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Department of Philosophy, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH 45387
The following article was originally published in INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION in 1991 (Volume 29, pp. 159-174).
* I should like to thank Keith Chrzan, P.G. McGrath, Susan Ament Smith and an anonymous referee for this journal for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I should also like to thank two anonymous referees for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research for extensive and brilliant criticisms of an earlier and very different version of this paper, many of the improvements in the present version were motivated by their criticisms.
1. Prologue
Not long ago I was sleeping in a cabin in the woods and was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of a struggle between two animals. Cries of terror and extreme agony rent the night, intermingled with the sounds of jaws snapping bones and flesh being torn from limbs. One animal was being savagely attacked, killed and then devoured by another.
A clearer case of a horrible event in nature, a natural evil, has never been presented to me. It seemed to me self-evident that the natural law that animals must savagely kill and devour each other in order to survive was an evil natural law and that the obtaining of this law was sufficient evidence that God did not exist. If I held a certain epistemological theory about "basic beliefs", I might conclude from this experience that my intuition that there is no God co-existing with th is horror was a "basic belief" and thus that I am epistemically entitled to be an atheist without needing to justify this intuition, But I do not hold such an epistemological theory and believe that intuitive atheological beliefs, such as the one I experienced (and the corresponding intuitive theological beliefs, such as that God is providentially watching over this gruesome event) require justification if they are to be epistemically warranted. The following sections of this article present a justification for the atheological intuition I experienced that dark night. My justification will consist mostly in providing reasons to believe premise (3) in the following probabilistic argument
Therefore, it is probable that
2. The definition of an ultimately evil law
I shall assume the Armstrong-Tooley-Dretske1 theory that laws are relations among universals and have the form, in the simplest cases, of
(L) N(F,G)
where N stands for nomic necessitation and F and G are universals that are related by the relation of nomic necessity. (L) states that being F nomologically necessitates being G. I shall assume with Tooley (and against Armstrong) that there are uninstantiated universals. But I shall assume, in opposition to Armstrong, Tooley and Dretske, and with Kripke and Putnam2 that some laws are logically necessary (in Plantinga's sense of broadly logical necessity3; hereafter by "logically necessary" I mean "broadly logically necessary"). Examples of logically necessary laws are the laws that wat er is H2O and that tigers are animals. All the laws I discuss in this paper are cases of laws that (some) essentialists would regard as logically necessary, so I shall hence forth talk of the necessity of laws as logical. Accordingly, the laws I shall discuss have the form, in the simplest cases, of
(In every logically possible world, being F nomically necessitates being G.)
I shall assume, thirdly, that there is a distinction between the
holding (obtaining) of a law and its instantiation. If a law
(N(F,G)) holds but is not instantiated, then
it is true both that there is nothing that is F and that for any merely
possible world W and for anything x, if x is F in W, then x is G in W.
Assuming Newtonian physics, the first law of motion holds but is
uninstantiated; there are no bodies uninfluenced by external forces and
therefore no uninfluenced bodies that continue in a state of rest or
uniform motion; but if there were such bodies, they would continue in
such a state.
Let us consider the law of predation. I shall call this law E, such that
where F is the relational property of obtaining nourishment, and G the relational property of savagely killing and devouring another animal.4 Each possible instance of this law is an event which (assuming J. Kim's definition The event-schema (S) is a schema of a complex event that consists of
other events as proper parts. One such proper part is an event-type of
the form x1's being nourished at t. An event of this
sort may be a tiger as exemplifying the relational property of
obtaining nourishment at time t. Now this event, I concede, is
intrinsically good; that is, this event, considered by itself (apart
from its relations to other events that are good or evil) is good. And
another part of an even t of the sort schematized in (S) may be the less
complex event consisting of a certain zebra as exemplifying the
relational property of being savagely killed at the time t. This
event, considered by itself, is evil. When I say "considered by
itself", I mean this strictly, so that the statement "the zebra's
being savagely killed is good since the zebra was suffering severe agony
from a broken leg and it is good that the zebra be put out of its
misery" counts as considering the event the zebra's being
savagely killed at t in relation to another event that has negative
value, namely, the zebra's suffering agony from a broken leg at
t.
Now all events of the type schematized by (S) consist of two events
of the above-illustrated sorts, such that we have the true premise
Given the ethical premise
it follows that each instance of E is as a whole intrinsically evil
if the negative value of the prey's being savagely killed outweighs the
positive value of the predator's being nourished. But I shall not make
this assumption.6 That is, I shall not assume that each or
even any instance of E is over-all intrinsically evil. The argument that
E is ultimately evil can be made even if it is assumed that each
possible instance of E is as a whole intrinsically good.
