Pascal’s wager has received the attention of philosophers for centuries. Most of its criticisms arise from how the wager is often framed. We present Pascal’s wager three ways: in isolation from any further apologetic arguments, as leading toward a regimen intended to produce belief, and finally embedded in a larger apology that includes evidence for Christianity. We find that none of the common objections apply when the wager is presented as part of Pascal’s larger project. Pascal’s wager is a successful (...) argument in its proper place. However, the most interesting features of our first two presentations of the wager turn out to be either irrelevant or missing from our reading: infinite utility and the relativity of evidence. The successful wager is a boring wager. Still, this study shows us how the wager might profitably be incorporated into different apologetic contexts and why it often can’t. (shrink)

Descartes’s very brief explanations of human responsibility for sin and divine innocence of sin include references to the idea that evil is a privation rather than a real thing. It is not obvious, though, that privation fits naturally in Descartes’s reductionistic metaphysics, nor is it clear precisely what role his privation doctrine plays in his theodicy. These issues are made clear by contrasting Descartes’s use of privations with that of Suarez, particularly in light of reoccurring objections to privation theory. These (...) objections have no weight against Suarez’s use of privations, but Descartes’s mentions of privation are so few that it is not clear how his account avoids their consequences. Descartes’s brevity seems to have motivated some of his followers to develop creative accounts of the way in which privation fits in a Cartesian system. Pierre-Sylvain Régis accomplishes this task by reintroducing material causation. Régis holds that moral evil has no efficient cause since an efficient cause can only produce something real. Because he holds that moral evil can have a material cause, he is able to affirm that the soul is morally responsible for sin. In Régis’s case, accommodating this theological issue meant reincorporating Aristotelian resources into his Cartesian system. (shrink)

In popular opinion, Leibniz’s work on the problem of evil is thought to begin and end with the claim that this is the best of all possible worlds, as if this were all that Leibniz needed to defend the justice of God. In many places, however, Leibniz is concerned to remove from God the actual agency for the evils in the world. By examining Leibniz’s uses of the concept of divine permission, one might find a Leibniz for whom the best-possible-world (...) thesis answers only some of the difficulties regarding God’s relationship to the evils in the world. Leibniz introduces permission early in his career, in the manuscript dialogue, Confessio philosophi, written in the early 1670s. Two and a half decades later, Pierre Bayle offered a critique of traditional uses of permission in his Dictionnaire historique et critique. Though he certainly had not read Leibniz’s manuscript, the arguments against the use of permission in the Dictionnaire offer a useful foil for understanding the role permission plays in Leibniz’s early thought. Bayle’s objections will be discussed first. Once these are explained, they will be used to argue that Leibniz’s doctrine of permission, as presented in the Confessio philosophi, adds nothing to the best-possible-world thesis. As the reasons for this are explained, it will become obvious that this is not the case for the mature Leibniz of the Essais de Théodicée. Thus, there is a Leibniz for whom the best-possible-world thesis answers only some of the theological problems posed by evil, but that is not the Leibniz of the early Confessio philosophi. (shrink)

Leibniz’s Confessio philosophi (1672–1673) appears to provide an anti-necessitarian solution to the problem of the author of sin. I will give here a brief reading of what appear to be two solutions to the problem of the author of sin in the Confessio. The first solution appears to commit Leibniz’s spokesman (the Philosopher) to necessitarianism. The Theologian (Leibniz’s interlocutor) objects to this necessitarianism, prompting the Philosopher to offer a modified version that appears to exorcise this doctrine. As it turns out, (...) Leibniz holds that these two solutions are in fact the same. I will thus conclude by reconciling these solutions, arguing for giving priority to the more radical first solution. I will argue for this by looking at the connections between the Confessio philosophi and some of Leibniz’s other works in its genre around its time. It will be argued that Leibniz does not find the necessitarianism, which references to per se contingencies are supposed to solve, to be problematic in 1673. (shrink)

In the Theodicy, Leibniz argues against two impious conceptions of God—a God who makes arbitrary choices and a God who doesn’t make choices at all. Many interpret Leibniz as navigating these dangers by positing a kind of non-Spinozistic necessitarianism. I examine passages from the Theodicy which reject not only blind necessitarianism but necessitarianism altogether. Leibniz thinks blind necessitarianism is dangerous due to the conception of God it entails and the implications for morality. Non-Spinozistic necessitarianism avoids many of these criticisms. Leibniz (...) finds that even necessary actions should receive certain rewards and punishments as long as they necessarily lead to a change in future behavior. But Leibniz rejects even non-Spinozistic necessitarianism on the grounds that it is inconsistent with punitive justice. Whether Leibniz successfully avoids necessitarianism, it ought to be clear that he sees his own position as significantly distinct from necessitarianism and not just Spinozism. (shrink)

In Leibniz on Causation and Agency, Julia Jorati provides an account of Leibniz’s mature views regarding causation, freedom, and moral responsibility. Few monographs treat these central topics in Leibniz in such a sustained and helpful way. The focus on appetition and action is most welcome, and the book is well written and usually well argued. Even on the few occasions when Jorati’s arguments are unpersuasive, the theoretical benefits of her readings are clear, and the work displays an impressive command of (...) the primary and secondary literature.The first three chapters treat monads, spontaneity, and teleology, respectively. Jorati gives useful accounts of the motivations for Leibniz’s bold theses. A clear strength... (shrink)