A middle fact is a true proposition about what would have happened had A been true (where A is in fact false), whose truth isn't entailed by any non-counterfactual facts. I argue that there are no middle facts; if there were, we wouldn't know them, and our ignorance of them would result in ignorance about whether regret is fitting in cases where we clearly know it is. But there's a problem. Consider an unflipped fair coin which is such that no (...) non-counterfactual fact determines that it would have landed heads had it been flipped (or tails had it been flipped). If there are no middle facts, it's not true that it would have landed heads had it been flipped nor that it would have landed tails had it been flipped. Yet each counterfactual is still possibly true for all we know. I argue that we can resolve this tension in the anti-middle fact position, further strengthening the case against middle facts. (shrink)

In this thesis I offer an interpretation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism. I argue against interpreting Schopenhauer’s pessimism as if it were merely a matter of temperament, and I resist the urge to find a single standard argument for pessimism in Schopenhauer’s work. Instead, I treat Schopenhauer’s pessimism as inherently variegated, composed of several distinct but interrelated pessimistic positions, each of which is supported by its own argument. I begin by examining Schopenhauer’s famous argument that willing necessitates suffering, which I defend (...) against the misrepresentative interpretation advocated by Ivan Soll. I also offer a metaphysical reading of Schopenhauer’s claim that no amount happiness can compensate for the mere fact of suffering, based upon his negative conception of happiness. I proceed by analysing Schopenhauer’s criticisms of two prominent optimists, Leibniz and Rousseau. I attempt to salvage something of Schopenhauer’s counterargument against Leibniz that this is the worse of all possible worlds, and I also examine Schopenhauer’s claim that the optimistic metaphysics of a priori rationalistic philosophy cannot cope with the evidence of meaningless suffering. In the case of Rousseau, I interpret Schopenhauer’s brief objection to Rousseau’s assumption of original goodness, by means of an examination of Schopenhauer’s conception of the contrary doctrine, original sin. Next I consider the metaphysics of Schopenhauer’s account of eternal justice. After defending it against a number of objections, I argue that the nature of his version of eternal justice, which he admits constitutes a justification for suffering, does not conflict with the fact that he so strongly condemns Leibniz’s and Rousseau’s optimistic justifications for suffering. Finally I assess whether and to what extent Schopenhauer’s ethics of salvation are either pessimistic or optimistic. I conclude that the mere fact that salvation is possible is not necessarily a cause for optimism, but that Schopenhauer’s doctrine of salvation is made partly optimistic by the higher form of cognition that he describes as part of it. I also argue that Schopenhauer’s views on the essentially mystical nature of the state of salvation ultimately commit him to being neither positively optimistic nor positively pessimistic about salvation. I conclude overall with some brief remarks about the meaning of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and how in spite of its diverse nature, it is able to lay down a singular challenge to all future philosophers concerned with the question of suffering. (shrink)

While evil has always fascinated philosophers, it is only in modern times that the existence of evil has been seen as a serious challenge to belief in the existence of a powerful and benevolent God. In order to demonstrate this, the following chapter traces the historical emergence of what philosophers today call “the problem of evil” through an analysis of the writings of Plato, Epicurus, Sextus Empiricus, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Descartes, Bayle, and Hume.

Some theodicists, skeptical theists, and friendly atheists agree that God-justifying reasons for permitting evils would have to have an instrumental structure: that is, the evils would have to be necessary to secure a great enough good or necessary to prevent some equally bad or worse evil. D.Z. Phillips contends that instrumental reasons could never justify anyone for causing or permitting horrendous evils and concludes that the God of Restricted Standard Theism does not exist—indeed, is a conceptual mistake. After considering Phillips’ (...) and other objections in the neighborhood, I argue that the Expanded Theism of Christian theology does forward a God who ‘digs in’ and eternally answers for horrors. (shrink)

Christian tradition speaks mainly of two possible post‐mortem human destinies. It holds that those human beings who, in their earthly lives, acted according to God’s will and accepted God’s love will be reconciled to Him in heaven; whereas those who have acted against God’s will and refused His love will be consigned to the everlasting torments of hell. The notion that hell is everlasting and also a place of unending suffering inevitably gives rise to the following question for theists: how (...) could an omnipotent, all‐good and all‐loving God allow anyone to suffer the torments of hell for eternity? There have been several attempts to shore up the doctrine of hell in the face of this problem. Universalists, in particular, try to evade the problem by claiming that a doctrine of hell is not in fact taught in the scriptures , and that Christians are therefore able to affirm that all human beings will be saved in the end. The paper begins with an explanation of the doctrine of hell and an identification of the main problems and criticisms against it. This will assist us in understanding the increasing popularity of universalism and moreover, on what grounds it is challenged. (shrink)

Philo's argument from evil in a much-discussed passage in Part X of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) has been interpreted in three main ways: as a logical argument from evil, as an evidential argument from evil, and as an argument against natural theology's inference of a benevolent and merciful God from the course of the world. I argue that Philo is not offering an argument of any of these sorts, but is arguing that there is a radical disanalogy between (...) the meanings of terms like ‘merciful’ and ‘benevolent’ when applied to God and human beings respectively. Drawing on the new ‘Irreligious Interpretation’ of Hume's philosophy developed by Paul Russell (2002, 2008), I suggest that the underlying aim of Philo's argument appears to be to show, in opposition to Christian teaching, that these terms, when applied to God, are in effect meaningless. (shrink)

Here is a new version of the Evidential Problem of Evil.

