Is God a Rule-consequentialist?
Bayesian and total probability arguments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.2022.3697Abstract
Prima facie, rule-consequentialism as a moral theory would correlate with the concerns of an omnibenevolent being should one exist. Indeed, such a being would be divine, and under the lenses of the three Abrahamic religions, would inter alia, also be omnipotent and omniscient. In this paper, I consider the attitude of such a being to rule-consequentialism in human society. I argue, from a probabilistic perspective, that the evidence of Abrahamic scripture confirms, to a degree, that God would judge rule-consequentialism to be a sound moral theory in different societies. I also consider a similar argument from a secular perspective.
References
Aquinas T. St. [1265/74] (1991) (Ed. McDermott T.), Summa Theologiæ: a concise translation, Texas: Christian Classics
Berkley G. (1713), Passive Obedience, or, the Christian Doctrine Of Not Resisting the Supreme Power, Proved and Vindicated upon the PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW of NATURE, London: H. Clements, at the Half Moon in St Pauls Churchyard [First published 1712], reproduced from the British Library by Gale ECCO Print Editions
Bohm D. (1990), A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter, in Philosophical Psychology 3; No 2; pp.271-286
Deutsch D. (1997), The Fabric of Reality, London: Allen Lane
Durkheim E. (1961), The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, New York: Collier Books [First published 1915]
Freeman K. (1971), Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Freud S. (1930), Civilization and its Discontents, in Strachey J. (2001) (Ed.); pp. 57-145
Gillies D. (2003), Philosophical Theories of Probability, London: Routledge [First published 2000]
Griffith-Dickson G. (2005), The Philosophy of Religion, London: SCM Press
Guthrie S. (1993), Faces in the Clouds, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Hertzberg L. (1996), Is Religion a Product of Wishful Thinking?, in Phillips, D. Z. (1996) (Ed.); pp.49-65
Hoffman J. and Rosenkrantz G. S. (2002), The Divine Attributes, UK: Blackwell Publishing
Hooker B., Mason E., Miller D. E. (2000) (eds.), Morality, Rules, and Consequences, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Howson C. & Urbach P. (1991), Scientific reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company [First published 1989]
Hume D. [1757] (2010), The Natural History of Religion, Kila: Kessinger Publishing
Jantzen G. M. (1984), God’s World God’s Body, London: Darton, Longman and Todd
Kagan S. (2000), Evaluative Focal Points, in Hooker, Mason, and Miller (2000) (eds.), pp. 134–55
Kane R. (2002), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Oxford; Oxford University Press
Kant E. [1738] (2004) (Ed. Trans. G. Hatfield), Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [First published by CUP 1997]
Keynes J. M. (1996), Treatise on Probability, London: MacMillan Press Ltd [First published 1921]
Kim J. (1993), Supervenience and Mind; Selected Philosophical Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Kim J. (2000), Mind in a Physical World, MIT Press [First published 1998]
List C. (2019), Why Free Will is Real, Harvard University Press
O’Connor T. (2002), Libertarian Views: Dualist and Agent Causal Theories, in Kane R. (2002); Ch.15
Phillips, D. Z. (1996) (Ed.), Can Religion be Explained Away?, Palgrave Macmillan UK
Piaget J (1929), The Child’s Conception of the World, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Popper K. R. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York: Basic Books Inc. [First published in Vienna 1934]
Quine W. Van O. (1961), From a Logical Point of View, New York: Harper & Row [First published 1953)
Russell B. (1996), Why I am not a Christian, London: Routledge [First published in 1957]
Salamon J. (2013), Theodicy of Justice as Fairness and Sceptical Pluralism: a view behind the veil of ignorance, in Salamon J. and Kolodziejczyk S. (2013) (Eds.); pp. 249-278
Salamon J. and Kolodziejczyk S. (2013) (Eds.), Knowledge, Action, Pluralism: contemporary perspectives in philosophy of religion, New York: Peter Lang
Schoen E. (1990), Anthropomorphic Concepts of God, in Religious Studies 26; No. 1; pp.123-139
Sober E. (2008), Evidence and Evolution: the logic behind the science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Swinburne R. (2004), The Existence of God, Oxford: Clarendon Press [First publish 1979: Clarendon]