Aristotle's "The Polis"

1) What does Aristotle mean when he says that the polis "exists by nature"?


Human beings or animals have the same natural needs to survive and to reproduce; that's why all of these creatures live in pairs or form families for their own. Human beings however have further needs because no one is good in everything he or she does. One is apt at something; the other is apt at something else. Therefore, the need to establish more crowded and more collective groups of families grows into what is called a village, then finally a city. Because the primary urge for the sake of procreation is not a deliberate choice, the task of living together for survival is considered a very natural task as described by Aristotle in the following paragraph:


First, then, those who cannot exist without each other necessarily form a couple, as [1] Female and male do for the sake of procreation (they do not do so from DELIBERATE CHOICE, but, like other animals and plants, because the urge to leave behind something of the same kind as themselves is natural), and [2] as a natural ruler and what is naturally ruled do for the sake of survival. (Aristotle 1252a-25)


2) What does he mean by saying that the polis is "by nature prior to the household and to each of us individually"?


What he means is that he takes the example of the whole body to be the support for his reasoning that if the body is dead, other parts such as the leg, the hand cannot operate either, and so is the city-state. If the city-state is not naturally established, the households will be less likely to survive. However, this is not a strong and logic reasoning because actually the body is dead when the heart which is a part of it stops beating first. If there is one counter example that can prove that the body's operation is dependent of other parts then it is not prior in nature in comparison to other parts. But it is still correct that if the body is somehow dead then some parts will not continue to function either. Thus, mainly, Aristotle says that like the relationship between the body and its parts, the relationship between the city and its household is the same as that of the body and its parts. He says:


The city-state is also PRIOR in nature to the household and to each of us individually, since the whole is necessarily prior to the part. For if the whole body is dead, there will no longer be a foot or a hand, except homonymously, as one might speak of a stone "hand" (for a dead hand will be like that); but everything is defined by its TASK and by its capacity; so that in such condition they should not be said to be the samet things but homonylous ones. Hence that the city-state is natural and prior in nature to the individual is clear. (Aristotle 1253a-20)


The relationship between the community and the individual is rather a mutual relationship than the prior relationship since people who form a community are not self-sufficient and in need of one another and since there are still people who can live without a big community like a city-state; for example, the natural clans or tribes that live in some rural areas still exist in today's modern world. But this is another living type that is not mentioned by the kind of a political community under Aristotle's conceptual definitions.


Since still there are people who are not self-sufficient when separated, they form a community in which they can share the goods that they need, and this kind of community is the kind that Aristotle is considering.


3) By what does Aristotle think a polis should be unified, and in what ways does he think it should be diverse?


The largest unit of these natural communities is called a city-state, but the name has a more extensive meaning than just a collective group of people in need of one another. It means that this kind of community is a political one, and it is a kind of community that has deliberately and purposefully grown out from the original natural community. It is a kind of an alliance in which the relationships among its inhabitants are reciprocal ones as described by him in the following paragraph:


A city-state consists not only of a number of people, but of people of different kinds, since a city-state does not come from people who are alike. For a city-state is different from a military alliance. An alliance is useful because of the weight of numbers, even if they are all of the same kind, since the natural aim of a military alliance is the sort of mutual assistance that a heavier weight provides if placed on a scales. (Aristotle 1261a-20)


Thus, we see that the kind of a city-state that Aristotle is talking about is not a military alliance but has different kind of people, and among these people, there are people who are apt to rule and there are people who are apt to be ruled. In addition, they have different professions and responsibilities. Thus, this city-state is not a uniform one. He says:


But things from which a unity must come differ in kind. That is why reciprocal EQUALITY preserves city-states, as we said earlier in the Ethics, since this must exist even among people who are free and equal. For they cannot all rule at the same time, but each can rule for a year or some other period. As a result, they all rule, just as all would be shoemakers and carpenters if they changed places, instead of the same people always being shomakers and the others always carpenters. (Aristotle 1261a-25)


And:


It is evident that these considerations that a city-state is not a natural unity in the say some people say it is, and that what has been alleged to be the greatest good for city-state destroys them, whereas what is good for a thing perserves it. (Aristotle 1261b-5)


Moreover, Aristotle thinks that if a city-state becomes a uniform one, it will lose its size of a large community, a city or a state, and will become more like a household because he thinks a household is the smallest unit that has absolute unity for a family of husband and wife and children is always a unified one. He says:


It is also evident that on other ground that to try to make a city-state too much a unity is not a better policy. For a household is more self-sufficient than a single person, and a city-state than a household; and a city-state tends to come about as soon as a community's population is large enough to be fully self-sufficient. (Aristotle 1261b-10)


In addition, Aristotle says that a city-state is a multitude of people, and he thinks all people who live in it should takes turn to rule and to be ruled. In general education, a city-state should be unified, but in other manners, such as economics, politics, it should be diverged. This means there are always different political groups and different constitutions for these political groups such as democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, etc. He says;


But a city-state consists of a multitude, as we said before, and should be unified and made into a community by means of education. It is strange, at any rate, that the one who aimed to bring in education, and who believed that through it the city-state would be excellent, should think to see it straight by measures of this sort, and not by habits, philosophy, and laws... (Aristotle 1263b-35)


He doesn't think Socrates' concept of city-state is politically correct because the class who rules the city-state under Socrates' system is a divine-appointed one not any kind of class:


The say Socrates selects his rulers is also risky. He makes the same people rule all the time, which becomes a cause of conflict even among people with no merit, and all the more so among spirited and warlike men. But it is evident that he has to make the same people rulers, since the gold from the god has not been mixed into the souls of one lot of people at one time and another at another, but always into the same ones. He says that the god, immediately at their birth, mixed the gold into the souls of some, silver into others, and bronze and iron into those who are going to be craftmens and farmers. (Aristotle 1264b-10)


In economics, the way people posses wealth and property causes them to be classified in different kind of groups too. Thus, not only in politics but in economy, there are different types of classes in a city-state. Aristotle says:


The amount of property should also be looked at, to see whether it would not be better to determine it differently and on a clearer basis. He says that a person should have as much as he needs in order to live temperately, which is like saying "as much as he needs to live well." For the formulation is much too general. Besides, it is possible to live a temperate life but a wretched one. A better definition is "temperately and generously"; for when separated, the one will lead to poverty, the other to luxury. For these are the only choiceworthy states that bear on the use of property. One cannot use property either mildly or courageously, example, but one can use it temperately and generously. Hence too the states concerned with its use must be these. (Aristotle 1265a-35)


And:


That leveling property has some influence on political communities was evidently understood even by some people long ago; for example, both by Solon in his laws, and the law in force elsewhere which prohibits anyone from getting as much land as he might wish. (Aristotle 1266b-15)


Those are the things and constitutions that are considered by other philosophers regarding the different functions under an economic system is used by Aristotle again in his investigation of the important matters concerning the people in the city-state. Thus, we see that Aristotle's city-state is not as simple as Socrates' system of guardians and the education for them and the soldiers as well as for the citizens. In education, he thinks Socrates can have the same general and ethical education for everyone, but in other matters, it is impossible to educate all of them the same ways.


