Two Arguments Against the Particular Content Reading of Nicolas Malebranche’s

‘General Volitions’

In the Treatise on and Grace, Malebranche states that the of

“includes two attributes absolutely necessary to the creation of the world: an unlimited wisdom and an irresistible power,” and that “His power is nothing other than His .” 1

Having identified God’s power with his volition, Malebranche goes on to discuss God’s actions (the manifestations of his power) in terms of ‘general’ and ‘particular volitions.’

God acts by general volitions when “He acts in consequence of the general laws which

He has established,” and by particular volitions when “the efficacy of His will is not determined by some general law to produce some effect.” Given these definitions, it is natural to ask what the relation is between God’s action, volition, and the laws he established.

Steven Nadler, in his paper “ and in Malebranche,”2 identified two different accounts of the relation in question, differing primarily over the nature of God’s general volitions. On one account, God’s general volitions are simply identical with the general laws (and so themselves make no references to particular objects), while on the other account, to speak of God acting by general volitions is to speak of God acting by volitions with particular content (i.e. ones which do make references to particular objects) which are themselves in accordance with the general

1 Traité de la nature et de la grace (1680), volume 14 of the Oeuvres complètes de Malebranche (André Robinet, ed., : J. Vrin, 1958-67). Throughout, I use the translation by Thomas Taylor: Treatise on Nature and Grace, in Malebranche: Philosophical Selections, , ed., Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company (1992). All page references to the Treatise are to the translation. 2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (1993), pp. 31-47. Reprinted in The Rationalists: Critical Essays on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, Derk Pereboom, ed., Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (1999), pp. 343-62. All pages references will be to the reprinted version. laws established by God. Nadler goes on to argue for the latter reading. Recently,

Andrew Pessin has published a series of articles supporting Nadler’s position.3 Pessin acknowledges that the text does not consistently lend itself to one reading over the other,4 but holds that Nadler’s reading is nevertheless more plausible.

My aim in this paper is to provide two new arguments against the reading advocated by Nadler and Pessin. The first rejects an assumption active both in how they see certain passages from Malebranche supporting their reading and in how they see aspects of their reading as necessary if Malebranche is to be read as coherent. This assumption, I argue, would probably not be accepted by Malebranche, and is implausible in itself.

The second and shorter argument deals with Malebranche’s solution to the . While both Nadler’s and Pessin’s reading and the reading they reject are able to make of this solution, I argue that the latter is superior insofar as the solution is intended to offer consolation to those affected by evil.

I

3 “Malebranche’s Doctrine of Freedom/Consent and the Incompleteness of God’s Volitions,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 8(1) (2000), pp. 21-53; “Malebranche’s natural and the incompleteness of God’s Volitions,” Religious Studies 36 (2000), pp. 47-63; “Malebranche’s Distinction Between General and Particular Volitions,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 39 (January 2001): pp. 77- 99. 4 Partly in response to Andrew Black (“Malebranche’s Theodicy,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 35 (January 1997), pp. 27-44), who points out the inconsistency of Nadler’s reading with Malebranche’s describing the laws of nature as themselves efficacious and with Malebranche’s emphasis on the small number of divine volitions. Pessin offers a useful schematization of the debate, in terms of the content of the volitions.5 (GC) is the reading he and Nadler attack, while (PC) is the reading they advance:

(GC): A “general volition” for Malebranche is one whose content is general: a “particular volition” is one whose content is particular. (PC): All divine volitions have particular contents, but a “general volition” is one in accord with general laws, while a “particular volition” is one not in accord with general laws.6

While Pessin goes some to some length the specify what is involved in general vs. particular content, for this paper it will be sufficient to think of general content as involving quantification over objects and in the form of laws (e.g.

“moving bodies tend to continue their in a straight line”,7 which could be recast in quantificational terms) and particular content as involving no universal quantification but only reference to particular objects and times.

