Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian ‘Don’t Care’

Substack latest on the aporetics of evil.  

Today I preach upon a text from Karl Jaspers wherein he comments on St. Augustine (Plato and Augustine, ed. Arendt, tr. Mannheim, Harcourt 1962, p. 110):

In interminable discussions, men have tried to sharpen and clarify this contradiction: on the one hand, evil is a mere clouding of the good, a shadow, a deficiency; on the other hand, it is an enormously effective power. But no one has succeeded in resolving it.

The problem is genuine, the problem is humanly important, and yet it gives every indication of being intractable. Jaspers is right: no one has ever solved it. To sharpen the contradiction:

1) Evil is privatio boni: nothing independently real, but a mere lack of good, parasitic upon the good. It has no positive entitative status.

2) Evil is not a mere lack of good, but an enormously effective power in its own right. It has a positive entitative status.

A tough nut to crack, an aporetic dyad, each limb of which makes a very serious claim on our attention. And yet the limbs cannot both be true. Philosophy is its problems, and when a problem is expressed as an aporetic polyad, then I say it is in canonical form.

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14 responses to “The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian ‘Don’t Care’”

  1. john doran Avatar
    john doran

    the primary meaning of “evil” is moral: the bad intent of free agents.
    the propositions “murder is evil”, and “blindness is evil” are equivocations at the very best.
    tumors, amputations, blindness, earthquakes, tsunamis, are only “evils” analogously: they’re “evil” because of the tacit assumption that they’re caused/allowed by the bad intent of one or more free agents (the only reason there’s an atheistic “argument from evil”.)
    if not that, then those things are not “evil”, unless violence is done to the word.
    look, take the purely physical description of any of the phenonmena typically used as examples of “evils”. there is no mention of the word.
    here’s “earthquake”:
    a shaking of the ground caused by the sudden release of energy in the Earth’s crust, often due to the movement of tectonic plates
    “tsunami” is a footnote to that.
    “not functioning according to design” is maybe the closest we get for things like congenital blindness, but even then, who’s to say? what if god made my brother blind in the womb because god saw that, were my brother to be sighted, he would fall into the sin of lust, and become damned? is my brother’s blindness according-, or contrary-to, design?
    when it comes to bodily injury, how is “evil” involved? we live in a world governed by physical laws: when my hand gets amputated by the lawnmower i was cleaning but forgot to unplug, that’s just the world proceeding in accord with those laws.
    ubi est fricare?

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  2. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Thanks for this substantive post, Bill. You’ve fairly permitted the Pyrrhonian to enter, and then reasonably shown him the exit. The next move might be to allow the Academic skeptic to enter. The Academics suspended dogmatic and final judgements, holding that we lack the requisite objective certainty. Unlike the Pyrrhonians, the Academics cared very much about the big questions. They didn’t suspend judgment for the sake of tranquility. Rather, they suspended final theoretical judgment for the sake of continued inquiry. They also allowed for the formation of practical beliefs based on epistemic probability or plausibility.
    >>Resisting the Greatest Temptation, and avoiding both the complacency of dogmatism and the complacency of the uncaring worldling, we must continue the search for truth which, as Jaspers remarks above, is the way of philosophy.<< This concluding point seems to me to capture the spirit of the Academic skeptic.

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  3. BV Avatar
    BV

    Excellent comment, Elliot. We should consider what the Academic skeptic has to say and how it differs from Pyrrhonism.
    >>The Greek word skepsis means investigation. Literally, a “skeptic” is an inquirer. Not all ancient philosophers whom in retrospect we call “skeptics” refer to themselves as such. Nevertheless, they all embrace ways of life that are devoted to inquiry. Ancient skepticism is as much concerned with belief as with knowledge. As long as knowledge has not been attained, the skeptics aim not to affirm anything. This gives rise to their most controversial ambition: a life without belief.<< (SEP entry on ancient skepticism) What struck me here was that while both types of skepticism advocate the beliefless life, the commitment to inquiry cannot be the same in both. In Sextus Empiricus, belieflessness is supposed to issue in ataraxia. But if this state is attained, inquiry has to stop, right? For inquiry and debate can and do lead to mental disturbance. Disagreement, which will ineluctably arise, is in many cases unpleasant and perturbing. So it can't be right to say that both skeptical schools are committed to ongoing inquiry. The Academic is but not the Pyrrhonist. More importantly, is a beliefless life so much as possible? Without doxastic affirmation, how could I act? Act I must, and I cannot act except upon what I believe to be the case. What say you?