The purpose of the ending goal of a polis according to Aristotle should be political virtue. He doesn't think that people should aim only at the sake of life, but at the sake of living well. The sake of life according to him is the sake of family and property, and other tangible things. He says:


For purpose people constituted a community and came together for the sake of property; then their participation in a city-state would be proportional to their property, and the oligarchic argument would as a result seem to be a powerful one... But suppose [2] they do not do so only for the sake of life, but rather for the sake of living well, since otherwise there could be a city-state of SLAVES or animals, whereas in fact there is not, because these neither in HAPPINESS nor in a life guided by DELIBERATE CHOICE. (Aristotle 1280-30)


Aristotle also states clearly why he thinks the end of a city-state must be political virtue in the following paragraph:


What, then, is the reason for this? Surely, it is not because of the non-proximate nature of their community. For suppose they joined together while continuing to share in that way, but each nevertheless treated his own household like a city-state, and the others like a defensive alliance formed to provide aid against wrongdoers only. Even then this still would not be thought a city-state by those who make a precise study of such things, if indeed they continued to associate with one another in the same manner when together as when separated. (Aristotle 1280b-25)


The purpose of a city-state is also not a sharing of common location and does not exist just for the purpose of preventing mutual wrongdoing or exchanging goods. And not only when households and families live well as a community is what the city-state should aim for because things for this sort are the results of friendship. He says:


The end of a city-state is living well, then, but these other things are for the sake of the end. And a city-state is the community of families and villages in a complete and self-sufficient life, which we say is living happily and NOBLY. (Aristotle 1280-40)


Here, another word is added; that is nobly. So according to Aristotle, living well is not just having happy families but living nobly and virtuously. And noble virtue here is political virtue not family happiness or family freedom:


So political communities must be taken to exist for the sake of noble actions, and not for the sake of living together. Hence those who contribute the most to this sort of community have a larger share in the city-state than those who are equal or superior in freedom or family but inferior in political virtue, and those who surpass in wealth but are surpassed in virtue. (Aristotle 1281-5)


I do agree that some kind of virtue and living well should be the goal of a city-state, and according to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, virtue is the excellent of the soul through reasoning, choice and deliberate actions. Also living well is aimed towards virtue as defined in the above statement. Our society, American society seems to be piorneering in this matter but there are still a lot of problems need to be adjusted. No society is perfect and virtue is always a universal concept to many people; different people have different views about virtue and how to live well. One of the evidence for the imperfection of our societies is the criminal problem; if a society is ideal and virtuous as said by Aristotle, crimes would have no place to exist and to continue.




References


Aristotle. Politics. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998.

A Problem of Free Expression: Censorship

There are two main natural aspects in which human beings behave: one is to oppress and the other is to be oppressed. There are also two other different natural ways in which human beings live: to express themselves so that they will be understood in the manners that they want to be understood, or to have no opinions and to accept others' opinions as ways to learn and to understand others. The results of these behaviors are freedom of oppression as well as freedom of speech, or freedom of expression. Springing from these matters is the matter of censoring ideas or opinions expressed in written forms, and this is a problem that I am going to analyze in the below paragraphs.


Some human beings cannot live without showing or describing themselves or mentioning about their concerns of other people. We also learn from Hobbes that in the state of nature, human beings will inevitably be led into conflicts with one another in efforts to preserve themselves. Thus, life is constant struggles among a society. Since any society has a government to control the activities of the citizens in a country, there will certainly be agreements and disagreements between citizens and the government, or between different organizations, individuals, etc., and thereof, the control of the government over these disagreements, especially disagreements in writing or speech, eventually leads to the problem of censorship. There are many kinds of censorship: censorship conducted by the government, censorship conducted by private organizations, and even individual censorship.


First, I will talk about governmental censorship. In our text book, Law and Philosophy, in Chapter 5, Section A, John Hospers writes:


Government is the most dangerous institution known to man. Throughout history
it has violated the rights of men more than any individual or group of individuals
could do: it has killed people, enslaved them, sent them to forced labor and
concentration camps, and regularly robbed and pillaged them of the fruits of their
expended labor. Unlike individual criminals, government has the power to arrest
and try; unlike individual criminals, it can surround and encompass a person totally,
dominating every aspect of one's life, so that one has no recourse from it but to
leave the country...


Thus, when people are opposing something in the ruling policy that the government doesn't do correctly or violating their rights, they express their oppositions by speech or writing; as a result, sometimes, the government will eliminate parts of the documents written that will harm its reputation, and this is what governmental censorship is about. It is the true value of the writing piece, or parts of it that the government doesn't want to know or doesn't want to be exposed to the public's knowledge. Sometimes, the government suppresses it because they believe that it is not true or because they deny the truth of it.


Other kinds of censorship is the censorship that is conducted by private organizations or individuals. For private organizations, the reason for censoring is the same as the reason of a government; that is the documents are protesting against the reputation of that organization. Sometimes, a writing expression is not protesting against an organization but against the government, and the organization still eliminate parts of the document because they are afraid of being condemned by the government and therefore to censor it on behalf of the government. Individual censorship can also happen; for example, when one person is writing something that may harm another person's reputation, the other person would not allow that information to be proliferated, and will extrude that information from circulation.


There is an important matter that needs to be aware of about censorship; that is, it is not only used to protect the reputation of an individual, an organization or a government, but it also is used to benefits or gain advantages over the opponents. And this is the most selfish kind of censorship because it takes advantages from others using its own power. For example, the use of censorship for monopoly purposes, or to prevent better ideas or conflict ideas that one organization or an individual can do to another organization or another individual. This kind of censorship, of course, will violate the rights of some people and therefore can be considered as non-violence fights among people or groups of people. Only justice or fair judgments can be used to determine and prevent this profitable problem.


What are other nature reasons for freedom of speech or expression and for the cause of the problem of censorship? According to John Stuart Mill, in our textbooks, in the article "Truth as a Value of Free Speech", mankind has a tendency to seek wisdom and knowledge as well as ways to possess happiness; therefore, the need for intellectual advancements is what causes mankind to have speech and expression. In addition, as I already mentioned in the above paragraphs that to tell the truth is what construct or initiate free speech or expression, Mill presents the same concept:


Instrumental defenses of free speech focuses on one of two values promoted
by free speech - truth and democracy. Utilitarian John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
took up the case for truth, and his On Liberty (1859) has become its classic
defense... According to Mill, speech competes in a marketplace of ideas, where
truth and falsehood try to outbid one another. Society has no reason to think
that it has enough knowledge to predudge whether a claim is true or false. If
society suppresses a truth, it denies itself a valuable piece of knowledge; if it
suppresses a falsehood, then it denies the fuller understanding that comes from
contrasting truth with error. The argument, of course, assumes that truth will
prevail in the long run under conditions of open discussion. (Simon, 230)



Thus, we see that to suppress an expression or a speech is an action against the progression and the innovation of human life whether the value of that expression or speech is true or false. In case of a suppression of a true expression or speech, it becomes oppression or coercion if government is involved. However, we also should know why censorship is allowed as former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Well Holmes remarked, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shoutint fire in a theater and causing panic" (Simon, 233). Thus, censorship is useful when used to limit some types of speech such as fighting words, libel, obscenity. In these cases, censorship doesn't violate someone's private right; instead, it protects society from being exposed to unwelcome indecency or sensuality expressed by insolent people. And I agree that this kind of censorship should be maintained because nowadays, there are many literary works, press columns or journal articles that use many cursing words, and describe scenes that are considered sexually dirty, and especially the pornography problem that can have bad influences on virtuous or moral values.


