intention to masturbate would intend that the basic good of marriage could be set aside for only a portion of it. That would be intending evil since a basic good ought never be set aside for only a fragment of it.

More elaboration my be needed to persuaded everyone that the unarticulated reasoning of the alleged genius is correct. Here I want to give a reminder of the limited about of factual information – knowledge that – required. If the reasoning of the moral prodigy were to be based on an evaluation of the consequences of masturbating, an immense amount of factual information about the future would have to be innate to the child. Assuming an ability to organize a small amount of facts and values is more probable.

But making a correct moral decision requires more than forming a correct intention

A perfect applied practical reason is a reason for which to know the good is to do the good. Here I put myself on the side of those, such as St. Paul in Rm 7:19, who recognize weakness of the will. A weak will may not choose the good it intends. A perfect applied practical reason is a reason for which to intend the good is to choose the good. A moral genius is one with a perfect applied moral reason.

For a moral genius to intend the good is to choose the good. However, this choice may not be easy. A moral genius can be tempted and overcoming the temptation may be painful. However, the moral genius always has the will to endure the pain of setting aside the lesser good for the more fundamental good.

Basic Human Goods Constitute The Common Good

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

The common good is defined in Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra (On Christianity and Social Progress) as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.” I propose that the Basic Human Goods specify what ought to be pursued to attain the common good and what ought not be done because it detracts from the common good. If the no one ever acted in a way to impede a basic human good and would always so act as to promote some basic good, all that humans could do for the sake of the common good has been done. Unfortunately, factors beyond human control might always occur so that human life is wretched beyond any human effort.

So, I propose interpreting “basic human good” as “a constituent of the common good” or as “a common good.” So, the first law of morality “Do good, avoid evil!” can be read as ” Always promote a common good; never directly inhibit development of a common good.” Recreation or play is a basic good. So, one can be promoting a common good and hence the common good by “taking it easy” once and a while.

I offer an example of a common good brought about by human sexuality. Human sexuality, sexual practices, frequently brings about babies and somewhat less frequently a male bonded to the female who bore the child to help her and the child. Let us call this complex result “new life.” It is the new life of the infant, new life in the nuclear family, renewal of the life of the bonded mother and father and new life for continuance of the life of the community. Some but, but not all, and many, if only dimly, will recognize new life as a good in the common good. Hence, the gist of sexual morality is: Use sexuality to promote new life and never directly inhibit sexuality from leading to new life.

Much can be written about how we discover the common good. Here are a few observations on recognizing the common good. A common good is good for us; not necessarily good for me. It is communal. Nonetheless, since individuals are in communities common goods have to be good for individuals for the most part. There can be misperception of a common good if “us” refers to less than the whole human community. However, people understanding their community as less than the whole of humanity may very well recognize a common good in what is good for a narrower comunity to which they belong. Ethno-centricism accounts for misperception of a common good. However, ethno-centrism does not prevent correction perception of a common good. Perception of a common good does not require some impossible deracination program of thinking as a person who is simply human’ only in the community of humanity. Careful use of imagination and analogies suffice fairly well, I submit, for recognizing what people the world over care about. For instance, on the whole they don’t want their babies to die.

Why Confront Secularism?

Character Morality, Virtue ethics

Why have I changed the theme of my blog posts from confronting Nihilism to confronting Secularism?

From September 2024 through February 2025, I am dedicating a page of my blog site as the instructions and information page for The Priestly Vocation Essay contest of the Serra Club of Columbus. I manage the contest. Parents, teachers and students might be confused by a title about a Catholic philosopher confronting nihilism when they are looking for information about writing essays on a vocation to the Catholic priesthood.

The Columbus Serra Club challenges eighth grade boys to write an essay of five hundred words or less answering  a question about whether God might be calling them to the priesthood.  Writers of the ten best essays are awarded a $1,000 tuition assistance grant to a diocesan Catholic high school for the 2025/2026 academic year. The Serra Club encourages  participation from all schools in the diocese. The mere fact of writing the essays helps form a culture of vocations. The 2024 essays, even those written as an extra credit assignment,  were very well written while showing serious thought about what God might have in mind for them. Most of the essays were analyses of why they did not think God was calling them to be a priest. Nonetheless: A boy   who settles down to write out what he thinks about his future in light of God’s will, forms in himself an antidote against secularism.

