mattbballman

Dear metcaf,

And I feel I have already dealt effectively with Drange's case because he does not explain how such alterations have global implications. He posits possible scenarios of improved environments, but does not explain how he can know how this will effect all of history and every geographic populace. In the end it's the same mistake: he argues that a feasible world is true because it is a possible world. This idea that, "Well, at least he said something and so that's evidential weight" doesn't mean that the burden is now shifted. This "evidential weight" is this non sequitur from possible worlds to feasible worlds -- a move that no atheologian has been able to prove. It will only have weight when evidence is actually given, not ambitious and hopeful speculation.

matt

mattbballman

clutch,

First, there were four arguments under three headings proposed against your comments. Each one deals specifically with your comments. So, I'm not sure what you mean by nothing being said of any relevance.

Secondly, your premises here are correct. But your conclusion is non sequitur. It is true that we cannot know with any degree of confidence what our actions will end up doing on a global level. And this is why the proponent of the probabalistic problem of evil must prove its claim to interpret how the global good is maintained when evil is reduced in the world. But Christianity in now way becomes nihilistic -- a feature of atheology if there ever was one. Historically, atheist philosophers felt compelled to adopt nihilism on the basis that God and tradition are "dead." Since Christians cannot and are not called to interpret the global impact of their actions, we can only act in the most moral way plausible. And so we receive divine commands as guides for moral decision-making -- this is a far cry from nihilism!

matt

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman:

"In the end it's the same mistake: he argues that a feasible world is true because it is a possible world."

God is omnipotent; therefore, every possible situation is more likely feasible than infeasible. This has been my argument from the beginning, and I don't think it's been answered yet. All you've said, as far as I can see, is something like "Maybe L is infeasible." Yeah, maybe it is. Why should I believe it's likely that it is? I've already provided reason to believe it isn't.

You claim that we don't know what reducing suffering locally will reduce suffering globally. Of course it will, all else equal. Any time you suggest there's good reason to believe all else won't be equal in a bad way, it's your job to support that claim.

[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Metcalf ]</p>

Steven Carr

And, of course, my defense to your claim that we have two legs, requires only that it be *possible* that the people you have seen with two legs, were a minority of human beings, and that most people only have one leg. After all, it is *possible* that you might be living in a Truman Show situation.

And, of course, your claim that if God created humans with an angelic disposition, we would not be humans is hardly an answer to the question of why God did not create humans with an angelic disposition if he wanted people to behave better.

Presumably God just did not *want* people to have an angelic disposition.

Clutch

matt,
Well, let's see what argument you give for this claim: My observations dealt with the moral evaluation of situations, and of other people's actions. You're talking about the foreseeability of the consequences of actions. I was talking about the applicability of our moral lexicon to actions we see around us. Irrespective of the strict full calculability of the consequences of those actions, applying our moral concepts raises questions of motive or intent, character, and so forth. There is always scope for ignorance with respect to these things, as well. Your apologetic counsels withholding judgement about someone's actions or lack of actions when such ignorance potentially overlooks justificatory factors . Hence it ultimately counsels withholding judgement on every moral evaluation -- because such potential ignorance is ineluctable. It is hard to think of a better term than "moral nihilism" for a position committed to the inapplicability tout courtof our moral concepts.
The whole point of posing the PoE is surely to embarrass the 3-omni theist by forcing her to deny something she manifestly holds true: namely, that at least some actions genuinely make the world a better place -- even granting that the full skein of their ramifications is incalculable. (Which you have not demonstrated, in any case.) If you did not believe this, you would never attempt to improve your lot, nor anyone else's. I assume that you do, on occasion, attempt to help yourself and others, though. So you do not reject that at least some actions genuinely make the world a better place. Which shows your challenges to prove this to be merest casuistry.
That's your argument? "No, it isn't"? I am not claiming that Christianity sells itself as nihilistic; I'm aware of the wonderful irony. But it is committed to nihilism by its typical responses to the PoE.

You should, by the way, read some contemporary moral philosophy. Your claim that moral nihilism is a feature of atheology, if intended to be supported by some general claim about atheist philosophers, falls utterly flat. A few prominent existentialists ran the line of thought you mention, but virtually all contemporary moral philosophers reject theistic morality, and are not nihilists.

[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: Clutch ]</p>

mattbballman

metcaf,

And how do we know that the counterfactual "Ivan will not enroll in Phi 101 under any circumstances" is not actually true? More importantly, if this counterfactual is even possible then we surely cannot know that God can feasibly bring about a world where Ivan chooses Phi 101 -- a deep contention that has not been addressed. Appealing to God's omnipotence in no wise shows how we go from possible worlds to feasible worlds.

matt

mattbballman

clutch,

"There is always scope for ignorance with respect to these things, as well"

-- Which is why the situation proposed by the inductive problem of evil, that God can feasibly create a world with less evil but the same good in it, is indefensible and too ambitious of a claim.

