Category: Good and Evil
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Can Evil be Eradicated?
To be precise, my question is this: Is there one root of all evil such that this root is (i) empirically identifiable, and (ii) eliminable by human effort alone? Can we humans locate and remove the one source of all evil? My claim is that an affirmative answer is at once both false and extremely…
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The Problem of Evil and the Argument from Evil
It is important to distinguish between the problem of evil and the argument from evil. The first is the problem of reconciling the existence of God, as traditionally understood, with the existence of natural and moral evils. As J. L. Mackie points out, this "is essentially a logical problem: it sets the theist the task of clarifying and…
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Is Man Basically Good?
Conservatives answer in the negative, liberals in the affirmative. This may be the most important difference between the warring parties. Dennis Prager explains the difference very clearly here. Liberals will object to the 'radioactive' Man in the above title borrowed from Prager. They think it excludes women. It does not. It only excludes women if…
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Evil as it Appears to Theists and Atheists
In the preface to his magnum opus, F. H. Bradley observes that "Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct." (Appearance and Reality, Oxford 1893, p. x) The qualifier 'bad' is out of place and curiously off-putting at the outset of…
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Where in Logical Space is God?
Milos the Serbian sends us to this sampling of correspondence by and to David Lewis assembled by his widow, Stephanie Lewis.
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What Did You Do With Your Life, God?
Thanksgiving evening, the post-prandial conversation was very good. Christian Marty K. raised the question of what one would say were one to meet God after death and God asked, "What did you do with your life?" Atheist Peter L. shot back, "What did you do with your life, God?" In my judgment, and it is…
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Generic and Specific Problems of Evil: The Nature and Tractability of the Problem Depends on the Type of Theism Espoused
A reader requests some help in a debate he is having with some atheists re: the problem of evil. My advice: don't debate atheists. Read their arguments and consider them carefully. Then think the problem through for yourself in as intellectually honest and existentially serious a manner as you can. Then decide whether to accept…
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The Extremism of Simone Weil
A longish essay of mine, Weil's Wager, ends like this: Although Weilian disinterest may appear morally superior to Pascalian self-interest, I would say that the former is merely an example of a perverse strain in Weil’s thinking. One mistake she makes is to drive a wedge between the question of the good and the question…
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On Whether Some Arguments from Evil Beg the Question
Thesis for consideration: It can reasonably be maintained that some arguments from evil beg the question against theism. Suppose we consider the following passage from J. J. C. Smart: It looks as though the theistic hypothesis is an empirically refutable one, so that theism becomes a refuted scientific theory. The argument goes: (1) If God…
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A Problem of Evil for Atheists
Suppose you are an atheist who considers life to be worth living. You deny God, but affirm life, this life, as it is, here and now. Suppose you take the fact of evil to tell against the existence of God. Do you also take the fact of evil to tell against the affirmability of life? …
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Kant on Peccatum Originale Originans and Peccatum Originale Originatum
1. An important distinction for understanding the doctrine of original sin is that between originating original sin (peccatum originale originans) and originated original sin (peccatum originale originatum). This post will explain the distinction and then consider Immanuel Kant's reasons for rejecting originated original sin. It is important to realize that Kant does accept something like original…
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The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Mr Vallicella, I want to give you a heads up on the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". The phrase is probably an idiom that means something like 'universal wisdom' or 'all knowledge'. A better translation may be 'The Tree of the Knowledge of Everything From A to Z'. There is, in…
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Bonum Progressionis and the Value of One’s Life
The value of a whole is not determined merely by the values of the parts of the whole; the order of the parts also plays a role in determining the value of the whole. One of several order principles governing the value of a whole is the bonum progressionis. Glossing Franz Brentano, R. M. Chisholm (Brentano and…
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God, Probability, and Noncontingent Propositions
Matt Hart comments: . . . most of what we conceive is possible. So if we say that 1) In 80% of the cases, if 'Conceivably, p' then 'Possibly, p'2) Conceivably, God existsErgo,3) Pr(Possibly, God exists) = 80%4) If 'Possibly, God exists' then 'necessarily, God exists'Ergo,5) Pr(Necessarily, God exists) = 80%, we seem to get by.…
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Gratuitous Evil and Begging the Question: Does LAFE Beg the Question?
What is it for an argument to beg the question? I suggest that an argument begs the question if it is impossible to know one of the premises to be true without knowing that the conclusion is true. The simplest question-begging arguments are of the form p—p. Clearly, every argument of this form is valid,…