The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

The Sufferings of Beasts 123
These considerations have to do with intrinsic disutility, with the
comparison of the intrinsic disutility of states of affairs. There is also the
matter of extrinsic disutility. Who can say what the effects of creating a
massively irregular world might be? Who can say what things of intrinsic
value might be impossible in a massively irregular world? We cannot
say. Here is one example of a consideration that may, for all I know, be
relevant to this question. Christians have generally held that at a certain
point God plans to hand over the government of the world to humanity.
Would a massively irregular world be the sort of world that could be
‘‘handed over’’? Perhaps a massively irregular world would immediately
dissolve into chaos if an infinite being were not constantly making
adjustments to it. Again, we cannot say. If anyone maintains that he has
good reason to believe that nothing of any great value depends on the
world’s being regular, we must ask him why he thinks he is in a position
to know things of that sort. We might remind him of the counsel of
epistemic humility that was spoken to Job out of the whirlwind:
Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer
thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast
understanding.
Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy
days is great?
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof
in the earth? 16
I have urged extreme modal and moral skepticism (or, one might say,
humility) in matters unrelated to the concerns of everyday life. If such
skepticism is accepted, then we have no reason to accept the proposition
that an omniscient and omnipotent being will be able so to arrange
matters that the world contains sentient beings and does not contain
patterns of suffering morally equivalent to those of the actual world.
More precisely, we have no reason to suppose that an omniscient and
omnipotent being could do this without creating a massively irregular
world; and, for all we know, either the disutility, intrinsic or extrinsic,
of massive irregularity in a world is greater than the intrinsic disutility
that is a consequence of containing vast amounts of animal suffering, or
else the disutility of massive irregularity and the disutility of containing
vast amounts of animal suffering are incomparable.