I've often heard the charge that theists have a harder time responding to the problem of evil if they hold to a deontological ethical view. Deontology recognizes duties that can't easily be overridden by consequences the way consequentialism allows. Consequentialists say the right thing to do is to do whatever leads to the best consequences. If God does this, then God can do things that lead to bad consequences as long as the good consequences that also happen are better enough to outweigh the bad. So it's easier to deal with the problem of evil if all it takes to justify God's allowance of evil is that it leads to a slightly better outcome overall, even if it's worse with respect to the evil itself. Deontologists, on the other hand, might just say that the duty not to harm or not even to allow harm can't so easily be outweighed by the overall good. Some things are just wrong, and God shouldn't therefore do them. Allowing very great evils seems to be a pretty good candidate for that category of action. It's thus harder to respond to the problem of evil with a deontological view than it is with a consequentialist view.
I used to be a little disturbed at this problem, wondering whether a "higher goods" type of defense that I favor requires a consequentialist view, a view I'm not otherwise attracted to. But it's occurred to me recently that the problem assumes a kind of deontology that I don't agree with. It assumes the absolutism of Immanuel Kant's deontology, not a more moderated kind of deontology such as that of W.D. Ross, which I favor. On Ross's view, we have prima facie duties, none of which are absolute the way duties for Kant are. Duties can often conflict for Ross, and when they conflict only one will turn out to be an actual duty, whichever one is morally more important. In a case of lying to save a life, the life is more important than the normal duty not to lie, but in a case of lying to protect your reputation it's still going to be wrong to lie, even if the consequences are better from lying. So this is not consequentialism, but it's not absolutism either.
Now apply this to the problem of evil. There will be potential cases when God would not do something wrong, because even though the consequences are better it would be wrong to do it. But it leaves open that some goods are so important that God might allow pretty serious harm in order to achieve them. This means that the moderate deontologist can have consequence-based responses to the problem of evil that an absolutist deontologist can't have. This may have been all I was worried about losing by adopting a deontological ethical view, even if consequentialists might have yet more to say to defend a divinity from being immoral for allowing evil.
I should add one footnote. Some deontological views don't recognize any moral value in consequences at all. Kant's own view in fact treats consequences as morally irrelevant, at least in cases where I have a duty not to do something. (He accepts a duty of benevolence and duties to ourselves, both of which are influenced by consequences, but these aren't absolutist duties, and absolutist duties like the prohibition on lying or suicide will always outweigh the consequence-based duties.) If consequences are irrelevant, and there are certain things God ought to do no matter the consequences, then the theist may actually be on even better footing than consequentialism would provide. After all, the problem only arises because it is claimed that God, on the traditional theistic conception, would be immoral for allowing all this evil in the world. But if consequences are morally irrelevant, the problem never arises. So I wonder if the absolutist deontologist might have some defense. I think such a defense would need to list what duties God has that, in carrying them out, would lead to all this morally irrelevant evil. Since I find the idea of morally irrelevant evil to be nonsense, I don't favor this. But it does seem to be a kind of absolutist deontological view that at least has theoretical space to avoid the problem raised about deontology and the problem of evil.
If God created the universe the way it is, and came up with the law of morality to be binding upon human interactions, gave us the facilities to understand this law, then why should God be bound to follow the morality he laid out for humans? The biblical God certainly was not bound by human notions of morality. God killed many people in the old testemant, despite instructing the Jews to not kill. This "problem of evil" makes no sense to me.
A couple points:
(1) It seems to me that moderate deontologies are intuitively very attractive. But it's notoriously difficult (I'm not sure people even try) to specify, in a principled way, the threshold at which an act goes from being wrong to right--the amount of consequential value that needs to be at stake before an act's moral status switches. Ross's answer, being a good intuitionist, is that we just see when this is so. But this isn't satisfying, and my impression is that many or most contemporary ethicists find Ross grossly inadequate on this score. So, as w. all other normative theories, moderate deontology isn't without it's difficulties.
(2) We should also see that, while the moderate deontologist might have an easier time than the absolute deontologist, she still has a more difficult time than the consequentialist. The consequentialist just needs the goodness of the consequences to outweigh the badness of the evil--by whatever margin, no matter how small--for God to be justified in permitting a certain evil. The moderate deontologist, by contrast, needs the good that results from the evil to *substantially* outweigh the bad--above the relevant threshold--for God to be justified. This is a taller order, especially given that many evils don't appear to have any good consequences at all.
(3) I don't think it's right to say that, for Kant, consequences are irrelevant. They're relevant in that the consequences of an act are in many cases essential to classifying or determining the identity of the act itself. Consequences are relevant to properly describing actions, and so to properly formulating maxims. Maybe we can say that consequences aren't relevant qua consequences, conceived as some morally relevant feature over-and-above the act itself. But this doesn't mean they're not needed to determine what sort of act we're talking about. (E.g., I aim the gun and pull the trigger. As a consequence, the bullet hits and kills Steve. The act is an act of killing, and perhaps murder. As opposed to my pulling the trigger and the bullet missing Steve. Not an act of killing or murder, but attempted killing or murder.)
