Evil, Misc

Some philosophers have argued that the concepts of evil and wickedness cannot be well grasped by those inclined to a naturalist bent, perhaps because evil is so intimately tied to religious discourse or because it is ultimately not possible to understand evil, period. By contrast, I argue that evil—or, at least, what it is to be an evil person—can be understood by naturalist philosophers, and I articulate an independently plausible account of evil character.

Some atheistic philosophers have argued that God could have created a world with free moral agents and yet absent of moral evil. Using possible world semantics, Alvin Plantinga sought to defuse this logical form of the problem of evil. In this critical note, Leslie Allan examines the adequacy of Plantinga's argument that the existence of God is logically compatible with the existence of moral evil. The veracity of Plantinga's argument turns on whether his essential use of counterfactual conditionals preserves the (...) logic of this type of conditional. (shrink)

Theories have been formulated to address the problem of evil [“The concept of Evil”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]. We look here at a possible origin of human evil in pre-human times by using an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness based on identifications with conspecifics [“Proposal for an evolutionary approach to self-consciousness”. Menant 2014]. The key point is that these identifications have also taken place with suffering or endangered conspecifics, thus creating in the minds of our ancestors a huge anxiety increase, a (...) mental pain unbearable if not limited. To limit it our ancestors could have reduced the sufferings and dangers, or reduced the identification, or limited the conspecificity. Reducing the sufferings and dangers was straightforward as it also brought in evolutionary advantages (collaboration, imitation, communication, ToM, ...), with some pleasant feeling coming with the reduction of anxiety. But the two other possibilities may have produced very different outcomes. Reducing the identifications and limiting the conspecificity did reduce the mental pain and correspondingly produce some pleasure. But it has also lowered the emotional attachment to conspecifics as well as the care given to them. Conspecifics were then left alone with their sufferings. And as the process led to less mental pain, our ancestor were naturaly led to associate some pleasure to these sufferings of conspecifics. All this may have introduced in the mind of our ancestors the possibility to reduce anxiety and mental pains also by accepting and valorizing the sufferings of others, thus making evil deeds a potential source of pleasure. We propose these mechanisms as possible sources of psychology of evil in human evolution. These mechanisms now belong to our human nature where evil projects can become a means for limiting the unconscious anxiety present in our human minds. Such positioning of self-consciousness and human evil under a common evolutionary nature is new and needs more developments. Continuations are proposed. (shrink)

This paper discusses the existence and nature of suffering as understood by Buddhism and Augustinian Christianity. The Buddha taught suffering as arising from human desire, while Saint Augustine believed it to be a direct result of human free will. In both traditions, the existence of suffering is linked directly to humans, whether it is in their ability to have desires or will freely. These two accounts of suffering and evil are presented in the first section, along with how their respective (...) conceptions of suffering are affected by the law of karma (in Buddhism) and the necessary existence of evil (in Christianity). Then in the second section, these two accounts are evaluated by analyzing the problem of presupposing free will within the karmic conception of existence and why St. Augustine's Free Will theodicy is insufficient to warrant the existence of evil in light of the existence of a benevolent God. The paper concludes by arguing that both Buddhism and Christianity (at least as espoused by St. Augustine) link evil to humans and as a consequence of their actions. And although these two respective understandings have great philosophical merit and could help their followers deal with evil, it is still unable to address the metaphysical existence of suffering in its entirety. (shrink)

The notion of Providence is born with the Greek word prόnoia which, however, originally meant "premeditation" (of a crime) or "design" of an artefact, and had nothing to do with religion. It was Plato in the Timaeus who adopted the word from the common language to indicate the rational and benevolent principle that inspired the anonymous God, which he defined as dēmiourgόs (also this word originally meant a professional technician, for example, a doctor or an architect) in his work of (...) shaping the cosmos. The doctrine of divine Providence was taken up by Middle Platonism, and with it the need to "justify" the divinity for the presence of evil in the world, what Leibniz will call "theodicy". Stoicism also supported Providence, but here there is no "theodicy" because in Stoic philosophy rationality and beneficial purpose are intrinsic to the cosmic process and therefore there is no external architect to be charged and absolved. Christian authors of the first centuries recycled the arguments of the Platonists in support of Providence, despite the fact that the word prόnoia never appears in the New Testament, nor is there any Hebrew equivalent in the Tanak. Perhaps there is some compatibility problem between the philosophical theory of Providence and the biblical-Christian view of God. (shrink)

