Response to Oberle on Aquinas on Infinite Regress

An article was recently published online in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion by Thomas Oberle titled “Grounding, Infinite Regress, and the Thomistic Cosmological Argument.” Oberle criticizes Aquinas’ argument against infinite regress as question begging.

Oberle recognizes the distinction between essentially and accidentally ordered causal series, and with it the difference between derived and underived causal power. He maintains, however, that the Thomistic argument fails because it equates a finite essentially ordered causal series without a first, underived cause (such as a few boxcars connected to a caboose) and an infinite essentially ordered causal series without a first, underived cause. The former is clearly impossible because it would involve the existence of a cause whose causal power was neither underived nor derived; the cause at the head of the series does not have derived causal power because there is no prior cause to derive it from. An infinite essentially ordered series, however, involves no such absurdity, for every cause has a prior cause from which it derives its causal power, and so there is no cause without at least derived causal power. How do we know that there cannot be an infinite series of borrowers with no owner, Oberle asks?

But despite acknowledging the distinction between essentially ordered and accidentally ordered causal series, Oberle fails to fully appreciate the nature of essentially ordered series. His reasoning implies that having derived causal power renders a secondary cause a sufficient cause of the effect in question, whereas the kind of causal subordination of which Thomists speak means that the secondary cause is not a sufficient cause of the effect. The secondary cause is a conduit for causality; without a first cause with underived causal power, there is no cause of the effect.

Perhaps the example of the train and the related example of a man who moves a stone with a stick could mislead here. If the boxcar and the stick had the requisite kinetic energy, whether they got it from somewhere else or not, they could move the caboose and the stone by themselves. (Although to move the stick or the caboose uniformly, as in the examples, they would have to have a store of potential energy and the ability to convert it themselves, so as to maintain a constant velocity in the resisting caboose and stone; in other words, they would have to be something like engines.) The example of links in a chain holding up an engine block better illustrates Aquinas’ notion of an essentially ordered series. The link attached to the engine block simply does not hold up the engine block, even though it has derived causal power to do so. Neither does the link above it. Only the hoist holds up the engine block, for only there does one find the causal power to do so. If there were no hoist, but only an infinite series of links in a literal chain, the whole chain and the engine block would fall.

Hence infinite essentially ordered causal series are impossible. Without a first cause there is no causality at all, whether derived or underived. Given the nature of derivative causal power in an essentially ordered series, there is no derived causal power without an underived causal power. Derived causal power is derived not from the immediately prior cause in the series, but only from an underived causal power that can terminate the series.

Roe vs. Wade Overturned

Alleluia! Roe vs. Wade was overturned this morning, on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart! So many people have prayed so hard for so long for this. Nothing this good has happened to this country in my lifetime! Today is a day to celebrate! God is good!

Scope of Intention

At the ACPA conference last month, Harrison Lee of Baylor delivered a paper (“Two Objections to a Broad Scope Theory of Intention,” which will appear in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association) raising objections to some Thomistic theories of intention, including my own. Lee argues that my claim that essential consequences of an intended action fall under the scope of the intention ends up reducing to the claim that statistically likely and thus expected consequences of an action fall under the scope of the intention. In this way the principle of double effect becomes useless, because one can no longer distinguish between intended and foreseen bad effects. (My account of intention was presented at a book panel discussion of Larry Masek’s Intention, Character, and Double Effect at the 2019 ACPA conference–available on the “Writings” page of this site–later revised as a book review in the ACPQ.)

I would resist the claim that on my account, the essential consequences of an action (those consequences which are per se in the 4th mode) reduce to those consequences that are statistically likely. Correlation does not imply causation, and a fortiori it does not imply essential causation. However, when a correlation is observed, it is reasonable to suspect causation. Correlation prompts one to investigate and look for the connection between two items. Perhaps the one is the cause of the other, or vice versa; perhaps they are both effects of the same cause; perhaps the one item is somehow concomitant with a third item which is the true cause of the other; etc. In the case of an action and its consequences, to establish essential causation (that the consequence is predicated of the action per se in the 4th mode), some sort of conceptual insight is required, by which one sees that the action, in virtue of what it is, produces that effect, even if the effect can be impeded by external factors.

At the time of my panel presentation, however, I had not sufficiently clarified in my mind the relationship between statistical likelihood and essentiality. Lee recognizes an inconsistency/weakness in my answer to one of Masek’s objections. Masek had brought forward an example of an adult son with a stutter who must testify on behalf of his father. He knows that he will almost certainly stutter as he testifies and thus weaken the persuasiveness of his testimony. Masek claims that it is unreasonable to suppose that the son intends to stutter just because he knows that stuttering is closely and inevitably joined to his intended act of testifying. In my presentation I claimed, unreasonably, that the son does intend to stutter, because “he knows that for him stuttering is essential to the act of speaking, for he always or usually stutters when he speaks.”

I see now that the son does not intend to stutter, nor is stuttering an essential consequence of his intended action of speaking on behalf of his father. One can see that the connection between speaking and stuttering is not essential even for him, for other people do not stutter when they speak, and it is clearly a result of an unusual condition he has. So the connection between his speaking and stuttering is mediated: it is a consequence of two things, his intention to speak coupled with his condition. It is a mere accident that the condition and the intention are coupled in his case, because in most people the condition is not present although the ability to speak is. This accidental conjunction of the ability to speak with the psychological or physiological condition produces a strong correlation between his speaking and his stuttering. But since the stuttering son does not will his own condition, the stuttering that it co-causes does not fall under his intention; it is not an essential consequence of his intended action. The stutter is a clear case of what Thomists would consider a natural defect, in which the natural effect is not well achieved. Thus the proper moral analysis of his situation is that he knows that he is risking stuttering. In fact he knows that it is highly likely that he will stutter, and he must perform a cost-benefit analysis of this unintended effect compared to the benefits that could be achieved by acting. And the cost-benefit analysis comes out in favor of speaking.