Drapetomanic, you're assuming God invented morality from scratch. If so, then it attributes nothing to God to say that he is good. Very few theistic philosophers are attracted to that sort of view nowadays. Most take morality to have some basis in something not decided by God, either because of a metaphysically perfect nature that gives rise to a character of perfection in which morality is grounded (my preferred view) or because morality is simply what it is by necessity, independent of God altogether.
Luke, I'll take your comments in order.
1. This doesn't sound like what I've read in Ross. It's true that he doesn't give a criterion for that and that he doesn't think we could know it, but I don't think it has anything to do with grounding it in our intuitions. Intuitions play a role in our epistemic grasp of morality, and his reasoning is simply that it's the only thing we have to go on. The only reason we have any moral views to begin with is because we have particular intuitions about particular cases. So when we seek to discover what moral principles apply in any given case, we have to rely on whatever intuitions we have. He doesn't claim this to be infallible, and he's open to lots of explanations for what makes moral truths true. But it's all we've got to go on.
I think when you supplement this with theism and a reliabilist epistemology, with a designed capacity for our moral intuitions to be somewhat reliable, we're in much better shape to have a decent account. The objections basically amount to Plantinga-style objections against our abilities to judge moral matters being reliable if naturalism is true. I don't see the worry if theism is true.
2. I mentioned this in my post. It's certainly true that consequentialism would have an easier time, but it's such an unattractive moral view (to me, anyway, and to a number of other theists) that I'd very strongly prefer not to have to rely on it. Also, it's true that moderate deontology has to have substantial goods to overcome the objection this way, but it's impossible for absolutist deontology to rely on higher-order goods. Non-absolutist versions at least allow for the possibility, and when you combine that with skeptical theism you can at least say that there might be intrinsic goods we don't know about, that we might not grasp the intrinsic goods that we already possess, that we underestimate the value of certain things, and so on. Then there are the ones we can have some sense of, e.g. the value of an infinite future of good could outweigh any evil that happens to us in this life, no matter how bad by such a high order of magnitude that I could see it overcoming the threshold of the prima facie duty not to allow it.
3. I'm not sure your point here is substantive. It seems more like a semantic debate. My description of Kant's view is closer to how he describes it than yours is. He specifically says that the only time consequences matter (with perfect duties, anyway) is that they can serve as examples to show us that moral actions can be done. His main point is that the way consequences are involved with imperfect duties (e.g. the duty of beneficence, the duty to develop one's talents) does not apply with perfect duties (e.g. duties not to harm, not to steal, not to lie). Imperfect duties only apply when there are no relevant perfect duties, and so consequences don't ever apply when there are perfect duties the way they apply when there are imperfect duties.
Hi Jeremy,
My point about Ross is just that he doesn't give us any principle to sort out conflict among the prima facie duties. He doesn't tell us when, e.g., the duty to promote the good outweighs the duty not to harm, and when it doesn't. So what else could do the work other than our intuitions about particular cases?
I grant that theism and a reliabilist epistemology fit well w. a Rossian scheme. But I'm still not sure we have any principled way to sort out disagreement over where the threshold lies. And I think there's bound to be lots of disagreement here.
In general, it seems to me that people only become Rossians when they've more-or-less given up on ethical theory. There's really no theory in Ross: all the prima facie duties are primitive, and can't be justified in terms of more basic or fewer principles. They're just intuited to be basic. We end up w. a laundry list, not obviously connected in any systematic way. For many, this isn't satisfying.
I can't figure out why some people find consequentialism so counterintuitive. It tells us to always bring about a better rather than worse state of affairs--what could be more intuitive than that? Isn't there something deeply counterintuitive about positively forbidding people to bring about more rather than less good? I agree that consequentialism appears to run up against our intuitions where particular act-evaluations are concerned, in a way deontology doesn't. But why should this be decisive? Maybe this can be explained away. Or maybe it's more important for one's basic principle to be intuitively acceptable than the outputs of one's theory. I don't see that this is obviously false.
Jeremy,
I appreciate this post, not least because it is right in line with my recent thinking on this topic. I recently wrote on how Leibniz has led us astray in this discussion by assuming a consequentialist ethic (not to mention a deterministic metaphysic). In light of the terrors of the 20th century, I don't agree that it is easier for the consequentialist to respond to the problem of evil. As Dostoyevsky asks through Ivan in Brothers Karamozov,
"Imagine that you are creating the fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature...and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?"