The key notion is that of being intrinsically good but ultimately
evil, which may be partially defined for laws as follows. A law L' is
overall intrinsically good but ultimately evil if the following three
conditions obtain:
However, I shall not assume that the law of predation meets this
three-part sufficient condition of being ultimately evil. For example, I
shall not assume that the aggregate of the actual instances of the law
of predation is such that its over-all positive value is outweighed by
the negative value of the aggregate of the actual causes and effects of
these instances. Indeed, I shall concede that it is actually the case
that the aggregate of the causes and effects of the instances of E has
an over-all positive value. This concession is not far-fetched, since
some of the members of this aggregate include events in human life, for
any event in human life that has a cause is caused, at least remotely,
by some instance of E. (A necessary causal condition of the evolution of
human beings is the operation of E, assuming the necessity of origins.)
The argument that the law of predation is ultimately evil is based on
a different sufficient condition of ultimate evil, a condition that has
not been discussed in the literature on the problem of evil but that is
nonetheless crucial to the problem. This condition has a complicated
definition but it shall become clearer once I provide an illustration of
it. A law L' is overall intrinsically good but ultimately evil if the
following eightfold condition is met:
I include (iv) to emphasize the distinction between the eightfold
sufficient condition (i)-(x) and the threefold sufficient condition
(i)-(iii).
The complex condition (i)-(x) involves the notion of a counterpart.
An event x is a counterpart of an event y if the constituent substance
of the event x is a counterpart of the constituent substance of the
event y, and x exemplifies a property that is a counterpart of the
property y exemplifies. A substance S1 is a counterpart of a
substance S2 if S1 has similar macroscopic
properties to S2 but some different microscopic properties,
e.g. DNA structure. A property F1 of S1 is a
counterpart of a property F2 of S2 if
F1 (a) is a species of the same genus of properties as
F2 and (b) F1's exemplification by S1
serves the same role or function in S1's existence as
F2's exemplification by S2 has in S2's
existence. (I do not claim this is the only way to define partially
"counterpart", merely that it is the only way needed for my
argument.) Take the event consisting of the nourishment of a certain
tiger at time t. There is some possible counterpart to the tiger that
looks just like a tiger (same shape and size, striped, etc.) but which
has different DNA than the tiger, such that the tiger-counterpart's DNA
programs the tiger-counterpart to be nourished by vegetables rather than
by meat. Given that a tiger's DNA is essential to it, these counterparts
are not tigers but some other species. The tiger's property of being
nourished by meat has its counterpart in the tiger-counterpart's
property of being nourished by Vegetables; these two properties
are species of the genus being nourished by some food and their
exemplification serves the same function or role in the lives of the
tiger and tiger-counterpart (namely, that of providing chemical fuel
needed to go on living).
3. The atheological argument
We may now proceed to the crucial premises of our atheological
argument. There is some merely possible world W such that
Intuitively, (8)-(14) say that W is exactly like the actual world
except that all (and not just some) animals or animal-like creatures are
vegetarians. For example, in W there are counterparts to humans that are
exactly like humans except that their DNA includes a strictly vegetarian
blueprint. The Florence Nightingale counterpart performs her medical
deeds and the Beethoven counterpart composes his symphonies, but they
eat soybeans instead of pork.
But conditions (9) and (10) conceal ambiguities, since it is not clearcut what is to count as the counterpart of any given act of nourishment. For example, is eating 5 potatoes the counterpart of eating a part of a shank of a zebra, or is perhaps eatin
g 9 carrots the counterpart? Definitions could be provided here, e.g. in terms of a set of all properties of a given genus and function exemplified by the relevant sort of animal or animal-like creature, but a precision of this sort is not necessary for o
ur purposes.7
Now, if theses (8)-(14) are true, it follows that the law of
predation E is ultimately evil. For if (8)-(14) are true, then E
satisfies the above-mentioned eightfold sufficient of being an
ultimately evil law. If E is ultimately evil and is actually
instantiated, then there is actually no being that is omnibenevolent,
omnipotent and omniscient. Or so it might be argued. But if this is to
be argued successfully, some additional defence is needed for the theses
(8)-(14). This is particularly the case for (13), which is the claim
most vulnerable to attack. In the following section I shall consider and
respond to some familiar objections to claims of this sort.
