Gert, B. - Justifying Violence

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Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Justifying ViolenceAuthor(s): Bernard GertReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 66, No. 19, Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting of theAmerican Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 2, 1969), pp. 616-628Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024178 .

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degree and not in kind from the injuries inflicted by so-called "non-violent" techniques of political action.IVThe myth of legitimate authority is the secular reincarnation ofthat religious superstition which has finally ceased to play a signifi-cant role in the affairs of men. Like Christianity, the worship of thestate has its fundamentalists, its revisionists, its ecumenicists (orworld-Federalists), and its theological rationale. The philosophicalanarchist is the atheist of politics. I began my discussion with theobservation that the belief in legitimacy, like the penchant for

transcendent metaphysics, is an ineradicable irrationality of thehuman experience. However, the slow extinction of religious faithover the past two centuries may encourage us to hope that in timeanarchism, like atheism, will become the accepted conviction ofenlightened and rational men.ROBERT PAUL WOLFF

Columbia University

JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE *T HERE are ten moralrules. They are:

Do not kill Do not deceiveDo not causepain Keep yourpromiseDo not disable Do not cheatDo not depriveof freedomor opportunity Obey the lawDo not depriveof pleasure Do yourdutySome might define an "act of violence" as an unwanted inten-tional violation of any one of the first three rules. They would thenregard an unwanted intentional violation of the fourth or fifth ruleas an "act of force." This distinction seems to have been employedby one of the Dartmouth students who occupied an administrationbuilding last spring. When the deans were being led out of the* To be presented in an APA symposium on Violence, December 28, 1969; seeRobert Paul Wolff, "On Violence," this JOURNAL,LXVI, 19 (Oct. 2, 1969):601-616.Most of this paper is taken from The Moral Rules: Their Nature and Justifi-cation, copyright Bernard Gert 1966, 1967 and soon to be published by Harper& Row.I am grateful to my colleagues Tim Duggan and Larry Stem for trying to helpme make this paper understandable.


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JUSTIFYINGVIOLENCE 6I7building, one asserted that the students were using violence on him,and a student replied that they were not using violence, they wereusing force. The distinction between an act of violence and an actof force may be valuable in some discussions; e.g., it may allow usto condemn institutional violence while allowing for institutionalforce.

For the purposes of this paper, however, I shall usually not dis-tinguish between unwanted intentional violations of the first threerules and unwanted intentional violations of the next two. I do notdeny that violence is more closely related to violations of the firstthree rules and force to violations of the next two, but there are somany exceptions and borderline cases that I shall, for the purpose ofthis paper, define an act of violence as an intentional violation ofany of the first five rules toward someone who has no rational desireto have the rule violated with regard to himself. I realize that thisdefinition does not correspond exactly to ordinary usage, but it isclose enough so that there should be no serious distortion of thephilosophically relevant points.

Some might prefer to call any unwanted intentional violation ofany of the ten moral rules an act of violence. This would be a seri-ous distortion of the concept. It would make it logically impossiblefor there to be nonviolent civil disobedience. There seems to be ageneral distinction between violent crimes and nonviolent ones. Byand large I think this corresponds to unwanted intentional viola-tions of the first five rules and unwanted intentional violations ofthe second five. But I do not think the correlation is exact, andnothing very much turns on it. One further point of clarification.Although it may be possible to commit an act of violence againstoneself, suicide being common enough to have a name, when I talkof an act of violence in this paper, I shall mean an act of violencecommitted against another person.

Having defined what I mean by an act of violence, I can now pro-ceed to what seems to me to be the philosophically interesting ques-tion: How are acts of violence justified? Since violence involves vio-lating the moral rules, we must discuss not only the concept of justi-fication, but also the nature of the moral rules.The concept of justification depends upon the concept of reason,and thus some discussion of reason is necessary. It is irrational todesire death, pain, disability, or loss of freedom, opportunity, orpleasure for oneself, unless one has a reason. I call desires for thesethings "irrational desires." The objects of irrational desires, I call"personal evils." It is also irrational not to desire to avoid the per-