This seems to be a devastating critique of the consequentialist position, because surely (for most of us) we would answer with Alyosha that we would not consent, even though from a purely consequentialist framework, one would obviously have to consent. Yet, here we are in such a world. Thus, God must have had other (non-consequentialist) criteria for his creation. Therefore, I think some form of moderate deontology is actually better suited to responding to the problem of evil than the typical consequentialist responses. My vote is still out on whether that's Ross's form or not.
Best,
DC
There is the trade off in Ross of systematicity for complexity that appeals to some people who feel that utilitarian (consequentialist) moral theories offer a simplistic model of moral reasoning. Ross offers a model of moral reasoning that seems truer to moral experience. It seems right that there's no simple algorithem or calculus for resolving moral uncertainty, and perhaps moral theories should reflect that. It seems mistaken that the whole moral economy runs on hedon exchange. I don't think they stop being theories for conceding imprecision; they just stop emulating theories in disciplines that afford more precision.
Luke,
I agree, it's not such a good start if we're aiming at some simpler moral theory. But if these are genuinely primitive goods, then there is no simpler theory available, no? What I like about Ross is that he raised the stakes about moral theorizing. If you want a simpler moral theory, you have to do justice to what genuinely look like primitive moral goods. That does not mean that you cannot provide such a theory; it does mean that you can't do it on the cheap. So it is more like a sense of fair play that I like (a lot) about Ross. Maybe he gave in too soon on the possibiliy of a simpler unified moral theory, but he did see clearly what a good theory would demand.
Why can't a Rossian ground the prima facie duties in virtues, particularly in the character of God?
I think I agree with everything Mike said, but let me try to come at what I think is his main point from a different direction. I assume you define 'ethical theory' as a systematic account of all of ethics going back to one fundamental principle. If that's ethical theory, then Ross certainly doesn't have one, but it's a pretty tendentious view of what counts as a theory. He's certainly doing quite a bit of theoretical discussion, and he presents views on various theoretical issues. That sounds like he's doing ethical theory to me.
Jeremy,
The less principles, the simpler the theory; the simpler the theory, the better. I don't think that 'one fundamental principle' is a strict condition of adequacy. I do think that eleven fundamental principles, a la Ross, makes for a pretty non-simple, and so (ceteris paribus) pretty weak, theory.
Of course, a simple theory is pointless if it doesn't cover the data, or is in some other way manifestly false. And I'm ultimately sympathetic to the charge that consequentialism as a theory doesn't cover the data. But I think that non-consequentialists should own up to the fact that consequentialism is a much simpler and potentially more powerful theory than most deontologies. It arguably just gets the facts wrong.
Mike,
If you find it compelling that Ross's duties and/or goods are primitive, and can't be given a unifying explanation, I see why you'd like him. I guess I have some hope that we'll be able to explain and unify the goods, maybe through some version of perfectionism; and maybe even cash the right in terms of the good. But I also understand why people give up on these hopes!
I wanted to quickly address two points.
Luke wrote:
The consequentialist just needs the goodness of the consequences to outweigh the badness of the evil--by whatever margin, no matter how small--for God to be justified in permitting a certain evil.
I'm not sure that this is right. Suppose that God is faced with the choice between three options. C produces more harm than good. A produces 5 positive utils and 3 negative utils. According to what you've written, that means that God would be justified in permitting these 3 negative utils to be produced. But, if on C God gets the 5 positive utils and only 1 negative util, God would certainly not be justified in choosing B.
Jeremy wrote:
Some deontological views don't recognize any moral value in consequences at all. Kant's own view in fact treats consequences as morally irrelevant, at least in cases where I have a duty not to do something. (He accepts a duty of benevolence and duties to ourselves, both of which are influenced by consequences, but these aren't absolutist duties, and absolutist duties like the prohibition on lying or suicide will always outweigh the consequence-based duties.) If consequences are irrelevant, and there are certain things God ought to do no matter the consequences, then the theist may actually be on even better footing than consequentialism would provide. After all, the problem only arises because it is claimed that God, on the traditional theistic conception, would be immoral for allowing all this evil in the world. But if consequences are morally irrelevant, the problem never arises.
It's true that for Kant the consequences themselves have no moral significance. He thought that there could only be duties to try and not duties to succeed. However, since there is no gap between what God attempts and what God successfully does, it seems we can maintain a Kantian approach to ethics and say that because God did not successfully bring about/avoid bringing about certain consequences that we have a problem. True, the problem does not arise because of the consequences per se, but from the lack of trying to bring them about or avoid them. (As a matter of Kant interpretation, even when there are imperfect duties to render aid the consequences do not matter above and beyond the trying to bring them about.)
Luke,
I didn't mean to suggest that I find Ross's view compelling. I'm not prepared to acquiese in Rossian intuitionism. I meant only that, given the option of a simplistic but unified moral theory OR Ross's view, I'd take the latter. Maybe perfectionism will turn out to be better than both. I guess you have in mind something like Hurka's perfectionism?