The evidential argument from evil seeks to show that suffering is strong evidence against theism. The core idea of the evidential argument is that we know of innocent beings suffering for no apparent good reason. Perhaps the most common criticism of the evidential argument comes from the camp of skeptical theism, whose lot includes William Alston, Alvin Plantinga, and Stephen Wykstra. According to skeptical theism the limits of human knowledge concerning the realm of goods, evils, and the connections between values, (...) undermines the judgment that what appears as pointless evil really is pointless. For all we know the suffering of an innocent being, though appearing pointless, in fact leads to a greater good. In this paper I argue that no one who accepts the doctrines of skeptical theism has a principled way of avoiding moral skepticism. (shrink)

The Principle of Credulity: 'It is basic to human knowledge of the world that we believe things are as they seem to be in the absence of positive evidence to the contrary' [Swinburne 1996: 133]. This underlies the Evidential Problem of Evil, which goes roughly like this: ‘There appears to be a lot of suffering, both animal and human, that does not result in an equal or greater utility. So there's probably some pointless suffering. As God's existence precludes pointless suffering, (...) theism is implausible.’ CORNEA is the principle that observation O raises hypothesis H's probability only if O is more probable given H than it is given not-H. Theists sometimes maintain that apparently pointless suffering is just as likely given theism as atheism (I support this claim by appealing to a Lewisian account of the relevant counterfactuals). Given CORNEA, therefore, what we see of suffering does not make theism unlikely. I maintain that a consequence of so deploying CORNEA is that CORNEA and the Principle of Credulity are incompatible. We are left with a skeptical paradox. CORNEA is a consequence of Bayes’s Theorem, I argue; but it is incompatible with a presupposition of empirical science, namely, that appearances create epistemic warrant, ceteris paribus. External-world probability skepticism follows. I treat the paradox as real. First, I offer an account of how we strike a balance in practice between CORNEA, on the one hand, and the Principle of Credulity and the scientific enterprise on the other. Second, I try to resolve the paradox outright by rejecting the Principle of Credulity and maintaining that the scientific project remains well motivated even allowing probability skepticism. On either response to the paradox, the Evidential Problem of Evil continues to have serious, but defeasible, force against theism. (shrink)

In this essay, moral anti-theodicy is characterized as opposition to the trivialization of suffering, defined as the reinterpretation of horrendous evils in a way the sufferer cannot accept. Ambitious theodicy (which claim goods emerge from specific evils) is deemed always to trivialize horrendous evils and, because there is no specific theoretical context, also harm sufferers. Moral anti-theodicy is susceptible to two main criticisms. First, it is over-demanding as a moral position. Second, anti-theodicist opposition to least ambitious theodicies, which portray God's (...) decision to create as an scenario, requires a moral commitment to philosophical pessimism. Thus anti-theodicists should not be quick to take the moral high ground. However, this should not encourage theodicists, since theodicies may well be self-defeating in so far as they attempt to provide comfort. (shrink)

Moral reasoning traditionally distinguishes two types of evil:moral and natural. The standard view is that ME is the product of human agency and so includes phenomena such as war, torture and psychological cruelty; that NE is the product of nonhuman agency, and so includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, disease and famine; and finally, that more complex cases are appropriately analysed as a combination of ME and NE. Recently, as a result of developments in autonomousagents in cyberspace, a new (...) class of interesting and importantexamples of hybrid evil has come to light. In this paper, it is called artificial evil and a case is made for considering it to complement ME and NE to produce a more adequate taxonomy. By isolating the features that have led to the appearance of AE, cyberspace is characterised as a self-contained environment that forms the essential component in any foundation of the emerging field of Computer Ethics. It is argued that this goes someway towards providing a methodological explanation of whycyberspace is central to so many of CE's concerns; and it isshown how notions of good and evil can be formulated incyberspace. Of considerable interest is how the propensity for anagent's action to be morally good or evil can be determined evenin the absence of biologically sentient participants and thusallows artificial agents not only to perpetrate evil but conversely to `receive' or `suffer from'it. The thesis defended is that the notion of entropy structure,which encapsulates human value judgement concerning cyberspace ina formal mathematical definition, is sufficient to achieve thispurpose and, moreover, that the concept of AE can be determinedformally, by mathematical methods. A consequence of this approachis that the debate on whether CE should be considered unique, andhence developed as a Macroethics, may be viewed, constructively,in an alternative manner. The case is made that whilst CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the approach of standard Macroethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory that can deal with them successfully. The name Information Ethics is proposed for that theory. Itis argued that the uniqueness of IE is justified by its beingnon-biologically biased and patient-oriented: IE is anEnvironmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entityrather than life. It follows that the novelty of CE issues suchas AE can be appreciated properly because IE provides a newperspective. In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is concluded that Computer Ethics is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, Information Ethics. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga, in the ninth chapter ofThe Nature of Necessity, sets out a defence of the Free Will Defence (FWD)2. In what follows, I shall set out, to begin with, a statement of the main line of his argument3. I shall, then, set out a number of minor criticisms of the ninth chapter. Finally, I shall set out a criticism of Plantinga’s argument.