I will argue that no amount, severity or distribution of evil constitutes evidence that a world is not morally perfect. Let W be a compensating world and define ‘compensating world’ as follows.
C. W is a compensating world iff. the value of W = N, and for any agent S, action A and event E, if S performs A or event E occurs and the value of W is thereafter N - M, then a compensation P occurs such that P + (N - M) = V = the value of W’.
Associate Professor Kevin Timpe Ph.D. of Northwest Nazarene University's Department of Philosophy has been named one of only two recipients of a Templeton Foundation Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford for an in-residence fellowship. This prestigious honor will allow Timpe to interact with Oxford faculty in philosophy and other related disciplines for the purpose of writing and doing groundbreaking research in the philosophy of religion. Read the rest of the release here.
Here’s my claim: there exists no gratuitous evil. The central condition on the existence of gratuitous evil E is that God could prevent E without preventing a greater good G (or permitting a worse evil E’). Consider a world W in which it is true that, for every instance of evil E, there is some individual I such that I responds with R to E and the value of R & E is positive.
W contains no gratuitous evil, since for every E there is some R such that □(R ⊃ E). Each response R to evil E is such that R is essentially a response to E. If God prevents E, then he prevents R, and R & E is more valuable than ~R & ~E.
Now I’ll make three claims about the actual world.
For every instance of evil E, it is possible that, for some individual I such that (I ≠ God), I responds with R to E and the value of R & E is positive.
It is true that, for many instances of evil E, there is no I such that I responds with R to E and the value of R & E is positive.
There is no evil E such that E is evidence that God does not exist.
But why is (3) true? We know that, for every E, there is some possible I such that I responds with R to E and R & E is positive. So, we know that for every E there is some possible R such that □(R ⊃ E) and R & E is positive. But then God cannot prevent E without preventing a greater good R. But then E is not evidence that God does not exist, though it is true that no I responds to E with R and R & E is positive.
[Updated 2.25.10]
In his debate on evil with Plantinga in their book, Tooley uses Carnap's logical probability measure to get an upper bound on the probability that N evils are in fact unjustified. The result is technically interesting, but Carnap's probability measure is standardly seen as merely a part of the history of philosophy of science, and I don't know of anybody other than Tooley in recent decades to have actually used it for anything. I've always seen Carnap's measure as a failed attempt to produce a logical probability measure that makes induction possible, and I assumed that everyone shared the view that it was a failed attempt--I am pretty sure it was taught to us as a failed attempt at Pittsburgh. Anyway, in case anybody is curious what is wrong with the Carnap measure, here are some remarks (cross-posted from my own blog). I have no idea if the criticisms are original or not.
Let G be the benefits of climbing Mt Everest, and let E be the (rather horrific, I think) burdens. Let us grant that it's not contrary to virtue (prudence in this case) to achieve G for oneself at the expense of suffering E. One way to say this is like this: E-for-me is proportionate (or not disproportionate) to G-for-me relative to me as an agent. I will abbreviate "E-for-x is proportionate to G-for-y relative to z as an agent" as "P(E,G,x,y,z)." So the above claim is: P(E,G,I,I,I).
On the other hand, it would be disproportionate for me to achieve G for myself at the expense of your suffering E (in the Mt Everest case, after all, E is weeks of hard labor, frostbite, danger, etc.). Thus, ~P(E,G,you,you,I). (The utilitarian, on the other hand, thinks that P(E,G,x,y,z) iff P(E,G,x',y',z') for any x,y,z,x',y',z'. But she's wrong about that.) Interestingly, it would also be disproportionate for me to achieve G for you at the expense of your suffering E (without your permission, that is--I shall take it for granted in all the discussion that there is no consent).
Let "p(x,y,z)" be the "proportionality standard" for permitting burdens to x that are the cost of benefits to y as produced by agent z. We can think of p(x,y,z) as the set of all pairs (E,G) such that P(E,G,x,y,z). Any such pair (E,G) is said to be "allowed" for (x,y,z). We can then compare proportionality standards by stringency. A simple and precise way is to say that p(x,y,z) is at least as stringent as p(x',y',z') iff anything that is allowed for (x,y,z) is allowed for (x',y',z'). However, it may be necessary to modify this, as there may be some pairs (E,G) that need to be special-cased. So, let's say that p(x,y,z) is at least as stringent as p(x',y',z') iff typically a pair (E,G) allowed for (x,y,z) is allowed for (x',y',z').