Clayton,
That seems like a good point. I guess I had in mind more simple cases where God has to choose between an option that breaks even value-wise, and one that barely realizes more good than bad. Consequentialism entails that God would be justified to actualize the latter; moderate deontology, not.
Mike,
Yes, maybe something like Hurka's view, though I'm still in the process of fully coming to grips w. it.
One could also have the following view: There are many strict deontological constraints on what one may do, but very few deontological constraints, apart from particular duties to particular people, on what on what one may allow.
I don't know if this view is right. But some intuitions do pull me in this direction. Suppose I see Dr. Mengele committing an atrocity. Dr. Mengele, however, is on the verge of publishing a paper describing the cure for cancer (this is of course a stretch, because apparently the historical Mengele was not very talented scientifically). If I stop him from the atrocity, he will go into a huff and never announce that cure. Consequentialist considerations might be appropriate--I should let him commit the atrocity.
In fact, the proportionality condition in the Principle of Double Effect might require me to fail to stop the atrocity. For stopping the atrocity has a good and a bad effect. The good effect is the prevention of immediate suffering. The bad effect is the prevention of the publication of the cure for cancer. Granted, the good effect is intended and the bad is not intended, either as a means or an end, if I stop the atrocity. However, the proportionality condition is not met, because the bad effect is so much worse than the good effect.
And it is the doing/allowing distinction that is relevant here. For instance, if Dr. Mengele honestly told me that he would publish the paper only if I committed the atrocity, I would be obviously forbidden from doing so.
The original question was whether or not a theist who holds deontological views regarding ethics has a harder time responding to the problem of evil. The resulting discussion has been interesting, but I think a bit off the mark. It seems to me that there is a consensus as to what, in most cases, constitutes an example of something evil. This consensus is independent of the normative framework that one uses to explain and justify one's account of what makes it evil or why and how one should respond to it. We can all be agreed that a baby drowning in a river is an example of something evil. We can also agree that, all other things being equal, we should save the baby if we are able to do so. The problem of evil (or a version thereof) is not that we disagree that we should save the baby but rather is on the idea that God does not save the baby if He is the only moral agent that is in a position to do so. A disagreement over why we should do x does not suggest that there is any disagreement on the fact that we should do x.
I would suggest that the theist can still make the move of a libertarian free-will defense coupled with God's complete knowledge even if the theist is a deontologist of any sort. I assume that we would think that God would have to have the same normative framework that we thought was the correct one to have. It would seem to me that God being a deontologist or a consequentialist would still have the knowledge and power to create this world. If God created us with libertarian free-will and has chosen not to interfere with our free-will then God will not eliminate evil because he has a sufficient reason (which we may not ever understand) for not doing so. But, this solution to the problem of evil, if it is successful, is consistent with most, if not all, normative frameworks that one can take.
John, first of all the free will defense is a sub-species of the kind of response I have in mind. It takes free will to be a higher-order good and thus is about whether consequences can override moral principles. A consequentialist will thus compare a world without free will and a world with it with evil. An absolutist will consider moral principles without regard to consequences (e.g. if there's a moral obligation not to make intelligent beings without freedom). Ross would say that there are competing prima facie duties, and it might be that there's a duty to give beings free will, or it might be that there's a duty to refrain given what will happen as a result. But free will is just another instance of the same higher-order good kind of issue.
Now I actually have very little temptation toward libertarian accounts of freedom, so I'm open to free will considerations only if compatibilist freedom would do. I do think there are things compatibilists about freedom can say about free will in response to the problem of evil, but it wouldn't be the standard free will defense common today, and I was actually trying to stay out of that and just consider higher-order goods in general, largely because I'm interested in responses to the problem of evil that don't rely on libertarian freedom and didn't want this to become a discussion about free will defenses.
Jeremy,
I know you're not a libertarian, but can you explain to me why a libertarian would think that free will is itself a higher good (assuming this is what you meant in the last comment)? Does it strike you that this is what most FWDers think? I'm genuinely curious.
I guess I tend to think that libertarian free will is, all by itself, not worth much (if anything), but that it's tremendously instrumentally valuable, in that it makes possible a bunch of other goods that aren't otherwise available. But I'd be interested to know whether you (and others) think most FWDers in general, as a sociological fact, agree.
Here's another view that seems to me to match our moral intuitions really well: strict deontology for doings, and moderate deontology for refrainings. It's wrong to toss a kid in the water to save five lives, but if you're on your way to save five lives, and delay will make that impossible, you don't need to stop to pull a kid out of the water.
Jeremy
So we can avoid going into the free-will discussion and focus on the notion of moderate deontology and the problem of evil, I would like to focus on the last sentence in your comment: “Now apply this to the problem of evil. There will be potential cases when God would not do something wrong, because even though the consequences are better it would be wrong to do it. But it leaves open that some goods are so important that God might allow pretty serious harm in order to achieve them. This means that the moderate deontologist can have consequence-based responses to the problem of evil that an absolutist deontologist can't have. This may have been all I was worried about losing by adopting a deontological ethical view, even if consequentialists might have yet more to say to defend a divinity from being immoral for allowing evil.”