Moreover, censorship is used beyond the above basic need of preventing immoral values; it is used to limit harmful speech or expression: "Mill justifies limiting speech with his harm principle, which states that actual or potential harm to others provides the only justification for limiting speech. If a person's thought or action would harm another, then the government is justified in imposing limitations" (Simon, 233). And the second case for limits on speech or expression is that all the harmless forms of speech are not equal and that some forms of speech or expression have higher values than others. For example, in this case, political speech receives more protection than commercial speech that is false, deceptive, or misleading.


In conclusion, in my opinion, if the purpose of censorship is to prevent immoral values to be taught or expressed to good and virtuous citizens, and to promote virtuous or moral values against bad and vice actions then this kind of censorship should be maitained and practiced. Or if the purpose of censorship is to prevent harmful speech or expressions that can deprecate or devaluate the value or reputation of individuals, organizations then it is also should be maintained and approved. However, if censorship is used for oppression or suppression purposes such as to take advantages from others or to impede the truths or to make profits then it is certainly bad and should be limited or prevented.





References


Simon, Thomas W. Law and Philosophy - An Introduction with Readings. New york: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2001.

Internalism and Hobbe's Laws of Contracts

We know that early internalists use Aristotelian science of ethics and Socrates' individual virtues as the foundations for their argumentative ideas regarding internalism; however, Hobbes is one of the modern philosophers who does not favor individual virtues because he believes that in a natural state which is a state of scarcity, human beings as individuals are free and equal, and they inevitably have trends to preserve themselves and to compete with one another over scarce resources. Thus, to Hobbes, to live in peace is to establish laws or contracts that enable human beings in seeking peace and in doing justice to one another. In Chapter 15 of Leviathan, Hobbes talks about a fool who resembles the fool described by Glaucon in Socrates' Republic in one main point that they both think that there is no justice. To see why Hobbes brings up this topic of the fool and for what reasons that it makes the circumtances of the fool's thoughts relate to his political science, and to find out if Hobbes is an internalist, we need to analyze what is said by him about the fool; thus the following paragraphs will be responsible for undertaking this purpose.


First of all, I think I should mention the most important ethical principle that Aristotle as a follower of Socrates' ethics uses that the internalists also use as their ethical guide; that is reasoning which requires a virtuous internalist to have in order for him to become virtuous. Based on this requirement, Hobbes thinks that a fool can misuse of it to promote the kind of justice that satisfies his own preservations that are considered as an aim to seek goodness and happiness which in turn satisfies Aristotelian virtue. Hobbes' idea of the fool is obviously diffferent from Glaucon's fool because Glaucon's fool does not have any knowing of what the right goodness or happiness is except being forced by external power for being unjust. The reason that Glaucon takes as his motivation for doing injustice is because "someone who has power to do this, however, and is a true man wouldn't make an agreement with anyone not to do injustice in order not to suffer it" (Plato, 35). What Glaucon means is that a powerful person will do injustice because he cannot suffer the injustice that others do to him; thus he must do the same thing that others do because he doesn't believe that there is justice within a society where people are willing to do unjust things for their own benefits. So, one would do unjust things if he or she has the opportunity to do it.


Unlike Glaucon's fool, Hobbes' fool thinks that if something is considered to be good by one person, it is also considered to be good by another; thus if someone who does good things to preserve himself well then there is nothing harmful to another person for that reason. For example, if I want to eat a good meal, and if I can afford it, can what I do harm other people? Of course not, because other people do the same thing I do; that is to want to obtain good meals for themselves. Thus, there are no unjust actions that one do that can harm others. Hobbes writes:


...there could be no reason why every man might not do what he
thought conduced thereunto, and therefore also to make or not to make,
keep or not keep, covenant was not against reason, when it conduced to
one's benefit. (Hobbes, 90)


Hobbes' fool then question that whether injustice may exist with the reason that requires every man to do his own good? Since as explained above that when a man do good things for himself, that action is not considered as an unjust action because every man is entitled to be able to take care of his or her life good because no one would be better to take care of our lives than ourselves. Thus there is not injustice involving in doing one's own goods.


Hobbes' fool even doesn't care whether other people have power or not or whether they will do injustice or not since he can obtain good things for himself or do just things for himself without intervening with others' lives. And in such a society where "it is impossible to receive hurt by it and if it be not against reason, it is not against injustice, or else justice is not to be approved for good" (Hobbes, 90). So, we see that Hobbes' fool uses reasoning to protect himself when he says that "there is no such thing as injustice" because what he means is that it is not against reason to do one's own good, and it is not an unjust action to take care good of one's own life. But the reason why Hobbes wants to show the fool's story is to show that the fool's idea is false when he says that there is no injustice.


What Hobbes means is that the fool is not wise when he thinks that there is always justice in a society and that all every one does is just things. By not knowing that people are malicious and will do unjust things when they have opportunities to do them, the fool will suffer injustice caused by other people. Thus, to protect equal rights of every man in a society, laws must be established, or contracts must be established in order to demand people to do just actions to one another.


To Hobbes, although a fool is an internalist who thinks that doing one's own good things is a just action because it is not against reasoning, I don't think Hobbes himself is an absolute internalis because he doesn't believe that people themselves are honest, and therefore he cannot be classified as an ethical internalist since internalists believe in their self-education to become virtuous people. And Aristotle is the first internalist who thinks that one should obtain virtue by himself based on the definition of virtue as the excellent activity of the soul for a soul is something inside one's mind; thus, he must obtain virtue as the activities of his own soul, and therefore, this condition makes him become an internalist. But Hobbes objects this idea by saying that every one is more likely to compete one another over scarce resources and therefore is not able to comply with the rules of the soul. Consequently, Hobbes has a trend to become an externalist because he believes in the external conditions such as scarce resources, competitions, others' own power to commit injustice, etc. as the main conditions that can affect the just people from doing just actions.


