Evil is a privation of the good that God always wills.
— Bob Ross
I don't understand you! Good God can only will good. — MoK

I think he meant "Evil is a privation of (the good that God always wills)". What God wills is the good, of which evil is the privation; God does not will the privation itself.

Firstly, endorsing a law that does not protect against certain evil is not the same as endorsing a law that protects evil. To use your example about pro-life voting, a pro-life law that explicates it is impermissible to abort after 6 weeks is not technically endorsing abortion prior and up to 6 weeks; whereas a law that explicates it is permissible to abort before and up to 6 weeks is endorsing abortion. The former is permissible for a person to vote for (assuming that’s the best law they can manage to get passed) whereas the latter would be impermissible. This is a subtle and seemingly trivial note but is really crucial. — Bob Ross

If you go around arguing that abortion is perfectly fine up to the 6 week mark, then you are doing something immoral even if it is for a good end of mitigating the effects of abortion; and you don’t have to do that to endorse a bill that limits abortion without banning it outright.

I tell you that to prevent that I would have voted for a six-week ban with exceptions for rape and incest, and I'm no consequentialist

I see the appeal, but that would be a consequentialistic move. You are saying that you would endorse a bill that explicates that in the case, e.g., of rape it is not wrong to abort when you know it is wrong. — Bob Ross

If that would be a consequentialist move, then that is not what I meant to say. I see a morally significant difference between laws that say

(a) Abortion is prohibited after 6 weeks of pregnancy not resulting from rape or incest.
and
(b) A woman has a right to an abortion during the first 6 weeks of pregnancy and in all cases where pregnancy is due to rape or incest. All other abortions are prohibited.

It's (a) I would support, if I couldn't get anything better; not (b).

I think it's generally understood that what is not prohibited by the law is (legally) permitted, allowed, tolerated. That's not the same as being condoned or approved. For example, there is no law here against smoking outdoors or in my own home, but that doesn't mean the government approves of it.

The problem with this rejoinder is that it reduces God to a consequentialist. E.g., He codifies rules about slavery because no one would have listened to Him if He spoke the ethical truth that it is wrong; ....

God cannot be a consequentalist: an action's permissibility can be influenced by the circumstances, but some actions are clearly bad or good in-themselves and actions like murder, rape, etc. are bad in-themselves. He cannot tip the scales of an immoral act because the consequences of doing it would be a greater good: God does not weigh actions on a scale of the most good for the most people. — Bob Ross

Agreed, God cannot be a consequentialist. But how does making restrictions on slavery, to make it less evil, turn Him into one?

Suppose I am a state legislator in a country where abortion is permitted up to "viability". I believe that abortion, the deliberate killing of an unborn human being, is always wrong. I vote for a bill prohibiting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with penalties for abortion providers, no penalties for the mothers, and no exceptions except life of the mother. This law, if it could be enforced, would drastically reduce the frequency of the injustice of abortion, and that is my intent. Does that make me a consequentialist? Am I having an abortion myself? Am I providing abortions or helping someone to have one? Am I telling people it is okay to have abortions?

The law is on the books, but it can't be enforced. Then the nation's Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade, turning abortion law back to the states. The barbarians come into my state with their money and their ads and flood the airwaves and tubes with an actor saying "I wouldn't want my 15-year old daughter to go through the pain of having to bear a child conceived by rape", etc.---not noticing or caring that he'd be wanting to kill his own grandchild---and they have a referendum and the people pass a state constitutional amendment to make abortion legal again up to "viability".

I tell you that to prevent that I would have voted for a six-week ban with exceptions for rape and incest, and I'm no consequentialist. I think it would be my duty to make clear, publicly, my opposition to abortion under any circumstances, and my reasons for voting for the limited ban.

So where does this leave the God of the Old Testament? Did He speak against slavery through the prophets or the rabbis? Not all that they said would have been recorded, so we don't know. Except, what's this?

And if thy brother-Israelite is brought by poverty to sell his own liberty to thee, do not submit him to bondage with thy slaves; let him work in thy household as if he were a hired servant or a free alien, till the year of jubilee comes. Then, with his children, he must be restored to his kindred and to his ancestral lands. The Israelites know no master but me, their rescuer from Egypt; they must not be bought and sold like slaves; do not use thy power over him, then, to treat him ill, as thou fearest God’s vengeance. Your men-slaves and women-slaves must come from the nations round about you; or they must be aliens who have come to dwell among you, or children of theirs born on your soil; these you may hold
as chattels, passing them on to your children by right of inheritance, as belonging to you in perpetuity; but you must not lord it over your brother-Israelites. — Leviticus 25: 39-46, Knox translation

Does this passage contradict the other (Ex 21:7-11)? If so, I will not be so bold as to draw any and all logical consequences from it. But rather, doesn't the other passage apply to the case where a man has broken the law by selling his daughter, and moderate her circumstances?