An antidote against secularism is an antidote to nihilism. For in a secular outlook a boy thinks about his life as if God is irrelevant to what he should become. There is heavy pressure to think as a secularist in our culture. If he continues to think as a secularist and becomes aware of his secularist outlook, he will either become an explicit nihilist, continue as a secularist while suppressing thoughts about the meaning of his life or return to thinking of God having a purpose for his life. Rememberance of having written, way back in the eighth grade, how it was not all about him but God and him, might protect him from the nihilism of “It’s all about me.”

Freewill of Love, Freewil of Duty & Freewill of Inclination Satisfaction

Freewill, meaning of love, Moral philosophy

In other posts I have written of the freewill of love. See: Agency, Ordinary Free Will, & Free Will of Love. Here I frequently call that level of freewill “freedom to love.” I hope to show that the freedom to love is no more mysterious than the fact that humans, and perhaps all animals, inject agent causation into the events which occur in nature. Of course, agent causation remains mysterious from an explicit, or even implicit, outlook that when reality is properly understood reality will be recognized as nothing more than matter in motion. But more importantly, I hope to show that the freewill of love is necessary for the freedom of morality. The freewill of love is the capability of choosing the good of the other for the sake of the other. The freewill of morality is the capability of choosing what is morally obligatory because it is morally obligatory. Hereafter, I will call the freewill of morality, the freewill of duty.

I conjecture that agent causation extends far down in the animal kingdom. Suppose I lift a rock and bugs scurry off in various directions To an external observer, this is a stochastic process. However, internally to the bugs the paths taken are selected by the individual bugs. The individual bugs are not mere conduits through which a stream of causal action and reaction, be it deterministic or pr0bablistic, flows. An agent caused event has no sufficient conditions prior to what an agent does and the agent’s selection provides the sufficient conditions. Most likely there are neural processes in the bugs which give them the power of selection to initiate new causal pathways. Still agent causes are self-accelerators.

If agent causation goes fairly far down in the animal kingdom, so-called libertarian or contra-causal freewill goes fairly far down in the animal kingdom. Once agent causation emerged in evolutionary history, the evolutionary process may have selected for organisms capable of agent causation as opposed to those whose reactions are always strictly determined or totally random. I do not think that the bugs do anything like conscious deliberation. But conscious deliberation is not necessary for libertarian or contracausal free will. I also conjecture that once organisms with libertartian free will have evolved, there is evolutionary selection for agent causation modified, but not totally determined, by sensations, inclinations and thoughts. There is always remains a need for the selection or act of will by the agent. This is the common core of freewill for bugs, humans and angels.

Put it this way. Basic agent causation is freedom from deterministic causation. Levels of this basic freedom from are freedoms to execute choices of various types. Perhaps the freedom from deterministic causation only gives my bugs the freedom to select a flight path at random. However, their possesion of photo sensors might be giving them the freedom to seek a darker spot after my lifting the rock exposed them to bright sunshine.

The first law of freedom is to restrict it. An organism develops freedom to do specifIc things by developing ways of restricting its freedom from non-agent causality.

In the remainder of this post, the concern is with the levels of freewill at which humans act. Humans frequently deliberate before making a selection. In delibertion the agent consciously considers alternative before making a selection. I must emphasize that the deliberation of an agent before making a selection is not the cause of the selection. The agent is the the cause of selecting action its deliberation proposed.

Consider three types of human feewill typically preceded by deliberation. . There is the freewill of inclination, the freewill of duty, and the freewill of love.

In freewill of inclination the agent chooses amongst ends toward which he recgonizes no end as that to which he has an overwhelming inclination. The goal is to satisfy inclinations. This frequently takes the form of trying to avoid leaving inclinations unsatisfied. Choosing a desert in a cafeteria provides a typical example. Should I choose apple pie, cherry pie or chocolate cake? I enjoy them separately but realize I would feel sick and waste money if I chose more than one. I think and think; but the other people in line cause me, perhaps deterministically to make up my mind. I select cherry pie, enjoy it while satisfying my desert inclinations for awhile. My inclination for cherry pie was not an efficient cause of my selecting it. I selected the cherry pie to satisfy my inclination.

If humans had only the freewill of inclination satisfaction, it might seem that freewill is restricted to selfish choices. However, people have inclinations for the health and well-being of others. Choosing to help others be happy is certainly not selfish.

With freewill of dutyy an agent deliberates between satisfying an inclination for a good in conflict with a basic human good and following the moral command not to act contrary to a basic human good.

