How an Unsurpassable Being Can Create a Surpassable World

Abstract

This seems coherent: a morally unsurpassable and omnipotent being (Jove) is faced with a choice of which world to actualize where for any he might actualize there is a better. He creates a device that randomly selects from amongst the worlds he can actualize. The world that is chosen is, of course, surpassable, and yet, he seems not. We defend this conclusion against three versions of the claim that since someone could produce a world which surpassed Jove's, that being could morally surpass Jove. The first is that a superior being confronted with Jove's choice would not create at all; the second is that he would use Jove's device and it would select a superior world; the third is that he would create a superior world without using Jove's device. We argue that none of these ways of behaving would show that he was morally superior to Jove.