Des 013 - The deceiving god & malicious demon.

There is an extensive academic literature discussing the relationship between the deceiving god and the malicious demon. For some they amount to the same thing; for others they are clearly distinct.

Those who regard them as essentially the same seem to think that, when considering Descartes' overall argument, the deceiving God can be simply glossed over. The problem with this is that it doesn’t accurately reflect the text and doesn’t explain why Descartes bothered including the deceiving God.

Those who say they are quite different may say the malicious demon is dispensed with by the cogito but the deceiving God stays in operation until Meditation Three. This approach doesn’t take account of the fact that at the beginning of Meditation Two the text seems to be indifferent as to whether the reader is thinking of a deceiving God or a malicious demon.

The argument for them being different is that a demon isn’t god; God isn’t malicious; and in the text the malicious demon isn’t specifically associated with a doubt about mathematics. In addition, when Descartes was accused of blasphemy for saying God was malicious he pointed out that he had very clearly said they were not the same.

The argument for them being equivalent and having no substantive difference is that the demon is only specifically named as such in Meditation One and, as already mentioned, the wording in Meditations Two and Three suggests a complete indifference as to whether the reader is to think of God or the malicious demon.

The idea that the deceiving God had to be replaced by the demon because God is good and not a deceiver can be dismissed because Meditation One contains a clear argument that a good God could be a deceiver even if this position is rejected later in the Meditations.

Similarly, the idea that the deceiving God had to be replaced because it was so offensive can be dismissed for if that were so it is difficult to understand why Descartes would have introduced it in the first place and then used it to arrive at a conclusion that is said to be well thought out.

Perhaps the best solution is to remember that it is a meditation not a lecture. Within the story the meditator fails to be convinced by the argument set out in the first half of Meditation One despite recognising it as having a well thought out conclusion. Accordingly, Descartes has the meditator ‘up the ante’ by, as an act of will, choosing to believe that the things previously considered are not just doubtful but actually false. Since he has already used the deceiving God in the first half of the Meditation and that hasn’t worked, he needs a new approach in this second half of the Meditation. When he gets to Meditation Two the indifference as to which is meant is easily explained by saying that Descartes, the author, was allowing his readers to use whichever best worked for them. Throughout Meditation One Descartes has used the narrator as a guide to lead the thinking of the reader. He has already used the narrator to float the idea that there may be no God at all. The show of indifference in Meditation Two is Descartes no longer using the narrator to dictate to the reader which option they should follow. It doesn’t matter for, whether the reader prefers the deceiving God or the malicious demon, the cogito will still be achieved.

In summary, distinguishing the deceiving God from the malicious demon has several advantages,

• Structurally, it helps to distinguish the first part of the Meditation where things doubtful are rejected from the second half where there is a deliberate act of will to believe those things are actually false.
• From the point of view of the meditator, it gives a new meditation aid when using the deceiving God had led to a theoretically successful conclusion but one that was psychologically unsatisfying.
• From the point of view of Descartes the author, it meant that he didn’t need his readers to dwell on a deceiving God when he ultimately wanted them to eventually conclude that God wasn’t a deceiver and it also meant that his argument would have a wider appeal taking in both those who believed in God and those who found it easier to imagine the possibility of a malicious demon.