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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
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The lack of a capacity is an evil, even when that lack is essential to the nature of the thing.

    ?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.A privation constitutes an evil only when a being lacks a capacity it is naturally ordered to possess, not merely any capacity whatsoever.
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    • 2.Aquinas's privation theory (Summa Theologiae I, Q.48) holds that blindness is evil in a human but not in a stone, because sight belongs to human nature.
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    • 3.Therefore, lacks essential to a kind's nature cannot be evils, since no natural ordering toward that capacity exists to be frustrated.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Leibniz's principle of perfection holds that finite beings are metaphysically complete when they fully actualize their own specific nature, not an unlimited nature.
      ?

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    • 2.A rock fully being a rock, with all rock-essential limitations, instantiates a genuine grade of perfection rather than a deficiency of higher perfection.
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    • 3.Treating essential limitations as evils commits the category error of measuring a thing against a nature it neither has nor is ordered toward.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Things have different degrees of being corresponding to the number and kinds of capacities they possess.
      ?

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    • 2.The more numerous and impressive a thing's capacities, the more real and metaphysically better it is.
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    • 3.Finite creatures such as rocks and dogs necessarily lack certain capacities (e.g., a rock cannot pass through walls).
      ?

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    Next step

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.