It seems to me that there is no problem of evil for God. If there is a God then that being has the characteristics that it in fact has regardless of how we may define that being. Adopting Swineburne’s definition of ‘God’ as the one that accurately describes what we think are the essential characteristics of God does not entail that there actually is such a being. Defining x does not prove that there is an x. This being the case then it follows that if there is a creator and sustainer of the universe then this being minimally has what it takes to create and sustain this universe. In other words he has the knowledge and power to do create and sustain this universe. It does not follow that this being is completely good; we may define him as being completely good, but this does not entail that the actual being is completely good. I would argue that from the facts of this universe we can conclude nothing about God’s moral nature. God is what God is. God can do whatever he has the knowledge and power to do and from this whatever he chooses to do with this knowledge and power. If this is the case then God in creating this world did what he had the knowledge and power to do. We are part of His creation so we have the characteristics that He gave us including the ability to recognize evil and develope moral theories that explain how we ought to act. (Most of us can agree on examples of what is evil even though we may disagree on examples of what is good.) Now we need to decide what we ought to do regarding good and evil and we have developed theories to help us to achieve this end. For example we can agree that a baby drowning in a river is an example of evil and that we should save the baby (all other things being equal) if we can, but we may disagree as to how we explain why we should save the baby. The reasons why we ought to do x are theory dependant, but our knowledge that we ought to save the baby is simply a result of recognizing that the situation the baby is in is an example of evil which seems to be knowledge that is theory independent But the fact that there are moral theories that explain what we ought to do does not entail that God has to act accordingly. God can do whatever He wants; He’s God! It seems to me the height of hubris for me to think that God cares what I think about Him from my moral point of view. If God is (actually) completely good then whatever he does is what is morally permissible for Him to do regardless of what I think, hence no problem of evil for God. If God is not completely good then again there is no problem of evil for God. Anyway we slice it seems that there is no problem of evil for God; the problem of evil is our problem. Even if we conclude that given the evil that exists that there can be no completely good God, this does not rule out the possibility that there is a being that created and sustains this universe; he is simply not completely good. It doesn’t mean He can’t punish or reward us, etc. He can do whatever he chooses to do regarding wht he created; it is his. Given the world he created the problem for us becomes why do we allow evil to exist if we think we should eliminate evil if we have the knowledge and power to do so? If what I have argued is essentially correct, then it makes no difference what moral theory we adopt, all moral theories are agreed that certain things are evil and that we should eliminate these evils if we have the knowledge and power to do so. Worrying about what God should do, or should have done, seems to me to be missing that point.
An interesting thread in this discussion has dealt with the issue of developing ethical theories and what we expect an ethical theory to accomplish. The issue I have with this regarding God and moral theories is whether or not God has a need to theorize about right and wrong, good or bad? If God has perfect knowledge then it would seem that part of this knowledge would have to be knowledge of what is right and wrong, good and bad – no questions possible. If God has to ask if an action is right or wrong then he would lack knowledge concerning what to do relative to performing a certain action. I can understand why these issues arise for us, but I do not see how these issues can arise for God if the theistic conception of God is correct. It would seem that God’s moral knowledge must not include the possibility of a plurality of prima facia principles that he does not know how to apply until he is in a certain situation as he must be knowledgeable of all possible situations and what constitutes them, including the normative implications regarding how one ought to act. We may well be in the type of moral decision-making situation described by Ross. We know that there is a plurality of prima facia moral principles that are not lexically ordered that can serve as action-guiding principles but we will not know which one will guide us until we are in a specific concrete situation. As we reflectively think about the situation we are actually in one of the principles will intuitively asserts itself as the one to guide us, if I understand Ross correctly. To me, it makes little sense to say that God could ever be in a similar situation. If the theist is correct, then in all situations that God is in he must be doing what is morally required. Nothing can assert itself in God; it is either present or not. There is no ‘becoming.’ I doubt that he makes any moral decisions; he simply knowing and freely acts. His knowledge and actions are simultaneous. He is aware of what he is doing, but the question of why cannot arise for him. Asking why implies a lack of knowledge about what is being asked about.
I know you're not a libertarian, but can you explain to me why a libertarian would think that free will is itself a higher good (assuming this is what you meant in the last comment)? Does it strike you that this is what most FWDers think? I'm genuinely curious.
I got the sense that it's what Dan Howard-Snyder thinks from his chapter in Reason for the Hope Within. I think van Inwagen presents it that way too. As for whether it's intrinsically good, I don't think that matters. What matters to a consequentialist is how much good is produced. If it's via an instrumental good, that's fine. Those who recognize a duty to benevolence shouldn't differ on this score. They just think there are moral limits to maximizing goodness.