I think that thinking about the Mt Everest case suggests that if x, y and z are mutual strangers, then p(x,y,z) and p(x,x,z) are much more stringent than p(x,x,x) or p(x,y,x)--it is much easier to justify my imposing a burden on me than for another to justify imposing that burden on me.
Now, here is where the philosophy of religion comes in. Question: Where do p(x,y,God) and p(x,x,God) rank in stringency?
I have the intuition that p(x,y,God) and p(x,x,God) are no more stringent than the fairly lax p(x,y,x) and p(x,x,x). In other words, it's no harder for God to be justified in achieving a good (for myself or another) at an expense to me than it would be for me to be justified in achieving a good at that expense to me. While I think what I said is plausible, I am a little more comfortable with this in the case of p(x,x,God). (p(x,x,z) are the standards for z's paternalism with respect to z, and I think God has the right to be the ultimate paternalist.)
Intuitively, p(x,x,x) is a fairly low standard. After all, the costs of climbing Mt Everest are very, very high, and yet p(x,x,x) justifies these costs for the sake of goods that are not, perhaps, incredibly great. If p(x,x,x) is also the standard for deciding in theodicy whether God was permitted to achieve a good at the expense of a certain cost, then that should make theodicy easier than if the relevant standard were like the more stringent p(x,x,z) or p(x,y,z) (where z is a stranger to x).
But what I don't at present have is much in the way of an argument that p(x,y or x,God) is like p(x,y or x,x), apart from hearing at the back of my mind a maxim that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. If you can supply an argument or refutation, I will be grateful.
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I leave it again for 4D defenders to point out the false premise in the following argument. Let Smith be a person that lives a short span, say 10 yrs and assume Smith does nothing wrong in his short life. I take it as obvious that (1) is true.
1.0 It is wrong to punish Smith for going wrong in his life.
Let Jones be a person (not identical to Smith) that also lives a short life, again, 10 yrs. Suppose Jones’ life is quite bad. I take (1.1) to be obviously true.
1.1 For all x and y, is unjust to punish y for x’s transgression.
1.2. It is unjust to punish Smith for the transgressions of Jones. (from 1.0, 1.1)
Let Adam(1) and Adam(2) be two distinct 10yr parts of Adam. We know that Smith ≠ Jones and we know that Adam(1) ≠ Adam(2). Suppose Adam(1) goes badly wrong in his ten yrs. It follows by the same reasoning as above that it is wrong to punish Adam(2) for the transgressions of Adam(1). But it is impossible to punish Adam without punishing Adam(2). So we can never justly punish Adam for the transgressions of Adam(1).
1.3 God is perfectly just and would never punish anyone inappropriately.
1.4 Punishing Adam entails punishing Adam(2) unjustly.
1.5 God would not punish Adam.
It is easy to see, by generalizing the argument, that God can never justly punish anyone. But then, good news!
1.6 Universalism must be true!
[Note: An incomplete version of this post published earlier. Sorry about that!]
Recently, California State University, Sacramento philosopher Matt McCormick recorded an interview with Luke Muehlhauser in which he discussed atheism. A lively debate broke out in the comments section, and there Matt challenged defenders of reformed epistemology (RE) as follows:
"Maybe you all can just help me understand what this immediate, direct, non-inferential, basic apprehension of God is, exactly. I'm not really interested in theoretical interpretations or descriptions that are couched in abstract theological babble. I just want to hear some descriptions of the actual phenomenology of these moments, experiences, or apprehensions. Describe the sorts of feelings, sights, smells, or apprehensions that are occurring when one is having this direct hookup with God. For analogies, we have the Jodie Foster contacts aliens example and a guy who knows he didn't commit a crime because he recalls being at home watching TV on Saturday night and not robbing a liquor store, or whatever. But obviously, one's encounters with the almighty creator of the universe and master of all reality aren't really going to be like either of these in any shape, manner, or form. So what exactly are they like? And what is it about them that engenders such profound confidence and such strong ontological conclusions?"
I decided to respond to the challenge.