A similar analysis, with the opposite conclusion, would apply to another example Lee brings up in this context: that of a man who commits manslaughter by driving home drunk. He does not intend to kill when he gets in the car, nor is killing an essential consequence of his action. The action is one of driving, and driving does not in and of itself tend to kill human beings. However, the circumstance of drunkenness significantly increases the likelihood of accidentally killing, and thus the drunk man is knowingly taking a big risk of harming people. The cost-benefit analysis comes out strongly against taking the risk, and thus it is highly irresponsible to take the risk. If the drunk man fails to fulfill his intention of driving home safely, he has committed manslaughter-unintentional but reprehensible killing–but not murder–intentional killing.

I am grateful to Lee for his criticisms, as they have helped me to see what was wrong with my presentation. What I previously said about the stuttering son example likely produced a misunderstanding in the minds of many about the nature of my position. I am also interested to see where Lee is going with his project.

Infinite Regress

This past Friday I presented my paper “Infinite Regress and the Hume-Edwards-Ockham Objection: A Thomistic Analysis” to the American Catholic Philosophical Association. I was grateful for the comments I received from Brian Carl of the University of St. Thomas, Houston. The paper will appear in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Here is the abstract:

One of the standard objections against the impossibility of infinite regress is associated with David Hume and Paul Edwards, but originates with William Ockham. They claim that in an infinite regress every member of the series is explained, and nothing is unexplained. Every member is explained by the one before it, and the series as a whole is nothing over and above its members, and so needs no cause of its own. Utilizing the well-known Thomistic distinction between essentially ordered and accidentally ordered causal series, I show that the Hume-Edwards-Ockham objection fails to touch Aquinas’ argument against the impossibility of infinite regress in an essentially ordered series. However, Aquinas also argues that accidentally ordered causal series can only regress infinitely if supported by an everlasting essential cause. The Hume-Edwards-Ockham objection does raise a question about this thesis, but I show how St. Thomas can reply to it convincingly.

New Position: Wyoming Catholic College

This summer I will be leaving the Pontifical College Josephinum to take a position as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College. It has been a blessing to teach seminarians and to serve the Joesphinum, but I look forward to teaching in this new environment. Philosophy of nature has been my main interest for a number of years, and at WCC I will be able to immerse myself in nature on a whole new level, both academically and experientially.

Book Forthcoming

My book on Aquinas’ First Way, Nature and Nature’s God, has been accepted for publication by the Catholic University of America Press. I am excited to see it come out!

In addition to interpreting Aquinas’ proof for God’s existence, and defending it philosophically and scientifically, the book contributes to Thomistic philosophy of nature in general. I provide a Thomistic account of inertia, gravity, and entropy, uncovering their intrinsically purposive character without doing violence to modern physics.

See the table of contents here.

Review of Masek’s Intention, Character, and Double Effect

The ACPQ will publish a review I wrote of Larry Masek’s book Intention, Character, and Double Effect (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018). I delivered an earlier version of this review, in the form of an essay, at the meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, on November 22nd, 2019. That version will be available on the writings page of my website. Masek’s book is quite good, but we disagree on the question of intention, and thus on the evaluation of certain moral acts. I respond to Masek from a Thomistic perspective. Worth noting is that in my review I defend Bishop Olmsted’s characterization of the act involved in the Phoenix abortion case.

Nature and Nature’s God

I have just finished a complete draft of my book Nature and Nature’s God: The Scientific and Philosophical Validity of Aquinas’ Proof of an Unmoved Mover. An updated table of contents is available at my writings page.

In the book I give the most in-depth exposition of Aquinas’ First Way ever written. I connect the argument to the other motion proofs in the Summa contra Gentiles, as well as the Third Way, and devote a whole chapter to the Fifth Way as well. In the second part of the book I tour the history of science, showing how physics has never conflicted with Aquinas’ argument, but rather supports it. Thomists do not need to reject inertia, but embrace thermodynamics.

Ockham Translation

I have posted a new translation of William Ockham’s Questions on the Books of Aristotle’s Physics, q. 132-34. I have translated the complete text. These questions deal with essentially ordered causes:

Q. 132: Whether in essentially ordered causes the second cause depends on the first cause.

Q. 133: Whether in essentially ordered causes the superior cause is more perfect

Q. 134: Whether essentially ordered causes are necessarily simultaneously required for producing the effect in respect to which they are essentially ordered causes

The next two questions, not translated by me, are whether a first efficient cause can be proved from production, and whether a first efficient cause can be proved from conservation. Portions of all five of these questions are translated in Ockham, Philosophical Writings, trans. Philotheus Boehner, O.F.M., rev. Stephen F. Brown (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990), and presented as Ockham’s proof for God’s existence.

Online Teaching

Like nearly every professor in America, I have had to transition to online teaching the past few weeks. I have never taught online before, but it is going well. I am using a combination of recorded video lectures with a digital whiteboard and a live video call session each week. Online teaching is definitely inferior to real, in-person interaction. But I thank God that online teaching is a possibility, for otherwise all classes would have to be cancelled.

This past week I covered Scotus’ proof for God’s existence in my Medieval Proofs for God’s Existence elective. After a break for Holy Week, we will turn to Ockham, and then finish the semester by spending a great deal of time on Suarez. Earlier this semester we spent a great deal of time on Aquinas’ proofs. We began the semester with Moses Maimonides, including his account of the kalam proofs.