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6i 8 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYsonal evils. "Reasons for acting" are beliefs that can make actingon an irrational desire, rational. The belief that having my rightarm cut off will save my life is a reason for wanting my right armcut off. Any belief that my action will decrease my chances of dy-ing, of suffering pain or disability, or of losing freedom, oppor-tunity, or pleasure are reasons for acting. Other reasons are beliefsthat my action will increase my abilities, freedom, opportunity, orpleasure. In the basic sense of 'justify', to justify an action is to showthat it is rational. (Moral justification will be discussed later.) Nor-mally, one attempts to justify only those actions which would beirrational if one did not have a reason for doing them. In general,these are actions that one knows significantly increase one's chancesof suffering some personal evil, i.e., dying, suffering pain or disabil-ity, or losing freedom, opportunity, or pleasure.But not all reasons are adequate to justify all actions that wouldbe irrational without a reason. Clearly, one will need a stronger rea-son for killing oneself than for depriving oneself of some pleasure.What counts as an adequate reason for a particular action is oftena matter of dispute. When all rational men agree that an actionneeds a reason and that there is no adequate reason for doing it, Icall that action "prohibited by reason." When all rational menagree that not performing some action needs a reason and thatthere is no adequate reason for not doing it, I call that action "re-quired by reason." When neither doing nor omitting an actionneeds a reason or when rational men differ as to the adequacy ofa reason for doing or omitting'some action, I call that action "al-lowed by reason." Irrational actions are the same as actions pro-hibited by reason; rational actions include both actions required byreason and those allowed by reason.

It is a fair summary of the account given so far to say that it isprohibited by reason to act against one's self-interest; required byreason to act so as to prevent oneself from suffering significant per-sonal evil; and allowed by reason to do anything else. But this ac-count of reason is inadequate because there are other reasons inaddition to those related to one's own self-interest. Beliefs that one'saction will help others to avoid death, pain, disability, or loss offreedom, opportunity, or pleasure; or to gain further abilities, free-dom, opportunity, or pleasure, are also reasons. For these beliefscan also make an action that would otherwise be irrational, rational.Thus it is allowed by reason to act contrary to one's self-interest, ifone will thereby benefit another. However, it is also allowed byreason to sacrifice the interests of others in order to benefit oneself.


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JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE 6i9Some parents sacrifice their own interests in order to benefit theirchildren, other parents do not; both courses of action are allowedby reason. All that reason prohibits is action or nonaction that bothresults in suffering evil oneself and fails to benefit anyone else. Allthat reason requires is the avoidance of irrational action (or non-action). All other actions are allowed by reason. Reason thus doesnot offer much in the way of a guide to conduct.Let us now consider the moral rules. Most of their characteristicsare purely formal; they simply make clear what is meant by the uni-versality of moral rules, viz., the irrelevance of considerations ofperson, place, group, or time. Moral rules apply to all and onlythose who can understand and guide their actions by them, i.e., toall rational men with the relevant voluntary abilities. This makesclear the independence of moral rules from the will or decision ofany man or group of men and entails that moral rules are unchang-ing. It also guarantees that men without certain features are notsubject to moral rules. But, though moral rules are universal, theyare not absolute. That there are exceptions to the moral rules makesclear that it is impossible to apply the moral rules mechanically indeciding what to do or in making moral judgments.

The content of the moral rules is determined by the requirementthat protection from evil, rather than the promotion of good, istheir primary purpose. This leads to the final characteristic of amoral rule. All rational men must advocate obedience to it. Ofcourse, the concept of a rational man is usually not made very clear.Nor is it clear in what manner or with what qualifications all ra-tional men would advocate obedience to the moral rules. Nonethe-less, in spite of the vagueness, there is no doubt that if a rule is tobe a moral rule, all rational men must agree in taking a certain at-titude toward it, an attitude that involves the view that it should beuniversally obeyed, though this is not meant to exclude exceptions.

If a rational man uses only those beliefs which are shared by allother rational men, e.g., that men are mortal, it turns out that hewill share with all other rational men certain attitudes toward thefirst five moral rules. The beliefs must be specified in this way; forone's attitude is often determined by one's beliefs, and, since beliefscan vary so much, it would be extremely unlikely that without thatspecification we could reach any agreement in attitude. Limitingbeliefs to those required by reason, we find that one attitude thatall rational men would make toward the first five moral rules is thefollowing:


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I want all other people to obey the rule with regardto anyone forwhom I am concerned(including myself) except when they have agood specificreason for thinking that the person in question or my-self (possibly the same) has a rational desire that the rule not beobeyedwith regardto him.

Since violence is defined as an unwanted violation of the first fivemoral rules, it is no accident that all rational men generally con-demn violence. But rational men need not condemn all violence;they may agree that some violence is justified.