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  4. BV Avatar
    BV

    My position:
    1. WRT the big questions — God, the soul, etc. — no proof is possible either way. For example, one can plausibly argue against God from evil. Plausibly, but not probatively. One can also plausibly argue to God from evil. Plausibly, but not probatively. And so on through the entire range of substantive phil and theol. questions. That makes me an anti-dogmatic, critical thinker.
    2. But to follow Sextus into the tepid bath of ataraxia is ignoble, and pragmatically foolish. No suspension of judgment on a question like whether I survive my bodily death. I must de-cide what to believe and how to live. That separates from from both the Academics and Pyrrhonists. I reject the beliefless life.
    3. But inquiry must go on until death (and perhaps after death!). And I must be prepared to abandon a long held position if inquiry requires my abandoning it. This is part of my anti-dogmatism.

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  5. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill, I agree with you that a beliefless life is not possible for human beings, at least not in terms of practical possibility. I’m attracted to Carneades’ view of “approval.” According the the SEP article, Carneades allowed for a kind of epistemic (or doxastic?) approval, which falls short of assent, and yet counts as something like a weak belief that enables action. Such approvals/beliefs ought to be formed and maintained based on the “pithanon” (or, as Cicero puts it, the “probabile”, that is, what is probably true given the evidence.) Arcesilaus had a similar view; he used ‘eulogon’ in place of ‘pithanon.’
    As I take it, one should continue critical inquiry and, like Socrates, follow the evidence where it leads, and yet as a stopgap one can act on the basis of a doxastic approval concerning what is probable.
    A question arises: Does Carneades believe all of this? I suspect that he at least approved of it.

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  6. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill, I agree with your three points made on August 18 @ 11:22 AM. Your points summarize pretty much my position as well.
    The only additional point I’d make is to suggest that your view (and mine) is not far from a version of Academic skepticism. This version, associated with Carneades, is that there is no proof WRT the big questions. We can’t know the answers to them. Thus, we ought not hold dogmatic beliefs about them. And yet we are rationally permitted (and perhaps obligated) to draw doxastic approvals about them. These ‘approvals’ are non-dogmatic and tentative beliefs or doxastic acceptances based on the relevant evidence. These tentative beliefs enable us to act reasonably and live the rational life as we continue our philosophical inquiries. And yet, as you noted, we must be prepared to abandon a position if rational inquiry calls for doing so.

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  7. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    It seems the Academics held that objective certainty is a necessary condition for rationally justified belief. But this position raises a serious question about rational action. How can we act rationally if we need objectively certain belief to do so?
    Consider the following set of propositions:
    1. Objective certainty is a necessary condition for justified belief.
    2. Justified belief is a necessary condition for rational action.
    3. WRT the big questions, we lack objective certainty.
    4. WRT at least some of the big questions, we ought to act rationally.
    (2) and (3) are hard to deny. Regarding (1), one could make a distinction between theoretical/strict epistemic justification and practical/relaxed epistemic justification, and thereby argue that even if objective certainty is required for strict justification, objective certainty is not necessary for practical justification. As for (4), we are by nature rational beings, and thus for the big questions about God, freedom, the soul, meaning, the moral life, etc. we are obliged by our rational nature to act more or less rationally concerning such questions.

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  8. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot,
    >>It seems the Academics held that objective certainty is a necessary condition for rationally justified belief.<< I would say that a belief can be rationally justified for a person without being objectively certain. I recall that we stopped at the Tom Mix memorial on our drive together to see Brian in Sahuarita. I am subjectively certain to a very high degree that you will corroborate the veridicality of my memory. Am I objectively certain that you will? I'd say No. And yet I'd say that am rationally justified in my belief that you would corroborate my memory. As for your four propositions, I accept all except the first.

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  9. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Bill, I agree that a belief can be rationally justified w/o being objectively certain. I also accept all but the first proposition.
    Yes, I corroborate the veridicality of your memory. I recall the stop and the memorial, including the language of spirit and body on the plaque and the covered area behind.

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  10. john doran Avatar
    john doran

    Elliott,
    your #2 should be:
    2′) justified true belief is a necessary…
    no?
    but that is as may be: the real question is, does one need to know a proposition P, for P to figure into some bit of practical reasoning Pr, for Pr to count as “rational”?
    if so, then “justified belief” fails the test for knowledge, as does “justified true belief”, if Gettier is to be believed.
    So…