On (GC), then, when Malebranche distinguishes between general and particular volitions, he is making a distinction of volitional content. On (PC), by contrast,

Malebranche is distinguishing what Pessin calls ‘nomic’ from ‘anomic’ volitions, where both types of volitions have particular content. What does have general content, on (PC), are the laws with which general volitions are in accord.

Pessin acknowledges that a number of passages in Malebranche seem to support

(GC) directly, but he contends that a number of others strongly support (PC). A close

5 Bringing in the of the content of a volition allows the debate to present volitions as statements (e.g. “Let it be that…”), but it is worth noting that it is not clear that Malebranche would grant that every one of God’s volitions could be adequately reflected in a statement. I do not consider here how this issue might affect the debate. 6 Pessin, “Malebranche’s Distinction…” pp. 77-78. 7 Treatise, p. 261. consideration of two of the latter will reveal an assumption under which both he and

Nadler are working:

I say that God acts by general wills, when he acts in consequence of general laws which he has established… God acts by particular wills when the efficacy of his will is not determined… by some general law to produce some effect.8

Pessin, while acknowledging that a reading of this passage in accordance with (GC) is possible, contends that it shows how Malebranche directly links nomicity with general volitions and anomicity with particular volitions in just the way (PC) claims. But Pessin intends the passage to support the overall picture of general volitions (PC) provides, with particular divine actions being the result of particular volitions in accordance with general laws (Nadler quotes this passage for the latter purpose9).10

This latter is more clearly evident in Pessin’s quotation of a series of passages in which Malebranche describes God’s relation to laws as one of submission, obeyance, observing, etc. 11 What seems to support (PC) in such passages is the implication that, as Nadler puts it, “God is, by means of… individual acts of will, simply executing or following through the laws instituted at creation.”12 I think that it would be a mistake for the proponent of (GC) to deny that Malebranche is committed to particular

8 Treatise, p. 263-64. Quoted in Pessin, “Malebranche’s Distinction…” p. 79. 9 Nadler, “Occasionalism…” p. 354. 10 In fact, merely citing this passage in support of the connection between general/particular volitions and nomicity/anomicity would hardly be evidence for (PC) over (GC). For a proponent of (GC) would grant that Malebranche is making such a direct connection in that any divine volition with general content is itself a general law, and God only acts by particular volitions when the general volitions (i.e. the laws) are insufficient for some end. On the development of Malebranche’s position on explaining when God acts by particular volitions see p. 94 of Denis Moreau, “Malebranche on Disorder and Physical Evil: Manichaeism or Philosophical Courage?” in The Problem of Evil in Early , Kremer and Latzer eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (2001), pp. 81-100. 11 One clear example is “men should know that God is so much the master of nature that if He submits to His established laws, it is rather because He so desires than by an absolute necessity,” Treatise, p. 262. Quoted by Pessin, “Malebranche’s Distinction …” p. 81. 12 Nadler, “Occasionalism…” p. 354. Since Nadler goes on to say, for the sake of consistency with divine immutability, that particular divine volitional acts need not themselves be temporal, it seems that he should also ultimately recast the language about the laws being instituted at creation. divine actions that are in accordance with general laws. For when two billiard balls bounce off one another, this is a particular event, and since for Malebranche God is the only true cause, there must be a sense in which it is correct to say that the bouncing is a particular divine action. But what Nadler and Pessin assume, without any real argument, is that any particular divine action requires a corresponding volition with particular content. Nadler simply states (in the course of denying that God’s volitions themselves have to be temporal, as opposed to just having temporal content),

All that is required [by (PC)] is a one-to-one correspondence between temporal events and divine volitions, such that for each event x (physical or mental) there is an individual volition (with a particular content) in God causing that event to occur when it does (“Let it be the case that x at t)… But note, God still wills particular events that occur in , and not just general laws.13

