Sometimes an atheist who argues against the existence of God based on the problem of evil does not herself believe that there is such a thing as objective evil. The standard explanation of the apparent inconsistency here is that the atheist is arguing on the assumption that there is objective good and evil, an assumption that it is fair to use in an argument against the typical theist who is committed to it. I used to think this was a perfectly satisfactory story about what the atheist is doing. But no longer.
Here's why. The atheist is arguing that there are events E such that:
(*) If it were the case that there is a God and objective good and evil, then E would be an evil, and God would have no justification for permitting E.
(Or maybe it should be an indicative conditional, but not argued for merely on the grounds that the antecedent is false.) Now it seems strange to be confident about this complex conditional proposition when one is not confident about the proposition:
(**) E is objectively evil.
To argue for (*), the atheist will use our intuitions about what kinds of things could morally justify what. But these intuitions also pull us towards (**), and do so more strongly. We should be rather more confident that, say, some horrible crime is unambiguously and objectively evil than we are of the claim that somewhere there isn't some justification for God's allowing it. For one, part of what makes the atheist's argument plausible is precisely our belief that the crime in question is so horribly evil that it is hard to see what could justify such an evil. And that the crime is objectively evil is an essential part of this (if relativism holds, allowing the crime would be justified if God simply got himself to think about this as justified!). But if the atheist thinks that our faculties of moral intuition are wrong about the crime being so horrible that it is an objective evil, then I do not see how she can have a justified confidence in thinking that they are reliable at judging of conditionals like (*).
But perhaps the amoralist atheist is not offering an argument that she finds plausible. Perhaps she is simply offering an argument that she thinks the theist finds plausible. The theist claims, let us say, that God would be justified in allowing the crime in order to allow the victim the opportunity for exercising the virtue of forgiveness. The atheist says that the justification is not sufficient. But the atheist does not believe this. Instead, she believes that this is what the theist is committed to by the theist's moral intuitions. But the theist denies such commitment. Then the discussion takes on an air of unreality--the atheist claiming that the theist's intuitions say otherwise than the theist claims they do.
Of course none of this arises in the case of the problem of evil raised by someone who believes in objective good and evil.
Alex,
I'm not sure I know any amoralist atheists. Certainly there is no need for atheists to deny that there are true moral claims.
Nor do I think the philosophical problems with the nature of value facing atheists are worse than those facing theists. But set all of that aside. Why couldn't such an amoralist atheist formulate the problem of evil in terms of individual welfare? Such an atheist might not be able to say that there are instances of unjustified moral evils, but he is able to say that there are unjustified levels of well-being. There is certainly a measure of how well/poorly sentient lives are going--we can offer a measure in terms of happiness or preference-satisfaction, or the satisfaction of considered preferences, and so on--according to which, so many lives are going so poorly, individual welfare levels are so low, that a perfect being would not permit it. Call that the problem of well-being. The short story is that a perfectly caring and concerned being would not permit the levels of well-being to run so incredibly and painfully low for so many.
I’ve always thought of this situation as the atheist arguing a reductio: “You theists say there is a God, and objective evil; [insert argument here] … contradiction.” Hence the theist has to give up a premise, and since most theists think that the existence of God entails the objectivity of evil, the only premise to give up is either the existence or some attribute of God.
The philosophical theist will of course deny that she holds contradictory beliefs. But I don’t think there is anything “unreal” about the discussion; both the theist and the atheist are committed to the objectivity of whether there is a contradiction or not, and simply saying there is no contradiction doesn’t make it so.
Heath:
I think what you say is correct vis-a-vis the deductive problem of evil as an abstract problem. But once one gets into the evaluation of whether a particular proposed partial theodicy works, that is when things get dialectically weird.
Mike:
But if there is no morality, why would it be an imperfection for a creator just not to care about the sufferings of creatures?
Alex,
I do think you raise an interesting problem, if the amoralist frames his objection counterfactually. But he really can't do that and make it an objection. Consider,
1. If God were to exist, there would be unjustified objective evil.
(1) is clearly false, since the amoralist is denying that there are any worlds with God and objective evil.
He might try to go de re.
2. If God were to exist then THAT suffering of THAT fawn would be an instance of unjustified evil.
(2) is false too, according to the amoralist himself. If God were to exist THAT suffering of THAT fawn would not be an instance of unjustified evil. There can be no world in which God exists and there is unjustified evil. All the amoralist can say, I htink, is that,
3. If God were to exist, then the world would not appear to contain pointless evil (as in fact it does).
(3) does not commit him to there being any evil at all. So ti is better that the amoralist frame the objection in a different way. He should say something like (4).
4. There are instances of suffering that serve no purpose and there is no world in which God exists and there is suffering that serves no purpose.
Dr. Pruss,
It seems your argument is that in making the case for the non-existence of God from a (probabilistic) problem of evil, the atheist cannot succeed simply through arguing based on the *theist's* beliefs about objective values like morality and evil (an internal critique); because after all the theist believes and/or intuits that God *is* justified in permitting what evil there is - hence the theistic position (from which the intuitions were supposed to come from) provides no motivation for the atheological argument.
But could the atheist hold both that his probabilistic argument *is* based on his own intuitions and that this does not commit him to the existence of objective evil? I wonder if this could in fact be the case if one supposes that the moral intuitions between the theist and atheist about "evil" are basically the same (at least in many cases), but that it is a meta-ethical view that divides them. That is, for the atheist, the genuine moral intuitions will be "explained away" so that they lack objective footing in any transcendent moral realm; however the basic *intuitions* are no different from the theist's - hence the atheist could formulate the argument without borrowing from the theist and without believing in *objective* evil.
Dan:
I am not sure the atheist's moral intuitions are the same. Remember that the theist may well think that some of the goods that come from the evils are sufficient to justify permitting the evils.
Here's another interesting dialectical fact. The amoralist atheist can't claim the problem of evil to be her reason for being an atheist unless she can argue that if there is a God, then there is objective morality.
Mike:
One problem with (4) is the phrase "serve no purpose". What does that mean? Does that mean that no one has a purpose for these evils? Surely not. For instance, many a crime serves a purpose--it benefits the criminal--and the arguer from evil is not denying that. Or is the amoralist atheist holding that no one has a sufficiently good purpose for these evils? But here "good" surely has to be read objectively.
Or maybe "serve no purpose" does not refer to the purposes of agents, but simply means "do not have consequences". But of course the evil has many consequences. Maybe, then, "serve no purpose" means "do not have good consequences". But that's too strong. Rather, what it may mean is "do not have consequences that outweigh the evils." But now our amoralist must have a way of judging which goods outweigh which evils...
I think the best strategy for the atheist here is to argue that theism is a family of claims, and certain popular strains within that family have a certain theory of morality at their conceptual core. It isn't reasonable to expect an argument against one widely held belief to also be successful against a significantly different variant.
Dr. Pruss,
The type of intuitions that you claimed the amoralist atheist would claim are faulty is that of **, that some event E is objectively evil. Accordingly, how can the atheist then mount a defense of *, given that moral intuitions are faulty and that defending * would seem to involve even more complicated or fine-grained moral intuitions than **?
My attempt to circumvent this is to consider whether the amoralist atheist actually needs to believe that the moral intuitions of type ** are faulty. One could believe both that such intuitions are generally accurate and that there is no objective evil if he denied that the object of intuition included this "objectivity" aspect. That is, he could reject your formulation wherein ** includes "objective" as part of the intuition itself, and instead suppose that the intuition is more primitive or simple, that some things strike him as bad or good, and that the belief in the objective or transcendent truth (or lack thereof) of these predicates is based not in the original intuition but in a broader theoretical framework. Theism would provide a framework wherein at least some of our subjective intuitions correspond to extra-subjective moral facts, while atheism might provide a, say, naturalistic and evolutionary framework wherein these intuitions have no such extra-subjective footing.
This maneuver would require that the fact of the matter about the objective truth, or lack thereof, *of* moral intuitions can be isolated from the intuitions *themselves* (so that the "objective" part of ** is not part of the intuition but rather a predicate about an intuition, namely, that it holds objectively). If the amoralist can challenge your assumption as to the formulation of intuitions of type **, then it seems to me there is a way to circumvent the argument; for the argument presupposes that the objectivity of moral notions are constitutive of the intuitions themselves (hence the amoralist must think the intuitions *faulty*).
If you think it's clear that our moral intuitions include the objectivity of the evil/goodness of things, then you might not think this is a viable response to your argument. But it is not that implausible to me. For instance, I think that my belief in the objectivity of evil is based much more in my beliefs about God than in my intuitions; if I bracket the theological beliefs, It is not hard for me to suppose that the intuition that "E is evil" could simply reflect a deep seated disapproval of or revulsion towards E. If I were an atheist, I might argue that God does not exist by arguing for *, but not by borrowing intuitions but by using my own - this being legitimate since my intuitions are not that certain events E are objectively evil but that certain things are evil and *if theism is true* they (or at least some of them) would be *objectively* evil. Hence I would be accepting my intuitions but without abandoning the amoralist position. And since I would not be claiming that intuitions were faulty, it seems I would be able to argue for *.
Dan:
This might work, but I am worried that part of the motivation for thinking that there is no God-justifying reason for allowing the evil is that the evil is an objective one. Take my example of the theist who responds that God allowed the crime in order to provide an opportunity for the victim to forgive the criminal. Suppose the atheist rejects this justification as insufficient. This rejection depends on objectivist intuitions. For if subjectivism holds, then whether God would be justified in allowing the crime in order to allow the opportunity for forgiveness would depend on how much God in fact values forgiveness, and, given subjectivism, he could just be supposed to value it more than he disvalues the crime.
That said, maybe your move works. It depends on how much one can separate metaethical from normative or applies intuitions.
I'm with Heath. It seems that the amoralist atheist can offer a reductio.
The theist can deny that theism is not inconsistent with any of the moral claims to which the theist is committed, I'm not sure that this is a fruitful strategy. Consider two possible views.
First, suppose I'm an amoralist atheist who is an amoralist because (a) I'm an atheist and (b) I think that morality does not 'make sense' if the world contains no supernatural elements. (I'm an atheist who finds George Mavrodes' arguments in 'Religion and the Queerness of Morality' really convincing.) This seems perfectly consistent with the claim that I know what God would never permit. If that is right, I might observe events that I know God would never permit and I can run the argument from evil even though I do not believe any actual event that takes place was impermissible to bring about.
Second, suppose I'm an atheist who thinks that the problem of divine hiddeness is a serious one. I believe that it is exceptionally likely that if there were a God, God would communicate with us through religious texts, revelation, etc... If I observed that the Gods we know of through religious texts, apparent revelation, etc... does not come close to living up to the moral standards of that religion, it seems I could run the argument from evil even if I happened to be an amoralist.
"I'm not sure I know any amoralist atheists."
In a sense, Quentin Smith is an amoralist atheist. Bill Vallicella thinks such a position is required by atheism. See http://agorametaphysica.blogspot.com/2007/01/taste-of-ambivalent-nihilism.html
In a sense, Quentin Smith is an amoralist atheist
I'm not sure what Quentin's moral views are or why he holds them. But amoralism is definitely not "required by atheism". There are all sorts of secular moral theories that have at least as good as chance of being true as non-secular moral theories. What come to mind immediately as good bases of moral theories are social contract theories. SCT's of course have problems too, but (i) it is a genuine moral theory and (ii) it is consistent and (iii) is does not entail theism. So amorality is not required from atheism.
Clayton, you write,
This seems perfectly consistent with the claim that I know what God would never permit. If that is right, I might observe events that I know God would never permit and I can run the argument from evil even though I do not believe any actual event that takes place was impermissible to bring about.
But this is what makes Alex's argument interesting, I think. If you are an amoralist, the things you observe and believe God would not permit are things you believe are not evil or bad. So there is no moral reason why God would not permit these events. Things are worse: if you think, as many do, that what is evil is necessarily so, then you're going to have to concede that what you observe is necessarily not evil. You might try to go counterfactual and say that these are things that would be evil were God to exist. But of course that's false, they would not be evil if God existed. You need some other line of argument.
Alexander
It seems to me that the amoralist can hold that there are no objective evils and also maintain that there is an inconsistency between those who believe that there is an objective ethics and that there is a God (as defined by the theist) and that the two positions are epistemically distinct from each other. I do not see that one has to be lead towards (**) simply because one is arguing for (*). The argument of (*) is simply an ‘if-then’ argument where one is not committed to removing the ‘if’ in order for the argument to be sound. (**) is not an ‘if-then’ argument but the conclusion of an argument that may or may not be an ‘if-then’ one. An atheist can argue for (*) without tipping her hand regarding the truth of (**). Even if she does believe that (**) is not true and admits to this position as being the correct one regarding the status of objective evils, this does not affect the logical or epistemic status of her argument regarding (*).
An amoralist atheist may argue that the fact that a three month old was raped in Grand Rapids is an example of something evil without committing herself to the status of the evil being objective or subjective. She is simply trying to raise the intuition in others as to its being evil without committing herself ontologically to anything regarding the status of the evil. Even a subjectivist could argue that this is an evil if in fact she believed it to be so based on some subjective criterion such as sympathy or empathy. She then might argue (ineffectively, I think) that this is an example of an evil that God would not allow. But the ineffectiveness of her argument does not depend on the objective status of the evil, but only on whether God can allow this evil to exist. In so far as God can do what he wants and can command us to do what he wants and punish us for not doing what he wants it is plausible that God can justify this action by simple stating, as you suggest, that he has a reason for doing so. “I’m God therefore I choose the game!”
Interestingly, my position is consistent with God being an amoralist in the sense that there need be no objective status of good and evil that God needs to conform his behavior too. He chooses the standards because he can; he has the knowledge, the ability, and a reason for doing what he does.
Alexander
It seems to me that the amoralist can hold that there are no objective evils and also maintain that there is an inconsistency between those who believe that there is an objective ethics and that there is a God (as defined by the theist) and that the two positions are epistemically distinct from each other. I do not see that one has to be lead towards (**) simply because one is arguing for (*). The argument of (*) is simply an ‘if-then’ argument where one is not committed to removing the ‘if’ in order for the argument to be sound. (**) is not an ‘if-then’ argument but the conclusion of an argument that may or may not be an ‘if-then’ one. An atheist can argue for (*) without tipping her hand regarding the truth of (**). Even if she does believe that (**) is not true and admits to this position as being the correct one regarding the status of objective evils, this does not affect the logical or epistemic status of her argument regarding (*).
An amoralist atheist may argue that the fact that a three month old was raped in Grand Rapids is an example of something evil without committing herself to the status of the evil being objective or subjective. She is simply trying to raise the intuition in others as to its being evil without committing herself ontologically to anything regarding the status of the evil. Even a subjectivist could argue that this is an evil if in fact she believed it to be so based on some subjective criterion such as sympathy or empathy. She then might argue (ineffectively, I think) that this is an example of an evil that God would not allow. But the ineffectiveness of her argument does not depend on the objective status of the evil, but only on whether God can allow this evil to exist. In so far as God can do what he wants and can command us to do what he wants and punish us for not doing what he wants it is plausible that God can justify this action by simple stating, as you suggest, that he has a reason for doing so. “I’m God therefore I choose the game!”
Interestingly, my position is consistent with God being an amoralist in the sense that there need be no objective status of good and evil that God needs to conform his behavior too. He chooses the standards because he can; he has the knowledge, the ability, and a reason for doing what he does.
Hey Mike. You wrote:
If you are an amoralist, the things you observe and believe God would not permit are things you believe are not evil or bad. So there is no moral reason why God would not permit these events. Things are worse: if you think, as many do, that what is evil is necessarily so, then you're going to have to concede that what you observe is necessarily not evil. You might try to go counterfactual and say that these are things that would be evil were God to exist. But of course that's false, they would not be evil if God existed. You need some other line of argument.