However, if we consider that Hobbes is a philosopher who uses reason to help obtain natural laws that are beneficial to a society then we can accept him as an internalist since a traditional or ancient internalist is one whose judgments for doing justice is to use reasoning, a condition that makes use of the advantage of the soul. "Political philosophers in the natural law tradition maintain that reason dictates for each of us the basic laws that ought to govern our dealings with other persons. Hobbes embraces these tradition, for his time, radical view of human reason. For Hobbes, reason is an instrument or a tool allowing human beings to satisfy their appetites more effectively." (Hurley, 275)


In conclusion, I think Hobbes is in between an internalist and an externalist because although he uses reasoning to obtain new laws that are known in another term as "contracts", he still thinks that external conditions can prevent human beings from being virtuous or just, and that human beings must be controlled by covenants, or laws in order to avoid doing unjust things to one another. In other words, he is the kind of a modern internalist who objects the traditional ways of obtaining justice through self-education and is the one who accepts obligations as a means to compel human beings to do justice.




Works Cited

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994.

Hurley et al. History of Philosophy. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993.

Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Ed. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992.

Hume's Moving from "Is" to "Ought"

Although Hume is a naturalist who seeks to compare human actions as those that are governed by natural laws, he is not completely mechanistic about this idea. Hume still has many explanations that focus on human rationalization and consciousness, and due to these flexible understandings, Hume is also best known for subjectivism which establishes many good grounds for morality. That is why he says that when moving from 'is' to 'ought' "a reason should be given... "To see whether he contradicts himself when jumping from natural laws to human laws and reasoning which at first to him seem not to be primary motivations to act morally, I need to summarize some of his main ideas and concepts and also his arguments presented in the Treatise as well as to provide my own assessment for this issue.


First of all, we know that Hume asserts in the Treatise that reason has no capacity to motivate people to act, and that only feelings, desires and passions motivate people to act. These ideas, I think, don't assist finally in concluding by Hume that we should not use reasoning to assist in our moral actions. In contrary, Hume thinks that the rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason, but morality is another term to represent for our moral sentiments that are the results from our reasoning. In another word, the reasoning process provides us to have sentiments or feelings about what is right and what is wrong, and these feelings in turn become our moral senses. More specifically speaking, reason cannot cause us to act morally, but give us the necessary senses and feelings that urge and motivate us to do the right actions. From reasoning, we create our special feelings of whether to do something is right or wrong, and from these feelings we proceed to act accordingly and righteously. In short, Hume still doesn't deny that it is feelings or moral senses that motivate us to act virtuously not reason.


To understand better how Hume's moving from 'is' to 'ought' is the result in reason, we need to understand that 'what is' means what naturally is or what we feel according to our natural contacts with the environment around us. For example, the proposition 'he is thirsty' describes the natural state of a person who is longing for a drink of water, and describes him in natural senses. There is no reason why the man is thirsty because it is a natural or physical state that every living thing can experience since when someone is thirsty, he is thirsty. There is no reason why he must be thirsty because drinking and eating are natural demands for living things not because there is a reason why he has to be thirsty. For the proposition such as 'he ought not kill', we see that there is a reason why he 'ought not' rather than why he 'does not kill'; it is because the statement: 'he doesn't kill' does not has any moral meaning or sense while there is a reason for why he ought not kill in the 'ought' statement; that is, killing causes pain or serious injure to another person. Thus, when one hears the word 'killing', he will have an impression of a person who is seriously injured and is dying, and thus he feels terrible or feels the same pains that the dying person is having. These painful feelings will give him a moral sense that he ought not kill because he doesn't want to do something that causes terrible pains to someone with the exchange or the hope that the other person will not do the same terrible pains to him. Hume takes after Hobbes in this silent mutual agreement that can cause benefit to everyone in order to establish mutual laws that can bring equal benefit between two persons to be moral grounds to motivate moral senses. Thus, now, we understand the distinction between a moral sense and a reason that is just a rationalizing statement that cannot cause feelings or senses. To Hume, "reasoning become a tool, the use of which will allow us to determine the most effective means to whatever aims our sentiments and other passions lead us to desire." (Hurley 296)


Hume writes in the Treatise that "moral excites passions, and produces or prevents actions." What he means is that when one recognizes that a particular action violates a moral rule, one is not motivated to perform the action. And how one recognizes what particular action is right or wrong is what I just gave out as an example in the above paragraph that a man knows the terrible feelings given from a seriously injured person would probably avoid the act of killing by doing the same seriously injuring action to someone. Thus, we see that a reason statement such as "you ought not kill because that is against morality", or "it is reasonable not to kill someone in order for not to be killed by someone else" has no stronger motivation for us in order to prevent us from killing than a statement that says "killing means thrusting or stabbing someone to dead", obviously, the last sentence really describes how painful and how terrified it is if we have to commit a murder, and this would prevent us immediately from having even killing thoughts. Therefore, now, we know that why Hume thinks moral sense is the primary ground for acting morally and that the 'ought' that is to direct us what we should do or should not do is not from the effect of a reasoning statement but from the effect of a moral sense or feeling. Thus, Hume doesn't jump from 'is' to 'ought' without sufficient explanations as to what moral sense means and what ground is primary for morality.


Since reason cannot motivate, and morality can, Hume concludes that the rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason, but are conclusions from our moral senses, and moral sense conduces moral duty. Thus, "when moral duty motivates a person to act contrary to his selfish desires, what occurs is a conflict ultimately between certain moral sentiments that lead the person to desire to act morally and certain feelings that lead the person to desire to act contrary to the dictates of morality." (Hurley 297). Here we see that only feelings are acting against feelings; there is not a feeling that is acting against something that is not a feeling such as a reason, nor is there any reason acting against feelings or actions because as Hume already says that "reason can never immediately prevent or produce any action by contradicting or approving of it, it cannot be the source of the distinction between moral good and evil, which are found to have that influence." (Hume 3.1.1)


In conclusion, morality is grounded in certain particular feelings that people have, sentiments that generate the desire to act morally. In another word, moral goodness and virtue are manifested by the occurrence of a feeling of satisfaction or pleasure, and moral depravity and vice are manifested by the occurrence of a pain or a feeling of disapprobation. That means whether we approve an action to be a moral or an immoral one is because the feelings or sentiments we have for it not because we understand just the conception that is a result of a reason or an abstract reasoning. From feelings that cause pain and dissatisfied mental states, we are driven in an 'ought' way to act towards morality, and thus our morality is learned through sense and feeling rather than from reasoning.





References


Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. David and Mary Norton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.


Hurley et al. History of Philosophy. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993.

