On Evil, Part Two: The Evidential Problem of Evil
INTRODUCTION
Last time, we saw that The Logical Problem of Evil (LPE) was too ambitious for its own good. In other words, making the strong claim that evil of any kind is logically inconsistent with the existence of God, LPE set itself up to fail. However, coherence is one thing. Plausibility is quite another. Consider this scenario: The world we live in now, which we take to pre-date those of us currently living in it by around 14 billion years, actually popped into existence about five minutes ago. In addition to the objects in the world popping into existence, they came into existence with all of the features they have now, including signs of age and apparent memories of stuff taking place prior to five minutes ago. This thesis is internally consistent as far as I can see, but, it’s wildly implausible.
Even if the existence of God is consistent with the existence of evil, we might still have the nagging feeling that something is off about the claim that the evils we see and a theistic God co-exist. In this post, I’ll be discussing a version of the Problem of Evil that is not as ambitious as LPE and thus more difficult to answer, the so-called Evidential Problem of Evil (EPE). This will set the stage for the next few posts where I discuss three Theistic Responses to EPE by Richard Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen and the late William Alston.
PRELIMINARIES
Before we begin, a few things need to be said. First, while I’ve loosely discussed “The Problem of Evil,” this should not be taken too literally. It is rarely the case that there is just one philosophical problem rather than a family of similar problems. EPE is typical in this regard. There are at least three different types of EPE’s:
- Amount of Evil: This version claims that the existence of God is unlikely given the sheer amount of evils that there are in the world. The idea, it seems, is that if God existed, he would most likely have done a better policing job.
- Kind of Evil: This version claims that the existence of God is unlikely given the existence of certain kinds of evils that exist in the world, such as genocide, plagues, etc.
- Particular Evils: This version claims that the existence of God is unlikely given the existence of particular evil events that have happened in the course of history, such as The Black Death or The Rwandan Genocide.
Each one of these, while similar, are somewhat independent of one another. For example, one might hold that no particular evil event, no matter how horrendous, makes the existence of God all that unlikely, but still think it improbable given the amount of evil in the world. Keeping that in mind, that might make the job of the theist much more difficult in that an answer to one kind of EPE might not successfully answer all three.
Second, while we have simply spoken of evil to this point, we can make a distinction between two kind of evil:
- Moral Evil: This is the title given to evil things that have their origin in the actions of moral agents, such as murder, torture and theft. In order for an act to count as one of these, the one that commits them must be an agent rather than a mere cause.[1]
- Natural Evil: This is the title given to evil things that have their origins apart from agents. The suffering resulting from natural disasters, the goods taken away by disease, etc. are paradigms of natural evils.
Finally, there are different ways of formulating the evidential arguments. For example, William Rowe and Paul Draper [2] both come up with different versions of the argument. I have decided to discuss Rowe’s version because it is less technical than Draper’s. The latter’s deals with the intricacies of probability theory, and I think it would just be harder to follow than Rowe’s. So, now that we have these issues sorted out, let us turn to Rowe’s version of EPE.
ROWE’S ARGUMENT
Rowe’s argument comes from his 1979 paper, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.” The paper has three aims. First, to show that there is rational justification for atheism. Second, to see what the best ways are for a theist to respond. Finally, to see what view atheists should have of theism given their disbelief. While the last two sections are interesting, I will only discuss the first.
Rowe believes that the evils we see in the world are able to justify disbelief in God. He grants that LPE sets itself up to fail, but, if we make a less ambitious claim then we can see where the real problem lies. Rowe gives us the following argument:
- There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
- An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrences of any intense suffering it could without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
- Therefore, there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being
An obvious question arises. What are the conditions under which God with these Omni-attributes (call it an “Omni-God”) would prevent an instance of suffering? Rowe gives us the following three:
- There is some greater good, G, such that G is obtainable by the Omni-God only if it permits the relevant instances of suffering, OR…
- There is some G such that G is only obtainable by the Omni-God only if it permits either the relevant instance of suffering or something equally bad or worse, OR…
- The relevant instance of suffering is such that it is only preventable by the Omni-God only if it permits something equally bad or worse.
