The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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Lecture 3 Philosophical Failure I have said that my project in these lectures is to defend the conclusion that the argument from evil is a failure. My purpose in the present lecture is to explain what I mean by calling this argument, or any philosophical argument, a failure. Let us therefore turn to the depressing topic of philosophical failure. I expect most philosophers believe that at least one well-known philosophical argument is a failure. But what do philosophers mean, or what should philosophers mean, by calling a philosophical argument a failure? I begin my attempt to answer this question with an observation about the nature of philosophical arguments. Philosophical arguments are not best thought of as free-floating bits of text—as mathematical proofs can perhaps be thought of. A proper mathematical proof, whatever else it may be, is an argument that should convince anyone who can follow it of the truth of its conclusion. We cannot think of philosophical arguments as being like that. (The idea that we can was gently ridiculed by the late Robert Nozick when he said that as a young man he had thought that the ideal philosophical argument was one with the following property: someone who understood its premises and did not accept its conclusion would die.) The idea that there are proofs in philosophy as there are proofs in mathematics is ridiculous, or not far short of it; nevertheless, it is an all but irresistible idea. I have just—I mean I did this when I was sitting in my study writing these words—I have just taken a volume of metaphysics at random from my shelves and opened it at random. I found these two sentences within the span of the two facing pages at which the book fell open: We do well to postpone as long as possible the admission into our ontology of elements elusive and opaque to the understanding [such as Aristotelian Prime Matter or the Lockean substratum] ...To avoid such elements, we must deny that in the ontic structure of an individual is to be found any non-qualitative element.
38 Philosophical Failure Note the word ‘must’ here. The author writes as if he or she—never mind who it is—has established the conclusion that if one regards the properties of material individuals as universals, one must either accept the existence of ‘‘elements elusive or opaque to the understanding’’ or else accept a bundle theory of the nature of material individuals. If you say that you could produce a much clearer example of a philosopher who believes he has proved something of philosophical interest, I will remind you that I really did find these words on two pages chosen at random (and if you recognize the passage and think I meant to pillory a particular author, I will remind you of the same thing). I mean these words to be an example of something absolutely typical in philosophical writing. We all write this way. We have no other way of writing—not, at least, when we are defending a conclusion. These lectures themselves will provide a fund, a plethora in fact, of examples of the very conception of philosophical argument that I am now attempting to undermine. That conception of philosophical argument is an ‘‘all but irresistible idea’’ because it is inherent in the way we philosophers have learned to write philosophy—not that I have an alternative way of writing philosophy to recommend to you. We are, after all, philosophers. We do not, we flatter ourselves, simply assert: we argue. To argue is to put forward reasons for believing things. And what is the point of putting forward reasons for believing things if those reasons are not decisive? That this rhetorical question represents the way we think, or a way we often think, is implied by the way we treat the reasons we present. The reasons we present our readers with when we write do generally seem decisive to us when we are putting them forward—this is shown by the fact that we do not generally immediately qualify our presentations of reasons for accepting philosophical theses with some variant on ‘‘But of course these considerations are merely suggestive, not decisive’’. But if argument in philosophy does not have the enviable indisputability of mathematical proof, what good is it? Is there even such a thing as success and failure in philosophical argument? If philosophical arguments are not proofs, what can we mean by calling them successes or failures? What can I mean when I say that the argument I am going to examine in these lectures, the argument from evil, is a failure? Let us consider an example. Suppose someone offers an argument for some philosophical thesis—for the existence of God, it may be, or for the non-existence of universals, or for the impossibility of a private language. Let us say an argument for the existence of God. What would it be for this argument to be a success or a failure? Here is a
Page 4: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Page 7 and 8: 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX
Page 10 and 11: Preface These lectures were deliver
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Page 43 and 44: 26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
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96 The Local Argument from Evil tha
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98 The Local Argument from Evil (3)
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114 The Sufferings of Beasts the ac
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116 The Sufferings of Beasts balls
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118 The Sufferings of Beasts state
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120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
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124 The Sufferings of Beasts What I
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126 The Sufferings of Beasts on the
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128 The Sufferings of Beasts a worl
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130 The Sufferings of Beasts told t
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132 The Sufferings of Beasts to ens
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134 The Sufferings of Beasts warned
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136 The Hiddenness of God hiddennes
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138 The Hiddenness of God admiratio
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140 The Hiddenness of God Theist. S
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142 The Hiddenness of God about the
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144 The Hiddenness of God If this w
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146 The Hiddenness of God (2) Patri
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148 The Hiddenness of God in genera
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150 The Hiddenness of God intellect
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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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The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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