Pessin identifies the assumption and provides some motivation for it, though he seems to think it too obvious to require detailed support:

we’re concerned with God’s practical volitions, those that are causally efficacious. Even Black admits that a volition like [for all created substances x

and y and for every time t1, if x is G at t1 and x bears relation R to y then there is a

time t2 such that t2 bears relation T to t1 and y is F at t2] won’t have ‘any particular consequence in itself ’ (40), i.e. can’t cause anything on its own. That’s because it says nothing in particular until further is specified, such as in an interpretation. But once that information is specified, then the quantified sentence may be construed as a shorthand for that conjunction of very particular content sentences, which, qua contents of volitions, are indeed perfectly causally efficacious. So God’s volitions, insofar as these constitute His causal powers, have particular contents.14

The is that a divine volition such as “let all moving bodies tend to continue their motion in a straight line” cannot result in any action unless some further information is

13 Nadler, “Occasionalism…”, p. 355. 14 Pessin, “Malebranche’s natural theodicy…” p. 53. given (e.g. “Cat L is a body moving in direction D…”). And, the thought goes, if such a volition requires such particular information in order to result in action, then God cannot act by volitions of general content, contrary to (GC).15

Nadler and Pessin both assume, then, that particular actions require corresponding volitions with particular content (i.e. particular volitions, though not necessarily anomic, and so not in Malebranche’s original sense), and this assumption guides their reading of

Malebranche.16 But Malebranche nowhere states such a , and there is reason for thinking that he would deny it. For instance:

when a ball strikes another, I say God moves the second ball by a general volition, because He moves it in consequence of the general and efficacious laws of the communication of … it is by the efficacy of that general volition that bodies have the force of moving one another.17

Here Malebranche describes a particular divine action (two balls bouncing off one another) and baldly asserts that this particular action is accomplished by a general volition, which is itself a general law. There is, of course, a way to read this passage that is compatible with (PC), but such a reading would have to be motivated by the assumption in question, and this passage (among others) provides a prima facie reason for thinking that Malebranche would deny that assumption.

Pessin might claim that reading the assumption into Malebranche is justified because the assumption itself is plausible. But there are reasons for rejecting the

15This inference is dubious, and I will return to it below. The question here would be: Why must the required additional information be part of the content of the volition? Pessin’s position on this is in fact somewhat surprising, since he begins “Malebranche’s natural theodicy...” by countenancing volitions whose realization would bring about something more than is represented explicitly in their content (p. 48). 16 As I discuss it, this assumption is not limited to divine actions, though Malebranche would of course recognize no other genuine type of action. 17 Treatise, p. 264. assumption altogether. I will argue this partially by means of an example, one which is intended to show how volitions with general content can lead to particular actions in just the way (GC) requires.18 In the example, I use the terms “particular volitions” and

“general volitions” in the way understood by (GC).

Say that I decide to open my closet looking for a box I left there, and, not being able to see well because of four coats hanging at the front of the closet, I push them all to the side. One could describe what I did as consisting of four particular volitional actions:

putting the blue coat at place p1 in motion at time t1, putting the black coat at place p2 in

motion at time t2, etc. None of these actions were involuntary, and I am certainly aware of

(and intended) each of them. Nonetheless, one adequate (and quite natural) description of the content of my volition here is a general one such as “Let all the coats at the front of the closet move to the side.” This volition also has an effect which could be described generally (“all the coats at the front of the closet move to the side”), or broken into any number of particular effects.19

In order for this story to succeed in showing the falsity of the assumption made by

Nadler and Pessin, it has to be the case that we can take it to be complete without being required to posit any particular volitions. One could try and force particular volitions into