We might be wondering why this is called an evidential argument when it is formulated as a deductive argument. That is, while evidential arguments are probabilistic, deductive arguments are supposed to give us certainty. The answer is that Rowe is claiming that we are justified in holding to the premises even if we are not certain that they are true. Because of the fact that we assign a high probability to the premises, we will assign a high probability to the conclusion. For example, it seems that we would assign (2) a very high probability, near, 1 (perhaps, .99) [3]. Say, we assign (2) the probability of .75. Given the way we have assigned the probabilities, we would conclude that the conclusion has a probability of .74 or a 74% chance of being correct. So, the point of this argument is to show that the amount of justification we have for the premises lowers our justification in believing that theism is true.
Now, since (3) follows from (2) & (1), we can only deny it by attacking the latter. It seems that (2) is safe, since to move away from it is to begin to make the notion of Divine Goodness unintelligible. That is, if God could stop evil from happening and has no reason to permit it, then it seems as if God is, at best, indifferent to our plight. This seems less than benevolent, let alone omnibenevolent. It seems that in order to save omnibenevolence and reject (2) we would have to gerrymander the concept so much that it doesn’t really resemble our intuitive grasp of omnibenevolence and runs the risk of making our claims that God is good meaningless.
So, what should we say about (1)? First, it seems to make this a version of the third kind of EPE. There are particular instances of evil that count as evidence against the existence of God. Rowe gives us the following account of natural evil as an example:
…in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see the fawn’s intense suffering is pointless. [4]
As we might have noticed, we are at a loss to see which of the three criteria above would justify God in letting this happen. Furthermore, it seems obvious that an omnipotent and omniscient being could have prevented this from happening in the first place, or at least put the poor thing out of its misery after it was hurt in the fire. So, if all of this is the case, why did God let this happen?[5]
While this does not make it certain that there is no justifying reason for such a thing to happen, it does incline us to think that there isn’t. Rowe thinks that it goes so far as to justify us holding (1) to be true. Hence, Rowe thinks that we can be rationally justified believing that God does not exist.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It should be clear at this point that Rowe’s argument is going to be much more difficult to undermine than Mackie’s. The premises that he uses are very plausible at first glance. However, different theists have responded in different ways. Next time, I’ll discuss Richard Swinburne’s response.
Before I close, I’ll point out two things that Rowe’s argument presupposes.
- First, it presupposes that we do not have any successful arguments for the existence of God. If we have a strong enough proof for the existence of God, then, we have a way to show that (2) is false off the bat. Even if the proof doesn’t give us certainty, if it raises the probability of God’s existence enough, EPE may not be enough to undermine our conviction that God exists.
- Second, it presupposes that if there were reasons for God to let something like this happens, we’d be likely to discover them. If we were likely not to discover them, the fact that we don’t know what they are doesn’t count against the possibility of their being there.
On that note, I leave you to ponder this issue. I’ll try to post on Swinburne relatively quickly, but, given that there is another exam coming up as well as papers to grade, I don’t know when I’ll be able to get to it. Have a great All Saints Day.
ENDNOTES
[1] It seems that we can further distinguish between suffering a moral evil & performing one, but, I think that’s not really relevant to our aims here, so I will ignore it.
[2] And, no, there’s no relationship to Don.
[3] Probability is assigned to a state of affairs on a scale of 0 to 1, the former being impossible and the later necessary. Everything in between is more probable as it approaches 1.
[4] From Philosophy of Religion: A Reader and Guide. ed. Craig, William Lane. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press). p. 320.
[5] While Rowe probably has no particular instance in mind, it seems likely that things like this do in fact happen all of the time.
On Evil, Part One: The Logical Problem of Evil
INTRODUCTION
I’ve decided to write on something that I’ve been thinking of a lot lately. Unless one wants to claim we’re radically decieved about the nature of good and bad, it is obvious that very bad things happen in the world. Sometimes they’re the result of human actions, like the purges of dissidents in the Soviet Union under Stalin[1]. Sometimes, these things are the result of natural phenomena, like the Black Plague. Regardless of their sources, we can all agree that they are bad things in and of themselves.