In order to see why violence is sometimes justifiable, let us con-sider the attitude rational men would have toward the rules if theywere required to take an attitude that they could advocate to allother rational men. This eliminates the egocentricity of the previousattitude and gives us an attitude toward the rules that very closelyapproaches what we now consider to be the appropriate attitude.When something is being advocated in order to reach agreementamong all rational men, I shall say that it is being "publicly advo-cated." When an attitude is adopted in order to be publicly advo-cated, I shall call it a "public attitude." Public advocacy need notbe sincere, though, of course, it can be. A rational man's public at-titude toward the first five moral rules does not encourage blindobedience to them. On the contrary, it allows that quite often theyneed not be obeyed. Less often, all rational men may even publiclyadvocate that they should not be obeyed. Not only are there justi-fied violations of the moral rules; there is even unjustified obedienceto them. For a rational man does not have a fetish for neat, unclut-tered obedience to rules; he desires, insofar as possible, to avoid theunwanted evils that result from violations of the moral rules. Butsometimes violation of a moral rule may result in preventing sig-nificantly more evil than is caused by the violation.

In discussing reason we saw that only those actions which wouldbe irrational if one did not have a reason for them need to be justi-fied. Such actions can be justified by providing reasons that showeither that the action is allowed by reason or, less frequently, thatit is required by it. In a similar manner, only those actions thatwould be immoral if one did not have a reason, need to be morallyjustified. Generally, these are violations of the moral rules. Andsuch violations can be justified by providing reasons that would re-sult either in some rational men publicly advocating such a viola-tion or, less frequently, in all rational men publicly advocatingviolation. Those violations which all rational men would publiclyadvocate, I call violations "required by public reason." If a viola-


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JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE 62I

tion is required by public reason, then public reason prohibitsobeying the rule in this situation. Obeying the rule is morally un-justified. Those violations which some rational men would publiclyadvocate I call violations "allowed by public reason." These kindsof violation cause most of the genuine moral controversy. A viola-tion that no rational man would publicly advocate I call "a vio-lation prohibited by public reason." Such violations are morallyunjustified.One kind of violation required by public reason is one in whichone inflicts an evil on someone, with his consent, in order to preventhis suffering a significantly greater evil. This kind of violation isnot an act of violence.

One kind of violation allowed by public reason is one in whichsignificantly greater evil is prevented by breaking the rule thanwould be caused by the violation, though not for the same person.This is an act of violence.One kind of violation prohibited by public reason is one in whichthe rule is broken simply in order to promote good for oneself orfor someone for whom one is concerned. This is unjustified violence.

We want a formulation of a public attitude toward the moralrules that accounts for the different kinds of violations. The follow-ing formulation seems to be acceptable:Everyone s to obey the rule with regard to everyoneexcept when hewouldpublicly advocateviolating it.

The "except" clause does not mean that all rational men agree thatone is not to obey the moral rule when one would publicly advocateviolating it, only that they do not agree that one is to obey the rulewhen one would publicly advocate breaking it.

Though all rational men would publicly advocate the stated at-titude toward the moral rules, not all rational men will obey therules as the public attitude requires. Though reason requires adopt-ing a certain public attitude, it does not require adopting this atti-tude as one's genuine attitude toward the rules. Reason only allows,it does not require that we act morally. It is a mark of a false theoryto "prove" that it is irrational to act immorally. The most one canhope to show is that reason requires a certain public attitude towardat least some of the moral rules. But all rational men are aware thatagreement in public attitude does not guarantee that no one willviolate a moral rule except when he would publicly advocate violat-ing it. The rational man need not be a hypocrite, but all rationalmen are aware of the possibility of hypocrisy. Awareness of the pos-


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sibility of unjustified violation of the rules requires us to considerthe rational man's attitude toward such violations.All rational men would publicly advocate that all those who un-justifiably violate the moral rules be liable to punishment. Failureto publicly advocate this would lessen the protection from violationsthat all rational men desire. We can now state the rational man'spublic attitude toward each of the moral rules as follows:

Everyone s to obey the rule with regardto everyoneexcept when hewould publicly advocateviolating it. Anyone who violates the rulewhen he would not publicly advocatesuch a violation may be pun-ished.I call this attitude the "moral attitude." Only those rules towardwhich all rational men would publicly take this attitude count asgenuine or basic or justifiable moral rules. It is clear that all ra-tional men would publicly take the moral attitude toward the firstfive moral rules.