Hume vs. Descartes in Skepticism

In part 1 of Section 2 of An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume talks about two kinds of skepticism, antecedent and consequent skepticisms. The first kind is known as the cartesan doubt which serves as "a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgment." The latter kind is known as consequent skepticism that is against the evidence of sense and is derived from the imperfection and fallaciousness of our organs such as: the crooked appearance of an oar in water, the various aspects of objects according to their different distances, the double images which arise from pressing one eye, etc. To Hume, the first kind "were it ever possible to be attained by any human creature (as it plainly is not) woulf be entirely incurable and no reasoning could ever bring us to a state of assurance and conviction upon any subject." And "it recommends a universal doubt not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties. But neither is there any such original principle which has a prerogative above others that are self-evident and convincing. Or if there were," he opposes, "could we advance a step beyond it by the use of those very faculties of which we are supposed to be already diffident?" For the second kind, there are a lot of questions that Hume asks to check to see whether they are good skepticisms. Hume says, "it seems evident that men are carried by a natural instinct or propossession to repose faith in their senses, and that without any reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we always suppose an external uiverse which does not depend on our perception, but would exist though we and every sensible creature were absent or annihilated." What he means is that our senses present the natural things around to us and we cannot recognize or know natural thing without senses, and that our senses are our foremost and closest teachers of our knowledge. Hume says,


This very table which we see white and which we feel hard is believed to exist independent of our perception and to be something external to our mind which perceives it. Our presence does not bestow being on it. Our absence does not annihilate it. Its preserves its existence uniform and entire, independent of the situation of intelligent beins who perceive or contemplate it. (551)


Of the second kind of skepticism, Hume says, there is another skeptical topic of the like nature that is derived from the most profound philosophy which - I think, he implies Berkeley's immeterialism - "might merit our attention were it requisite to dive so deep in order to discover arguments and reasonings which can so little serve to any serious purpose. It is universally allowed by modern inquirers that all the sensible qualities of objects, such as hard, soft, hot, cold, white, black, etc. are merely secondary and do not exist in the objects themselves, but are perceptions of the mind, without any external archetype or model which they represent... or can the latter be any more entitled to that denomination than the former." (552) To this skeptical topic, Hume opposes with the following comments:


Nothing can save us from this conclusion but asserting that the ideas of those primary qualities are attained by abstraction, an opinion which, if we examine it accurately, we shall find to be unintelligible and even absurd. An extension that is neither tangible nor visible cannot possibly be conceived, and a tangible or visible extension which is neither hard nor soft, black nor white, is equally beyond the reach of human conception. (552)


To give a final conclusion about these two main skepticisms. Hume writes:


The first philosophical objection to the evidence of sense or to the opinion of external existence consists in this, that such an opinion, if rested on natural instinct, is contrary to reason, if referred to reason, is contrary to natural instince and at the same time carries no rational evidence with it to convince an impartial inquirer. The second objection goes further and represents this opinion as contrary to reason, at least, if it is a principle of reason that all sensible qualities are in the mind, not in the subject. Deprive matter of all its intelligible qualities, both primary and secondary, you in a manner annihilate it and leave only a certain unknown, inexplicable something as the cause of our perceptions - a notion so imperfect that no skeptic will think it worthwhile to contend against it. (553)


In part II of section 12, Hume classifies skepticisms into another two main kinds, the first kind that "is against all abstract reasoning" and the second kind that are "skeptical objections to moral evidence or to the reasonings concerning matter of fact." To the first kind, Hume says,


No priestly dogmas invented on purpose to tame and subdue the rebellious reason of mankind ever shocked common sense more than the doctrine of infinite divisibility of extension, with its consequences as they are pompously displayed by all geometers and metaphysicians with a kind of triumph and exultation. A real quantity, containing quantity, infinitely less than any finite quantity, containing quantities infinitely less than itself, and so on in infinitum; this is an edifice so bold and prodigious that it is too weighty for any pretended demonstration to support because it shocks the clearest and most natural principles of human reason. But what renders the matter more extraordinary is that these seemingly absurd opinions are supported by a chain of reasoning, the clearest and mast natural, nor is it possible for us to allow premises without admitting the consequences. (553)


To respond to these abstract reasonings derived from the ideas of space and time, Hume writes:


Reason here seems to be thrown into a kind of amazement and suspense which without the suggestions of any skeptic, gives her a diffidence of herself and of the ground on which she treads. She sees a full light illuminates certain places, but that light borders upon the most profound darkness. (553)


To the second kind, Hume says, "the skeptical objections to moral evidence or to the reasonings concerning matter of fact are either popular or philosophical." And the popular objections "are derived from the natural weakess of human understanding: the contradictory opinions which have been entertained in different ages and nations; the perpetual contradiction of each particular man's opinions and sentiments with many other topics of that kind." (554) And "these principles may flourish and triumph in the schools, where it is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to refute them. But as soon as they leave the shade and by the presence of the real objects which actuate our passions and sentiments are put in opposition to the more powerful principles of our nature, they vanish like smoke and leave the most determined skeptic in the same condition as other mortals." (554)


In part 3, Hume talks about "a more mitigated skepticism or academic philosophy which may be both durable and useful and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism or excessive skepticism when its undistinguished doubts are in some measure corrected by common sense and reflection." (555) He says additionally, "In general, there is a degree of doubt and caution and modesty which, in all kinds of scrutiny and decision, ought forever accompany a just reasoner." And "A correct judgment observes a contrary method, and avoiding all distant and high inquiries, confines itself to common life and to such subjects as fall under daily experience..." Hume means taht this type of academic philosophy agrees with his central ideas presented in previous sections that are relevant to main ideas such as life experiences and examinations, custome and habits, causes and effects as matters of facts, etc. To defend for this type of mitigated skepticism, Hume returns to his former ideas as stated in the above sentence in the following comments:


No negation of a fact can involve a contradiction. The nonexistence of any being, without exeption, is as clear and distinct an idea as its existence. The proposition which affirms it not be, however false, is no less conceivable and intellible than that which affirms it to be. The case is different with the sciences, properly so called. Every proposition which is not true is there confused and unintelligible. That the cube rood of 64 is equal to the half of 10 is a false propostion and can never be distincly conceived. But that Caesar, or the angel Gabriel, or any being never existed may be a false proposition, but still it perfectly conceivable, and implies no contradiction. The existence, therefore, of any being can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect and these arguments are founded entirely on experience. If we reason a priori, anything may appear able to produce anything. The falling of a pebble may, for all we know, extinguish the sun or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits. It is only experience which teaches us the nature and bounds of cause and effect and enables us to infer the existence of one object from that of another. (556)


Hume concludes that all moral reasonings are either concerning particular or general facts. Sciences consider general facts; the divinity or theology is composed partly of reasonings concerning particular, partly concerning general facts; even beauty whether moral or natural, is felt more properly than perceived. Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment, but all of those area that are inclined towards senses and life experiences - by his own term 'facts' - more than perceptions in the minds are what Hume stands for and trusts in order to prove for their true existence.


As I said above that Hume's central theory focuses on facts and experiences, mitigated skepticism that brings us to "so salutary a determination, nothing can be more serviceable than to be once thoroughly convinced of the force of the Pyrrhonian doubt and of the impossibility that anything but the strong power of natural instinct could free us from it." I think, Hume is right that his mitigated skepticism is an improvement over the excessive skepticism of philosophers like Descartes because as Hume says previously that: "The existence of any being can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect and these arguments are founded entirely on experience." And this statement is against the method of rationalism on which Descartes emphasizes as the best method over senses and impressions which Descartes thinks can put him into dreams and imaginations - the subjects that Hume are taking to be his central objects to prove for the existence of natural things.





Rerferences


Hume, David. "An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding", Modern Philosophy: An Athology of Primary Sources. Eds. Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998. 491-557.