18 Note that is more than is strictly required to defeat the assumption. Given that the assumption (most clearly on Nadler’s formulation) requires exactly one, particular volition for each particular action, it could be falsified by an example of a particular volition which results in more than one particular action. Such an example would be easy to construct. Since my aim is to support (GC), however, the example I pick is one involving general content. 19 There is some limit on the division of the effect insofar as we want to describe the effects as intentional or volitional. It seems inaccurate to say that I willed that some carbon molecule that is part of the blue coat move in a certain way. What is important, though, is that there are effects of my volition which can be described as intentional and foreseen but for which we need not ascribe particular corresponding volitions. And ascribing all such particular volitions would be somewhat inaccurate, for I do seem to be regarding the four coats merely as a group which I want out of my way. One way of bringing this out is to consider whether or not we would say that my volition would have been different if there had been a different group of coats. It seems reasonable to say that I would have acted out of the same volition even if my action was aimed at several conspicuously different coats (e.g. three paisley coats). The generality of this description of the content of my volition seems in this sense irreducible. the story by saying (along the lines of the above passage from Pessin20) that it is only because I have particular information about the world (e.g. the placement of the coats relative to my arm), that this general volition can give rise to any effect. And since it is necessary to combine this particular information with the content of my volition in order for any effect to come about, why not say that the result of this combination must be particular volitions, which then are truly the causes of the effects?

One could give such an account here, but one could just as well say that the result of the combination is the action itself (remember – the assumption I am challenging is shown to be false if a particular volition account is not compulsory). Such a picture can be found in ’s Movement of Animals:

But how it is that thought is sometimes followed by action, sometimes not; sometimes by movement, sometimes not? What happens seems parallel to the case of thinking and inferring about the immovable objects. There the end is the seen (for, when one thinks the two propositions, one thinks and puts together the conclusion), but here the two propositions result in a conclusion which is an action – for example, whenever one thinks that every man ought to walk, and that one is a man oneself, straightaway one walks.21

Since such a picture of volitions, and action is available, there is so far no compelling reason to accept Nadler’s and Pessin’s assumption on its own. Further, since there is no clear evidence that Malebranche himself would accept the assumption, and some of the key passages cited by Nadler and Pessin require the assumption to support

(PC), their reliance on the assumption is a problem for (PC) for which they have (as of yet) no defense.

20 Pessin “Malebranche’s natural theodicy…” p. 53. 21 Movement of Animals 701a7-14 (A. S. L. Farquharson trans., in The Complete Works of Aristotle, J. Barnes ed., Princeton: Princeton University Press (1984)). I am not claiming any historical connection here, though it is not unlikely that Malebranche would have encountered such an account during his time at the College de la Marche (see Nadler’s introduction to Malebranche: Philosophical Selections, p. vii).

II

I now turn to my second argument for (GC) over (PC), which is based in

Malebranche’s solution to the problem of evil. The primary role of the solution is to make two indubitable claims consistent: (1) God is infinitely perfect (with “unlimited wisdom and irresistible power”), but (2) God could have created a more perfect world.22

Malebranche’s solution is that a craftsman “must proportion his action to his work.”23 So while the world could have been more perfect, the ‘proportion’ between the world and the way in which the world is “produced and preserved”24 could not be more perfect. While he seems to assume that evaluating the perfection of the world is straightforward,25 Malebranche realizes that some explanation is needed for what makes

God’s action or ways more or less perfect. How such evaluation of action or ways works is evident in the following passage:

in order to make [a] more perfect world [than our own], He would have had to change the simplicity of His ways and multiply the laws of the communication of motion, by which our world subsists...26

And soon after, in considering the laws of motion by which God governs the universe,

Malebranche states, “He performs infinite wonders by a very small number of volitions.”27 So the perfection of God’s ways is evaluated in terms of the number of

22 These claims can both be found in Treatise, p. 260. For Malebranche, their indubitability arises as a result of his . This point is made by Moreau in “Malebranche on Disorder…” p. 86. 23 Treatise, p. 260. 24 Ibid. 25 Cf. the examples of imperfections in on (Willis Doney trans., in Malebranche: Philosophical Selections), esp. p. 243-44. 26 Treatise, p. 260. 27 Ibid., p. 261 laws/volitions and in terms of the simplicity of their content.28 The identification of the laws with (at least a set of) God’s volitions is uncontroversial.