Since the moral attitude allows one to break the rule when onewould publicly advocate breaking it, it is important to examinethe circumstances in which a rational man might do this. Publiclyadvocating anything requires that all rational men be able to under-stand and to accept what you are advocating. This means that thecircumstances in which one can publicly advocate violation of a rulemust provide reasons that could be understood and regarded as ade-quate by all rational men. As noted earlier, sometimes these circum-stances will be such that all rational men would publicly advocateviolation of the rule. The clearest example of this kind of case is onein which the person toward whom one is violating the rule has arational desire that the rule be violated with regard to him. But thiskind of violation is not an act of violence. For example, a personwants a rabies shot because he knows that, even though it is verypainful, failure to have it will result in significantly greater painand death. In fact, in this example, given the extreme horror ofdeath by rabies, even if the person, because of his fear of presentpain, did not want the rabies shot, still public reason would requiregiving it to him. This is a case of justified violence. However, whenthe evil that a person would suffer if you did not break the rulewith regard to him is not indisputably significantly greater than theevil he would suffer if you did, then public reason only allows break-ing the rule with regard to him when he does not desire it. Publicreason may also allow violence whenever this results in significantlyless evil being suffered even when the evil is shifted from one person


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JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE 623to another. However, it must be indisputable that the evil being pre-vented by the violence is significantly greater than the evil caused.But even when this is the case, rational men may still publicly advo-cate different courses of action.

Nonetheless, there are extreme cases in which all rational menwould agree that, even if the evil is to be switched from one personto another, there is a point at which the amount of evil to be pre-vented by breaking the rule is so much greater than the amount ofevil caused by breaking it, that one ought to break it. Thus, if aninnocent child contracts some highly dangerous and infectious dis-ease, similar to that which causes plagues, it will be justifiable to useviolence against him in order to keep the plague from spreading.Thus all rational men would publicly advocate some violence evenwhen it is not for the benefit of the person with regard to whom therule was violated. However, this would never be done lightly, andsome rational men will demand an extremely high proportion ofevil prevented to evil caused before they would publicly advocateviolence. Further, all rational men will demand good specific rea-sons for believing that more evil is being prevented by violence thanby obeying the moral rules."Punishment" is also a justifiable violation of the moral rules.Of course, one must be the appropriate person to administer thepunishment. There also is a further limitation, namely, that moreevil should not be inflicted than one would publicly advocate aspunishment for this kind of violation. Violence in order to preventviolence would also be publicly advocated by some rational men.Provided, of course, that one had a good specific reason for think-ing that an act of violence was going to be committed. However,one cannot inflict greater evil than would have been inflicted as thepunishment for the violence unless significantly greater evil is be-ing prevented. If these provisions are not met, then I do not see thepossibility of any rational men still publicly advocating it. Any vio-lence simply in order to obtain some good for someone for whomone is concerned, including oneself, is unjustifiable. No rationalman would publicly advocate this kind of violence. Thus all killingand torturing for pleasure or profit is clearly immoral, whereas kill-ing and torturing to prevent greater killing and torturing may some-times be allowed by public reason.

Thus we now see that rational men may disagree about the justi-fication of some violence. The disagreements will occur, however,within a larger framework of agreement. But this does not meanthat, in genuine cases of moral disagreement, public reason requires


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624 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYtaking one side and prohibits taking the other. For it is very likelythat genuine moral disagreements concerning the justification ofviolence are those which occur within the larger framework, whereit is allowed by reason to publicly advocate either alternative. It ishere that each individual has to decide for himself what violencehe would publicly advocate.

Providing a justification of some violations of the moral rulesdoes not provide a mechanical decision procedure for moral ques-tions. Very few if any genuine moral disputes can be settled by ap-plying this set of justifications to the facts. All I have attempted todo is to provide a limit to genuine moral disputes: to show thatthere is a point beyond which rational men can no longer disagreeabout what morally should be done. Before this point is reached,no application of what I have said will settle the issue. Men mustdecide on their own what weight they will give to the various con-siderations. I have only shown what the morally relevant considera-tions are: the amount of evil to be caused, avoided, or prevented;the rational desires of the people toward whom the rule is to bebroken; and the effect this kind of violation, if allowed, would have.So I have not provided anything that functions like an ideal ob-server to whom one can take any moral problem and who will thenpronounce what ought to be done. The cases that can be answeredclearly by what I have said are those cases in which most peoplehave had no doubt about what is morally right.Though all rational men publicly advocate that a man act mor-ally, they need not publicly advocate that he act this way from cer-tain motives. Some may reply to this, "But sometimes it is themotive that determines the morality of the act." They grant thatsome actions are immoral no matter what the motives, viz., those inwhich we know that our violation of the moral rule will cause moreevil than it prevents. But they hold that the motive sometimes doesdetermine the morality of the action. Killing an incurable cancerpatient who had requested to be killed would be immoral if I didit in order to benefit myself or someone I cared for, but not if I didit in order to prevent his suffering.