4. Swinburne, Hick, Schlesinger, Reichenbach and Plantinga
4.1 Richard Swinburne
It is arguable that it is implicit in Swinburne's theodicy in The
Existence of God that it is false that
Swinburne's theodicy arguably implies that instances of the law of
predation causally contribute to the provision of moral agents with the
knowledge necessary for morally significant action, whereas instances of
a law V of vegetation-nourishment would not. Since the aggregate of all
events of morally significant actions (and all other causes and effects
of instances of E) outweighs in positive value the aggregate of causes
and effects of the instances of V in the closest pure V-world (i.e. a
world in which V but not E is instantiated), it follows that (13) is
false and therefore that the law of predation is not ultimately evil.
But let us examine some of the particulars in Swinburne's argument.
According to Swinburne, natural evil is morally justified by the
"need for knowledge"; natural evils are logically
"necessary if agents are to have the knowledge how to bring
about evil or prevent its occurrence"8 and opportunities
for such knowledge are outweighing goods relative to the evils. This
argument, however, breaks down when it comes to instances of E, for
there are no plausible candidates for "opportunities for ethically
relevant knowledge" that both logically require instances of E and
outweigh them in positive value. Swinburne mentions as one candidate the
opportunities to learn about the potentially disastrous consequences to
animals of our choices to change the environment and mutate genes; he
explains that
The invalidity of this argument clearly appears if we isolate the
relevant inferences. Swinburne infers from
to
and from (16) to
But (17) does not follow from (16). Imagine that the only animals
that ever have existed are pets and farm animals. It would then be a
well-confirmed theory that suffering never (or rarely) happens to
animals except such as humans can prevent. But would it then seem that
we do not have the opportunity to engage in actions that would cause or
prevent subsequently unpreventable suffering to future generations of
animals? Of course not. Suppose some pesticides are used in a limited
area and blind all pets and farm animals in that area and cause all
generations of offspring of these animals to be blind. This would
provide us with knowledge of an action (use of this pesticide
everywhere) that would cause unpreventable suffering (blindness) to all
future generations of animals.
Swinburne also suggests that instances of E provide humans with
helpful knowledge pertinent to themselves: "...seeing the fate of
sheep, men have learnt of the presence of dangerous
tigers".10 It is also suggested that instances of E
provide the higher animals with helpful knowledge about survival:
"Seeing the suffering, disease, and death of others in certain
circumstances, they learn to avoid those
circumstances".11 To narrow our focus to the law E let
us con sider only the helpful knowledge provided by instances of E; let
us call this helpful knowledge self-preservation E-knowledge.
Swinburne's remarks might suggest the following argument about
self-preservation E-knowledge:
Therefore
Although both (18) and (19) seem false, I shall content myself with
showing that (18) is false. The idea that self-preservation knowledge
gained from instances of E is an outweighing good relative to instances
of E is based on the fallacious assumption that it is good that an evil
of a certain type exists since its existence provides an opportunity to
learn how to prevent future instances of the evil. In particular, the
assumption is that "It is good that animals savagely attack, kill
and devour each other and occasionally humans, so that animals and
humans can learn to avoid being savagely attacked, killed and devoured
on some occasions in the future". If the assumption underlying this
argument were true, then it would be a sound argument th at "It is
good that millions of humans die agonizing deaths of cancer, since this
provides humans with opportunities to learn how to prevent some people
from dying of cancer in the future". This assumption is false since
the opportunity to learn to prevent some evils of a certain type does
not outweigh in positive value the negative value of the extant evils of
this type. If it did outweigh them, we should be rejoicing in the AIDS
epidemic since the instances of AIDS combined with the opportunities to
learn how to prevent AIDS would result in an overall increase in the
positive value in the universe.12
4.2 John Hick
John Hick's account of instances of E is also based in part on
counterintuitive moral principles. Hick suggests that seemingly
unjustified natural evils are necessary if humans are to have a natural
environment that does not automatically incite faith and love of God but
requires this faith and love to be freely chosen from an epistemic
'distance'. In Hick's words, "... in order for man to be endowed
with the freedom in relation to God that is essential if he is to come
to his Creator in uncompelled faith and love, he must be initially set
at an epistemic 'distance' from that Creator. This entails his immersion
in an apparently autonomous environment which presents itself to him
etsi deus non daretur, 'as if there were no God'".13
This might suggest an argument to the effect that an environment of
Hick's "soul-making" sort requires E to be instantiated, and
therefore that the actual world is superior in value in the relevant
respects to the closest pure V-world. But this argument fails since the
instantiation of E is not necessary for the existence of an environment
that seems morally ambiguous or theologically doubtful to humans. The
occurrence of natural disasters that befall humans, such as plagues,
wheat famines, floods and tornadoes is sufficient by itself to create a
questionable natural environment. We are at an epistemic
"distance" from God due to the sufferings and horrible deaths
nature sometimes inflicts upon us, and the hundreds of millions of years
of animals preying on each other before we even evolved are not needed
for this "distancing".
