The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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The Local Argument from Evil 101 felonious assault. His sentence is nearing its end, and he petitions you to release him from prison a day early. Should you? Well, the principle says so. A day spent in prison is an evil—if you don’t think so, I invite you to spend a day in prison. (Or consider the probable reaction of a prisoner who is, by bureaucratic foot-dragging, kept in prison one day longer than the term of his sentence.) Let’s suppose that the only good that results from someone’s being in prison is the deterrence of crime. (This assumption is made to simplify the argument I am going to present. That it is false introduces no real defect into the argument.) Obviously, 9 years and 364 days spent in prison is not going to have a significantly different power to deter felonious assault from 10 years spent in prison. So: no good will be secured by visiting on Blodgett that last day in prison, and that last day spent in prison is an evil. The principle tells you, the official, to let him out a day early. This much, I think, is enough to show that the principle is wrong, for you have no such obligation. But the principle is in more trouble than this simple criticism suggests. It would seem that if a threatened punishment of n days in prison has a certain power to deter felonious assault, n − 1 days spent in prison will have a power to deter felonious assault that is not significantly less. Consider the power to deter felonious assault that belongs to a threatened punishment of 1,023 days in prison. Consider the power to deter felonious assault that belongs to a threatened punishment of 1,022 days in prison. There is, surely, no significant difference? Consider the power to deter felonious assault that belongs to a threatened punishment of 98 days in prison. Consider the power to deter felonious assault that belongs to a threatened punishment of 97 days in prison. There is, surely, no significant difference? Consider the power to deter felonious assault that belongs to a threatened punishment of one day in prison. Consider the power to deter felonious assault that belongs to a threatened punishment of no time in prison at all. There is, surely, no significant difference? (In this last case, of course, this is because the threat of one dayinprisonwouldhaveno power to deter felonious assault.) A moment’s reflection shows that if this is true, as it seems to be, then the moral principle entails that Blodgett ought to spend no time in prison at all. For suppose that Blodgett had lodged his appeal to have his sentence reduced by a day not shortly before he was to be released but before he had entered prison at all. He lodges this appeal with you, the official who accepts the moral principle. For the reason I have set out,
102 The Local Argument from Evil you must grant his appeal. Now suppose that when it has been granted, clever Blodgett lodges a second appeal: that his sentence be reduced to 10 years less two days. This second appeal you will also be obliged to grant, for there is no difference between 10 years less a day and 10 years less two days as regards the power to deter felonious assault. I am sure you can see where this is going. Provided only that Blodgett has the time and the energy to lodge 3,648 successive appeals for a one-day reduction of his sentence, he will escape prison altogether. This result is, I take it, a reductio ad absurdum of the moral principle. As the practical wisdom has it (but this is no compromise between practical considerations and strict morality; this is strict morality), ‘‘You have to draw a line somewhere’’. And this means an arbitrary line. The principle fails precisely because it forbids the drawing of morally arbitrary lines. There is nothing wrong, or nothing that can be determined a priori to be wrong, with a legislature’s setting 10 years in prison as the minimum punishment for felonious assault—and this despite the fact that 10 years in prison, considered as a precise span of days, is an arbitrary punishment. If the terrestrial day were about 25 seconds shorter, the law would no doubt be stated in the same words, and it would be neither more nor less effective than it in fact is; the interval of time denoted by the phrase ‘10 years’ would, however, be about one day shorter than the interval of time actually denoted by that phrase. It is obvious, when you think about it, that the lengths of the prison sentences written into our laws depend on accidents of astronomy, the (to some degree) accidental fact that we use a decimal rather than a binary or duodecimal system of numerical representation, and many other arbitrary factors—such as our preference for numbers that can be specified concisely. And there is nothing wrong with this. Since, however we ‘‘draw the line’’, its exact position will be an arbitrary matter, we might as well let its exact placement depend partly on the set of (morally speaking) arbitrary preferences that nature has dropped into our collective lap. So: the moral principle is false—or possesses whatever defect is the analogue in the realm of moral principles of falsity in the realm of factual statements. What are the consequences of its falsity, of its failure to be an acceptable moral principle, for the local argument from evil? Let us return to the expanded free-will defense. This story accounts for the existence of horrors—that is, that there are horrors is a part of the story. The story explains why there are such things as horrors, although it says nothing about any particular horror. (It in fact implies
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX
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Preface These lectures were deliver
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Outline Contents Detailed Contents
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xii Detailed Contents agnostics’
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xiv Detailed Contents he is ‘‘h
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2 The Problem and Argument from Evi
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10 The Problem and Argument from Ev
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Lecture 2 The Idea of God I said th
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20 The Idea of God unifying princip
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22 The Idea of God ‘‘God was in
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24 The Idea of God And Demiourgos i
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26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
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28 The Idea of God —immutable. Th
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30 The Idea of God worlds: those in
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32 The Idea of God (it would certai
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34 The Idea of God Now why do I dra
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36 The Idea of God not a possible p
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38 Philosophical Failure Note the w
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40 Philosophical Failure proved by
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42 Philosophical Failure which prem
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44 Philosophical Failure thesis. Al
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46 Philosophical Failure realist in
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48 Philosophical Failure of our con
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Page 131 and 132: 114 The Sufferings of Beasts the ac
Page 133 and 134: 116 The Sufferings of Beasts balls
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Page 137 and 138: 120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
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Page 153 and 154: 136 The Hiddenness of God hiddennes
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Notes LECTURE 1 THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
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154 Notes 14. But here is a defense
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156 Notes to the metaphysical probl
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158 Notes greatest possible being m
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160 Notes matters was said only to
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162 Notes I believe as strongly as
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164 Notes 10. Note that I do not sa
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166 Notes Christianity.) Let us say
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168 Notes LECTURE 6 THE LOCAL ARGUM
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170 Notes of them: all of them but
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172 Notes 20. One might, however, w
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174 Notes 3. Those who think that t
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176 Notes that the first conjunct i
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178 Works Cited Providence and Evil
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180 Works Cited ‘‘What is the P
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182 Index free will (free choice) 2
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REVELATION
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