Might Beauty Bolster the Moral Argument for God?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
I'm passing along these small edits to complete the proofreading process for the final copy:
Note 3: complete the note
Text, ca. line 10: IRISH Murdock (fix).
Line 146: chg to ‘as it is in…’
Line 161: CPR published _7_ years before CPrR; fix 4 to 7. 2nd edition of CPR was 1987, so I'm not sure which version you are counting from or to.
Line 597 chg ‘of’ to ‘or.’
Author Response
Thanks so much for all your help!
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
For the most part this paper is well argued and ready for publication. The references are mostly thorough, relevant, and accurate. However, two aspects of the paper should be improved before a revised version is submitted.
First and most importantly, the last section of the paper, on the doctrine of eternal damnation for the unsaved, seems totally out of place in a paper such as this one. True, a brief effort is made to connect this topic with the paper's topic. Nevertheless, that effort fails: the last section reads like a draft of a completely separate paper, that was tacked on to this paper simply to bring it within the length-range of a normal journal article. Not only does the abstract never even mention this last section, but the section ends without returning to the paper's main topic and explaining how it is relevant. As the problems raised by this traditional Christian doctrine cause more problems than they solve for the author(s)'s main thesis, as evidenced by the fact that the author(s) openly state(s) that he/she/they (being universalist) do not accept the doctrine, the whole section can merely be deleted without anything essential being omitted from the paper's main argument.
In place of the main section, the author(s) should compose a new concluding section that clearly sets out his/her/their position on the Hare-Ameriks debate that is sketched in the paper's earlier sections. I suggest one approach to proposing a way forward in that debate below, when discussing the second weakness that needs to be addressed in revising the paper. Incidentally, aside from a new Conclusion, giving the reader a clear statement of how one can move beyond the Hare-Ameriks debate on this issue, the author(s) need(s) to state more clearly, at some earlier point in the paper, exactly what Hare's argument actually is. Several references are made to the argument throughout the paper, but I found no statement explaining precisely what Hare takes his argument to be. It need not be lengthy, but some such summary of Hare's argument needs to be given, especially since the publication where Hare introduces this argument is new (published in 2023).
The second weakness that needs correcting is that, although the references are for the most part thorough, relevant, and accurate, they need to be improved in two respects. The first is very minor: a reference is missing in the first half of the paragraph just following note 46; several quotes are given, obviously from some source, but no reference is specified.
The other case of missing reference to the relevant literature is more significant: on page 5 the author lists John Hare, Karl Ameriks, and Stephen Palmquist as the leading scholars who have addressed the main question dealt with in this paper. Throughout the paper, quite a few references are given to both Hare and Ameriks; but nothing is said about Palmquist's contribution to the paper's main topic. While Palmquist has never to my knowledge explicitly addressed the precise debate between Hare and Ameriks that is the focus of most of this paper (namely, the relevance of aesthetics to theology in general and moral arguments for God in particular), he does address several related themes that would be relevant to mention. Some of these might even provide the author(s) with a helpful way forward in the standoff between Hare and Ameriks, thus helping the author(s) to provide a clearer and more persuasive conclusion in response to the first weakness, mentioned above.
Of the various possible publications that the author(s) might find relevant to this topic, Palmquist's 2009 Faith and Philosophy article, which discusses a possible "religious argument" for God's existence in Kant's Religion, comes to mind as an obvious example, since the author(s) are focusing on moral/transcendental arguments that have an aesthetic element. Palmquist reads Kant's theory of religion as a sequel to the third Critique, not the second Critique, so he seems to be claiming that Kant had some kind of aesthetic version of the moral argument in mind here. Although I do not recall whether the argument in Palmquist's 2009 paper appeals explicitly to beauty, it definitely sets out to synthesize moral considerations with aesthetic ones (such as the cohesiveness of a religious community) in a way that seems to bolster the argument being defended in this paper.
Another possible source that the author(s) may wish to consult, in order to explain how Palmquist's work is relevant to the Hare-Ameriks debate, is a relatively unknown paper that I heard him deliver at the 12th International Kant Congress in 2015. Thankfully, it was published in the proceedings of that Congress, under the title "Creative Genius: The Aesthetic Basis for a Kantian Symbolic Theology". This title by itself should indicate to the author(s) how relevant this paper would be to the theme of this paper.
If the author(s) carefully consider these and the various other writings in which Palmquist has argued that theology can benefit from a consideration of the close relation between religion and aesthetic issues, the author(s) should have plenty of new material to allow for a new and more persuasive concluding section to be written for this paper, thus also correcting the first weakness mentioned above.