I think ultimately I agree with you because I think the positions needed to make sense of the view I was floating do not make sense. The view I was considering was Mavrodes' view that in a 'Russellian world' (i.e., a world that is naturalistically just like this one and all supernatural elements are eliminated) morality 'does not make sense' and we have no obligations, duties, reasons to do as conventional morality would have us, etc... So, while the natural states of affairs are such that they cannot constitute moral reasons for action, if God were around, the conditions necessary for these natural states of affairs to be part of what determines that we have moral reasons to act would obtain. So, this would be a view on which there could be actions such that (a) there is actually no reason not to perform them, to intervene to prevent them, etc... but (b) if God were around, there would be reason to refrain from performing them, reason to intervene to stop them, etc... The way Mavrodes motivates this view is by saying that in a godless universe there would not be sufficient incentive to make the kinds of sacrifices morality requires. The way a crude sort of divine command theorist could motivate the view is simply by saying that there is no divine decree banning a certain kind of action.
I do not think that such a view violates the assumption that what is evil is evil necessarily because, say, among the properties necessary for an action's being truly evil is that the action takes place in a world in which there is an afterlife, there is a purpose for which we are here that is given by a creator, etc... I think you need something stronger than the claim 'If X is 'evil, X is necessarily evil to refute this view. You need something like 'If X is evil, X's being evil is ensured by its local, natural properties'. As a matter of fact, I think that it must be for some things at least if something is evil in the world in which God exists it must be evil apart from the fact that God exists. So, as a matter of fact, I think the view is silly. I think Mavrodes accepts a weird kind of egoism and I think we can dispense with divine command theories. But, there seem to be people who hold this sort of view and I can't see why they wouldn't be atheists.
(p.s., I've been meaning to get back to your three world case from the thread below, but it's taking me some time.)
Alex,
I was going to say something about the differences in deductive vs. evidential problems in my first comment but figured it would muddy the waters. But I think the situation is basically the same. The atheist begins by saying, “Suppose your objectivist beliefs are true…” and then goes on to argue that on these beliefs, the existence of a 3-O God is unlikely or improbable.
Now there are two possibilities: one might think that probability, and therefore the strength of a non-deductive argument, is objective, like deductive validity, or one might think that it is relative (due to different priors, or different background evidence, etc.). In the first case, the atheist is criticizing the theist for being irrational, believing something which on her own beliefs is highly improbable. And more generally, the argument is that the theist+objectivist position is intellectually unstable, and the stable alternative is some form of atheism. The theist will probably deny this, but the dispute is perfectly clear, it seems to me. I don’t see any dialectical weirdness here.
In the second case, taking strength of non-deductive argument as relative to an individual, it’s less clear what the atheist takes himself to be accomplishing. Perhaps just this: that while the theistic justifications of evil may be rationally convincing to the theist, those justifications are not rationally convincing to atheists or unpersuaded people, and so for those folks the problem of evil remains a significant barrier to theism. Insofar as the theistic justifications are supposed to remove an obstacle to belief in God (rather than merely defend the rationality of those who already believe) they fail.
I just want to say in response to Mike about there not being many atheists who are amoralists. "Certainly there is no need for atheists to deny that there are true moral claims." I was in a discussion group filled with intelligent people. They all argued that there are no true or false moral claims. All twenty of them against me. I was the only theist there, and I couldn't believe that these people were saying this.
Brian,
All I said is that there's no need for atheists to hold that moral claims lack truth-value. Needless to say, people say a lot of uninformed and ill-considered things about morality.
The atheist begins by saying, “Suppose your objectivist beliefs are true…” and then goes on to argue that on these beliefs, the existence of a 3-O God is unlikely or improbable.
But wouldn't the atheist amoralist hold that the closest world to ours in which there is objective moral value (I take it, this is where we go on the supposition) is one in which God exists? Otherwise whence the objective moral value? If the atheist amoralist believes there's some other source of objective moral value, it's less clear why he is an amoralist.