G.W.F. Hegel argues that a philosophy of history should engender comprehension of evil in the world. And yet some commentators have charged his philosophy with transcending mere explication by justifying the existence of these evils. In defense of his words, Hegel famously characterizes evil as a modal mismatch; namely, as the incompatibility between what is given and what ought to be the case. Unfortunately, some readers of Hegel’s grand narrative either continue to struggle with or overlook this fine distinction. Against (...) such readings, I organize my paper into three sections that speak directly to these concerns. In §1, against the concern that Hegel’s view of the “actual world” justifies suffering, it is shown that his philosophy does not endorse the merely extant world, which is a whole world apart from the actual world. In §2, I articulate the premises of Hegel’s Doppelsatz to argue that the famous slogan is not, as some commentators take it, an endorsement of “things as they are.” And in §3, I expose a category error that mistakes an epistemological claim made by Hegel about contingency as a metaphysical assertion in support of evil. Ultimately, I argue that Hegel views evil as neither actual nor necessary nor justified. (shrink)

The privation theory of evil (PTE) states that evil is the absence of some good that is supposed to be present. For example, if vision is an intrinsic good, and if human beings are supposed to have vision, then PTE implies that a human being’s lacking vision is an evil, or a bad state of affairs. The mere-difference view of disability (MDD) states that disabilities like blindness are not inherently bad. Therefore, it would seem that lacking sight is not a (...) bad state of affairs. Thus PTE and MDD seem to be in tension. This essay discusses that apparent tension and explains how it might be resolved without doing violence to either view. Given the prominence of PTE in the history of Christian theology, and the wide support for MDD among disability theorists, it is worth finding a way to harmonize these two views. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to reveal the common mistakes made in the evaluation of the problem of evil from our perspective. Briefly, the problem of evil, which can be defined as “how evil can coexist with the existence of a good and almighty God”, is a problem that both theists and atheists might relate. The subject is important for theists because it is one of their existential questions and problems, and, perhaps, most of the time, it is the subject (...) of criticism of their beliefs. It is important for atheists as it is one of the most important intellectual grounds against theism. In this problem, the theism has been criticized from many points and many different answers have been given to these criticisms in this article, we will try to respond to these general criticisms from our perspective by showing the errors. considering the vast scope of the evil problem, this research is no means conclusive on the matter. It is our hope to contribute to the debate to make the problem of evil clearer for those who are interested in the topic. (shrink)

In the following essay I will describe the cultural and disciplinary areas in which Open Theism has been developing and deal with the main authors, who has defended this new doctrine, and their main works. In the second section I will analyse their main theses about divine attributes, some theological questions, several objections to this new non-standard theism and their rebuttals. In the conclusion I will highlight the problems still open and evaluate the overall Open Theism’s theoretical work. At the (...) end, also the text "Omniscience, Freedom, and Mystery", a part of the article TRANSLATED into english. The issue of omniscience is one of the most debated in contemporary Analytical Philosophy of Religion. However, what is often lacking in this discussion is a deep understanding of the dilemma of omniscience and human freedom within a complete epistemological (what can we really say about the divine and the world), metaphysical and theological framework. For example, it is often forgotten to frame some issues within a clear definition of the notion of mystery. I defined what we can mean by “mystery” in this forthcoming article: "Trinity and Mystery. Three Models: Aquinas, Leibniz, and Hegel" In the same article (and also in the first article mentioned above) can be found a reflection on the analogical use of terms, which involve the terms (the notions) of “freedom” and “omniscience”. This use, therefore, could make possible to develop the argument I propose. (shrink)

Schelling and Schopenhauer both operate in the German idealist tradition initiated by Kant, although both are critical of some of its developments. Schelling's interest in evil – which is at its most intense in his 1809 Freedom essay – stems from his belief that Kant's account of morality. In the Freedom essay Schelling links these theories with the traditional Christian conception of evil as a privation, and attempts by contrast to develop a concept of "radical" or "positive" evil that grounds (...) both our freedom and individual personality. Evil as folly is a corollary of the Socratic identification of virtue with knowledge. The distinguishing feature of the free-will defenses is that god is logically constrained to permit moral evil if God creates a world with moral freedom. It is consistent with such defenses that God is (in some sense) responsible for creating evil, but God's actions are all things considered justified. (shrink)