Hmm ... I feel like I'm ranting more than expressing myself with proper logical clarity. And you might object that my declaring "I am not a consequentialist", either on behalf of myself or of the state legislator, does not prove that I'm not or he isn't, any more than a man's declaring "I have always known that I am the Queen of England" proves he is so.

So let's get down to the logic, shall we?

Could we start with a definition of consequentialist? I mean, I think everybody understands something like "Consequentialism ... is simply the view that normative properties depend only on consequences .... the most prominent example is probably consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act ...." (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/consequentialism/)

So what I'm trying to ask is:

1. What kind of consequentialist do you think the O.T. God would have to be? I mean, for example, an act or rule based consequentialist, and what idea of the kinds of properties of consequences, such as pleasure and pain, that are relevant, etc.

2. How does His making rules to mitigate slavery, without prohibiting it entirely make Him a consequentialist of that kind?

C: EXODUS SLAVERY AND INDENTURED SERVITUDE

This is talking about beating slaves (or perhaps indentured servants) as permissible:

When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.

This is talking about raping women, selling women into sex slavery, and the implicit permissibility of polygamy (although I will keep the whole passage so not to misconstrue the other parts)(emphasis added):

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

......

ACCUSATION(S)

Rape, slavery, and indentured servitude are unjust and God cannot commit an injustice; so Exodus cannot be Divinely inspired. — Bob Ross

1. The first passage (Ex 21:20-21) is about beating slaves, as you say: specifically, beating them to death. Saying it is not to be punished is not the same as saying it is permissible. In the Ten Commandments there is one against murder!

2. It is not altogether clear to me that the second passage (Ex 21:7-11) is about raping women and selling them into sex slavery. Verse 9 suggests that the daughter who is sold becomes a wife or something like a wife. If she is not a wife, then the man who bought her (or his son) would be committing adultery, which is also forbidden in the Ten Commandments.

Be that as it may, in the Old Testament we already see the commandments to love God and neighbor (Mt 22:34-40, Dt 6:5, Lev 19:18) A father who sold his daughter into any kind of undesirable situation would be not loving his daughter.

Polygyny is tolerated, but I think its portrayal is never favorable, frequently unfavorable. Look at all the troubles resulting from the multiple wives in the families of Abraham, Jacob, and David!

3. A wise and just lawgiver will sometimes permit acts that are wrong, because the evils of repressing them are worse than the evils of allowing them. (Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 96, A. 2 ) As Jesus said in the New Testament, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginnning it was not so." (Matthew 19:8)

Is it not the same with the regulations concerning slavery?

4. "Modern readers are distressed by the inclusion of laws concerning slavery in this biblical code (Ex 21:1-11, 20-21, 26-27, 32), but for ancient peoples, including Israel, slavery was simply an unquestioned reality and a part of life. When the laws of the Covenant Code are compared with other ancient Near Eastern law codes, it is worth nothing that they emphasize limiting the duration of slavery (Ex 21:1-6), protecting the marital rights of female slaves (Ex 21:7-11), and providing sanctions against the abuse of slaves (Ex 21:20, 26-27)." ---John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018), ch. 7, "Exodus", p. 181.

5. To sum up: the laws given in the Old Testament restrained evil gradually, not suddenly, because of the hardness of men's hearts.

6. Re-reading the OP, I've just noticed that you anticipated a reply along these lines and have said that it turns God into a consequentialist. I don't think it does, but please give me some time to reflect on that before repeating your objection ....

↪Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

"This idea occurred to me as a part of an argument that God cannot be a utilitarian: ...... So there is no maximum amount of goodness that God could create, just as there is no largest integer. But utilitarianism requires us to cause the maximum amount of good possible. Therefore God cannot be a utilitarian."

I commend your cleverness and ingenuity here; but I think this is fallacious. Goodness is not quanitified over like an atom: it isn’t a concrete being but, rather, a property that concrete beings can have.

...... — Bob Ross

You may be right, Bob, although I don't fully understand your argument. Mine was directed against utilitarians. Since you are not a utilitarian, it would probably have been better for me not to have brought it up. We agree that God must be just, and that is what is troubling you about the O.T. So I'd rather not discuss any further here the question of whether there is any limit to the amount of goodness God could create, but rather use my limited time to try to address your concerns about slavery.