This is usually taken to be problematic for theism. Given what it claims about God, that He is all-powerful, all-good and all-knowing, how could such things happen? Many have taken this to show that there is no God, or at least, not one like theism postulates. There are various ways draw this conclusion. Over the next couple of posts, I’ll be highlighting the various attempts to show this and the responses to it. First, we’ll begin with the most straight forward version which makes the strongest claims: The Logical Problem of Evil.
THE LOGICAL PROBLEM OF EVIL (LPE)
This version of the Problem of Evil has ancient roots. It goes back to the Epicureans, but was brought into the early modern period by David Hume. Most recently, it has been defended by individuals such as John Mackie, who’s version in “Evil and Omnipotence” (Mind vol. LXIV, #254) I’ll be working with. Mackie puts the problem this way:
In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But, at the same time all three are essential to most theological positions: the theologian, it seems, must and cannot coherently adhere to all three…However, the contradiction does not arise immediately; to show it we need some additional premises…These additional principles are that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can and that there are no limits on what an omnipotent being can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists are incompatible. [2]
So, what exactly is the argument? It seems that we can formally state it this way:
- God is omnipotent. [premise]
- God is omnibenevolent (i.e. All-Good) [premise]
- There is evil in the world [premise]
- There is no limit on what an omnipotent being can do. [Def. of Omnipotence]
- An omnibenevolent being would eliminate evil as much as it could. [Consequence of Omnibenevolence]
- So, there is no limit on what God can do and God would eliminate as much evil as He can. [From (1), (2), (4) & (5)]
- Thus, there is no evil in the world. [From (7)]
- Therefore, there is and is not evil in the world. [From (3) & (7)]
As it stands now the conclusion doesn’t follow. Imagine the following scenario. We have morally perfect and omnipotent being, but, it is not omniscient. Given that this being is subject to ignorance, it appears that contrary to its intentions, something might surprise it and evil of some sort results. So, another premise must be added.
2a. God is omniscient.
So, now it seems the conclusion follows. But, is it sound?
EVALUATION OF THE ARGUMENT
Before we evaluate the argument, it might help to discuss what the argument does and doesn’t aim to show. First, it doesn’t show that there is not some kind of deity. Rather, it can be taken to show one of two things: Either it shows that one kind of God does not exist, namely, the kind postulated by theism, or it shows that God cannot have all of the properties attributed to him by theists. Which it aims to show is unimportant for our purposes since both are disastrous for theism. Second, it is very ambitious. It is not making the claim that evil is very unlikely given theism. It aims to show that theism is self-contradictory. To put it in other terms, it aims to show that an affirmation of theism is on par with affirming the existence of square circles. Finally, it makes the claim that any kind of evil, no matter how small, is inconsistent with the existence of such a God. So, if the only bad thing that ever happened in the entire history of the world was that someone got a small paper cut, that is sufficient to show that God does not exist. Remember, God is able to prevent all evil and, says Mackie, an all good being would eliminate all the evil it can [3].
So, given all of these considerations, what should we conclude about the argument? I think we should conclude that given the very ambitious and implausible nature of its claim, we need to be somewhat skeptical. Intuitively, God’s existence is compatible with the existence of a world where the only bad thing that happens is that someone gets a paper cut. Granted, if the premises are sound, we’ll have to accept the conclusion. But, we better be damn sure about those premises before we do.
The first thing we should notice is that the premises are vague. For example, what does (4) mean? We loosely talk about God having unlimited power, but it is clear we should not take that too literally. Clearly, we do not want to say that God can create things that are logically impossible, like square circles. So, non-contradiction is a legitimate limit imposed on omnipotence. We also don’t want to say that God can do whatever we can conceive of, since it seems to be the case that we can conceive of things that are absolutely impossible. For example, those who don’t know their chemistry can conceive of water that is not H2O even though that’s impossible. H2O is all water is. So, how can we undestand (4) in such a way that this feature is actually possible?
Also, it seems that (5) is plausibly incomplete. Think of it this way: As it is now, a perfectly good being is simply one that destroys or prevents evil. One great way to do this is simply to not create anything. If there are no agents to perform evil and no natural phenomena that can cause evil consequences, it follows trivially that there is and can be no evil. However, this also means that a lot of good things that do exist would not exist. I bring this up because it seems that a good being would also maximalize good as much as it could as well as limit evil.