But there is a second and more fundamental problem with Hick's
theodicy; it ascribes to God the morally pernicious attitude of
"speciesism", to borrow a term from Peter Singer.14
No omnibenevolent creator would use animals as a mere means to the end
of human welfare, treating them as if they had no value or rights by
themselves and could be tortured with complacency on a mass scale for
the sake of "spiritual benefits" to the human species. Animals
are sentient creatures capable of suffering and as such are moral ends
in themselves; the failure to treat them as such is a sign of selective
benevolence and callousness and is inconsistent with the definition of
God. If God intended to create a questionable natural environment for
the human species, he could and would have done so without violating the
rights of animals. (For those who hold, contra
Regan,15 that animals have no rights but that their
welfare is of value, this point may be put by saying that an
omnibenevolent creator could and would have created a questionable
environment without callously neglecting the welfare of
animals.)16
4.3 George Schlesinger
The "no best possible world defence" of natural evil, most
thoroughly developed by Schlesinger,17 is also inadequate
since the alleged fact that there is no best possible world does not
license God to create just any world. Schlesinger's argument does not
show that every world creatable by God contains instances of ultimately
evil natural laws, or that every creatable world without such instances
is inferior in over-all positive value to worlds with such instances,
and thus his argument is open to the objection that a perfectly good,
wise and powerful being would have created one of the worlds devoid of
such instances. Furthermore, the fact that there is no best possible
world does not show that it is morally permissible to create our E-world
with its massive amount of gratuitous animal evil rather than the
closest pure V-world W with no E-evil but similar goods to the actual
world. (By analogy, the fact that there is no best possible political
system does not morally permit politicians to choose Nazism rather than
some version of constitutional democracy as the actual political
system.) In fact a much stronger case can be made against Schlesinger's
argument, as Keith Chrzan18 has recently demonstrated.
Schlesinger's "no best possible world defence" shows only that
there is no world with a maximal positive value and not that there is no
world without any natural and moral evil; consequently, this
defence fails to demonstrate that natural and moral evil is a necessary
implication of creation and thus fails to explain how God's existence is
compatible with the actual world.
4.4 Bruce Reichenbach
Reichenbach's argument19 is that the possibility of
natural evil is necessary for the outweighing good of rational agents
making moral choices. But we can admit this consistently with
maintaining that E's instantiation counts as evidence that God does not
exist. It may be granted that the possibility of natural evils of
some sort is necessary for moral choices, but denied that
instances of E are necessary for such choices. The proposition
does not even entail
let alone
I have argued that instances of E are not necessary for such choices
in response to Swinburne and Hick. But an even stronger argument is that
some initial conditions which make it impossible for E to be
instantiated are perfectly compatible with rational agents making moral
choices, and thus that (22) is also false. For example, in W, the
closest pure V-world, the only living creatures are vegetarians and thus
no E-evil can occur in W. Of course, a human counterpart could madly
kill and then dev our a rabbit in W, but he would not be nourished by
it, since his DNA allows him only vegetarian nourishment, and thus this
act would not be an instance of E. Thus, Reichenbach's argument fails to
impugn the thesis that E is ultimately evil.20 45 Alvin
Plantinga
Plantinga does not offer a theodicy but a defence. He argues that it
is possible that all natural evil is due to the free activity of
non-human creatures; that there is a balance of good over evil with
respect to the actions of these creatures; and there is no world God
could have created which contains a more favorable balance of good over
evil with respect to the free activity of these creatures. Now it may be
granted that this is possible, consistently with the soundness of my
atheological argument. That is, it may be granted that it is possible
that all instances of E are effects of free decisions of fallen angels
and that the positive value of the free activity of these angels
outweighs the negative value of the instances of E, but at the same time
insisted that this is not actually the case. And this insistence is
consistent with Plantinga's free will defence.
But how do I "know" this is not actually the case? If this
question is motivated by skeptical considerations (e.g. how do I
"know" that the universe did not begin to exist five minutes
ago?) then it may be rejected for the same reasons that philosophers
reject skepticism in general. But if this question is motivated by
non-skeptical epistemological considerations, I would explain that I
have probabilistic knowledge that there are no fallen angels who cause
the instances of E. There is no evidence that there are free
non-human creatures who cause the instances of E and this fact justifies
the belief that there probably are no such creatures. As P.J.
