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But that applies to everything you choose to define after what it does. By the same logic, I shouldn't deplore that gangs are engaging in violent activity, beca

by remram 4y ago

But that applies to everything you choose to define after what it does. By the same logic, I shouldn't deplore that gangs are engaging in violent activity, because we define a gang as a group that commits violent activities. A gang is violent by necessity, or it would be a regular group.

woodruffw 4y ago
The point was about autonomy: you can argue about the necessary definition of a gang, but a gang is filled with human beings making decisions as rational agents. The devil, as characterized, is incapable of making the sorts of decisions that humans make (such as whether they should join a violent gang). In other words: there's no contradiction in deploring a violent gang, because the actual object is a product of autonomous behavior; the gang could always cease to exist if its members chose to behave better. On the other hand, deploring the devil is a contradiction in terms: what else would the devil be but the devil?
- remram 4y ago
  Why couldn't the devil cease the be the devil, like a gang ('s members) can cease to be a gang? Of course he wouldn't be the devil anymore, but that's fine by me. Just like the rain can stop. It doesn't stop being wet, the concept is not redefined, it just ceases being there. My point is that you are adding that characterization onto the concept, it does not logically follow from our definition of the concept, "the devil is the personification of evil", that it is evil by necessity. It might be that it is a being incapable to stop (no way for me to disprove it, unless someone can meet him; you can certainly write the story that way, or you can write it another way, with fallen angels or a Santa Clause) but it is perfectly imaginable that it could. Of course, it would stop being the devil as to the common definition. But nothing in the definition of the concept says that it doesn't have the agency to stop.

by remram 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago

The point was about autonomy: you can argue about the necessary definition of a gang, but a gang is filled with human beings making decisions as rational agents. The devil, as characterized, is incapable of making the sorts of decisions that humans make (such as whether they should join a violent gang). In other words: there's no contradiction in deploring a violent gang, because the actual object is a product of autonomous behavior; the gang could always cease to exist if its members chose to behave better. On the other hand, deploring the devil is a contradiction in terms: what else would the devil be but the devil?

remram 4y ago
Why couldn't the devil cease the be the devil, like a gang ('s members) can cease to be a gang? Of course he wouldn't be the devil anymore, but that's fine by me. Just like the rain can stop. It doesn't stop being wet, the concept is not redefined, it just ceases being there. My point is that you are adding that characterization onto the concept, it does not logically follow from our definition of the concept, "the devil is the personification of evil", that it is evil by necessity. It might be that it is a being incapable to stop (no way for me to disprove it, unless someone can meet him; you can certainly write the story that way, or you can write it another way, with fallen angels or a Santa Clause) but it is perfectly imaginable that it could. Of course, it would stop being the devil as to the common definition. But nothing in the definition of the concept says that it doesn't have the agency to stop.