Side issue: I would think the amoralist would reject theism for the simple reason that if God exists, he is good. Nothing is good, Etc...
The argument from evil would be superfluous.
Christian, we might want to distinguish between amoralism and avaluism. The amoralist doesn't think there are any moral truths, but they might think there are truths about what is good. On one plausible interpretation of Nietzsche, that's what he's up to. He doesn't think there are any moral truths, but he denies that he's a nihilist because he thinks it's disastrous to reject the idea of goodness and badness just because you're rejecting morality.
So if the amoralist makes that move, the inference to the non-existence of God can't go quite so quickly.
Jeremy,
You wrote, "we might want to distinguish between amoralism and avaluism".
But Alex in the beginning of the post characterizes "amoralism" as the belief that there is not such a thing as objective evil or good.
So what is the difference between "amoralism" and "avaluism"?
And what is "nihilism"?
Quentin Smith in his 2003 paper argues for a view he calls "nihilism", though he denies "amoralism" (and "avaluism"):
"There is a sense that my life, actions and consequences of actions amount to nothing when I am considering the value of an infinite universe. Our emotional responses to acts or states of affairs we believe have positive or negative value occur when we are narrowly focused on “the here and now”, on the people we interact with or know about, ourselves, and the animals, plants and material things that surround us in our daily lives. In our daily lives, we believe actions are good or bad and that individuals have rights. These beliefs are false, but we know this only on the occasions when we engage in second order beliefs about our everyday beliefs and view our everyday beliefs from the perspective of infinity. Most of the time, we live in an illusion of meaningfulness and only some times, when we are philosophically reflective, are we aware of reality and the meaninglessness of our lives. It seems obvious that this has a genetic basis, due to Darwinian laws of evolution. In order to survive and reproduce, it must seem to us most of the time that our actions are not futile, that people have rights. The rare occasions in which we know the truth about life are genetically prevented from overriding living our daily lives with the illusion that they are meaningful. As I progress through this paper, I have the illusion that my efforts are not utterly futile, but right now, as I stop and reflect, I realize that any further effort put into this paper is a futile expenditure of my energy."
More here: http://agorametaphysica.blogspot.com/2007/01/taste-of-ambivalent-nihilism.html
http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2005/02/atheism-and-nihilism.html
Jeremy, that seems right to me. I was thinking of God's goodness as consisting in both value facts and moral facts. He is good by virtue of being loving, compassionate, etc...But he is also good because what he does is always right, best...Perhaps there is even a connection between perfect goodness and desert, such that God's goodness makes Him worthy of devotion and deserving of respect. The idea would be that facts about desert would not be strictly facts about value, though they may entail facts about value.
Vlastimil, the distinction I have in mind is exactly the distinction between "good and evil" and "good and bad", so Alex's supposition is about morality rather than value. As Nietzsche (according to the interpretation I have in mind, anyway) would make the distinction, the idea of good and evil is specifically moral, whereas good and bad is not. Nietzsche's master morality is a "good and bad" view, and the slave morality is a "good and evil" view. He has no problem with the former. He is appalled by the latter. He is thus an amoralist but not an avaluist.
Alston's defense of divine command theory needs an objective notion of good to be able to base morality in God. By an objective theory of value, God is perfectly good (but not morally good). Then God's being perfectly good explains why whatever God commands will be good in a way that gives rise to morality. I suspect George Mavrodes has a similar view given how he ends his paper on the queerness of morality in a naturalistic world. He thinks there is value in a Godless world, but he doesn't think there can be any ground for genuine morality that's based on anything other than self-interest (which won't amount to the actual morality).
Alex,
I wonder what you think about these thoughts, about the evidential problem of evil.
William Rowe seems to present the evidential problem of evil as prima facie reasonable evidence against the existence of god. So, evil should make belief in god ineligible for knowledge, or at least a justified belief. Rowe seems to assume some sort of epistemic purism which can be expressed as the following:
(EP) Two Subjects with the same truth-conducive factors regarding p either both know that p or both don't know that p.