This idea of moral nihilism being implied by our inability to understand the entire intricate web of inter-connected causes assumes that the Christian ethic is based on one having a knowledge of that causal web. And that is characteristically false. Christians do not teach that Christians need that knowledge but that objective moral values are (i) dutiful, and (ii) grounded in God. God, who does have that knowledge about the web of interrelated causes, works concurrently with what we would freely do under various circumstances to actualize a world where God, on balance, optimizes the good over the evil. And the only way the problem of evil can disprove this is to ambitiously attempt to show that God actually has not done so!

Are contemporary atheistic philosophers not nihilists? Some are and some are not. Those that aren't simply think that atheism does not lead to nihilism. And I have read widely in contemporary philosophy, my area of expertise, so I am surprised by your remarks here for they do not reflect the available material on the subject. Some astute contemporary examples include the late J.L. Mackie, the late B.F. Skinner, Michael Ruse, and Richard Taylor (just to name a few). Michael Ruse, a professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Guelph, writes,

"Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . .. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they, are referring above and beyond themselves, . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation, Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and any deeper meaning is illusory . . .."("Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262-9).
Ethicist Richard Taylor writes,
"The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well."
(Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), p. 2).
B.F. Skinner writes,
"What a given group of people calls good . . . is what members of the group find reinforcing as the result of their genetic endowment and the natural and social contingencies to which they have been exposed."
(Beyond Freedom and Dignity (New York: Bantam Books, 1972), p. 122.).
Robert Solomon, a specialist in nihilism and existentialism, notes that nihilism is to be broadly understood as "the collapse of traditional values" ("Nietzsche, Nihilism, and Morality," From Hegel to Existentialism, ed. R. Solomon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 87). I challenge you to read the literature and see that many atheistic philosophers adhere to non-objectivism in the wake of Christianity not being true. This strange idea that the vast majority of atheistic philosophers are not nihilists is more of a reflection of your ignorance of the literature than mine.

matt

mattbballman

carr,

"And, of course, my defense to your claim that we have two legs, requires only that it be *possible* that the people you have seen with two legs, were a minority of human beings, and that most people only have one leg. After all, it is *possible* that you might be living in a Truman Show situation."

-- Right. And this is why the proponent of "God can feasibly create a world where there is less evil but the same amount of good in it" requires proof. It's not good enought to say that because it is logically possible that, therefore, it is feasible for God to do it. Since I am not making the claim about what God can and must do, I only have to reveal those possibilities to contrary.

"And, of course, your claim that if God created humans with an angelic disposition, we would not be humans is hardly an answer to the question of why God did not create humans with an angelic disposition if he wanted people to behave better."

-- By "angelic disposition" I assume you mean "where a free creature does not choose moral evil." But, how can God guarantee this if he creates such people on earth? Maybe everytime God creates people who have this "angelic disposition" suddenly, having been exposed to earth, decide to rebel. You cannot make someone freely do something, that's self-contradictory. So, what's the guarantee that in the end an angelic disposition is plausible?

Due to the holiday season being upon us, I must defer any future correspondence in the interest of my busy schedule.

You may contribute final words to these issues, but I must occupy my time in other ways.

Happy Holidays and I'll be back:-D
I especially thank clutch, carr, and metcaf for your contributions to the discussion.
matt

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman:

"And how do we know that the counterfactual 'Ivan will not enroll in Phi 101 under any circumstances' is not actually true?"

This is not the issue. The issue is whether this situation is likely, and whether if it is likely, that is good reason to think L is infeasible. Both of those statements would require argumentation. Maybe it is true that Ivan will never enroll in Phil 101. But no one will find it intuitively appealing to conclude "Oh, then every example of L would be infeasible."

"Appealing to God's omnipotence in no wise shows how we go from possible worlds to feasible worlds."

To avoid the evidential argument, you'd have to give good reason to think every possible world that contains L is infeasible. This is simply not at all clear, and is rather doubtful when we consider that God is omnipotent. We only have to think that one of these possible worlds is in fact feasible (something that appears to be very probable -- for example, that ebola killed one fewer person in the last decade doesn't at all seem to suggest that this person's survival is infeasible because of a counterfactual of freedom), and theism is disconfirmed.

You still have not answered my point about the extension of our skepticism: You cannot consistently believe that earth is more than 1,000 years old, because it might be infeasible for God to create a world in which good is maximized and humans know the true age of earth.

Clutch

matt, for the nth time. If "It's possible that unknown factors justify an apparent moral failure" warrants withholding judgement, then we can never apply moral judgements. For we might always be ignorant, in principle. So your line of thought eviscerates the very possibility of applying moral concepts.

Of course, nothing can force you to engage this problem if you choose to continue dodging it.

Moreover, I was dismayed to see you claim that philosophy is your area of speciality. I pointed out that virtually all contemporary moral philosophers reject theistic morality, and yet are not moral nihilists. You reply by listing a philosopher of science, a behavioural psychologist, and a metaphysician (albeit one with a partial interest in reviving Hume's analysis of moral properties). Talk about conjuring up data! How much philosophy have you studied, if you think that B.F. Skinner is a philosopher of any sort, never mind a contemporary moral philosopher?

I half-recall that Robbie Coltrane said some morally nihilistic things in the series Cracker; will he be promoted (or demoted?) to a philosopher, to fit your thesis as well?