Persuasive as this reasoning sounds, the conclusion is false. It isnot the motive that determines the morality of the action; it iswhether one would publicly advocate that sort of violation. If onewould publicly advocate the violation, then the violation is not im-moral no matter what the motive for it. If one would not, the viola-tion is immoral, regardless of the motive. Two factors serve to ob-scure this point: (1) We do not distinguish carefully enough be-


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JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE 625tween our moral judgment on the act and the moral judgment wemake on a person who acts from certain kinds of motives. (2) Webelieve that certain kinds of motives lead people to violate moralrules even when they would not publicly advocate such violations,whereas other kinds of motives naturally lead only to violations thatone would publicly advocate. It is primarily this second belief,which is probably true, that accounts for the false view that themotive determines the morality of an act. The morality of a viola-tion of the moral rules is determined by whether one would pub-licly advocate such a violation. The motive at most determines themoral worth of the action, i.e., how much it indicates about themoral character of the agent.It is extremely important to realize that an action can be bothimmoral and contrary to one's self-interest. Failure to realize this,together with the view that all rational actions are either requiredby self-interest or required by morality, leads to the view that when-ever a rational person sacrifices himself for others he is acting mor-ally. But violating the moral rules when one would not publicly ad-vocate such a violation is immoral even if one is willing to sacrificeone's life in performing the violation. Unjustified violations of themoral rules that are contrary to one's self-interest are not just alogical possibility. On the contrary, without underestimating theamount of evil caused by immoral actions done from motives ofself-interest, I think that considerably more evil has been causedby immoral actions that were contrary to the self-interest of theagent. Religions have provided motives for men to act in ways thatwere both immoral and contrary to their self-interest. The amountof evil caused by self-sacrificing immoral actions for religious rea-sons is incredible. So many men have not only slaughtered othersbut risked their own lives in advancing the interests of their reli-gion that it is impossible to hold that self-interest is the sole causeof immoral action.But religion is only one of many sources of reasons for beingimmoral. One is often immoral in order to advance the interests ofone's social or economic class. And sometimes these immoral actionsrequire some sacrifice of self-interest. Men often act both immorallyand contrary to their self-interest in order to advance the interestsof their race or ethnic group. But today probably the greatest andmost serious source of reasons for being immoral come from one'scountry. Many men are not only willing, but anxious to sacrificetheir lives for their country even when their country is engaged in


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an immoral war. The evil caused by immoral actions due to na-tionalism probably outweighs the evil caused by the immoral ac-tions due to all other reasons put together. Taking an interest inone's country need not lead to immoral actions. To be willing todo whatever is in the best interests of one's country except act im-morally, is the mark of a patriot. A nationalist is one who is willingto advance the interests of his country even when this requires himto act immorally. To keep patriotism from degenerating into na-tionalism is impossible without a clear understanding of morality.Usually one does not consider whether one would be willing topublicly advocate one's judgment on some moral matter, e.g., a vio-lation of a moral rule. Sometimes a man may even believe that hewould be willing to publicly advocate his judgment, but further re-flection convinces him that he would not. It is this latter case thatis most appropriately called "making a mistaken moral judgment."It is not surprising that people often make mistaken moral judg-ments. It is no easy matter to see what one would publicly advocate.One must consider what one would advocate if one did not knowwho the parties involved were, but knew only the morally relevantfacts; for no beliefs about individuals can be used when publiclyadvocating an attitude. Sometimes considering the act with the twoparties reversed is helpful. But not always. A judge should not con-sider what he would advocate if he were the criminal. What hemust consider is what he would publicly advocate.The distinction between moral judgments and judgments madeon moral matters allows one to make a simple statement aboutmoral progress. Moral progress occurs as judgments on moral mat-ters become moral judgments. Assuming, of course, that these judg-ments are not hypocritical. It is generally not realized how manyjudgments on moral matters are not even intended to be moraljudgments. Many people realize that their judgments cannot bepublicly advocated, but do not care about this. They are not con-cerned with reaching agreement among all rational men, only witha limited number. In primitive societies this often includes only theother members of the society. In civilized societies, it may not eveninclude this much. Some people make judgments that could beagreed to only by people with a similar social status. Some peoplemake judgments that could be accepted only by people of the samerace or religion. Indeed, in modern societies a man is usually con-sidered a highly moral man if his judgments on moral matters couldbe agreed to by all members of his society. Since most of the moral