The standard of English language usage in this paper is generally very high. There are only two small points that require improvement. One is that the manuscript as submitted uses inconsistent formatting: in quite a few places the standard black typescript changes to red, without any explanation of whether this change has any significance; and in a few places the standard type size changes to small type. Similarly, several footnotes use bold print in an apparently random way. Most likely the journal's typesetting procedure would automatically fix these inconsistencies, but the author(s) should not submit the manuscript in this form, just in case the journal's typesetting process fails to catch these typesetting inconsistencies. Also, throughout the paper, contractions (such as "it's" for "it is" or "we'll" for "we will") are used very regularly. While this might be appropriate in the version of a paper that is presented at a conference, it is not appropriate for published papers. These contractions should all be removed and replaced by the standard English words without the use of the apostrophe.
As far as the grammar is concerned, I found only a few very minor errors, some or all of which are probably just typos. The author(s) should watch out for these in preparing the revised version and correct them. One example here will suffice: on the last page of the paper, the word "of" appears (in the phrase "quality of quantity") where it seems that the word "or" was intended.
Author Response
I really appreciate your pushing me to make this better! Your investment of time hasn't gone unnoticed; thank you!
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
One of the difficulties of assessing the critical value of this paper was that it refers to a paper (see note 3) by Karl Ameriks which is 'unpublished,' and Ameriks's paper is not one that I am familiar with or have access to. To improve the paper, it may be helpful to lay out more of Ameriks's reasons for why he disagreed with Hare's conclusions about Kant's 3rd Critique, e.g. Lines 51-59 are extremely helpful; it would be good to say more. What strikes the reader is arguably an insufficient interaction with Kant in this paper. I do not think it would take to much to enhance this current draft by adding some parts about how Kant's philosophy is a philosophy of limits, and how Kant uses the limit notion, coupled with a priori concepts, to turn the practical use of pure reason to something that we can actually identify that is necessarily the case (e.g. that virtue must be rewarded, but that it is not in this world (and we actually know that fact), and we in our limited state cannot ourselves bring about that virtue is always rewarded). What would be helpful and paper-enhancing here would be either to identify Hare's "shared premises with the moral argument"--which ones are shared? What are they?--and spell out a bit more how aesthetic judgments are a symbol of morality. What are the a priori principles that Kant sees at work in the 3rd Critique by which he (combined with his philosophy of limits) thinks that he can show that there are in fact things that we must have to be true in order for human freedom to be fulfilled (or, for humans properly to act or act morally, say) or for human freedom to come to totalization or to fulfillment vis a vis 'nature.' If nature is determined by physical law, but freedom isn't, how can these (in a philosophy of limits) be squared away, shown to co-habit together? These are the sorts of questions that crop up here in this paper. It is elegant, it is short--that is glorious. But the paper could be strategically expanded (just 2-3 pages) by addressing some of these specific points of enhancement, it strikes me. That is what I would suggest at this point for this very fine paper that you have so far; good efforts here and an impressive reference to recent literature (e.g. on arguments for God's existence).
Some other points to consider:
Line 28: What sort of beginning does the author have in mind here: Temporal? Conceptual? Logical? Procedural? Epistemological order, perhaps?
Line 28: Referent of term ‘it’? Clarify.
Line 28-30: Here, the author is reporting what von Balthasar’s position was on the matter. Von Balthasar seemed to have held that there is a conceptually intrinsically close relationship in with Kant’s 3rd critique between the beautiful and the moral. If the referent of ‘it’ on Line 28 is ‘beauty,’ then the author writes, ‘[the beauty, according to von Balthasar] can offer an enrapturing vision of how the world ought to be, something that includes our will within God’s animating providence.’
Line 162: Correct sp: “Pearce” should be “[C. S.] Pierce.”
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
It is odd that the point of departure is an unpublished response to Hare. The reader has to take the author's word for it that he got Amerik's right and the reader cannot read Amerik's full treatment. That is a bad way to start.
The paper starts out promising, but soon devolves into repeated qualifications, hesitations, and programmatic suggestions without much progress being made. It is turgid and afraid to make many substantial points. I often wondered what the actual arguments are that are being limned. It is better to see premise-conclusion formulations--that is, more analytic mechanism for clarity.
There are several incomplete sentences. Authors should be identified by full first names, not nicknames. James should not be Jim. Stephen should not be Steve.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