Plato's and Cicero's Republic

1/ Compare and contrast Socrates in Plato's Republic with Marcus in Cicero's Laws on what knowledge is needed in order to live the best kind of life and to govern well, and on why this knowledge is needed?


According to Book II of Plato's Republic, Socrates says that education is what needed to train all the citizens and the guardians in a city so that they will be good and just, and the knowledge that is acquired through this education is: wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. In Cicero's Laws, Marcus says that justice or laws and the aim at goodness are what needed in order to live the best kind of life and to govern well. He believes that justice can be found in nature and everyone should possess justice, not just the rulers:


I want it to be understood that what I call 'justice' comes from nature, but that the corruption brought by bad habits is so great that it extinguishes, so to speak, the sparks given by nature and allows the corresponding vices to spring up and flourish... For those who have been endowed by nature with reason have also been endowed with right reason, and hence, with laws, which is right reason in commanding and forbidding; but if with law, then with justice too. But reason has been bestowed on everybody; therefore the same applies to justice (The Laws, Book I, 33-34, 108)

In contrast to Socrates' ideas that justice is what everyone should do his or her own job and not to meddle with others' jobs. Marcus focuses on law and believes that in order for everyone to have happiness; however, law must be established with the government who regulates and enforces the law:

And why is it that, if a law can make what is unjust just, it cannot turn evil into good? but in fact we can distinguish a good law from a bad one solely by the criterion of nature. And not only justice and injustice are different by nature, but all things without exception that are honourable and dishonourable (The Laws, Book I, 44-45, 112)


Marcus also says that law is to keep people to aim towards goodness, and that goodness and law have the same characteristic; that is they are things for the sake of themselves, and not for the sake of other things. And goodness is the ultimate good because if something is not perfectly good then it is not ultimately good; to be ultimately good, first of all, it must be perfectly good:

To bring this whole discourse of mine to an end - the conclusion is obvious from what has been said, namely that one should strive after justice and every moral virtue for their own sake. All good men love what is fair in itself and what is right in itself. It is not in character for a good man to make the mistake of loving what is not intrinsically loveable; therefore, what is right should be sought and cultivated for itself. If this applies to justice, then the other virtues, too, should be cultivated for themselves. What about generosity? Is it free or for profit? When a person is open-handed without reward, it's free; when he's looking for a profit, it's an investment. There is no doubt that a person who is called generosity and open-handed has duty in mind, not gain. So likewise justice looks for no prize and price; it is sought for itself, and is at once the cause and meaning of all the virtue. (The Laws, Book I, 48-49, 114)

To define the ultimate good, Marcus says:

There is no doubt that, as the law should correct wickedness and promote goodness, a code of conduct may be derived from it. That is why wisdom is the mother of all good things; the love of her gives us the word 'philosophy' from the Greek. Of all the gifts which the immortal gods have bestowed on human life none is richer or more abundant or more desirable. In addition to everything else, she alone taught us this most difficult lesson, namely to know ourselves - a precept of such power and significance that is was ascribed, not to any mortal, but to the god of Delphi (The Law, Book I, 58-59, 118)

Thus, ultimate good is wisdom that helps men to live a righteous life, a justice life, including the recognition of gods and the worship of the gods:

And when the same mind examines the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the nature of things, and perceives where those things have come from and to where they will return, when and how they are due to die, what part of them is mortal and perishable, and what is divine and everlasting; and when it almost apprehends the very god who governs and rules them, and realizes that it itself is not a resident in some particular to locality surrounded by manmade walls, but a citizen of the whole world as though it were a single city; then in the majesty of these surroundings, in this contemplation and comprehension of nature, great God! How well it will know itself, as the Pythian Apollo commanded, how it will disdain, despise, and count as nothing those things that are commonly deemed so precious! (The Laws, Book I, 60, 119)

Socrates' education is to make human beings good and to aim their actions towards the searching for goodness which is also virtue and wisdom; however, Marcus' justice and law is the education that makes human beings not only good for themselves and not only to act towards virtuously and to seek wisdom, but also to recognize gods as the supreme power of all things in the world and to worship gods and to obey gods because natural law comes from divine law. In Plato's Republic, Socrates mentions only about who a philosopher is and what a philosopher does, but not about the relation between the wisdom that a philosopher seeks with the law that is a part of practicing wisdom and a part of divine law. Rather, the rulers of a city-state who have acquired the knowledge and the virtues of a philosopher will govern better their city-state, and that's all without describing what kind of law they will practice. Socrates says:

Then the philosopher, by consorting with what is ordered and divine and despite all the slanders around that say otherwise, himself becomes as divine and ordered as a human being can. That's absolutely true. And if he should come to be compelled to put what he sees there into people's characters, whether into a single person or into a populace, instead of shaping only his own, do you think that he will be a poor craftsman of moderation, justice, and whole of popular virtue? He least at all. And when the majority realize that what we are saying about the philosopher is true, will they be harsh with him or mistrust us when we say that the city will never find happiness until its outline is sketched by painters who use the divine model? (Republic, book 6, 500c-e, 174)

The difference is that the philosophers whose Socrates talks about are the guardians who rule the city, and who are well educated, but they do not rule the citizens by any knid of religious law, and they are the ones who are just but there are no concerns whether they will create law:

We hesitated to say the things we've now dared to say anyway. So let's now also dare to say that those who are to be made our guardian in the most exact sense of the term must be philosophers. (Republic, book 6, 503b, 176)

While the philosophers whose Marcus talks about are those who govern the city and create a kind of law that is called religious law which requires the citizens to respect and to follow. Some religious laws that are practiced along with justic which is the natural law. Marcus says:

I note, then, according to the opinion of the best authorities law was not thought up by the intelligence of human beings, nor is it some kind of resolution passsed by communities, but rather and eternal force which rules the world by the wisdom of its commands and prohibitions. In their judgment, that original and final law is the intelligence God, who ordains or forbids everything by reason. Hence that law which the gods have given to the human race is rightly praised, for it represents the reason and intelligence of a wise man directed to issuing commands and prohibitions. (The Laws, Book II, 8-9, 124)

And:

They shall approach the gods in purity; they shall adopt a spirit of holiness; they shall set aside wealth. God himself will punish whoever does otherwise. No one shall have gods of his own, whether new or foreign, unless they have been officially brought in. In private, they shall worship those gods whose worship has been handed down it its proper form by their forefathers... They shall worship as gods those who have always been considered divine and those whose services have secured them a place in heaven - Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirius - and also those qualities on whose account human beings are allowed to ascend to heaven - Good sense, Moral Excellence, Devotion, Good faith. In their honor there shall be shrines, but none in honor of vices.... (The Laws, Book II, 19-20, 128-129)



2/ Does either character think that anyone has attained the knowledge he says is necessary for living well?