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JUSTIFYING VIOLENCE 627matters one makes judgments upon are matters concerning onlythose people in one's society, it is easy to overestimate the extent ofmoral progress. A man whose judgments on domestic matters makehim seem a most moral man often is seen not to be so when hemakes judgments on foreign policy.

One of the lesser, but nonetheless significant evils of war is thereversing of moral progress. People, whose judgments on moralmatters had been genuine moral judgments, no longer make thesame judgments. Especially when the moral rules are violated bytheir country, they make judgments they could not possibly pub-licly advocate. They no longer care about reaching agreementamong all rational men; they care only about reaching agreementamong their fellow countrymen. They even condemn as unpatrioticthose who continue to make genuine moral judgments on such mat-ters. Thus nationalism overwhelms morality, not only as the basisfor action, but also as the basis for judgment. Confusion aboutmorality often allows nationalistic judgments to pass for moralones, a confusion often not only supported by the leaders of thecountry but often shared by them. Sometimes, however, nationalismis explicitly put forward as superior to morality. "My country, rightor wrong" is a slogan war makes respectable even in the most civ-ilized societies. Thus war often causes people to lose that decent re-spect for the opinion of mankind that morality demands.To summarize and make relevant. Violence, i.e., an unwanted in-tentional violation of any of the first five moral rules, is justifiableonly when one would publicly advocate such a violation. In mostsituations, a necessary condition for being able to publicly advocatesuch a violation is that there be good reason to believe that the vio-lation will prevent more death, pain, etc., than it causes. Violence isnot justified as a purely symbolic protest against injustice; one mustbelieve this protest will have some beneficial effect. It is not betterwhen it is all in vain, as some members of the Cyrano Left believe.Neither purity of heart nor willingness to sacrifice oneself justifiesviolence, and it is even clearer that attempts to ease one's consciencedo not do so. However, these mistaken attempts to justify individualacts of violence do not result in as much death, pain, disability, etc.,as the mistaken attempts to justify collective violence. National self-interest, except for self-defense, does not justify violence, nor doesnational honor. To use violence to defend honor is to do such vio-lence to the concept of honor, that it will never survive the defense.


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I do not deny that violence is sometimes even required by publicreason and that considerably more violence is allowed by publicreason, but I think there can be no doubt that the overwhelmingmajority of acts of violence are prohibited by public reason and thuscompletely unjustified.

BERNARD GERTDartmouth College

THE DIVINE SIMPLICITY *T HE idea that God is One, as expressed, or example,in the

Shema Yisrael: "Hear 0 Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lordis One," comes in part to this: there is but one God (ifthere's any at all). But it also comes to this: God is a unity, not a"heap."Insofar, God's oneness doesn't differ from the oneness of, say, legsattached to my right side; there's just one, and it's a unity, not a"heap."However, God's uniqueness is, presumably, not accidental,whereas the uniqueness of legs on my right side is. The sense of theterm 'God', supposedly, requires that there be at most one (as itwould require that there be at least one, if the ontological argu-ment in one of its forms is sound), whereas the sense of 'leg attachedto my right side' does not require that there be at most one.

In that way God's uniqueness might be unique.Is there anything unique about God's unity?According to some theologians, God's unity is unique in that Godis absolutely simple. The unity of my right leg involves its being an

organization of proper parts. According to the theologians in ques-tion, God has no proper parts."There cannot be any belief in the unity of God except by admit-ting that He is one simple substance, without any composition orplurality of elements; one from whatever side you view it, and bywhatever test you examine it; not divisible into two parts in anyway and by any cause" (Maimonides).In this paper I want to try to clarify somewhat the idea that Godis thus absolutely simple and to try to show that certain difficulties

* To be presented in an APA symposium on Philosophical Theology, December28, 1969. Commentators will be Norris Clarke and a second commentator, to beannounced.

Gert, B. - Justifying Violence

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