Abstract
One problem which results from seeing morality in terms of the three orders becomes apparent when Pascal discounts the conscience as a guide to conduct and appeals to the will of God to determine whether acts are right or wrong. The fragment already quoted,1 where he sets out to justify the stand he takes in the Provinciales, shows how the radical disparity between the natural and supernatural orders leads him to this position.
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References
Cf. Hastings Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, 2nd ed., Oxford 1924, vol. II, pp. 174–188, 291–4.
For an account of the Augustinian conception on which Pascal’s version of the doctrine is clearly based see N.P. Williams, The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin, London 1927, pp. 372–382.
Cf. John Stuart Mill’s discussion of Dean H. L. Mansel’s position on this question, which closely resembles that of Pascal, in An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, 2nd ed., London 1865, pp. 98–102.
L. 896; B. 390. Pascal’s English contemporary John Selden uses a telling example to emphasize his similar view of the disproportion between human and divine attributes. “Nay wee measure the excellency of God from ourselves, wee measure his goodness his Justice, his wisdome by something wee call just good or wise in our selves, and in soe doeing wee judge proporconably to the Country fellow in the play, who said, If hee were a King hee would live like a Lord, and have pease and Bacon every day and a Whipp that cry’de Slash.” Table Talk of John Selden, ed. Sir Frederick Pollock, London 1927, p. 77.
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© 1975 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Baird, A.W.S. (1975). Problems Inherent in the Three Orders as Applied to Moral Questions. In: Studies in Pascal’s Ethics. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idees / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1623-0_5
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