For an example, imagine that I live in a community allowing medical assistance in dying, MAID. Suppose also that I have an extremely painful terminal illness. I can deliberate between satisfying my strong inclination for the good of being pain-free at the expense of destroying the basic human good of my life,which I am usually inclined to preserve. Basic human goods are obligatory goods. See: Basic Human Goods Convey Divine Commands Hence, basic human goods entail categorical imperatives that they never be directly destroyed. In this case, then, I am deliberating between a good, viz. no pain, towards which I am strongly inclined and obeying a moral law not to take my life. Suppose that I refuse the euthanasia option. I have then exercised my freedom of duty by selecting obedience to the moral law over satisfying an inclination involving its violation. I did not select obedience to the law because I had a stronger inclination to obey than to avoid pain. I selected to subordinate inclination satisfaction to doing what is right. I realize that at best a sense of righteousness is small comfort in great physical pain. In this case, I can choose not to have my life taken while hoping that I die immediately because all my inclinations oppose the path I select.

An agent who can use its freedom from determism to select obedience to a moral law over inclination satisfaction has the freedom to be moral.

However, the freedom to be moral requires recognition of moral laws. What capabilities does an agent need to recognize moral laws? Suppose that my adaptation of the New Natural Law theory gives a correct account of how moral laws are recognized. See: Basic Human Goods & Human Morality Under this supposition, humans must recognize certain human goods as basic human goods. This means that they are goods which are to be promoted and never intentionally frustrated. The general command never to frustrate the basic goods supports the various categorical imperatives – moral laws- such as Do not kill used in the euthanasia example above. However, to become convinced of the moral laws we need to come to appreciate that these basic goods are indeed goods in whomever they occur. This means learning to will these goods in whomever they occur. Willing what is good for the sake of the other is love. For love is to will the good of the other.

What we notice here is that the capability of loving – the capability to choose the good of the other is the foundation for the universaliization of what is often called “the moral point of view.”

It might seem that I have, at best, written of learning to love abstractions such as life, knowledge friendship etc., for basic human goods. However, humans do not learn which goods are basic human goods by thinking of abstractions. We reflex on real or imagined situations to learn good from evil. Our thoughts, which are always inseparable from affections, of good and evil are always thoughts of good or evil in particular real, or imagined, human beings. If we will the good for the humans in these scenarios our willing is an act of love – willing the good of the other.

Consider a case to show that my opposition an abortion is based on love. In so far as I oppose abortion because I hold that life is a basic human good, my opposition to abortion is only moral. However, an abortion for a particular woman because I choose for her to have the good of being a mother who preserves the life growing in her, my choice is a choice for the good of the other – a choice of love for that girl. That this choice is of love is clearest when both my inclinations and those of the woman are all in favor of solving current problems with abortion. It is the love which strenghtens my moral choice against abortion.

Unscientific speculations about agent causality:

I propose limiting agent causality to animals. Attribution of agency to angels poses problems which must be confronted elsewhere. Let’s not speculate about the crazy networks of roots sent out by plants as agent selected. Further I suggest restricting speculation about agency to organisms with at least a rudimentary central nervous system. An agent is an individual organism. Its agency – its capacity to spontaneously change- be an uncaused cause of – its state may depend upon the potential -DNA-for having a certain level of neuronal complexity. But an agent is not its conditions for it to exercise agent causality. Agency is an emergent feature of animals. Once a certain neuronal complexity evoved, or was created, agent causation came into being. But the agents are not identical with the complexity required for their existence. Two agents can have identical conditions for their agency and not be identical.

There Ought to be Something Rather than Nothing

Authoritarian Morality, Deontic logic, Moral philosophy

In construction of a model of what it would be like for there to be Satan in which I represent Satan as a disobedient deputy creator, I need to answer why God creates at all; let alone creates a deputy creator capable of insubordination. So, we confront the question: Why is there something rather than nothing? But I have transformed the question into: Why ought there be something rather than nothing?

The transformation is based on a model of reality in which what ought to be the case – the Deontic- is more fundamental than what is the case- the Ontic. Values are more fundamental than facts; obedience is a more fundamental correct response to reality than knowledge of facts. I have not yet presented this model.

Consider the following argument in which moral necessity is logical necessity when the major premisses are deontic statements, viz., statements of what ought to be. or ought to br done.

If there were nothing, there would be nothing good.

What is good ought to be.

Hence, if there were nothing there would not be what ought to be.

So, by moral necessity, there ought not be nothing.

Or by moral necessity, there ought to be something.