In Thoughts Arguments and Rants: The Problem of Evil hits the papers, Brian Weatherson notes that the recent devastation caused by the tsunami has brought a resurgence of public interest in the Problem of Evil. Without addressing his main point (Bishop Jensen's excuse), I'd like to say that from my perspective, both Brian's favorites aren't very good at all.
First, the modal realism solution of Donald Turner and Hud Hudson:
* There is a class of abstract possible worlds W. (I’m not going to say what abstract and concrete amount to in any of this - on this distinction see Gideon Rosen’s SEP entry.) In other words, weak modal realism is true.
* God cannot change any of those worlds without destroying it - what happens in a world is essential to its nature.
* What God can do is make any of them that He chooses concrete. Abstract possible worlds have no moral value, but concrete worlds do have value, or disvalue if they are bad, so this choice is morally loaded.
* God’s creation is timeless, so He can’t create one and then tinker with it. For each world He faces a take-it-or-leave-it choice.
...If all this is true, what should God do? Well, I think He should create all and only the worlds such that it is better that they exist than that they not exist. And that will include worlds, like this one, that are not perfect but that contain more goodness than suffering. So the existence of this world as concrete entity is compatible with God’s existence, and indeed His omnipotence and benevolence.
To which I say, more goodness than suffering might be satisfying to a particular kind of utilitarian, but isn't what I would call benevolent. The better exists than not exists line should be drawn elsewhere. I would claim that no benevolent entity would choose to create a situation in which there is pointless suffering. Given an infinite number of abstract possible worlds, it's anything but benevolent to choose to instantiate worlds in which there is any pointless suffering at all even if by some measures the total good is substantially more than the total evil. Unless you adopt a Panglossian view, our world is admitted to contain pointless suffering. I think Brian would point out that means I think that it would be better that our world not exist, and wonders whether even the most dedicated proponent of the Argument from Evil can sincerely hold that belief. Well, maybe. I prefer that this world exist, but I don't pretend to omnibenevolence. If I were standing outside of it all, faced with a big green "Create" button I think I would genuinely face a moral problem. Standing outside, a Nietzchean amor fati view might seem attractive, but consider: if pressing it meant I could have the life I currently do, I would be sorely tempted, but if I would be forced to live the life of a random sentient1 being from a random time my sense is that it would be rational to be reluctant. Heck, if pressing it meant having to live Nietzche's life I would be terrified. And if that's the case, then I really doubt that pushing the button is a clearly benevolent act. And if I could push another button that instead would create this world minus any pointless suffering (say, one where the laws of nature were all the same, but by purest chance any suffering that would have no beneficial effect throughout the rest of time gets terminated by a freak quantum occurence), that would clearly be a more benevolent choice.
I've already dealt with the other one (no best possible world) before, although I don't think I convinced Jonathan. Basically, I just don't see that there's any bite to contending that if there's no best possible X, then complaints about a minimally decent X are ill-founded since there will always be something to complain about. No best possible world, so don't complain that our world has pointless suffering. We don't accept that argument anywhere else, I think. If the peasants weren't complaining about starvation, they'd be complaining about how their cheap food was making them fat2, so the fact the king lets them starve says nothing about how benevolent he is?
1 to the extent of being able to suffer, anyway.
2 That people actually do this makes me boggle.
Posted by joshua at January 7, 2005 03:17 PMI wouldn't say I endorse the 'no best world' defense; I just find it fascinating and less than easy to dismiss. It's surely unsound, but I have a hard time seeing why. It feels more like something of a paradox to me.
Posted by: Jonathan at January 14, 2005 01:13 AMWell, how 'bout proof by contradiction: If No Best Possible World were sound, then since the argument doesn't depend on any actual features of the world--and particularly doesn't depend on the nature or amount of evil and suffering in the world--it would be sound even if the world were literally Hell on Earth. i.e., No Best Possible World would still be sound even if the world were such that all beings, even if completely innocent, suffered eternal torment at the hands of irresistably powerful and wholly malevolent demons. But if that's the case there's something horribly wrong with any definition of benevolent that's compatible with the No Best Possible World defense; we wouldn't ordinarily call a being benevolent if it created only Hell and condemned *everyone* to it. So either NBPW requires that you adopt an unacceptable definition of benevolent, or it is unsound.
Posted by: Joshua at January 14, 2005 07:48 AMI think the argument *is* paradoxical, and this can be seen from an analogy with a math game. Take two players, who each can pick any positive integer. The object is to pick a higher number than the other guy. Now:
It would be irrational to pick 1, since that is the lowest possible integer, and you would certainly lose the game. So no one will pick 1.
It would be irrational to pick 2, since no one will pick 1, and so you will certainly lose the game. So no one will pick 2.
Etc.
What number should you pick? Even if, granted, it is clearly stupid to pick 1?
What world should God create? Even if, granted, some worlds are clearly hells-on-earth and stupid to create?
Posted by: Heath White at January 14, 2005 12:25 PMJoshua, reductio is not really a rhetorically convincing move against a paradox. I *know* that there's something wrong with the argument; I'm impressed by the fact that I can't see what's wrong with it. The fact that it implies something false isn't its flaw; it's my evidence that it is flawed.
Posted by: Jonathan at January 15, 2005 01:54 AMI've discussed the "no best world" argument some more at my blog. I don't think it's really vulnerable to the hell-on-earth argument; it requires as a premise that, given the choice between creating this world and creating no world at all, it would be better to create this world. But I do think that it fails to prove that it's acceptable to create a world with suffering, or possibly with truly horrible suffering.
There are worlds that are better than any other world with respect to suffering, in that they have no suffering whatsoever. So even if God couldn't create the happiest of all worlds (no matter how many happy creatures are created, another happy creature could be created), He could create the world, of all the worlds, with the least suffering.
The fallacy is in thinking that worlds can be ranked along a single scale; more accurate (though still too simple) is to rank them by means of an ordered pair, with non-negative numbers for the amount of pleasure and the amount of suffering. We may not be able to complain that the pleasure number could be higher, but we can certainly complain that the pain number could be lower.
I do think that the no-best-possible-worlds argument might be of some help in solving a problem faced by another defense against the problem of evil. But rather than explain that, I'm just going to blogwhore and refer you back to my entry on that.
Posted by: Matt Weiner at January 15, 2005 03:54 PM