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    The existence of God is required to resolve the dualism o... — Carmelics
    Home/Justice & Punishment
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    The existence of God is required to resolve the dualism of practical reason, such that acting morally and pursuing one's own happiness ultimately coincide.

    Justice & PunishmentNatural Theology
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Morality requires humans to sacrifice their personal happiness when duty demands it.
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    • 2.It is a psychological fact that humans necessarily desire their own happiness.
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    • 3.Reason therefore both requires humans to seek their own happiness and to sacrifice it, creating an irresolvable tension.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The postulate of God resolves the dualism only eschatologically, meaning moral agents must act now on a hoped-for future alignment they have no rational guarantee will obtain.
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    • 2.Schopenhauer argued that grounding moral motivation in divine reward corrupts the purity of moral action by smuggling self-interest back into the very act meant to transcend it.
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    • 3.A morality that requires theological guarantees of ultimate self-benefit fails on its own terms, since genuine moral action must be motivationally independent of consequences to the agent.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's 'dualism of practical reason' presupposes that moral worth requires sacrificing happiness, but Aristotelian eudaimonism holds that virtuous activity just is the fullest expression of human flourishing.
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    • 2.If virtue and happiness are constitutively unified in the good human life, as Aristotle argues in the Nicomachean Ethics, no theological resolution of their tension is needed because the tension itself is illusory.
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    Topics

    Justice & PunishmentNatural Theology

    Connections

    4 topics

    Consequentialism2 linkedVirtue Ethics2 linkedMoral Responsibility2 linkedDivine Attributes1 linked

    Related

    A morality that requires theological guarantees of ultimate self-benefit fails o...If virtue and happiness are constitutively unified in the good human life, as Ar...It is a psychological fact that humans necessarily desire their own happiness.Kant's 'dualism of practical reason' presupposes that moral worth requires sacri...
    +5 moreShow less
    Morality requires humans to sacrifice their personal happiness when duty demands...Only if there is a God can we hope that those who act morally will in the long r...

    Similar

    God's existence can and should be established through philosophical re...83%Postulating God's existence is a theoretical exercise of reason82%The practical argument for God's existence is decisive81%A moral agent must postulate the existence of God as a rational presup...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: moral-arguments-god
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    Another way of interpreting Kant’s argument puts more stress on the connection between an individual’s desire for happiness and the obligation to do what is morally right. Morality requires me to sacrifice my personal happiness if that is necessary to do what is right. Yet it is a psychological fact that humans necessarily desire their own happiness. In such a state it looks as if human moral agents will be torn by what Henry Sidgwick called the “dualism of the practical reason” (1884, 401). Rea
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Reason therefore both requires humans to seek their own happiness and to sacrifi...
    Schopenhauer argued that grounding moral motivation in divine reward corrupts th...
    The postulate of God resolves the dualism only eschatologically, meaning moral a...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit