The Metaphysics of Perfect Beings

Michael J. Almeida

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415962933
• eBook ISBN: 9781135894610
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

The Metaphysics of Perfect Beings addresses the problems an Anselmian perfect being faces in contexts involving unlimited options. Recent advances in the theory of vagueness, the metaphysics of multiverses and hyperspace, the theory of dynamic or sequential choice, the logic of moral and rational dilemmas, and metaethical theory provide the resources to formulate the new challenges and the Anselmian responses with an unusual degree of precision. Almeida shows that the challenges arising in the unusual contexts involving unlimited options sometimes produce metaphysical surprise.

1 Atheistic Arguments From Improvability

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Gottfried Leibniz famously defended the theses that there is a best possible world and that a perfect being cannot fail to choose the best.¹ These two theses led Leibniz to the conclusion that God actualized the best possible world. Many theists have since found that conclusion difficult to defend. The conclusion entails the incredible claim that the actual world, with all of its evil, is as good as any other logically possible world.

Suppose instead that there are infinitely many possible worlds arranged from w₀ to w_∞ in an increasing order of value. The infinite sequence, let’s suppose, is countable and has no upper bound.² For each world w_n in the sequence there is another world w_n+1 that surpasses w_n in moral value or in overall value. Assume that for any world w_n in the sequence, it is morally better to actualize w_n than to actualize the default world. The default world contains no contingent beings at all.³ So if it would be better to actualize the default world rather than to actualize a world containing lots of gratuitous suffering or a world containing no rational beings or a world containing no sentient beings, and so on, then such worlds are not in the sequence.

For any arbitrarily selected world w_n, w_n is a best possible world only if w_n is at least as good as any world in the sequence. But since every world is less good than some world in the sequence, we find that there are no best worlds. So if there is an infinite sequence of ever-improving worlds, then theists are clearly not committed to the Leibnizian conclusion that the actual world is as good as any other logically possible world.⁴ And that, of course, is welcome news for theism.

But could a perfect being actualize a less-than-best world in the infinite sequence of worlds? According to William Rowe, Phil Quinn, and several others, it is necessarily true that a perfect being could actualize a world in the sequence of improving worlds only if there is no better world that it could actualize instead. Call that the Improvability Thesis. According to the Improvability Thesis, it is impossible that a perfect being should actualize a world that is improvable. But we know that every world in the sequence is improvable. It seems to follow that a perfect being could actualize no world at all. And that of course is unwelcome news for theism.

There are several versions of the argument from improvability. Certainly the best version of argument from improvability is due to William Rowe. I consider Rowe’s Argument from Improvability in (1.2).

1.2 WILLIAM ROWE’S ARGUMENT FROM IMPROVABILITY

William Rowe has argued that a perfectly good being is maximally excellent in every action. A perfectly good being fulfills every moral obligation and never does an action that is less good than another he could do instead. And so, according to Rowe, it is necessarily true that a perfectly good creator does not actualize a world that is less good than another world he could actualize. Rowe’s Principle B expresses this moral restriction on perfectly good creators.

B. Necessarily if an omniscient and omnipotent being actualizes a world when there is a better world that it could have actualized, then that omniscient and omnipotent being is not essentially perfectly good.⁵

Rowe observes that, if there is some best possible world, then Principle B will commit theists to the position that ours is the best.⁶ But few theists are prepared to defend the Leibnizian position that our world is as good as any world God might have actualized. The more common and defensible conclusion is that there is no best possible world.

Suppose then that there is no best possible world. Suppose instead that there are infinitely many possible worlds arranged from w₀ to w_∞ in an increasing order of value.⁷ Assume further that, for any world in the sequence, it is morally better to actualize that world than to actualize no world at all.⁸ Since there is no best world in the sequence, theists are not committed to the conclusion that the actual world is better than any other logically possible world. But it also follows that necessarily any world that a perfect being does actualize is improvable. And according to William Rowe it is impossible that a perfect being should actualize an improvable world.

… If Principle B is true, as I think it is … then if it is true that for any creatable world there is another creatable world better than it, then it is also true that no omnipotent, omniscient being who creates a world is essentially perfectly good. Moreover, if we add to this Kretzmann’s first conclusion that a perfectly good, omnipotent, omniscient being must create, it will follow that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being. ⁹

Call that argument Rowe’s Argument from Improvability. In (1.3) I provide a version of Rowe’s Argument from Improvability that avoids several problems plaguing all other arguments from improvability. I develop the argument in the quasi-formal language of possible world semantics and show that it is valid.

1.3 ROWE’S ARGUMENT FORMALIZED

For each English premise in Rowe’s Argument from Improvability I include a formal counterpart. I quantify unrestrictedly over the possible worlds in the infinite sequence and the omnipotent and omniscient beings therein. The variables x and y have as a domain the set of possible worlds in the infinite sequence of worlds. The variable O has as a domain the (possibly empty) set of omniscient and omnipotent beings. The quasiformal language includes

and ◊ representing, respectively, broad logical necessity and possibility, and a predicate for actualization A. The propositions GodAy and OAy are the quasi-formal counterparts of the English propositions God actualizes y and an omniscient and omnipotent being actualizes y. The initial premise in Rowe’s Argument from Improvability is Principle B.

1. 1. Necessarily if an omniscient and omnipotent being actualizes a world when there is a better world that it could have actualized, then that omniscient and omnipotent being is not essentially perfectly good.

There is a more convenient and intuitive expression of Principle B in (2). Premise (1a) follows from exportation and contraposition on (1).

1. 1a. Necessarily, if an omniscient, omnipotent and essentially perfectly good being actualizes a world, then there is no better world that it could have actualized instead.

Since Rowe maintains that all perfectly good beings are maximally excellent, the moral restriction in Principle B requires that no essentially perfectly good being actualizes a world that is less good than another world it could actualize instead.¹⁰

The second assumption in Rowe’s argument is the No Best World hypothesis. It is especially difficult to formulate the hypothesis in a precise and plausible way. The basic claim is that for each world in the sequence there is some better creatable world. The No Best World hypothesis entails that there is no world in the sequence that an omnipotent and omniscient being cannot (at least) weakly actualize. So if there are worlds that are not even weakly actualizable—perhaps worlds containing libertarian-free agents that never go wrong—then such worlds are not in the sequence. But even the strong assumption that every possible creature is transworld depraved does not preclude the possibility of an infinite sequence of (at least) weakly actualizable worlds.

No plausible version of the No Best World hypothesis can require that for every world in the sequence there is a better world that some perfectly good being might create. Erik Wielenberg, for instance, proposed the hypothesis in NBW.

What we need is a principle that implies that there is no best world among the worlds that God can actualize. This principle does the trick:

NBW. For each possible world that God has the power to actualize, there is a better possible world that God has the power to actualize.¹¹

According to Wielenberg, NBW should be restricted to those possible worlds that God can actualize, and (presumably) the principle is true at every possible w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Atheistic Arguments From Improvability
• 2 Rational Choice and No Best World
• 3 On Evil’s Vague Necessity
• 4 The Problem of No Maximum Evil
• 5 On the Logic of Imperfection
• 6 Supervenience, Divine Freedom, and Absolute Orderings
• 7 Vague Eschatology
• 8 Theistic Modal Realism, Multiverses, and Hyperspace
• Appendix A: Rowe’s Formal Argument From Improvability
• Appendix B: Anti-Principle B Proof
• Notes
• Bibliography