Q&A: The Good According to Descartes’ View
The Good According to Descartes’ View
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi,
There was something that wasn’t particularly clear to me. According to Descartes, in order to cope with the epistemological demon, he created the ontological argument, which tries to derive from the concept of the most perfect being that it also exists; and since part of perfection also includes the attribute of infinite goodness, etc., therefore God is compelled to prevent us from thinking in a way that is not rational. And that, after all, would be the most evil thing there is.
If so, I wanted to ask: according to his view, are concepts absolutely a priori? After all, the demon could also change our concepts, or implant new concepts in us. If so, the assumption that the greatest being contains within it additional concepts like “good,” power, or existence requires clarification.
And secondly, how was it so clear to him that the good exists objectively and does not arise as a result of social-evolutionary development?
Answer
Clearly, there are assumptions at the base of his argument. He assumes that concepts, and especially logic, are not the product of the deceiving demon. There is no analytic way to accumulate information.
Discussion on Answer
If he had succeeded, it would have contributed. But in fact the argument didn’t really succeed.
In principle, though, the ontological proof is trying to make the leap from analyticity to something additional that isn’t contained in observation, no?
If so, then how exactly does it contribute to that?
By the way, in your view the status of the laws of logic is not external or derived from observation, right? After all, the idea behind at least some of the laws of logic comes from the fact that not thinking that way is nonsense.