Augustine:

Recall…

St. Augustine

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD)

Bishop of Hippo (North Africa, in Modern Algeria)

Patron Saint of Theologians and Brewers.

Early life:

Before conversion, studied Rhetoric and Philosophy.

Became a Manichean

then a Skeptic

then a Neo-Platonist.

Converted to Christianity, 386 AD.

The Confessions

A Philosophical Autobiography

Book II: A childhood event that haunted Augustine:

A pear tree there was near our vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor taste. To shake and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late one night (having according to our pestilent custom prolonged our sports in the streets till then), and took huge loads, not for our eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having only tasted them.

And this, but to do what we liked only, because it was misliked. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart… let my heart tell Thee what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to perish… Foul soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter destruction; not seeking aught through the shame, but [seeking] the shame itself!

Digression. Is this even possible?

A later thinker, Immanuel Kant, distinguished three degrees of (radical) evil:

1. Frailty: being motivated by morality, but sometimes finding yourself overcome by self-interest.
2. Impurity: being motivated by morality and self-interest.
3. Wickedness: being motivated only by self-interest.

Kant also considered a fourth category.

Diabolical Evil:

Being motivated to act against morality.

This, Kant thought, is impossible for human beings.

Back to Augustine!

Augustine's (philosophical) question:

What's happening on when we choose what we know is wrong?

Theories we've seen so far:

• Protagoras: An Error of Measurement
• Republic: A conflict in the soul

Both of these assume some self-interested motive.

So if diabolical evil is possible, for humans, then these theories are wrong.

Book VIII: The discovery of the will

Augustine Observes:

We can command our bodies more readily than our own minds.

Conflict regularly exists within us.

Yet, he insists:

Let them perish from Thy presence, O God, as perish vain talkers and seducers of the soul: who observing that in deliberating there were two wills, affirm that there are two minds in us of two kinds, one good, the other evil.

… it was I who willed, I who denied, I, I myself. I neither willed entirely, nor denied entirely. Therefore was I at strife with myself, and rent asunder by myself.

Arguments against the Manichees

• What about a conflict between two bad impulses? (kill by poison or the sword?)
• What about a conflict between a bad impulse and an anti-manichee impulse?
• What about a conflict between four bad impulses? (go to circus, theatre, rob a house, commit adultery)
• What about a conflict between good impluses?

Augustine's “liberum voluntatis arbitrium”

There exist conflicting impulses between different forces in the soul. But there's one part of the soul that judges these impulses: the will.

Digression: Isn't this obvious?

the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. JM Keynes, The General Theory

OK, why do we will the way we do?

The City of God, Book 12

Imagine two people who are physically the same, and have the same temperment.

Both are put in the same situation.

One does good, the other does evil.

Why?

Can't be the temptation that causes evil.

Can't be the temperment.

Can't be an evil spirit.

Is it even possible for two people to differ like this?

What if it's not?

Then… moral responsibility is called into question.

Then… Problem of Evil: God is the author of evil.

OK, let's suppose that it is possible.

In this case, Augustine says that the evil choice is uncaused.

There is nothing that causes us to do evil.

We simply do it.

Augustine thinks that this makes evil fundamentally impossible to understand in many ways. You cannot rationalize an evil action any more than you see darkness or hear silence.

Augustine's Theory of Evil

Evil is the product of an uncaused free decision to embrace what is wrong.

Evaluation

So, is this this theory true?

Questions about Responsibility

Augustine thinks that your free choices aren't determined by your good or bad qualities.

How can I be responsible for something that doesn't come from anything about me?

How is this kind of “choice” different from just a random spasm?

Questions about doing what's wrong because it is wrong

For Augustine, the purest form of evil.

But what about children?

Example:

Akiva (age 3 in one week) is at a party, with a tableful of delicious fudge in front of him. His mother says ‘Now Akiva, don't touch the fudge.’ What does he do?”

Is that really the root of all evil?

The Good Will

Can we do evil by trying to do good?

Can we do good by trying to do evil?