The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

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Lecture 5 The Global Argument Continued I said that I would begin this lecture with a discussion of some problems involving free will. The first of the three problems I shall consider arises from the contention that free will is compatible with strict causal determinism: that is, with the thesis that the past and the laws of nature together determine a unique future. Many philosophers—Hobbes, Hume, and Mill are the most illustrious representatives of their school—have held that free will and determinism are perfectly compatible: that there could be a world in which at every moment the past determined a unique future and whose inhabitants were nonetheless free beings. 1 Now if this school of philosophers is right, the free-will defense fails, for if free will and determinism are compatible, then an omnipotent being can, contrary to a central thesis of the free-will defense, create a person who has a free choice between x and yandensure that that person choose x rather than y. Those philosophers who accept the compatibility of free will and determinism defend their thesis as follows: being free is being free to do what one wants to do. Prisoners in a jail, for example, are unfree because they want to leave and can’t. The man who desperately wants to stop smoking but can’t is unfree for the same reason—even though no barrier as literal as the bars of a cell stands between him and a life without nicotine. The very words ‘free will’ testify to the rightness of this analysis, for one’s will is simply what one wants, and a free will is just exactly an unimpeded will. Given this account of free will, a Creator who wants to give me a free choice between x and y has only to arrange the components of my body and my environment in such a way that the following two ‘if’ statements are both true: if Iweretowantx, I’dbeabletoachievethatdesire,andif Iweretowanty, I’dbeable to achieve that desire. And a Creator who wants to ensure that I choose x, rather than y, has only to implant in me a fairly robust desire for x and see to it that I have no desire at all for y. And these two things are obviously compatible. Suppose, for example, that there was a Creator who had put a woman in a garden and had commanded her not to eat
76 The Global Argument Continued of the fruit of a certain tree. Could he so arrange matters that she have a free choice between eating of the fruit of that tree and not eating of it—and also ensure that she not eat of it? Certainly. To provide her with a free choice between the two alternatives, he need only see to it that two things are true: first, that if she wanted to eat of the fruit of that tree, no barrier (such as an unclimbable fence or paralysis of the limbs) would stand in the way of her acting on that desire, and, secondly, that if she wanted not to eat of the fruit, nothing would force her to act contrary to that desire. And to ensure that she not eat of the fruit, he need only see to it that not eating of the fruit be what she desires. This latter end could be achieved in a variety of ways; the simplest, I suppose, would be to tell her not to eat of it after having built into her psychological makeup a very strong desire to do whatever he tells her to and a horror of disobedience—a horror like that experienced by the acrophobe who is forced to approach the edge of a cliff. An omnipotent and omniscient being could therefore bring it about that every creature with free will always freely did what was right; there would then be no creaturely abuse of free will, and evil could not, therefore, have entered the world through the creaturely abuse of free will. And that is what a morally perfect being would, of necessity, do—at least assuming that free will is a good that a morally perfect Creator would have wanted to include in his creation. The so-called free-will defense is thus not a defense at all, for it is an impossible story. Here, then, is an argument for the conclusion that the story called the free-will defense essentially incorporates a false proposition. But how plausible is the account of free will on which the argument rests? Not very, I think. It certainly yields some odd conclusions. Consider the lower social orders in Brave New World, the ‘‘deltas’’ and ‘‘epsilons’’. These unfortunate people have their deepest desires chosen for them by others—by the ‘‘alphas’’ who make up the highest social stratum. What the deltas and epsilons primarily desire is to do what the alphas (and the beta and gamma overseers who are appointed to supervise their labors) tell them. This is their primary desire because it is imposed on them by pre-natal and post-natal conditioning. (If Huxley were writing today, he would no doubt add genetic engineering to the alphas’ list of resources for determining the desires of their willing slaves.) It would be hard to think of beings who better fitted the description ‘lacks free will’ than the deltas and epsilons of Brave New World. And yet, if the compatibilist account of free will is right, the deltas and epsilons not only have free will, but are much freer than you and I. Each of them is
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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
Page 41 and 42: 24 The Idea of God And Demiourgos i
Page 43 and 44: 26 The Idea of God evil. When we fi
Page 45 and 46: 28 The Idea of God —immutable. Th
Page 47 and 48: 30 The Idea of God worlds: those in
Page 49 and 50: 32 The Idea of God (it would certai
Page 51 and 52: 34 The Idea of God Now why do I dra
Page 53 and 54: 36 The Idea of God not a possible p
Page 55 and 56: 38 Philosophical Failure Note the w
Page 57 and 58: 40 Philosophical Failure proved by
Page 59 and 60: 42 Philosophical Failure which prem
Page 61 and 62: 44 Philosophical Failure thesis. Al
Page 63 and 64: 46 Philosophical Failure realist in
Page 65 and 66: 48 Philosophical Failure of our con
Page 67 and 68: 50 Philosophical Failure mere agnos
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Page 71 and 72: 54 Philosophical Failure minds, say
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Page 113 and 114: 96 The Local Argument from Evil tha
Page 115 and 116: 98 The Local Argument from Evil (3)
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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
Page 135 and 136: 118 The Sufferings of Beasts state
Page 137 and 138: 120 The Sufferings of Beasts Let us
Page 139 and 140: 122 The Sufferings of Beasts gift f
Page 141 and 142: 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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