At this point (GC) and (PC) diverge in how they describe the details of the solution. (GC) sees Malebranche’s God as producing evil through volitions with general content, and the evils (or better: imperfections) are part of the set of results of the general actions corresponding to those volitions.29 (PC) sees those evils as produced through volitions with particular content which are the result of God following the general laws he instituted. In both cases, the imperfections of the world are a result of the simplicity of

God’s ways; that is, “He wills them only indirectly, only because they are a natural consequence of His laws.”30

However, Malebranche’s solution to the problem of evil is intended to play a role beyond making God’s perfection consistent with the imperfection of the world. He further intends it to provide some sort of consolation to people who suffer as a result of the imperfections of the world. This (admittedly less central) aspect of the solution is evident in the following passage:

28 Malebranche does not say much about what makes laws more or less simple, other than saying (unhelpfully) that the two laws of motion which govern our world are “so simple, so natural, and at the same time so fruitful, that, even if we had no other reason for judging that it is they that are observed in nature, we would be justified in believing that they were established by Him who works always by the simplest ways…” Ibid. p. 261. 29 I borrow the ‘correspondence’ relation of volitions and actions from Nadler, though the text often instead supports the relation being one of . E.g., Treatise, p. 260, “His power is nothing other than His will.” Nadler probably wishes to weaken the relation because, on (PC), God’s willing the laws of nature is not sufficient to bring about their realization among objects in the world. Also, note that ‘general actions’ can be taken to simply mean sets of particular actions resulting from the same general volition. 30 Dialogues, p. 246. Pessin, in “Malebranche’s natural theodicy…” focuses on the notion of ‘indirect’ willing and suggests that all of God’s volitions “may be framed in the language of ” (p. 58). Doing so allows an account where the imperfections of the world are only (on (PC)) willed by God under a description in the language of natural laws, not under a description whereby they are imperfections. Even if there were some textual basis for having God’s volitions directed towards results under some descriptions and not under others, Pessin’s move is equally available to (GC) and to (PC). The owner of the field [on which rain has fallen] should thank God for the good he has received, since God saw and willed the good effect of the rain when He established the general laws of which it is a necessary consequence, and it is for such effects that He has established these laws. On the other hand, if the rains are sometimes harmful to our lands, since it was not to render them unfruitful that God established the laws which make it rain, since drought suffices to make them barren, it is clear that we should thank God and adore the wisdom of His providence, even when we do not feel the effects of the laws He has established in our favor.31

Even if there is no clear reason to privilege either (GC) or (PC) on the basis of the account they provide of Malebranche’s solution in its primary role, I think that considering the secondary role of the solution does give reason to privilege (GC).

Keeping with Malebranche’s case of the landowner who suffers from excessive rains or droughts which result from God’s general laws, we can consider the different consolations Malebranche can offer on (GC) and on (PC). On (PC), all Malebranche can say is: “God foresaw and specifically willed that your lands be destroyed, and did so in order to keep with eternal laws. God chose these laws, however, because he foresaw the overall benefits that would arise from them.” On (GC), the consolation can become:

“God foresaw, but did not specifically will that your lands be destroyed, as this was a consequence of his general laws whereby moves in these ways throughout the universe. God chose these laws, however, because he foresaw the overall benefits that would arise from them.” The difference in consolatory is clear. This point is not decisive, of course, but does support (GC) over (PC) when combined with a general principle of interpretive charity.

31 Treatise, p. 267. A full defense of (GC) against Nadler and Pessin would require a response to each of the arguments they advance in favor of (PC), and I have not attempted this. Pessin grants it might turn out that neither interpretation is correct. Because Malebranche’s position might ultimately turn out as incoherent, he is careful to only defend (PC) as correct if there is any correct position at all.32 The arguments I have provided in this paper are aimed both at showing that (GC) is superior to (PC), not merely that there is textual support for (GC) – so I hope to have added to the debate without having added support for the claim of incoherence.

32 “Malebranche’s Distinction…” p. 78.