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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Perspectives
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that A being with maximal power cannot necessarily bring about whatever any other agent can bring about.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Maximal power, properly defined, entails the capacity to instantiate any compossible state of affairs within logical possibility.
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    • 2.If a lesser agent can bring about a state s, then s is logically possible, and a maximally powerful being's inability to bring about s constitutes a genuine power deficit.
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    • 3.Aquinas's own framework in Summa Theologiae I.25 holds that omnipotence covers all that is absolutely possible, implying no possible act falls outside its scope.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The supporting argument conflates overall superiority in power with completeness of power, but omnipotence requires the latter, not merely the former.
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    • 2.Geach's distinction between 'almighty' and 'omnipotent' in 'Omnipotence' (1973) shows that even a weaker reading of maximal power must account for every type of possible action, not just a greater quantity.
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    • 3.A being that cannot replicate any act performable by a lesser agent fails the modal criterion that maximal power be unbounded by the capacities of inferior agents.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.If agent a can bring about state s and agent b cannot, it does not follow that b is not overall more powerful than a.
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    • 2.It could be that b can bring about more states of affairs than a can, rather than the other way around.
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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.