A Spinozistic Vision of God

• Published in: Religious Studies
• Main Author: Leslie, John
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1993
• Subjects: Philosophy; Religious studies; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034412500022332; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0034412500022332

Philosophers of today are easy to stupefy. Try suggesting that some situations, such as enjoying a chess problem, really are in themselves better than others such as being burned alive: in themselves better in the sense that situations of the first sort would be preferable to those of the second if they existed all alone, so that one did not need to take consequences into account, and really better much as Africa is really bigger than Iceland, so that talk of real betterness is not just a genuine, wholehearted act of prescribing, or an expression of personal taste like the remark that mustard really is nasty. You will stupefy many a philosopher.