The author contextualizes the Problem of Evil in Open Theism system, listing its main theses, primarily the logic-of- love-defense (and free-will-defense) connected to Trinitarian speculation. After evaluating the discussion in Analytic Philosophy of Religion, the focus is on the personal mystery of evil, claiming that, because of mystery and vagueness, the Problem of Evil is undecidable. Recalling other schools of thought (Pareyson: ontology of freedom; Moltmann: Dialectical theology; Kenotic theology; Original Sin hermeneutics), the author tries to grasp their common insights. (...) One of them is the evident explanatory failure of theodicies, expressed in the antinomian statements ‘God is not innocent’. The author follows these insights, developing the concept of Eternal Immolation (Bulgakov), arguing that, without a proper understanding of its mystery (what is, and what is not), theistic theodicy could remain compromised. ‘Eternal Immolation’ is considered consequent – or already present – in recent speculations, it stands or falls when we accept that these reveal some unresolved points in Christian doctrine. Hence, ‘Eternal Immolation’ becomes a coordinating-concept, able to bring together their assumptions: several kinds of kenosis, the ontology of freedom with a logic-of-love defense, strongly linked to a libertarian human freedom, and the acknowledgement of the unresolved mystery of evil. (shrink)

This review shows how Pierre Gisel's comments on Ricoeur are redundant; how Graham Ward gets Ricoeur's understanding of evil clearly; but then it goes on to show how both Gisel and Ward do not understand/mention the influence of St. Paul and Jürgen Moltmann on Ricoeur.

Skeptical theism (ST) may undercut the key inference in the evidential argument from evil, but it does so at a cost. If ST is true, then we lose our ability to assess the all things considered (ATC) value of natural events and states of affairs. And if we lose that ability, a whole slew of undesirable consequences follow. So goes a common consequential critique of ST. In a recent article, Anderson has argued that this consequential critique is flawed. Anderson claims (...) that ST only has the consequence that we lack epistemic access to potentially God-justifying reasons for permitting a prima facie “bad” (or “evil”) event. But this is very different from lacking epistemic access to the ATC value of such events. God could have an (unknowable) reason for not intervening to prevent E and yet E could still be (knowably) ATC-bad. Ingenious though it is, this article argues that Anderson’s attempted defence of ST is flawed. This is for two reasons. First, and most importantly, the consequential critique does not rely on the questionable assumption he identifies. Indeed, the argument can be made quite easily by relying purely on Anderson’s distinction between God-justifying reasons for permitting E and the ATC value of E. And second, Anderson’s defence of his position, if correct, would serve to undermine the foundations of ST. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that there is a kind of evil, namely, the unequal distribution of natural endowments, or natural inequality, which presents theists with a new evidential problem of evil. The problem of natural inequality is a new evidential problem of evil not only because, to the best of my knowledge, it has not yet been discussed in the literature, but also because available theodicies, such the free will defense and the soul-making defense, are not adequate responses in (...) the face of this particular evil, or so I argue. (shrink)

In this invited book chapter I argue that, although the influence of Kant's transcendental idealism on the theories he puts forward in his book, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793/1794) may not be apparent at first sight, careful attention to their structure reveals a deep influence. Indeed, understanding Kant's arguments in this book as an application of his transcendental idealism is crucial to a proper understanding of their structure and force.

The case is discussed for the doctrine of hell as posing a unique problem of evil for adherents to the Abrahamic religions who endorse traditional theism. The problem is particularly acute for those who accept retributivist formulations of the doctrine of hell according to which hell is everlasting punishment for failing to satisfy some requirement. Alternatives to retributivism are discussed, including the unique difficulties that each one faces.

In the first section, I characterize skeptical theism more fully. This is necessary in order to address some important misconceptions and mischaracterizations that appear in the essays by Maitzen, Wilks, and O’Connor. In the second section, I describe the most important objections they raise and group them into four “families” so as to facilitate an orderly series of responses. In the four sections that follow, I respond to the objections.

Eleonore Stump claims in her book "Wandering in Darkness" that the problem of evil can be solved best by the help of narratives. This - so Stump - is due to the fact that narratives allow one to get a general view about relevant parts of the discussion of suffering. In this context she distinguishes the more detailed view of the discussion from a more general one by two different modes of cognition: the mode of gathering "knowledge that" and that (...) one of gathering "knowledge how". Knowledge by narratives is a subcategory of the last-mentioned one. In the paper I argue for the thesis that this distinction is not really crucial for Stump's argumentation and that in fact only "knowledge that" is relevant for her proposed solution. (shrink)

There is, I shall assume, such a thing as moral evil (more on which below). My question is whether is also such a thing as non-moral evil, and in particular whether there are such things as aesthetic evil and epistemic evil. More exactly, my question is whether there is such a thing as moral evil but not such a thing as non-moral evil, in some sense that reveals something special about the moral, as opposed to such would-be non-moral domains as (...) the aesthetic and the epistemic. The philosophical issue at stake here is that of the nature of these different normative domains, and the nature and extent of their difference. (shrink)

A number of authors have developed evidential arguments from evil in the past thirty years. Perhaps the best known evidential arguments from evil are those presented in Rowe (1979) and Draper (1989). We shall spend most of this chapter examining these two arguments.