Alex, I don't think the "absolutism with doings, non-absolutism with allowings" view matches our moral intuitions all that well, because it doesn't capture our moral intuitions about lying. I know you think lying is always wrong, but I didn't think you thought such a view actually fits our moral intuitions. Do you think it does?
John, I don't think there is a problem of evil for God in the sense of there being a problem that the actual God has. I was talking about the claim that the actual level of evil makes it epistemically unlikely that God exists, because of an assumption of a moral theory according to which a perfect being wouldn't allow the kind of world we have. That's what the problem of evil is. It says that God wouldn't allow certain things, but they seem to happen. Theists responding to such charges can do so by questioning the moral theories assumed in the argument.
I don't think anyone here is suggesting that God doesn't simply know what's right and wrong. But surely if God is omniscient then God knows why anything is right and wrong, which means there must be some explanation. Ethical theory seeks to figure out what those explanations must be. God doesn't do ethical theory in the sense of figuring out what the right theory must be. But God does do ethical theory in the sense of knowing what the right ethical theory is. Omniscience includes such knowledge. You're basically equivocating on what it means to think about why something is true. You say that God can't ask why in the sense of wondering why without yet knowing the answer, and I agree that God doesn't do that, but it doesn't follow that God doesn't have knowledge of what the explanation for something is. That kind of thinking about why doesn't involve ignorance. Lack of it does.
And of course it also includes the knowledge of which prima facie duties are actual duties in which situations, if Ross's view is correct, so God wouldn't be in our epistemic situation of having to face the situation to know. (I'm not sure we are either, actually. Isn't all that matters just knowing the relevant features of a possible situation? I'm not sure how being in the situation makes a difference. It doesn't guarantee the right result anyway, as Ross acknowledges. People can ignore relevant factors of a situation they're actually in.)
As for concluding that the actual God is good, I've got several reasons. One is revelation, but I also think moral arguments for God's existence are sound, and I don't think those make sense without God being perfectly good. I also think Aquinas' Fourth Way establishes a perfectly good being, and I think that's a sound argument.
Jeremy, you wrote "John, I don't think there is a problem of evil for God in the sense of there being a problem that the actual God has. I was talking about the claim that the actual level of evil makes it epistemically unlikely that God exists, because of an assumption of a moral theory according to which a perfect being wouldn't allow the kind of world we have. That's what the problem of evil is. It says that God wouldn't allow certain things, but they seem to happen. Theists responding to such charges can do so by questioning the moral theories assumed in the argument."
Fair enough, but I do not think that I ever disagreed with this. I simply stated (maybe not so simply) that if God exists he can do whatever he pleases regardless of his moral nature; there is no problem of evil for him. I was suggesting that based on the evidence no conclusion regarding his moral nature is warranted. The evidence is consistent with God being good, or evil, or a mixture of good and evil.
Again you wrote, "But surely if God is omniscient then God knows why anything is right and wrong, which means there must be some explanation. Ethical theory seeks to figure out what those explanations must be. God doesn't do ethical theory in the sense of figuring out what the right theory must be. But God does do ethical theory in the sense of knowing what the right ethical theory is. Omniscience includes such knowledge. You're basically equivocating on what it means to think about why something is true. You say that God can't ask why in the sense of wondering why without yet knowing the answer, and I agree that God doesn't do that, but it doesn't follow that God doesn't have knowledge of what the explanation for something is. That kind of thinking about why doesn't involve ignorance. Lack of it does."
I do not think that I am equivocating because I think I clearly stated how I was using the word. Yes, an explanation of x would include why x is, but I was not concerned with that. I do not see that God needs to know why x if he knows that x. (But, I might be wrong.) I also agree that ethical theory seeks to figure out what those explanations regarding what is right or wrong might be. But God does not need to figure this out, he already knows what is right or wrong – it is part of his perfect knowledge. Therefore he does not need to do moral theory if moral theory simply seeks to explain why he should do something. His doing it is reason enough. If he is, by nature, completely good, then anything he does is good. If follows, flows from, his very nature. What purpose does a moral theory serve him? The ‘theory’ would be identical to what he knows. Besides, to whom does he explain things too, or owe an explanation too? He certainly does not need to explain what is right or wrong to him, he already knows this, and I doubt very much that he owes us an explanation, regardless of how much we might like one from him. I think he leaves that up to us as part of growing as human beings. We may need to have an explanation because of the knowledge that we lack and as we seek to understand what good and evil are we may then be able to provide ourselves with an explanation as to why something is good or evil. And as history shows, our explanations differ to the point where some must be wrong if others are correct. (The trouble is how to decide.) Our explanation may coincide with what God knows to be good or evil, but it is not necessary that it should do so. Our explanations may turn out to be wrong if we are ever in a position to compare what we think we know with what God actually knows. Also, I think it is possible to be able to explain what happens without being able to explain why it happens. I know that (some) people do horrible things to each other and explain how they do so, but I do not understand why they do as they do.
