Most of us are aware of the argument from evil and the various wranglings associated with it for example the debates about whether God could create free willed beings who would always chose to do the good. These debates are typically metaphysical debates about theodicies. Theodicies however are less commonly challenged on ethical grounds, to give one example it is rare for proponents of the argument from evil to respond to the free will theodicy (roughly the claim that the existence of evil is justified because it is a necessary consequence of having free will which is a great good) with the claim that free will doesnt really have great value.
I want to suggest that actually moral issues and particularly the moral presuppositions of theodicies need to be investigated further. For example I argue that many theodicies will only succeed if something like consequentialism/utilitarianism is true.
To give a crude example suppose the free will theodicy is being used as a global response to the argument from evil. Often at least some of the benefits of the existence of free will will accrue to those who suffer from the negatives of the existence of free will. But this will not always be the case, nor will the distribution of these benefits be comparative to the harms, sometimes some will benefit very little but be harmed very much.
Given this then a proponent of the free will theodicy as a global response to the argument from evil must also endorse this unequal distribution, and claim that sometimes the harms to one are justified because of the benefits to others.
I claim (though I won't defend it here) that most other theodicies face the same problems, and that there are at least some evils which cannot be explained except by reference to benefits to others.
Take for example the rape and murder of a small child.
But the claim that harms to one can be justified by benefits to others is highly controversial and needs further justification.
Are there theodicies which escape this challenge?
I think virtually every theodicy can be formulated in a utilitarian way as a weighing of good and bad consequences, concluding that the good consequences outweigh the bad. But why can't the same theodicies be put in terms of deontological principles? The same weighing effect can take place not between consequences but between prima facie moral duties. Kant wouldn't like this, since he thought God couldn't have duties, but if you put that aside it makes perfect sense to say that God might have a prima facie duty to put down all evil but that other duties might interfere with that and therefore cancel it if they're more important. That's why I'm not sure this kind of argument will get anywhere unless you can find some theodicies that can't fit into that kind of strategy. I haven't thought hard about how this would be done, but a paper in Faith and Philosophy argues on this basis that consequentialist assumptions actually hurt the theist in responding to the problem of evil and that deontological considerations make it harder to frame the problem of evil. I don't have the time to find the paper right now, but it was within the last two or three years.
Marilyn Adams has a paper in The Problem of Evil (Robert and Marilyn Adams, ed.) in which she is concerned with some similar issues. To follow up on your example (which is nearly the same as one she uses), how can it be justifiable to allow the rape and murder of a small child? She suggests there must be some benefit _for the child itself_ in order to absolve God of blame. If I remember right she offers two suggestions: 1) that there will be counter-balancing rewards in heaven which outweigh the evils the child underwent, or 2) there's a great good even in the very act of suffering. A sort of martyr, purification by fire sort of thing that will somehow outweight the evil of the suffering.
So she's worried about a similar concern, and offers some suggestions for how it actually _isn't_ the case that the distribution of evils/goods is unjust.....
I'vebeen struggling with this toic for a while now, but our conclusions are slightly different. I myself in stuck on this: I can't see how the freedom of the will as such is related to the problem of moral evil at all. While the freedom of the will can certainly explain why moral evils are possible, how can this freedom, considered as such, explain why evils are actually done? What is there in the idea of freedom that necessitates that it be used poorly? There is a further problem in this: the freedom of the will follows the indeterminacy of the intellect, but moral evils by definition are contrary to the operation of intellect.
See if you think this is fair: moral evil does not proced from freedom of the will AS SUCH, but from a freedom that is broken and damaged. I posted more at length on this point on december 8th ad December 3rd. Hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks to all for your comments
Jeremy, I think you are referring to Eric Reitan's paper where he does argue that the Argument from Evil cannot be given in an ethical neutral manner, and that Kantian thoughts might serve as a good basis for theodicies. I am in effect arguing the opposite that theodicies cannot be given in an ethically neutral manner.
"But why can't the same theodicies be put in terms of deontological principles?" I think they can, but... Then they cannot explain the existence of all evils since deontology introduces constraints not recognised by consequentialists, in particular not using agents as merely a means to anothers ends.