At least some serial killers are psychopathic serial killers. Psychopathic serial killers raise interesting questions about the nature of evil and moral responsibility. On the one hand, serial killers seem to be obviously evil, if anything is. On the other hand, psychopathy is a diagnosable disorder that, among other things, involves a diminished ability to understand and use basic moral distinctions. This feature of psychopathy suggests that psychopathic serial killers have at least diminished responsibility for what they do. In this (...) chapter I consider whether psychopathic serial killers might be properly said to be both evil and morally responsible for their actions. I argue that psychopathic serial killers are plausibly evil in at least one recognizable sense of the term, but that they are nevertheless not likely to be responsible for many of the evils they perpetuate. (shrink)

Review of 'The Idea of Evil' by Peter Dews.

It has often been noted that evil – by which I mean evil in human motivation and action – is difficult to understand. We find it hard to make sense of what ‘drives’ a person to commit evil. This is not because we cannot recognise or identify with some aspect of the psychology of evil; we all experience feelings of envy, spite, cruelty, and hatred. But somehow this shared experience can seem insufficient, and we are left at a loss as (...) to how such natural, universal human motivations could have resulted in this. The aims of this paper are modest, to do no more than point in a particular direction our attempts to understand the psychology of evil. §2 is a synoptic overview of what I shall call the ‘traditional’ picture of the psychology of evil. In §3, I argue that this picture is explanatorily inadequate. §§4-6 develop the traditional picture by suggesting some resources drawn from psychoanalytic theory that can meet the explanatory challenge. My argument here is schematic, seeking only to motivate a research project. It would take a much longer exploration of these resources, providing far more psychological detail, to work out what can rightfully be called an account of the psychology of evil. §7 situates the psychology of evil in relation to ‘normal’ psychology by noting the positive functions of mental processes involved in the psychology of evil. (shrink)

Our time is characterized by what seems like an unprecedented process of intense global homogenization. This reality provides the context for exploring the nature and value of toleration. Hence, this essay is meant primarily as a contribution to international ethics rather than political philosophy. It is argued that because of the non-eliminability of differences in the world we should not even hope that there can be only one global religion or ideology. Further exploration exposes conceptual affinity between the concepts of (...) intolerance, ideology, and doctrinal evil. The last concept is developed in contrast to pure evil and average evil, and under the assumption of the metaphysical necessity of free will. Doctrinal evil is found to represent the main source of intolerance as a result of a mechanism that tends to confuse doctrinal evil (or the competing conceptions of the good) with pure evil. This connection between doctrinal evil and pure evil provides ideologies with their forcefulness. Tolerance cannot be properly understood in terms of a simple opposition to intolerance, however. Tolerance emerges as a sort of vigilance, conscientiousness, and non-negligence based not on a supposedly correct interpretation of the good, but rather on the acceptance of the fallibility of any such attempted definition. Conversely, the principal evil in doctrinal evil is found in arrogance that accompanies the intolerance-inducing irresponsible thoughtlessness. With this conceptual topology in mind the paper also addresses questions regarding religious tolerance, the ideology of human rights and democracy, the right to self-defense, ways to face evil, the dialectics of using old names for novel evils, and related issues. (shrink)

This essay discusses various representations of Eichmann's mind that were fashioned on the occasion of his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Gideon Hausner the prosecutor presented the defendant as demonic. Hannah Arendt, the German-born American Jewish philosopher portrayed him as banal or thoughtless. Limiting themselves to the issue of mens rea in their judgment, the Israeli Supreme Court justices described Eichmann's mind as controlled by criminal intent. While these views have been widely discussed in the literature, much of this essay (...) focuses on a hitherto little noted perspective on Eichmann's mind that was formulated by the mental health experts who examined Eichmann for the prosecution. As compared to the inclusionist, confictual, and complex picture these experts presented of Eichmann's mind, Arendt's and Hausner's views appear similar in their reductionism, rather than diametrically opposed, while the approach of the Supreme Court justices to Eichmann's mind can be regarded as restrictive. Methodological problems involved in all these different perspectives are discussed, and it is argued that even though the psychological outlook declares itself to be non-judgmental, it does, in fact, entail a dimension of moral judgment. Finally, Eichmann 's recently declassified memoirs are adduced and interpreted as lending some support to the psychological, inclusionist perspective on Eichmann's mind. (shrink)