As I already explained at the beginning of the answer for the first question, both Socrates and Marcus think that the knowledge of wisdom and virtue is necessary for seeking the ultimate good because the ultimate good is not the physical good but the spiritual good which is the combination of wisdom and virtue. Let's compare some of the statements that Marcus says and some of the statements that Socrates says in relation to the ultimate good. Marcus:

Furthermore, if goodness is sought for its advantages, not for itself, then there will be one virtue only; and that will most properly be called selfishness. For where each person measures his actions totally by his own advantage, to that extent he totally falls short of being a good man... Finally, if goodness is pursued for the sake of other things, there must be something better than goodness. So is it money or high office or beauty or health? Such things, even when present, are not significant; and how long they are going to remain present is quite unknowable...

Quintus: In what direction, may I ask? For, as far as your talk is concerned, I would gladly run on with you.

Marcus: Towards the ultimate good, which is the standard and goal of every action...

Quintus: ...But there is no doubt about it: the highest good is either to live according to nature (i.e. to enjoy a life of moderation governed by moral excellence) or to follow nature and live, so to speak, by her law (i.e. as far as possible to omit nothing in order to achieve what nature requires, which means the same as this: to live, as it were, by the code of moral excellence.) Hence I'm inclined to think that this question [about ends] can never be decided - certainly not in our present discussion, if we are to complete what we set out to do. (The Laws, Book II, 49-57, 14-7)

For Socrates, the ultimate good is also the virtue and not only knowledge:

Socrates: And isn't this also clear? In the case of just and beautiful things, many people are content with what are believed to be so, even if they aren't really so, and they act, acquire, and form their own beliefs on that basis. Nobody is satisfied to acquire things that are merely believed to be good; however, but everyone wants the things that really are good and disdains mere belief here.

Adeimantus: That's right.

Socrates: Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for it sake. It divines that the good is something but it is perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is or acquire the sort of stable beliefs it has about other things, and so it misses the benefit, if any, that even those other things may give. Will we allow the best people in the city, to whom we entrust everything, to be so in the dark about something of this kind of this importance?....

Adeimantus: Necessarily. But, Socrates, you must also tell us whether you consider the good to be knowledge or pleasure or something else together.....

Socrates: What? Haven't you noticed that opinions without knowledge are shameful and ugly things? The best of them are blind - or do you think that those who express as true opinion without understanding are any different from blind people who happen to travel the right road?...

Adeimantus: It does seem that way.

Socrates: So that what gives truth to the things know and the power to know the knower is the form of the good. And thought it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they. In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that they are the sun, so here it is right to think of knowledge and truth as godlike but wrong to think that either of them is the good - for the good is yet more prized... (Republic, book 6, 505d-509a, 179-182)

In book 7 of Plato's Republic, Socrates again confirms that a life of a philosopher is what all the guardians should learn to possess, and that a philosopher is the best guardian while the guardians who are not philosophers are just regular guardians who cannot best govern their city-state:

It isn't possible, for we'll be giving just orders to just people. Each of them will certainly go to rule as to something compulsory, however, which is exactly the opposite of what's done by those whose now rule in each city. This is how it is. If you can find a way of life that's better than ruling for the prospective rulers, your well-governed city will become a possibility, for only in it will the truly rich rule - not those who are rich in gold but those who are rich in the wealth that the happy must have, namely, a good and rational life...

Adeimantus: That's very true.

Socrates: Can you name any life that despises political rule besides that of the true philosophers?

Socrates: But surely it is those who are not lovers of ruling who must rule, for if they don't, the lovers of it, who are rivals, will fight over it.

Adeimantus: Of course.

Socrates: Then who will you compel to become the guardians of the city, if not those who have the best understanding of what matters for good government and who have other honors than political ones and a better life as well?
Adeimantus: No one. (Plato's Republic, book 7, 520e-521c, 192-193)

In conclusion, both Socrates and Marcus think that seeking wisdom, virtue is the life of a philosopher, and that it should be the ultimate good that the rulers aim to in order to live the best kind of life and to govern well.


Rerfercences

Cicero. The Republic and the Laws. Trans. Niall Rudd. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1998.

Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992.

Leibniz's Rejection of Voluntarism

Unlike Descartes who takes a belief in God through his subjective thinking that God is a perfect and that God as a perfect divine being has influenced Descartes' mind and caused him to have a perfect idea of God, Leibniz takes his belief in God more in the things in the universe and around himself as well as in the Sacred Scripture to prove for the perfect of God as he said in the following paragraph in Discourse of Metaphysics:

For I am far removed from the opinion of those who maintain that there are no rules of goodness and perfection in the nature of things or in the ideas of God has of them and who say that the works of God are good solely for the formal reason that God has made them. For if this were so, God, knowing that he is their author, would not have had to consider them afterwards and find them good, as is testified by the Sacred Scripture - which seem to have used such anthropomorphic expressions only to make us understand that the excellent of God's works can be recognized by considering them in themselves even when we do not reflect them to their cause. This is all the more true, since it is by considering his works that we can discover the creator. (185)

Thus, we see that by looking at things in the universe that God created, from inanimate beings to human beings, Leibniz can discover that their creator is God. In paragraph 3, Leibniz again confirms his confidence in God by saying that the opinion of "those who believed that God might have made things better" Is contrary to the Sacred Scripture "which assures us of the goodness of God's work." And he continues to say:

For, if their view were sufficient, then since the series of imperfections descends to infinity, God's works would always have been good in comparison with those less perfect, no matter how he created them, but something is hardly praiseworthy if it can be praised only in this way. I also believe that a great many passages from Sacred Scripture and the holy fathers will be found favoring my opinion, but scarcely any will be found favoring the opinion of these moderns, an opinion which is, in my judgment, unknown to all antiquity and which is based only on the inadequate knowledge we have of the general harmony of the universe and of the hidden reasons for God's conduct (185)

Through the above paragraph, I see that Leibniz doesn't believe in modern opinions that are unknown to all antiquity or to all the known facts about God that were told earlier in the Sacred Scripture, the Bible. Leibniz believed in the stories of the Bible about many things that God had said to the ancestors of the people on earth, had taught them his righteous gospel and had used reasoning when talking to these ancestors. I know that Leibniz believes that God is a fair and righteous being because God has shown that he was against inequality among the groups of the people on earth. Thus, Leibniz believes that God is a reasoning super being who love all the creatures that he created including humankind and whose perfection no one can compare with. To prove that God is a perfect divine being, Leibniz rejects Descartes' idea of God's voluntarism and claims that,

For to believe that God does something without having any reason for his will -- is an opinion that conforms to little to his glory. Let us assume, for example, that God chooses between A and B and that he takes A withoug having any reason to prefer it to B. I say that this action of God is at the very least praiseworthy; for all praise must be based on some reason, and by hypothesis there is none here. Instead I hold that God does nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified. (186)