↪Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

It seems to me that for every level of perfect ordering of the creation, there might be a more perfect possible ordering, so that ordering the creation perfectly (i.e., most perfectly) would be impossible.

Can you elaborate on this? — Bob Ross

Sure, and I guess I had better do it now, before the discussion gets any thicker!

This idea occurred to me as a part of an argument that God cannot be a utilitarian:
Consider something with a small quantity of intrinsic goodness, maybe for the utilitarian the pleasure of smelling a rose, or for those of us with a more metaphysical idea of goodness, a hydrogen atom or a sugar molecule. Whatever it is, call it a "unit" of goodness. If one of these is good, two of them would be better, although not necessarily twice as good. And three would be better than two. This seems to go on without limit: for any N, N+1 units of goodness are better than N units. So there is no maximum amount of goodness that God could create, just as there is no largest integer. But utilitarianism requires us to cause the maximum amount of good possible. Therefore God cannot be a utilitarian.

I would say that there has to be a best ordering to creation because the thing that has a property the best is the one that has it 100% (even if there could be multiple beings with it 100%); goodness then is said to be the most of something when it is 100% good; the ordering of things that is best is relative to how well they and their relations resemble what is 100% good; and what is 100% good is univocal (viz., there can’t be two different ways to be 100% good just like there are not two different ways to be 100% soft, clear, circular, etc.).

I think you would be implying (by saying there are possibly two ‘most best’ orders of things relative to any given quality) that there is a way to be 100% of some property and not be 100% of some property (because there is a different way to be 100% of that very property). — Bob Ross

That is interesting. Now when you talk about a "best ordering to creation" or a best "ordering of things", are you talking about one thing or many things? Because while we might agree that for any one thing there is a way for it to be maximally good, and this conclusion might extend also to a fixed number N of things, I don't think it would extend also to the case where N is variable, and you could have more or fewer things.

But I don't want to get hung up on this, because we agree that God must be just, and that seems to be the main point relevant to this discussion.

I’m saying this is a theological question, [n]ot a philosophical question. — Fire Ologist

OP's question is both philosophical and theological. His assumptions #1-7 are clearly philosophical, while the application of them to the three Old Testament episodes is theological.

I agree with OP's assumptions 1-3 and 5-7, but I have a quibble about

4. He is the creator and purely actual, which entails that He cannot fail to order His creation perfectly (viz., He must be all-just); — Bob Ross

It seems to me that for every level of perfect ordering of the creation, there might be a more perfect possible ordering, so that ordering the creation perfectly (i.e., most perfectly) would be impossible. However, I agree that God must be just, and that is the main point.

I hope to be able to respond to some of the other issues later, as time permits.

Lorenz describes — T Clark

This system thus exists a priori to the extent that it is present before the individual experiences anything, and must be present if experience is to be possible. But its function is also historically evolved and in this respect not a priori. — Lorenz - Behind the Mirror

If I'm understanding that right, then Lorenz is saying (at least in part) that what is a priori to the individual is a posteriori to the race, or species?

I suspect I'm not using the quote mechanism correctly; I meant to quote T Clark, quoting Lorenz.

Well, I have to jump in somewhere; let this be the pond!

• Recently finished Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. Except not really finished, because I have to go back and take notes on the parts where I think he goes wrong.
  
• Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity.
  
• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, trans. R J Blackwell, R. J. Spath, W. D. Thirlkel, intro. by V. J. Bourke. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963. From this edition I have learned that the Latin translation of Aristotle's Physics which typically appears in the Latin version of Thomas's commentary, is not the translation that Aquinas used, but a later translation from Renaissance times.
  
• Moved by the dialog mentioned in Count Timothy von Icarus's discussion Semiotics and Information Theory, I began reading John Deely's New Beginnings: Early Modern Philosophy and Postmodern Thought. But that turned out to be over my head, so I have laid it aside in favor of Thomas Sebeok's Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics, the second edition, 2021.

I don't know how I missed seeing that earlier, but I did. Thanks!

I'm not fond of Discord, but am willing to join your server there in case of need.

However, this happened to me too:

"Whoops...
Unable to accept invite"

It tells me there are 3 online and 17 members, so this must be working for some folks.

It's been a long while since I've read any of Pratchett, but I think you can read his books in any order. He always takes some time to give basic background. So start anywhere, and enjoy!