If we make these changes and reformulate the argument, let’s see what follows:
- God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
- There is evil in the world.
- An omnipotent being is able to perform any actually possible action.
- An omniscient being knows how to prevent all kinds of evil
- An omnibenevolent being would eliminate evil as far as it could without eliminating any good that outweighs the evil.
While more plausible, this version still seems deficient. It still seems that (3) doesn’t fully capture the essence of omnipotence, since while it is actually possible for me to perform some action A, it is not actually possible for God to make it so I freely perform action A. But, let’s stifle that worry for now, since it still doesn’t follow from these premises that there is a contradiction. Another premise has to be added:
6.) It is actually possible for an omnipotent being to eliminate all evil without sacrificing the greater goods.
Now, if we embrace (1) – (6) of the reformulated argument, the contradiction seems to follow. But, why should we think that (6) is true? Given the fact that we still aren’t sure what all an omnipotent being can in fact do, how could we begin to justify (6)? Mackie might appeal to a gut intuition that it can happen, but, frankly, I don’t share the intuition and am thus much more skeptical of our ability to know (6) is true. Since the goal is to prove that theists are inconsistent, he needs to show that theists are committed to (6) in addition to (1) through (5). But, why should the theist admit that? Hence, it seems that LPE collapses under its burden of proof’s weight.
CONCLUSION
While it seems right to say that LPE fails, we should not be so smug. There is still something nagging about evil. Even if there isn’t a logical contradiction, it still seems like there is something about evil that doesn’t fit well with theism. Because of this over versions of the problem have arised that have shown that evil, while not inconsistent with theism, nonetheless makes it less likely to be true. For next time, we’ll turn our attention to what has been called The Evidential Argument from Evil (EAE). Until then, have a great night.
ENDNOTES
[1] Here’s an anecdote I heard recently: In the Ukraine soon after the end of WWII, the Soviets made their authority known. In one small village, this included putting an end to the practice of Catholicism. So, soldiers gathered the people into the church, took the parish priest & his family (Eastern Catholics allow their clergy to marry) and shot them in the front of the church. They declared that the church was now a warehouse and that it was no longer to be used for religious purposes. Contrary to the aims of this dramatic and extreme display, the villagers were not intimidated and complained. In response, the Soviet leaders rounded up the villagers who had complained & their families (apparently, about 200 people), boarded them up in the church building and then burned it down. While I can’t vouch for all the details, given what we know about the Soviet Union at the time, I don’t doubt that this is more or less true.
[2] Feinberg, Joel & Russ Shafer-Landau (2008). Reason & Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy. 13th edition. (Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth): 78 -9.
[3] It is worth noting here that the term “evil” has a technical sense here that is not usually implied by our regular usage. “Evil” here means simply something bad to some degree, whereas, in usual usage implies horrendous evil.
“Make Me Fries”
A great song. Incomprehensible lyrics. And one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on YouTube.
My thanks to Tom Conley for pointing this one out in the first place.
Why I’m a (Metaphysical) Libertarian
And, I’m back. I’ve been gone well over a month, too. Well, what can I say? Moving et al has kept me busy over the past month, and I also had minor emergency surgery about a week and a half ago. (I’m fine, by the way.) But, I have returned with something I’ve been thinking about as of late.
In my department, I’m surrounded by people who are determinists of one stripe or another. That is, they believe that all of our actions were determined a long time ago by the Laws of Natures and the state of the universe at the beginning. I stand out because I’m one of the few that don’t believe that. I was warned to be ready for some good-natured ribbing for it, and really, I find that odd. It’s not like I’m the one’s that should be suffering from cognitive dissonance.
In order to know why I feel that way, I should probably give you the reason why. I believe that we are, in normal circumstances, able to control our actions and act in such a way that the Laws of Nature (or anything else) doesn’t ultimately make us do what we do. That position is called “Libertarianism.” Not to be confused with Political Libertarianism, we might do well to refer to this position as Metaphysical Libertarianism.