EP is loosely the evidentialist view where knowledge, and justification for beliefs are solely truth conducive. This is after all the “evidential“ problem of evil, so “justification“ or “good evidence“ should produce true beliefs. Evil, according to the evidentialist problem of evil, is truth conducive to God not existing.
The argument loosely can presented like the following:
(1) There exists instances of intense suffering that an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
(2) An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
(3) Thus, There does not exist an omnipotent omniscient wholly good being.
Traditionally we would provide some sort of Free Will Theodicy, or something along those lines. I think there is an inconsistency within the whole argument, or the presuppositions of the argument. If the argument is going to work, it seems to rely somewhat on the following assumptions:
(4) If S knows that p, then S is reasonable to act as if p.
and
(5) If S knows that A is the best action, then S is rational to do A.
In short (5) can be expressed as (5') which makes it relevant to the argument 1-3.
(5') If God knows that there is intense suffering that could be prevented without losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse and God knows the best action is to prevent that suffering, then God is reasonable to prevent that suffering from happening.
Now (5’) seems plausibly to support (2): that is if (2) is true, then (5‘) is true.
Unfortunately the principle (5) undermines (EP). Here's how:
Suppose that I know that the bank is open on Saturday.
Suppose further that I know that if the bank is open on saturday then it's best to wait till saturday to deposit my cheque, after all it's such a hassel to drive all the way to the bank.
Thus, I know it's best to wait.
Thus, I should wait.
Now raise the stakes, so that it seems irrational or unreasonable for me to wait, maybe it's extremely important that the bank be open on Saturday because if it's not then my check won't clear till Monday, but I need my check to clear before Sunday, so the bank better be open on Saturday. If fallibalism is true, then I could very well be wrong that the bank will open on Saturday, after all it has happened that they changed their hours. Thus, it is not reasonable for me to wait till Saturday. It follows, if closure is true, that I don't know whether the bank is open. So knowledge, if (5) is true, depends partially on one's pragmatic interests or stakes. And if one's interests are different or one has some subjective higher stakes, then that can change whether one knows, thus (EP) is false. Thus there is an internal inconsistency within the evidential problem of evil, and the argument is unsound. So, we have two options, we can abandon (5) and (5‘), but that would make (2) false. Or we can abandon (EP) which takes evil as truth conducive to God not existing. The athiest seems to think that (1) is sufficient evidence to not believe in God, thus the athiest is reasonable in their lack of belief, or the theist is unreasonable in belief in God. It seems to me (2) and (5') are most plausible assumptions. Thus I would deny (EP). But if I deny (EP) it's difficult to think of how the evidential problem of evil gets off the ground.
The evidentialist fallibalist might argue that EP is the best assumption. This seems to be the prevailing view amongs epistemologists. But if EP is the best assumptioin then we should deny (5'), (5) and thus (2). And if we deny (2) then the argument is unsound.
Raymond,
The argument to undermining EP in the case of the evidential argument from evil depends on it being possible for God to find it reasonable, given pragmatic pressures, not to prevent instances of gratuitious evil. But there are no pragmatic pressures for beings with infinite resources, knowledge and power. So it's not clear (to me anyway) how that argument would be relevant in the case of such beings.
But suppose EP is false anyway. Which premise in this version of the evidential argument does it undermine? Though some dispute premise (2), most regard it as a necessary truth (incorporating what Jeff Jordan calls the standard view on gratuitous evil--viz., that God could not permit a single instance of it). What's left? Is EP the basis for premise (1)? Is it true that if I don't accept EP, then I won't find it reasonable to conclude on the evidence that there are instances of gratuitous evil? I don't see how. Maybe you could explain further how rejecting EP entails that premise (1) or (2) is not credible.