Finally you wrote, "As for concluding that the actual God is good, I've got several reasons. One is revelation, but I also think moral arguments for God's existence are sound, and I don't think those make sense without God being perfectly good. I also think Aquinas' Fourth Way establishes a perfectly good being, and I think that's a sound argument."
I hope that sometime you will post as to why you think revelation warrants belief and why you think the two arguments you mention are sound. I start by asking why there has to be a ‘worst’ and a ‘best?’ Why can’t there be an infinite regress going both ways?
Jeremy, I am enjoying and benefiting from our exchange. Thank you.
While I think lying is always wrong, someone who disagrees can make one of a couple of moves, of which the most plausible seem to be:
- One can hold that some prohibitions hold simpliciter and others hold ceteris paribus. The prohibition against deliberately killing the innocent (at least without divine permission/command) holds simpliciter, but the prohibition against lying holds ceteris paribus.
- One can hold on to an absolute prohibition, but say that it's not a prohibition against lying, but against lying in circumstances C. What the circumstances C will be will depend on the particular view. One option is that the circumstances C are where one is speaking to someone who has a right to the truth. (Kant criticizes this view.) Another option is that the circumstances C are where one is speaking to someone who is acting rationally (murderers aren't, at least not in the Kantian sense of "rationally").
John, I've posted some thoughts based on my lecture notes from a course covering some of the issues you asked about in a series here. Posts 23-25 discuss the moral argument, and I don't get into revelation fully there but do discuss one aspect of it in post 36. I did present an argument that's more substantial about the Bible here.
As for God not knowing why, I don't understand your argument. Do you think there is no explanation why? Maybe you think morality is just a brute fact. Otherwise, there is an explanation why certain things are morally good or bad, and that means there's something to know. If God is omniscient, then he must know the explanation. So I'm not sure why you'd resist it unless you think there's nothing to be known.
Alex, I was using the term 'absolute' to mean always without exception. In your exceptioned circumstances, lying isn't absolutely wrong as I was using the term, but lying in certain cases is absolutely wrong.
Jeremy
To be candid, I am not sure of my argument either. As I said I have benefited from this discussion and one of the benefits is that your original question has lead to me to ask why does God need a moral theory. What exactly is a moral theory suppose to accomplish? But, I shall try to make my position clearer.
I know why I need a moral theory; I am sometimes unsure as to what I should do, or what, more generally speaking, everyone should do in certain situations. I am (or was. I think I am getting better at understanding these terms) unsure as to what terms like ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘right,’ or ‘wrong’ (as well as other value laden terms) mean. I can, and do, ask questions as to what is required of me (and others) to be moral. I theorize because I do not know, or at least I am unsure. I try to develop a theory that provides me with the best explanation as to what I should do. The explanation provides me with an answer to why. The problem I have regarding God and his need to have a moral theory is that these questions cannot arise for God if he is all-knowing. I should point out what is probably obvious, that I am making a distinction between having a theory of x and knowing x.
Now I will agree that in the sense that God knows what the good is he also knows why it is good in the sense that he knows what makes something good, etc. But this is not the sense of ‘why’ that I think motivates us, as beings with imperfect knowledge, to develop moral theories. If it is true that we should save a drowning baby if we are able to then I may claim that I know that the reason why is that saving the baby removes it from unnecessary and avoidable harm. But, do I really know this? My explanation may be only a partial explanation. Why should I remove something from unnecessary and avoidable harm? Or must I always remove something from unnecessary and avoidable harm? It seems that the literature is full of examples of contrasting situations where we are (more) agreed that we are obligated to do x in one situation but not in (as much) agreement as to our obligation in another situation even thought the only difference in the situations is our distance from the one we could help. If there is an objective basis for values then it would seem that either x or –x, but –(x and –x) must pertain to a correct analysis of what is morally required. We, in our imperfect state of knowledge, can ask if we are truly obligated to do x or –x, but this is not a question God can ask himself. Besides, the more questions we think we answer, the more arise. But there can be no questions for God that he asks himself regarding what he should do. We appear to agree on this point. Furthermore, we have a plurality of possible explanations as to why we should do x and some of them seem to be inconsistent with others as possible explanations. We can all know that we should do x and be correct in that assessment, but some of us could be wrong as to the correct explanation, if there is only one true explanation. I think it is a legitimate question for us to ask whether we should do x and if so why, but I do not think that God can ask this question of himself. Consequently I do not think he needs a moral theory because he does not need what a moral theory is designed to accomplish; he has it by being all-knowing.
Now, I am puzzled by the implications of something you said about me possibly thinking that morality is a brute fact. Can something be a brute fact for God, but not for us? Maybe we cannot have moral knowledge in the sense that God has it, but only an approximation of what he knows; hence our need for a moral theory.