And, very roughly, here is why I think this is the case:
- The process of deliberation/decision-making is fundamental to our normal functioning.
- The process of deliberation/decision-making presupposes freedom (i.e. that our decisions are up to us).
- Freedom is incompatible with determinism of any kind.
- So, the process of deliberation/decision-making presupposes that we are not determined to act as we do.
- Given the fundamentality of the decision-making process, we are warranted in accepting the beliefs that it presupposes.
- Thus, we are warranted in accepting the thesis that determinism is false and that we have freedom.
It’s worth noting what this argument does and does not aim to do. This is not an argument that we are in fact free. Rather, only that there is a pragmatic presumption in favor of our being free. Every premise and conclusion in this argument could be true and we not in fact be free. However, it shows that we need to assume that we are free in order to maintain psychological consistency. One cannot accept determinism and yet still take part in this practice without inconsistency.
Like any good philosophical argument, there are people who dispute just about all of these premises. Though, to be fair, I think that just about everyone will accept that deliberation/decision-making is something we can’t avoid. We just naturally start the process when faced with choices we take to be important. That’s not to say that we don’t go on autopilot at times, but, when faced with something important, even the most earnest determinist will not sit back and wait to see what they end up doing.
(2) is very intuitive, and while I’ve heard that some do contest it, this seems obvious to me. When I deliberate about something it is because I’m trying to find out what I should do. And, why should I if it’s not up to me what I do? I don’t deliberate about what other people do or about what other animals should do because what they do is not up to me.
Given that (4) and (6) are conclusions drawn from other premises, we can only reject them if the other premises we can reject. Among those premises, (3) & (5) are the most contested points of the argument. Why should we believe that we cannot be free if determinism is true? Well, think of it this way. If determinism is true, then all of our actions were determined by the laws of nature and the initial state of the universe 14,000,000,000+ years ago. Needless to say, we have no say over what the laws of nature are and what the world was like back then. So, how could we have control of our actions? The same goes for Theological Determinism. If God wills that I perform an action, I cannot but do so. Furthermore, I can’t control what God wills. So, how can I be in control of my actions if God has determined my actions?
As for (5), it’s about consistency. We are rational beings, and rational beings ought to make their beliefs as consistent as possible. Given that we can’t really give up deliberating, we have to maintain consistency by deliberating about our actions.
So, given all of this, why am I the guy that gets the good-natured ribbing over my views on agency? I’m the consistent one, folks. But, what are you going to do? I’ll admit that this argument is not all that original. It’s dependent heavily on arguments given by Emmanuel Kant, which is odd because by and large I don’t agree with much of anything Kant said. Also, as I said, this is just a rough characterization of my views and the reasons that I have for them. So, if you see any glaring inconsistencies or holes in the arguments, or anything else that might make them turn out to be wrong, ignore them. 
Seriously, have fun with this one, folks, and I’ll be better about posting on this thing.
Empty Rhetoric
People on both sides of the political spectrum do something that makes me roll my eyes. Every so often, you’ll see someone on one side say something like this, “Conservatives think that p” or “Liberals say that q”. The implicit statement is that ALL members of this group think that p or say that q. This is also usually carries a negative connotation (e.g. liberals say that q, and that’s just stupid). I’ll give you an example I came across recently. A blogger I rarely read recently said that Liberals say that conservatives want to abolish government and also want to create a totalitarian state.
Now, it’s clear why this is a bad thing. First, when you’re dealing with a large group of people, there are rarely going to be homogeneous ideologically. This is particularly true when it comes to politics. Political affiliation terms such as “conservative” and “liberal” are both ambiguous and vague. In many ways, they’re kind of like syndrome terms. So, strictly speaking, you’re always going to be wrong when you make one of these blanket statements. Second, most of these statements are fueled by things that different people in these groups have said. Referring back to my earlier example, there were some liberals who said that conservatives want to get rid of any government regulation, and there are others (e.g. Naomi Wolf) who say that conservatives want to create a totalitarian state. But, once we realize that these are things that are being said by different people within this group, we can see that the original statement is just an obviously careless attempt to discredit those that disagree with you.