You can find what I wrote, as well as Matt McCormick's response, at Matt's blog, but in case you don't want to read my rambling comment, I'll summarize the relevant portion:
Assume we know theism is true. Can we theists ever tell that our prayers have been answered? I pray for E and E occurs. Can I ever know that God acted on my prayer rather than E occurring completely independently of my prayer? It turns out that the answer is simpler than one might think, and that we can know this much more often than one might think.
Consider the property of Reasons Maximalism (RM) that an agent might have. An agent has RM if and only if whenever she chooses an action A, she chooses it on account of all the unexcluded reasons she is aware of in favor of A. Suppose, for instance, that I have a duty to visit a sick friend and I enjoy her company even when she is sick, but, on the other hand, it's a long drive and the hospital is depressing. Nonetheless, I do visit her. If I don't have RM, I might be visiting her only out of duty or only for pleasant companionship. But if I have RM, I am visiting her because of both duty and pleasant companionship. And if I have RM and decide not to visit her, then I will decide to do that because of both the long drive and the depressingness of the hospital.
I submit that God has RM. Being perfectly morally good and perfectly rational, in every decision God takes into consideration all the unexcluded reasons he has. Of course, in the end, it may not be possible for him to act on all the reasons, because some of the reasons will pull in different ways. But his choice will have been made on the basis of all the reasons he is aware of in favor of it. Moreover, in the case of an omniscient being, the reasons she is aware of in favor of A is the same as the reasons she has in favor of A. Thus, God chooses A on the basis of all the unexcluded reasons he has that favor A.
Now, that I've requested something good and grantable is always a reason to grant the request. In rare cases, it will be an excluded reason--perhaps I earlier authoritatively commanded the person to stop granting my requests for a day. But I cannot think of an exclusionary reason God might have against considering our requests for good things. (If God promised not to hear our requests, that would be an exclusionary reason, but he made no such promise.)
I don't know exactly how to analyze "grantable". One class of non-grantables are states of affairs ruled out by divine promises. Another class of non-grantables are states of affairs that cannot be brought about, whether because they are metaphysically impossible or because they are metaphysically necessary. It may also be that people's free choices are non-grantables. However, perhaps when we pray that x (where x is not God) might freely do A, God reinterprets our prayer charitably as a prayer that x be given lots of reason to do A, and that is a grantable. I do not know whether things that God has already promised are grantables, but I am inclined to think they are (cf. the sick friend visit case).
So, our requests for grantable good things are always an unexcluded reason for God to grant the request, and God being omniscient is aware of this. Moreover, God is a concurrent cause in all good events (in fact, in all events, because evil is a mere privation, but nevermind that), so that all good events count as caused by God. Therefore, by RM, if I pray for grantable good, and God brings about the request, then God produces the good in part because of the request. So, a sufficient condition for my knowing that an event has happened as a result of my request is that (a) I prayed for it, (b) it was good, (c) it was grantable and (d) it occurred.
In particular cases, these conditions are very commonly satisfied. If you pray for someone's safety during a trip, and she returns safely, she does so in part because of your prayers. If you pray that you find a lost object, and you do find it, you find it in part because of your prayers. If you pray that a friend might recover from an illness, and she recovers, she recovers in part because of your prayers.
Maybe there’s a simple solution (or dissolution) to this problem. Suppose early in life Smith commits some terrible crime. She murders someone in a burglary. Smith never does anything wrong again and yet never regrets what she did. But no worries. Smith has a very good—indeed, decisive—reason not regret what she did. Here’s the argument.
The shorter story is that no part of Smith other than S did C or anything else wrong. So no part of Smith other than S can properly regret performing C. But, other than S, there is no more to Smith than every part S’ such that S’ ≠ S. So, Smith cannot properly regret performing C. But that can’t be right. So either Smith can regret performing C though no part of Smith can, or Smith is not composed of temporal parts.
I can’t see how the data collected is related to the question in the title of this link. The statistics tells us (I think) something about the number of philosophers who claim a specialization in philosophy of religion and who occupy a position in a Ph.D. granting institution. There is data here, too. But what does that have to do with whether or not philosophy of religion is taken seriously? And supposing it did tell us something about that, what would that tell us about whether philosophy of religion is serious philosophy? It makes me wonder about the real point of the post. Source of the link is the Leiter Report.
By way of Leiter Philosophy Reports by way of Kurt Smith.
I've been meaning to post this for days, but philosophers of religion owe a great debt to Pike's lucid statement of one kind of problem concerning God, freedom, and evil.