But, I will think more on these issues and for this I thank you.
Brute facts are things without any metaphysical explanation. There really is no reason why it's true. It just is. I don't know how something can have an explanation for us but not for God. The metaphysical ground of something's truth doesn't change depending on who is doing the thinking about it. I don't know how anything can be a brute fact anyway, but even if there are brute facts I can't fathom how something could be a brute fact for God but not us.
I am not clear on what you mean by a 'metaphysical explanation.' However, unless you think that it is possible to (eventually) understand all things then the idea of something being unfathomable should not be a problem. For example, as you well know, many theists maintain, regarding the the existence of God and evil, that we lack the ability to understand whatever it is we think we should understand that would explain God allowing evil to exist. This could also be the case for any metaphysical explanation for whatever it is that we are trying to understand. We may lack the ability to understand what is actually the case and our explantions then turn out to be the story that we think best fits the evidence, not necessarily what is objectively true. What basis do I have for thinking that my explanation actually coincides with the ways things are or with God's explanation, assuming he has an explantion? I am still not convinced that God has an explanation for anything in so far as I do not see any need for him to have one. Is it not enough for him to be immediately aware of x? Does he have to also know why he is aware of x? What could the answer possibly be other then I simply am aware of it (from his point of view). Do you think that God needs an explanation for his existence? I just do not see him asking the same questions that we, as imperfect beings, ask. Maybe this is the root of our disagreement.
I will admit that the path I am going down does not have room for creation and that will be a problem for many. I am inclined to think that if God exists and creates something then he is not perfect.
Anyway, I think I have taken this way beyond what you originally intended in this post. But I thank you again for this exchange of ideas.
I mean metaphysical as opposed to epistemological. A metaphysical ground explains why the thing exists or why it's the way it is. A truthmaker is a kind of metaphysical explanation. An epistemological explanation is a story you tell that can serve to explain to you why something would be the case. I see your arguments as resisting the idea of God needing epistemological explanations, but the issue I'm talking about is metaphysical explanations.
By 'unfathomable', I don't mean beyond my ability to comprehend due to its having to do with the nature of God. I mean logically problematic, i.e. complete nonsense.
You wrote: Brute facts are things without any metaphysical explanation. There really is no reason why it's true. It just is."
Is God's existence as a necessary being a brute fact? What explains a necessary being other then it simply is? If God's necessary existence is coextensive with whatever he possesses then whatever he possesses is necessary and simply is. Everything would then be a brute fact for God, would they not?
The division between kinds of things breaks down as follows:
Necessary things exist in every possible world. They couldn't fail to exist. This is generally taken to be because something within the nature of the thing explains its existence.
Contingent things didn't have to exist. Existent contingent things could have failed to exist, but they do happen to exist. Contingent things can be explained by the existence of other things that brought them into existence, either another contingent thing or a necessary thing.
Brute things are supposed to be contingent things without an explanation. Their existence has no explanation, either contingent or necessary. I don't think there are any such things, but those who believe in brute existence take it to be a kind of contingency. Necessary beings are not brute, because they have an explanation, just one within their own nature.
Jeremy
You accept this distinction, but I find it problematic. It seems to beg the question by bringing in the concept of 'possible worlds.'
If we start with Spinoza's definition (which also probably begs the question) of a necessary being as one that is self-caused or whose 'essence involves existence' then it seems that there would be no contingent beings (or possible worlds) even though, in his terms, there would be finite beings. Everything that exists would exist necessarily in that everything is causally determined even if some things are indeterminate (like the weather) from our point of view. The concept of 'possible worlds' does not seem to follow from this perspective. For example, many might argue that I am a contingent being because a possible world can be conceived without me in it. But it is not possible for me to conceive of this world because if I did not exist then I could not conceive of myself doing anything or being anywhere or in any state of being (or non-being). So, in Spinozistic terms, because I do exist, I exist necessarly in this world as a result of prior causal event that resulted in my being what I am right now. The idea of alternative possible courses of events does not make sense in this framework, if I understand it correctly. It seems to conflate 'possible' with 'imaginary.' I can imagine a world where only one being exists, me, but this does not entail that it is possible for this world to exist. There is only one possible world and that is the world that necessarily exists as a result of a self-caused being existing as it actually exists. I do think that your definiton of a necessary being is consistent with Spinoza's if we remove the idea of possible worlds. A necessary being cannot fail to exist. But is it a necessary being because it cannot fail to exist or because if must exist in all possible worlds? Why cannot all possible worlds = this one world?
What question does possible worlds talk beg? I thought it was pretty uncontroversial to think of modal claims in terms of possible worlds. It doesn't beg any questions I can think of with regard to contingency, possibility, necessity, and bruteness.
The examples you're thinking of don't depend on possible world semantics. They depend on assumptions about conceivability entailing possibility. Lots of people have question that inference without questioning possible worlds semantics for modal talk.