Of course, if everyone thought about this practice at length, they’d probably come to a similar if not the same conclusion. But, seeing as how this rhetorical device is a great way to hoodwink the unreflective and rally the troops, so to speak, it’s not going to go away. I have to say, if I’d thought that politics could be a truly civil affair, I’d be disappointed by that fact.
Something that Irks Me
There is one argument that I’ve heard about healthcare and rights bugs me to no end. Those that argue for a public option for Healthcare might claim that health care is a human right. I will not argue that it is, if only because I have no idea how to argue that anything is a right without begging the question and the more I think about it, I’m not sure we have rights, to be honest. But, rather, I want to argue that one argument against this claim is horribly flawed.
One argument that has been put against this claim (if I remember correctly, by Rush Limbaugh) is that health care not listed in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. So, it’s obviously not a right. You might already see why it makes me want to scream.
This argument makes one of two obviously false assumptions. The first possible assumption is that something being in the Bill of Rights is what makes it a right. So, if the 1st amendment hadn’t been put in the Bill of Rights, then we wouldn’t have Freedom of Speech as a right. But, that gets the relationship backwards. If being in the Bill of Rights is what makes something a right, then it’s not a right. It’s a privilege the Founding Fathers were nice enough to grace us with. This tacitly amounts to the claim that there are no such things as rights. It entails that there’s no right to health care, but, at too steep a cost to most of the people who make this claim.
The second possible assumption is that the Founding Fathers had insight into every possible right that human beings could possibly have for all time. This assumption is so implausible that it is almost beneath me to argue against it. It is more or less the claim that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are infallible documents. (Hint: Infallible documents don’t say that you can change them later on).
So, this argument against the claim we have a right to Healthcare can’t get off the ground. Does this mean we do have the right? No. Just because we can’t argue successfully against a claim doesn’t mean that it is true. Plus, this is just one argument. And, let’s face it, it’s hard to see how we can argue that anything is a right. At this point, the claim that we do or don’t have a right to Healthcare is still at a theoretical stalemate.
Beginnings to a Theistic Argument from Moral Knowledge
There are a lot of theistic arguments based on morality. Figures from Augustine to Robert M. Adams (currently at Oxford) have given arguments for why the practice of morality presupposes the existence of a being like God. By and large, they tend to fall into two categories, God as the grounding of morality or God as the Just Judge that will reward the good and punish the evil. Personally, I don’t find these arguments all that compelling. The first kind usually runs into the Euthyphro Problem*and the latter seems problematic given certain aspect of the Christian message**. But, what about the fact that we know something is right or wrong? Might that lead to a way to argue for the existence of God?
I’m not going to give a rigorous formulation of the argument here in this blog because I’m still thinking of how exactly to formulate it (and if there is really anything to this line of thought). But, the idea is if there is no God, there is little reason to think that our moral reasoning accurately tracks what is right and wrong. It is clear that human beings have an innate capacity to make moral judgments. It’s not necessarily the case that we have anything like a perceptual awareness of moral facts, but, there seems to be something in our neuro-physiology that inclines us to regard certain things as right or wrong or good or bad. But, why should we think that these faculties are programmed to properly come to the correct moral decisions?
It’s not clear what purely*** evolutionary story could plausibly justify a trust in our abilities to make moral judgments. These processes would be selected either because they directly contribute to the survival of a species or because they are a concomitant of a trait/process that does. What would an abstract realm of moral thought present in the way of ensuring the survivals of those that believe in them? Why would our moral faculties be something more than a glorified herd instinct? Relatedly, what process that did ensure survival is it related to? I’m not sure that this would happen if there wasn’t a God that was setting things in order.
Of course, I’m not entirely sure that this works as is. Setting aside the contentious claim that there are objective moral facts, true independent of what any human being thinks about them, I cannot help but think that there is something I’m missing. I think that there’s something here, if only because of the fact that so many evolutionary biologists and naturalistically inclined ethicists try to avoid moral realism. Obviously, more work needs to be done on this. But, I thought I’d share this with you and see if you guys liked where I was going with it. Have a great night.
END NOTES
*The problem goes the following way: “Does God command that p because p is good or is p good because God commands it? If the former, God is not sovereign. If the latter, God’s commands are arbitrary.” I’m inclined to think that there’s some way to get around this, but, I cannot discuss so here.
