Sunday, January 07, 2007

Nozick and God

From Anarchy, State, and Utopia by the late Robert Nozick:
However, once a person exists, not everything compatible with his overall existence being a net plus can be done, even by those who created him. An existing person has claims, even against those whose purpose in creating him was to violate those claims. (38)

He's not talking about God, and God probably did not create us with the purpose of violating our claims. Nevertheless, we still have claims as humans, and those claims can be pursued, even against our Creator.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the God of Abraham is omnisicient then He must have known from the beggining of the work of creation how all of time would unfold. This would include, amongst other things, the knowledge that He would drown the world in Noah's time, eradicate Sodom and Gomorrah - and punish poor Lot's wife for her pity no less, turn Job over to Lucifer's abuse, and kill the firstborns of Ramesses' Egypt. With this knowledge, He still willed the world into existence. How then, can you say the abuse of man was not intended by God?

David Schraub said...

Either a) by denying God is omniscient, b) denying that foreknowledge is equivilant to moral fault (especially when we don't know the alternatives), or c) denying that God's purpose was for that to happen.

Anonymous said...

"those claims can be pursued, even against our Creator"

But it's difficult to pursue claims against the Other Fellow.