My first ever grad class was a PR class that began with Pike's classic piece. It's hard to estimate the amount of ink spilled over that argument since then.
One gauge is how many references there are at the end of this bibliography.
He seemed an amicable and honest man, I invite you to join me in praying for his soul.
I was talking to Norman Daniels the other day about healthcare reform and he had some interesting observations about the history of healthcare reform in the US. He remarked that Roosevelt could have easily provided healthcare in a workers protection bill because healthcare at that time was cheap. Evidently, other nations provided universal healthcare earlier on in the development of the healthcare system (with the exception of Canada which began universal healthcare in the 70's). Norman also mentioned that Ted Kennedy says in his memoirs that he wished he had made a deal with Nixon on healthcare. Evidently, Nixon had a healthcare bill that was much more just than current healthcare bills and Kennedy viewed his failure to work with Nixon as a major mistake. Now, what does this have to do with philosophy of religion? Let's assume Kennedy's lapse is a social evil. It is an omission that results in a much worse state of affairs that led to more suffering than would have otherwise resulted. I think there are some interesting features of social evils that aren't shared by moral evils or natural evils. First, social evils are different from moral evils because the evil that results isn't a direct result of personal agency. It's not as if Kennedy's omission directly caused Joe to be denied healthcare because of a preexisting condition. Second, hindsight can be an important factor in social evils. Kennedy's lapse provides an interesting case in which he seems to have knowledge of the relevant counterfactuals. If he had worked with Nixon then a much more just healthcare system would have resulted. The presence of knowledge of counterfactuals here seems relevantly different from the case of natural evil. There's not to my knowledge a discussion of social evil in the POE literature, though I'd be happy to learn otherwise. If the two differences I mentioned survive reflection then it's possible that reflection on social evil will shed new light on the POE. What do you guys think? I'm particularly interested in whether you think social evil is different in kind from moral evil and natural evil and also whether social evil poses a special problem not already posed by moral and natural evils.
Jaegwon Kim's well known Pairing Problem is supposed to show that it is impossible both that immaterial souls cannot have causal efficacy in the physical world as well as to other immaterial souls. The problem, in brief (super-brief) is that for event A to cause event B, there must be some further factor X in virtue of which A causes B. There is no such further factor X in the case of the mental events (willings, actings, intendings) of souls and physical events. So, souls cannot be causally related to the physical world. This argument is supposed to apply to ALL souls.
I just finished (most of) Plantinga's really nice article "Materialism and Christian Belief" in Persons: Human and Divine, and he proposes that broadly logical necessity is that relation. He writes,
According to classical theism, it's a necessary truth that whatever God wills, takes place. It's a necessary truth that if God says, "Let there be light," then there is light. Necessarily, if God says, "Let Adam come into existence," Adam comes into existence. So what is it that makes it the case that God's intentions cause what they cause? To ask that question is like asking, "What is it that makes an equiangular triangle equilateral?" The answer is (broadly) logical necessity; it's necessary that whatever God wills comes to be just as it's necessary that every equiangular triangle be equilateral. Accordingly there isn't a problem about that factor X in the divine case... (p. 133)
So Kim's Pairing Problem that it is impossible that souls be causally related to the world fails. Plantinga goes on to show that once you have theism, there is no problem for human souls having causal interaction in the world as well.
This seems compelling to me. Anybody see any problems with it?
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According to most Anselmians—and most theists—God has a special set of essential properties. Those essential properties include omniscience, omnipotence, perfect goodness and necessary existence. But how do we know this? There are just two possibilities: either we know that God has those essential properties apriori or we know aposteriori. Again, almost no theist maintains that we know the essential properties of God aposteriori. The reason this is rejected is because it entails that we might have discovered that God was less than essentially perfectly good, etc. But almost no theist thinks that’s a possible discovery. So, most Anselmians—I’d again say most theists—maintain that (A) is true.
A. A being x = God only if (i) for most essential properties P of x, it is primarily necessary (i.e., apriori) that x has P, and (ii) the essential properties of x include omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, and necessary existence
There is a concise and valid apriori demonstration based on (A) and some well-known logical relations holding between primary necessity (aprioricity) and secondary necessity (metaphysical necessity). Let M be restricted to essential properties understood as properties objects have in every world in which they exist. Here’s a concise ontological argument.