**For example, it seems that God’s justice is not necessarily applied to everyone that deserves it.
***I say “purely” because of the fact that God could manipulate our evolutionary history so that our moral faculties track moral truths.
I’m Still Here…
Just wanted to let you guys know that I’m still here. My studies have kept me busy over the last week or two. But, now that they’re all sewn up, I’m ready to work on the blog a little bit more. I actually do have a few ideas on the back burner right now and hope to have them posted over the next couple of days. Talk to you all then. Have a great day.
Abortion, Murder & Double Effect
As many of you are probably aware, the abortion debate has been thrust back into the limelight by two events. First, there was the President’s commencement speech at Notre Dame, which drew criticism from both the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as other pro-life groups. Second, the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller, a controversial figure in his native Kansas due to his willingness to perform third-term abortions.
This points to an apparent tension in the mainstream pro-life position. In order to bring this tension out, let’s first point out that abortion is objected to as a form of murder. While controversial, this alone does not bring out the problem. In order to see where the problem lies, consider the following argument (let’s call it the Permissibility of Preventative Homicide or PPH).
- It is permissible to kill someone in order to prevent a murder.
- Abortions are acts of murder
- Therefore, it is permissible to kill someone in order to prevent an abortion.
But, the majority of pro-lifers do not kill abortion providers. In fact, most of us condemn those that do. But, if these two arguments both go through, then it follows that there is an inconsistency in the behavior of pro-lifers. So, what’s a pro-lifer to do?
It will not do to try to justify the condemnation of pro-life extremists on pragmatic grounds. We condemning people who we must judge of having apparently done nothing wrong in order to not alienate the rest of our society for two reasons. First, the apparent inconsistency of these actions alone will hurt us more than help us in the eyes of the general public. Second, it is simply wrong to condemn those that don’t deserve it. If this condemnation is to be justified, we need to show why the action being condemned is impermissible.
I think that there is a way to do this using a principle often used in Catholic moral thought, that is, The Principle of Double Effect (PDE). PDE states that if an action has bad consequences, then it can only be justified if the following conditions are met:
- that the action in itself from its very object be good or at least indifferent.
- that the good effect and not the evil effect be intended.
- that the good effect be not produced by means of the evil effect.
- that there be a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect.
The intuitive nature of PDE is revealed when we consider the case of killing in self-defense. In such a scenario, we are trying to bring about a good state of affairs, preserving our own lives. However, this has the negative consequence of taking a human life. But, it is clear that the primary motivation in this context is to preserve life. This next part is crucial: there is a sense in which we are not killing them in order to save our lives. The very act that kills them is the act that saves our lives. The proportionality condition is intuitive, because we usually think that an attacker that has been subdued should not be killed. Furthermore, if the attacker is someone that is easily subdued, say a weak individual such as, say a 13 year old boy with emotional problems & a knife, it seems as if killing the boy is going too far.
By evoking PDE, we can see that the first premise of PPH is arguably false. But, before we do, we need to clear up an issue. It seems that PPH’s first premise is somewhat ambiguous. Thus it can be read in two ways.
Reading One: “It is sometimes right to kill to defend another’s life.”
However, if we only make the claim that it is okay to kill to defend life under some circumstance, the problematic conclusion doesn’t follow. It still has yet to be shown that abortions fall under those categories of the murders we can kill in order to prevent.
Reading Two: “It is always permissible to kill another in order to defend another’s life.”
If we understand the premise in this way the argument is valid, but, if we accept PDE, we can see that the premise is false. It potentially violates two of the above conditions. It seems that it could violate the willing evil as a means to good as well as the proportionality clause. If we can stop a murderer without killing him or her, it is obligatory that we try to do it in that manner. Also, killing abortionists in order to stop abortions such as in the case of Dr. Tiller is clearly intending a death as a means to a good thing.
So, there is no inherent contradiction in pro-lifers in condemning such actions. While this doesn’t answer what the proper and permissible course of action for Pro-Lifers to take, it does show which ones we can consistently say are impermissible. That in and of itself is a good result.