What he means by the above paragraph is that God has a reason or a will to do things, and that since God was perfect and has done perfect things, he did not do those things by arbitrary actions but with care and reasoning and a good will. Thus, Leibniz says that we, as human beings, should follow God's way and do things with care and reasoning as well as putting our wills in our actions. Leibniz says, "that the love of God requires our complete satisfaction and acquiescence with respect to what he has done without our being quietists as a result." (186) Leibniz also says, "And I believe that it is difficult to love God well when we are not disposed to will what God wills, when we might have the power to change it." (186) What Leibniz means is that since God loves us, he always wants to do things that are good and perfect for us, and everything that God does, he plans it or have a will to do it in the best way he can. Thus, I see that Leibniz doesn't believe in arbitration, but rather in will and intention. Leibniz says,

For, although the outcome might perhaps demonstrate that God did not wish our good will to have effect at present, it does not follow that he did not wish us to act as we have. On the contrary, since he is the best of all masters, he never demands more than the right intention, and it is for him to know the proper hour and place for letting designs succeed. (186)

Leibniz' key claims are:

1) On divine perfection, and that God does everything in the most desirable way:

We must also know what a perfection is. A fairly sure test for being a perfection is that forms or natures that are not capable of a highest degree are not perfections, as for example, the nature of number or figure. For the greatest of all numbers (or even the number of all numbers), as well as the greatest of all figures, imply a contradiction, but the greatest knowledge and omnipotence do not involve any impossibility. (184)

2) Leibniz is against those who claims that there is no goodness in God's works, or that the rules of goodness and beauty are arbitrary:

I confess that the contrary opinion seems to me extremely dangerous and very near to the opinion of the recent innovators who hold that the beauty of the universe and the goodness we attribute to the works of God are but the chimeras of those who conceive of God in terms of themselves. Thus, in saying that things are not good by virtue of any rule of goodness but solely by virtue of the will of God, it seems to me that we unknowingly destroy all of God's love and all his glory. (184)

3) Leibniz is against those who believe that God might have made things better:

Nor can I approve of the opinion of some moderns who maintain boldly that what God has made is not of the highest perfection and that he could have done much better. For it seems to me that the consequences of this opinion are wholly contrary to the glory of God. As a lesser evil is relatively good, so a lesser good is relatively evil. And to act with less perfection than one could have is to act imperfectly. (184)

4) What rules of the perfection of divine conduct consist in, and that the simplicity of the ways is in balance with the richness of the effects:

We can therefore say that one who acts perfectly is similar to an excellent geometer who can find the best constructions for a problem; or to a good architect who makes use of his location and the funds set aside for a building in the most advantageous manner.... That is why we mustn't doubt that the happiness of minds is the principal aim of God and that he puts this into practice to the the extent that general harmony permits it. (186)

5) God does nothing which is not orderly and it is not even possible to imagine events that are not regular:

The volitions or acts of God are commonly divided into ordinary and extraordinary. But it is good to consider that God does nothing which is not orderly. Thus, what passes for extraordinary is extraordinary only with some particular order established among creatures; for everything is in conformity with respect to the universal order. This is true to such as extent that not only does nothing completely irregular occur in the world, but we would not even be able to imagine such a thing. (187)

Descartes also has some ideas that are like Leibniz's rejection of voluntarism because Descartes asserts that the mind is free while the body is controlled by natural laws. Thus, the free mind can do whatever the will wants to do; in other words, the will controls the mind or instructs the mind to plan things, to use reasoning in order to achieve what the will wishes. The minds, according to Descartes can transcend the body, and be a slave for the will. Similarly, Leibniz thinks that God uses his will to know what God wants and then uses his mind to plan things, to reason and to create a perfect world in which we are living our lives. In Meditation 4, Descartes discusses that human minds are the possessions of free wills like God, and it is more important that we are most free when we are making choices according to the knowledge provided by the understanding. Thus, according to Descartes, we become freer, more like God, as we acquire more knowledge. Indeed, if we had God's knowledge, we would never have to worry about making a wrong choice, that is sinning. And as we acquire knowledge, we become more and more independent of our bodies. The similarity between Leibniz and Descartes is that they both believe in the power of the mind and the will as the headquarter that controls the mind. They both believe that reasoning, and making choice allow us to be more like God because God uses his will and his intelligent mind to create a perfect universe. One difference between Leibniz and Descartes is Leibniz's account of the nature of individual substances or monads:

Monads are psychological entities which are hierarchically organized. Extension is, on Leibniz's account, relative to our perception and not a fundamental attribute of real things. Leibniz's reason for claiming that monads must be conceived of as rather like souls is that extension is inconsistent with simplicity and unity. Anything which is extended, which takes up space, must have parts; and since monads are simples - atoms - they cannot be extended. Thus, extension, one of Descartes' two sorts of substances is banished from Leibniz's universe. (Scott-Kakures 159)

Leibniz's rejection of voluntarism causes him to explain the notion of individual substance which is called a monad which is mentioned in the above paragraph. In his Discourse on Metaphysics, Leibniz claims the following sentences about the individual substance:

And since actions and passions properly belong to individual substances, it will be necessary to explain what such an individual substance is. It is indeed true that when several predicates are attributed to a single subject and this subject is attributed to no other, it is called an individual substance... Not it is evident that all true predication has some basis in the nature of things and that, when a proportion is not an identity, that is, when the predicate is not explicitly contained in the subject, it must be contained in it virtually... Thus, the subject term must always contain the predicate term, so that one who understands perfectly the notion of the subject would also know that the predicate belongs to it. (188)

Each individual substance is in harmony, pre-established by God, with other individual substances so that each individual will fit into an arrangement with every other individual substance:

Now, first of all, it is very evident that created substances depend upon God, who preserves them continually by a kind of emanation, just as we produce our thoughts... Nevertheless, it is very true that the perceptions or expressions of all substances mutually correspond in such a way that each one, carefully following certain reasons or laws it has observed, coincides with others doing the same... And God alone is the cause of this correspondence of their phenomena and makes that which is particular to one of them public to all of them; otherwise, there would be no inerconnection. (192)

Finally, for the question: Is leibniz's view of God's nature more or less problematic than Descartes? I would answer that his view is more problematic than Descartes' view because he doesn't account on the mind-body problem as Descartes does for his mind-body interaction (the mind appears to act upon the body and the body upon the mind), and for Leibniz, all substances are to be understood as mental sustances; there are, as a matter of fact, no extended substances. Leibniz' account on the mind-body is the following: it is crucial to see that this is no longer the mind-body problem, as it is traditionally conceived. For example, the will acts upon the body in such a way as to raise the arm. For Leibniz, a priori reason which constitutes the raise of the arm is to be found in the state of the soul:

... as long as we recognize that all contingent propositions have reasons to be one way rather than another or else (what comes to the same thing) that they have a priori proofs of their truth which render them certain and which show that the connection between subject and predicate of these propositions has its basis in the nature of both. (191-192)

Leibniz later develops ways of reasoning such necessary and sufficient conditions and other important concepts related to individual substances, and of course, his views of the soul, the mind, of freedom and the will of God construct more systematic concepts than Descartes' views regarding these matters.



Works Cited

Leibniz, G. W. "Discourse on Metaphysics". Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Eds Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998. 184-207.

Scott-Kakures at al. Eds. History of Philosophy. New York: HaperCollins Publishers, 1993.