Hey mike,
According to you, my argument underming EP in the case of the argument from evil depends on it being possible for God to find it reasonable, given pragmatic pressures, not to prevent gratuitouse evil. I'm not sure how this is so, or what you mean by "pragmatic pressures". I don't think I'm arguing this way, I think that God should find it reasonable not to prevent gratuitouse evil, because God knows that the best action is to prevent gratuitouse evil. Indeed I do think that God should follow something like (5'), and (5') is true if and only if KB is true. I argued that if you accept the KB principle about knowledge and action, then that is enough to undermine EP. I do think God follows something like (5'), and I accept (5') but that's based on KB. And since it's based on KB, then I cannot accept EP.
You raised a few questions:
"Is it true that if I don't accept EP, then I won't find it reasonable to conclude, on the evidence, that there are instances of gratuitous evil?"
I would say if you find it reasonable to conclude, on evidence, that there are instances of gratuitouse evil, then you do, in fact accept EP. Since EP has under it's large canopy fallibalism, virtue theories, realiabalism, proper function theories etc. So, if you deny EP you may not find it reasonable to conclude, based solely on evidence, that there are instances of gratuitouse evil, especially if salvation is at stake.
Suppose I hold a gun to your head and i know the truth or falsity of (1) and I ask you if (1) is true or not, if you don't answer then I will let you live and if you answer right I will give you a jelly bean, but if you answer and it's wrong, then I will shoot you. It seems plausible for you not to answer, but if you don't answer and FA & FB is true, then you don't know whether (1) is true or not, and if you don't know then it's not reasonable for you to accept (1).
Now, if you have the inclination that you can say "Well I know that (1) and I know that the best action is to answer that (1) is true(after all I will get a jelly bean), but I'm not going to answer that (1) is true". Then you might have the inclination that (FB) is clearly false, and thus (EP) is true.
But if we deny that FB is true, then we have lost (5'); God can know that the best action is to prevent gratuitouse evil, yet not prevent gratuitous evil.
The evidential argument of evil makes use of two inconsistent yet plausible theses: (EP) and (FB).
Suppose I hold a gun to your head and i know the truth or falsity of (1) and I ask you if (1) is true or not, if you don't answer then I will let you live and if you answer right I will give you a jelly bean, but if you answer and it's wrong, then I will shoot you.
I'm unconvinced. Suppose it's true, and I know it, that the objective probability of that coin C comes up "heads", when tossed, is .99999999999. You ask me, do you accept it will come up heads? I rightly answer yes. Now, obviously, the fact that I have almost impeccable evidence for that claim does not entail that I would bet anything on it being true under any circumstances. Who would? There are situations in which the expected utility of being wrong is so high (maybe the lives of everything that has one) that I would not express an opinion on it (supposing my choices are affirm/deny) unless the odds were right. But it is absurd to claim that I therefore don't accept (1). Of course I accept (1), even though there are circumstances under which I would be prepared to bet against (1). The trick in the argument against my affirming (1) is giving me just the options to affirm or deny (1). The fact is that I would bet on (1) in exact accordance with my high level of credence in (1). And my willingness to wager in accordance with that credence evinces my acceptance of (1).
I just realized that a lot of my previouse post was unexplained and erroneouse. Forgive me all, as I was writing a paper at the time. The following principles I used in my last post, this should clarify things a bit:
KB. If S knows that A is the best action, then S is reasonable to do that action.
KA. If S knows p, then S can act as if p.
I accidently used the letter "F" instead of "K" later on in my post, silly me. lol.
Anyways, Mike, I enjoyed your reply. I think I understand what you mean now, kind of. So, lets see if I get this correctly, you deny KB, in everyday human practices. Clearly you can accept and know a proposition p, and not act on p, if the pragmatic pressures are extremely high.
But there are no pragmatic pressures for God's inaction on gratuitouse evil, so KB is true in God's case. If God knows A is the best action, then God is reasonable to do A. There is nothing stopping God from doing A, since there aren't really the pragmatic pressures we have. I get it now! good reply. Of course most replies to this would involve some sort of defence along the lines of casting doubt on (1). But then we're back to creating theodicies. It looks like the problem of evil is not refuted after all. But it's really no surprise, this is after all an enduring problem of philosophy lol.