David I think this is a more fruitful way to address the concern I am raising, since it would mean that not even the child is being used merely as a means to an end. However I was unconvinced by Adam's argument, while I understand her strategy I am skeptical about the use of appealing to the notion of heaven in this case. For heaven to do the work required of it, it would have to be the case that the evil was neccesary for the childs entry to heaven. This seems firstly bizarre and secondly creates another distributive problem, namely if suffering great evil is essential for getting into heaven (or vip treatment etc) then why haven't I been blessed with great evil in my life?
Shulamite, I personally am not convinced that the existence of free will does neccesitate the existence of evil. I am just using it as a common example of theodicy which many theists will endorse, and suggesting that they oughtn't endorse the ethical reasoning it presupposes.
Kantian deontology includes constraints on human beings using other human beings as a means to an end. Does Rossian deontology have an absolute constraint on that? I didn't think he had any absolute constraints. Does even a Kantian view require that God face such constraints? (That, of course, can't be how Kant would frame the question, because he can't talk of God having obligations, but it could be reworded in a much more complicated way to adjust for that.)
David,
The only theodicy I find that avoids the problem you cite is one where God relates to a human race that is damaged. This damage of man allows both for the evils he commits, and for the possibility of a cure for man that will do more than restore him, but also lift him to a higher state than he would have had than if he had never been broken. Our broken nature allows for a cure that binds us to the supernatural.
That man has a broken nature, I take to be knowable by reason. That he might be cured, I take as at least a logical possibility, one that might give a sort of benefit in allowing those evils you mentioned. In other words, I'm suggesting the theodicy of St. Augustine.
David,
Oh...wait a sec. As I read your post again, I am confused. Are you looking for a possible theodicy that does NOT have to explain evil on the basis of some benefit that is given?
This seems to be impossible. If one explains evil, they must do so (logically speaking) either by means of something evil, neutral, or good. If it is evil, we have not explained anything; if it is neutral, we cannot explain it.
To justify the existence of anything is to point to some good. The only way for a theodicy avoid positing some good to justify or explain evil would be to ignore evil altogether.
Are we agreeing or disagreeing here?
Shulamite, what David is saying is that the consequentialist principle you're assuming is exactly the wrong way to approach the problem of evil, at least if you want to be effective in responding to it among those who aren't utilitarians.
It occurred to me that there's a way of doing something for a reason that has to do with benefiting someone that doesn't require either libertarian freedom or consequentialism. What does a compatibilist say about punishment? The person has to have demonstrated a certain degree of independence from the kinds of constraint that a compatibilist recognizes as preventing freedom. Similarly, if compatibilism is true, certain kinds of human interaction need to be possible for genuine relationships. To blame someone for rejecting God, then, there must have been that level of responsibility. It's possible that even that level, something libertarians don't consider necessary for freedom but compatibilists do, will require certain conditions. Being able to predict the consequences of our actions reasonably is one. Many of the other things theodicists raise as necessary from freedom will also come in.
Now here's the catch. This isn't about holding these things up as intrinsic goods worth having that make it worth all the evil they require. It's that God must allow these conditions for his actions to be morally good according to deontological criteria. This is why I think most of what a consequentialist says can be reworked, often with notable changes, to continue as a theodicy without consequentialist assumptions.
David, you said that consequentialists allow more theodicies because they allow using someone as a means to an end. I'm not sure. Since deontologists don't allow that, they may restrict God's actions more, which means God might have to allow more evil to avoid using people as a means to the end of removing the evil. In the end, I'm just not sure those general ethical theories are going to make a quantitative difference in how many things a theodicist can say.
I have a flat-footed question along these lines. Most problem-of-evil arguments rely on what ethicists call thin ethical concepts (e.g. good, right,...). But some have argued that, for example, the notion of a _best_ possible world is incoherent. So I've been wondering who, if anyone, has put forward a problem-of-evil argument solely in terms of thick ethical concepts. For example, one might argue that it is part of our concept of God that God is not cruel, and yet that an omnipotent, omniscient being who allows little children to suffer is cruel. Or pick a different thick ethical concept (kind, caring).
I'm sure someone must have developed this argument, but I'd appreciate any pointers. Thanks.