Earlier today I came across an essay by Phyllis Chiasson, Revisiting a Neglected Argument for the Reality of God, and only now have I begun to read it. It looks like I'll have to return to the essay, for C.S.Peirce (the articulator of the neglected argument in question) makes much of the optimism/pessimism dichotomy.

This strikes me, on the face of it, as an illegitimate argumentative gambit regarding the existence of anything, either of gods or dodos or unicorns.

But regarding disposition-dependent concerns, such as ethics, it makes a great deal of sense.

Indeed, Herbert Spencer, in The Data of Ethics, made the distinction between optimism and pessimism the key to useful ethical demonstration. And he had a point. It basically smuggles in an agreed-upon standard, say, happiness, and then allows the discussion of norms and rules to work around hypothetical imperatives said to derive from the standard.

Of course, Chiasson wouldn't bother mentioning Spencer. She's concerned about Peirce, generally thought the better philosopher.

And yet it is Peirce who applies optimism and pessimism to questions of reality, not value, and thus (I hazard) skates hazardously close to thin ice indeed.

But, as I say, I'll have to study Chiasson's essay, and Peirce's, too.

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