PHILOSOPHY 100 (Ted Stolze)

Notes on James Rachels, Problems from Philosophy

Chapter Three: The Problem of Evil

“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.”

--John Lennon, “God” (1970)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ5PQppudHc

Theodicy vs. Defense

A “theodicy” provides a complete justification of God’s actions, whereas a “defense” only sketches out a possible explanation. Compare the Book of Job.

Genuine Evil

There are at least some examples of what we could call “genuine evil.” In other words, these instances of evil are not illusory or simply mischaracterized as bad but are in fact cases of objective pain, suffering, or some other harm.

Natural vs. Moral Evil

This distinction concerns whether or not the evil in question is human-caused. However, the distinction breaks down when we consider such apparently “natural” evils that (indirectly) result from human activities or have an unequal impact on different social classes, for example:

•birth defects due to toxic exposure in the workplace or community;•chronic conditions like asthma that result from air pollution;•deaths that result from extreme weather patterns (hurricanes, floods, and droughts) caused by anthropogenic climate change.

Natural Disasters

According to the Norwegian geologist Henrik Svensen (The End is Nigh: A History of Natural Disasters [London: Reaktion Books, 2009]) natural disasters can be classified according to their triggering hazard:

1.  Geophysical (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions)2.  Hydrological (floods, slides)3.  Climatological (extreme temperatures, drought, wildfires)4.  Meteorological (severe storms)5.  Biological (famine, epidemics, insect infestations)

Svensen notes that “drought and epidemics [and famine] often have a stronger social cause than do geophysical disasters, although they too are triggered by a natural hazard and a society's lack of ability to deal with changes in the environment" (p. 15). The U.S. historian Ted Steinberg has equally argued that blaming natural or divine forces for calamity “has become a tool used to advance various political interests in society” (Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Disaster in America, 2nd ed. [New York: Oxford: 2006], p. xiv).

Evil as a Problem for Monotheism

1. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. (Definition)

2. If God is all-powerful, then God could create a world without genuine evil. (Assumption)

3. If God is all-knowing, then God knows that there is genuine evil in the world. (Assumption)

4. If God is all-good, then God would want there to be a world without genuine evil. (Assumption)

5. But there is genuine evil in the world. (Observation)

6. So, God (at least as defined above) does not exist.

Five Possible Explanations for Why God Would Allow Evil to Exist

• Pain is necessary as a part of the body’s warning system

• Evil is necessary so that we may better appreciate the good

• Evil is punishment for wrongdoing

• Evil is the result of human free will

• Evil is necessary for the development of moral character

Objections to the Argument that Pain is a Necessary Part of the

Body’s Warning System

• Sometimes the body’s warning system fails to warn

• Sometimes the body’s warning system falsely warns

An Objection to the Argument that Evil is Necessary to Appreciate the

Good

• Is so much evil necessary to make the point?

Objections to the Argument that Evil is Punishment for Wrongdoing

• Why do innocent people suffer?

• What about natural evils?

Objections to the Argument that Evil is the Result of Human Free

Will

• Are humans really free?

• What about natural evils?

Objections to the Argument that Evil is Necessary for the Development of

Moral Character

• Sometimes people don’t develop moral character in response to evil; they are simply devastated.

• How much evil is necessary for the development of moral character?

Darwin on the “Face of Nature”

“In looking at Nature, it is most necessary to keep the foregoing considerations always in mind—never to forget that every single organic being around us may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers; that each lives by a struggle at some period of its life; that heavy destruction inevitably falls either on the young or old, during each generation or at recurrent intervals. Lighten any check, mitigate the destruction ever so little, and the number of the species will almost instantaneously increase to any amount. The face of Nature may be compared to a yielding surface, with ten thousand sharp wedges packed close together and driven inwards by incessant blows, sometimes one wedge being struck, and then another with greater force.”

(Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st edition, chapter III [“Struggle for Existence”], pp. 66-7; NOTE: Darwin removed this passage from later editions because he worried that it contained too violent an image.)

Charles Darwin on the Problem of Natural Evil

“That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes. Some have attempted to explain this in reference to man by imagining that it serves for his moral improvement. But the number of men in the world is as nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings, and these often suffer greatly without any moral improvement. A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the suffering of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time? This very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an intelligent first cause seems to me a strong one; whereas, as just remarked, the presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.”

(The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, edited by Nora Barlow [NY: Norton, 2005 (1958)], p. 75.)