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  11. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    John, thanks for your questions.
    The first is interesting. Is justified true belief necessary for rational action. If (1) is the case, then you are right, since objective certainty entails truth. Moreover, if (2’) is true, then (2) is true.
    I have doubts about (2’), though. It seems to me that (a) a belief can be justified but false, and (b) an action based on a false belief can be rational.
    Regarding (a), take the sheep-in-the-field case (see Chisholm’s Theory of Knowledge, 3rd Edition, 1989, p. 93). Jones looks into a field and sees there a sheepdog that looks like a sheep. Jones is (at least) minimally justified in believing that the sheepdog is a sheep and thus that there is a sheep in the field. Jones’ belief that the sheepdog is a sheep is a false belief. His belief that there is a sheep in the field is also false, unless as in Chisholm’s case, Jones gets lucky because there is an actual sheep behind the hill and Jones cannot see this sheep when forming his belief that there is a sheep in the field.
    Regarding (b), suppose instead of seeing a sheepdog in the field, one sees a fallen log that looks like an alligator. This sort of situation happens in Florida. Smith is walking down a trail near a pond and sees a fallen log, eight feet in length, that has the shape, color, and texture-appearance of a gator. Under certain conditions of light, one might be justified in believing – at least for a moment – that the fallen log is a gator. Based on that justified false belief, Smith is practically rational to stop walking forward on the trail and even to walk backward a few steps until he confirms whether the object is a log or a gator. Hence, an action based on a justified false belief can yet be rational.
    Your second question is also interesting. I’d say that one does not need to know that p for p to figure into a rational chain of practical reasoning. Smith didn’t know that the log was a gator, since knowing that p entails that p is true, and yet Smith was rational to reason on the basis of the proposition ‘That object is a gator.’ Suppose that Brown is planning a walk at the beach this afternoon. He checks the forecast. The likelihood of rain is 60%. Does he know that there is a .6 probability of rainfall occurring during his walk? Arguably not. He lacks the relevant expertise to know such a thing. Arguably, it’s an open question as to whether or not the relevant experts know such a thing. Moreover, Brown’s belief about the probable rainfall could be Gettierized. Yet Brown can employ the proposition ‘The likelihood of rain is 60%’ in the following rational chain of practical reasoning:
    A. If the likelihood of rain is at least 60%, then I will bring an umbrella.
    B. The likelihood of rain is 60%. (Brown gathered this bit of information from the local forecast.)
    C. Thus, I will bring an umbrella.
    Regarding Gettier: yes, I think Gettier showed that neither justified belief nor justified true belief are sufficient for propositional knowledge. The various Gettier cases show that one can believe that p, and one’s belief can be both true and fallibly justified, and yet one can fail to know that p because one has been the recipient of epistemic or veritic luck.

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  12. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    About the Gettierization of belief:
    Let’s say that a Gettier case is one in which a person has a justified, true belief and yet the justification is fallible and the belief luckily true. In short, the belief is characterized by fallible support and a veritic fluke.
    Is it possible to have a belief that cannot be Gettierized?
    It seems that having infallible justification makes one’s belief immune to Gettierization. Perhaps, then, although fallibly justified true belief is insufficient for knowledge, infallibly justified true belief is sufficient for knowledge. On this view, S knows that p if:
    i) S believes that p
    ii) S’s belief that p rests on infallible justification.
    Since (ii) entails that S’s belief is true, S knows that p if S’s belief is an infallibly justified true belief.
    One challenge to this definition of knowledge is that it seems to entail a widespread (though non-global) skepticism. We lack infallible justification for very many of our reasonable beliefs, which means we lack knowledge in those cases.
    One response to this challenge is to accept it. We lack knowledge in many areas in which we think we have it. Such acceptance is at odds with — and even quite humbling to — our ordinary epistemic presumptions. And yet what if it’s true that we know vastly less than we take ourselves to know?

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  13. BV Avatar
    BV

    Elliot,
    Very good response to Doran. I agree with it.
    It is worth noting that the Gettier problem is old hat, and not just since 1963. There’s nothing new under the sun! The following from SEP:
    Few contemporary epistemologists accept the adequacy of the JTB analysis. Although most agree that each element of the tripartite theory is necessary for knowledge, they do not seem collectively to be sufficient. There seem to be cases of justified true belief that still fall short of knowledge. Here is one kind of example:
    Imagine that we are seeking water on a hot day. We suddenly see water, or so we think. In fact, we are not seeing water but a mirage, but when we reach the spot, we are lucky and find water right there under a rock. Can we say that we had genuine knowledge of water? The answer seems to be negative, for we were just lucky. (quoted from Dreyfus 1997: 292)
    The above example comes from the Indian philosopher Dharmottara, c. 770 CE. The 14th-century Italian philosopher Peter of Mantua presented a similar case:
    Let it be assumed that Plato is next to you and you know him to be running, but you mistakenly believe that he is Socrates, so that you firmly believe that Socrates is running. However, let it be so that Socrates is in fact running in Rome; however, you do not know this. (from Peter of Mantua’s De scire et dubitare, given in Boh 1985: 95)

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  14. Elliott Avatar
    Elliott

    Thanks, Bill.
    Yes, the Gettier problem precedes Gettier! Russell spoke of stopped clocks, and as you noted, the problem was addressed by medieval and ancient philosophers.
    I like the hypothetical case of Socrates running in Rome. Apparently, he never left Athens except for military service. Maybe he was running in battle, perhaps saving Alcibiades yet again, this time on a battlefield in Rome.
    Who said philosophers never leave the ivory tower?

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