McGrath21 has recently shown in some detail, if there is no
evidence for a positive existence claim then that justifies belief in
the nonexistence of the entities claimed to exist.22
This principle also deflates the more general theistic argument that
"we do not know enough to make any rational judgement about the
truth-value of (13); therefore we do not know if the atheological
argument based on (8)-(14) is sound". I think we are warranted in
believing (13) since there is no evidence for the positive
existence claim that there are goods that are causes or effects of the
instances of E that render the actual aggregate of all the causes and
effects of the instances of E and V greater in positive value than the
aggregate of all the causes and effects of the instances of V in the
closest pure V-world. For example, there is no evidence that there are
angels that cause the instances of E or that the chain of effects of E
will eventually result in some Great Glorious Good in the distant
future. Of course, it is possible that there is some such Great Good but
mere possibility does not suffice to impugn a probabilistic argument.
The only evidence we possess about the causes and effects of the
instances of E supports the view that these causes and effects are
similar or inferior in value to the causes and effects of the instances
of V in the closest pure V-world. For example, we know that some effects
of the instances of E are humans (or the coming into existence of
humans) and humans are similar in positive value to the human
counterparts that are effects of instances of V in the closest pure
V-world. (Or else humans are inferior in value, simply by virtue of
being carnivores.) Furthermore, the known causes of the instances of E
(the causal chain leading to the evolution of carnivores, including the
big bang, the formation of galaxies and planets, chemical reactions
taking place in the oceans, etc.) are of a sort similar to the events
that cause vegetarian animals to evolve in the closest pure V-world.
There is no extraordinary difference between causal chains leading to
carnivores and those leading to vegetarians, as far as we know. Since
events of a similar sort are of similar value, all else being equal, it
is reasonable to assume that the causal chains in both worlds are of
similar value. (Or else the causal chain leading to carnivores is of
inferior value simply by virtue of the fact that it leads to
carnivores.) But we can make a stronger statement than this. Some of the
later carnivores are causal outcomes of earlier carnivorous events and
by virtue of this fact the causal chain that produces carnivores is
inferior in positive value to the causal chain that produces only
vegetarians. Thus, it is probable that (13) is true, that the positive
value of the aggregate of the causes and effects of the instances of E
and V is equal or inferior to the positive value of the aggregate of the
causes and effects of the instances of V in the closest pure V-world.
A defender of Plantinga's line of thinking might respond to the
foregoing by rejecting the force of my probabilistic claims about the
causes and effects of the instances of E. He may allege, for instance,
that my claim that the instances of E are probably not effects of the
free decisions of fallen angels and therefore that instances of E make
it probable that God does not exist presupposes some particular
theory of probability and there is no non-question-begging application
of a theory of probability to the issue at hand.23 To this
allegation, I shall permit myself only the brief retort that Plantinga's
criticism of the probabilistic argument from evil is based on a number
of technical and substantive fallacies, as has been recently
demonstrated by Keith Chrzan in a series of articles.24
Further defences of my argument are possible and there are probably
still further objections that need to be considered. But I believe the
considerations I have presented put the ball in the theist's court and
at the very least make it prima facie reasonable to believe that
the law E is ultimately evil and that God does not exist.
Thus, it seems to me that I am entitled to believe that the horror I
experienced on that dark night in the woods was a veridical insight.
What I experienced was a brief and terrifying glimpse into the
ultimately evil dimension of a godless world.25
Notes
Copyright© Internet Infidels® 1995-Present. All rights reserved.
Last updated:
Wednesday, 30-Nov-2005 17:06:13 CST
(S) {the animals x1 and x2, the relational property of savagely killing, the relational property of obtaining nourishment, the time t}.
... the story of pre-human nature 'red in tooth and claw'
already provides some very general information crucially relevant to our
possible choices. For suppose that animals had come into existence at
the same time as man (e.g. 4004 B.C.) always in situations where men
could save them from any suffering. Naturally it would then seem a
well-confirmed theory that (either through act of God or nature)
suffering never happens to animals except such as men can prevent. So
men would seem not to have the opportunity to do actions which would
cause suffering to later generations of animals of a subsequently
unpreventable kind, or the opportunity to prevent such suffering. The
story of evolution tells us that this is not so—the causation or
prevention of long-term suffering is indeed within our power; such
suffering can happen because it has happened. The story of pre-human
evolution reveals to man just how much the subsequent fate of animals is
in his hands—for it will depend on the environment which he causes
for them and their genes which he may cause to
mutate.9
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