Kantian

I will start my tour of duty after i graduate from college. Do you have anything to say, comment about, add to or rebut my latest post beyond this query?

miscreant

How do you know there are only 2 blue members? I don't see how you can claim to know that alternative physical laws would not also produce life and sentient beings.

Also, you are making the assumption that the lottery is only run once. There could be an infinite number of universes for all you know, or this one could have expanded and collapsed an infinite number of times with different laws of physics each time. Either way, if the lottery is run an infinite number of times, the fact that a blue member wins at some point is basically a certainty.

Your fine-tuning argument easily falls apart with some statistics.

Miscreant

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: miscreant ]</p>

Synaesthesia

The FT also assumes that the world lottery is not rigged to end up as we observe it today.

Since recent physical theories suggest that our universe is much more likely than chance, this assumption is very likely false. It is no accident that the world is as we see it, but that does not mean the default assumption is that some magical ghost intended it to be that way.

TooBad

Miscreant, Synaesthesia:

Since SOMMS and I were beginning to wander off topic, we moved our Lottery Fallacy discussion to a new thread and continued it there.

Will SOMMS finally see reason? Find out <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=44&t=001333" target="_blank">here</a>.

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: TooBad ]</p>

TerryTryon

How does the UPD differ from the logical fallacy of arguing from ignorance? If we don't know the purpose God has for evil, what grounds do have to make any proposition as to whether any evil is purposeful or gratuitous? It seems to me that the UPD is vacuous because it offers no propositions that can be supported, positive or negative.

It makes little sense to argue that we can imagine a universe with less evil than this one, since we have no grounds for assuming that this less evil universe would meet god's purpose for creating a universe. We do not know god's purpose
and therefore cannot speculate on what evil is necessary to meet this (supposedly) higher good.

I maintain that the UPD is simply begging the question: nothing more and nothing less. Why is there evil in the universe? Because god wanted for there to be evil. How do you know God wanted evil in the universe? Because there is evil.

Am I following things?

Philip Osborne

"It makes little sense to argue that we can imagine a universe with less evil than this one, since we have no grounds for assuming that this less evil universe would meet god's purpose for creating a universe. We do not know god's purpose
and therefore cannot speculate on what evil is necessary to meet this (supposedly) higher good."

This is exactly what the Unknown Purpose Defense says. The thesis of the UPD is properly agnostic; it says that because of man's cognitive limitations and the nature of the kind of plan we would expect a being as complex as God to have, there is no evidential support for either the belief that there is gratuitous evil or for the belief that there isn't. Since the evidential argument from evil has, as a crucial premiss, the proposition that there is gratuitous evil, and since, if the UPD is correct, there is no evidential support for that proposition, it follows that the evidential argument from evil contains an unjustified premiss and can hence be rejected by theists (that is, if the UPD is sound). The UPD need not make the positive assumption that all evil is actually justified; by showing that there is no way to know either way, it shows that the evidential argument from evil cannot be used to support atheism.

-Philip

Thomas Metcalf

Tom:
"Now, even if there is an actual infinity of propositions about the universe, it does seem correct that each of these propositions would therefore be better, worse, or the same as its negation, no?"

Philip:
"I would agree with this statement, but I have to admit that I can't possibly see how this leads to there being a best possible world."

Then it seems conceivable that the best of all possible worlds is infinitely good.

Philip:
"You are probably correct in this sense. A gratuitous evil that is the necessary consequence of some greater good is by definition not gratuitous. So a sound theodicy must, at bare minimum, show that there is no reason more reason to think that some evil is gratuitous than to think that none of it is."

Then it seems that my transcendental argument stands. If gratuitous evil is always at a minimum, nothing I do will ever increase the total gratuitous evil in the world. All evil I commit will help to fulfill God's purposes, or God wouldn't allow it.

"That's correct. S5 says, 'If p is possible, it is necessarily true that p is possible.' Actually, I haven't taken Modal logic either, but I ran across 'L' and 'M' while skimming through the modal logic entry in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy."

Okay. Are you talking about de dicto or de re modality here? I would say that it makes no sense to talk about de re nested modal operators, and in fact, it therefore makes no sense to talk about de dicto nested modal operators for our purposes. (If you plan to present a modal ontological argument, I would direct you to a neighboring thread entitled something like "Convince me there is no God," wherein I present a response.)

Also: I would be interested to read your response to the to-my-knowledge new criticism of the UPD I posted at the beginning of this thread. Essentially, what makes a Good "good" can never logically be tied to "Was caused by suffering," unless that it was caused by suffering is what makes it good.

Philip Osborne

"Then it seems conceivable that the best of all possible worlds is infinitely good."

Why isn't is possible for a world to be infinitely more good than the "best possible world?" Take the set of positive integers. For every member of this set x and y, either x = y, x is greater than y, or x is less than y. Obviously, this does not entail there is such a thing as the greatest integer. Nor have you answered my arguments concerning the Greatest Conceivable Island.

"Then it seems that my transcendental argument stands. If gratuitous evil is always at a minimum, nothing I do will ever increase the total gratuitous evil in the world. All evil I commit will help to fulfill God's purposes, or God wouldn't allow it."

Your argument seems to be that theodicies discount the utility of humanitarianism, because evil always has a greater good. However, this overlooks the distinct possibility that humanitarianism may very well be one of those greater goods that is brought about by evil. This seems consistent with Christian tradition and also with the fact that humanitarianism (the act of trying to prevent human suffering) is impossible in the total absence of human suffering.

Additionally, from the fact that God has a moral reason for allowing evil to exist, it does not follow that everyone is morally justified in committing evil. For instance, suppose John is in the act of murdering Smith. Clarence is in a position to prevent John from murdering Smith, but for whatever reason, if Clarence does this, 30 people will die instantly. Now, it is obvious that Clarence has a morally justifiable reason for allowing Smith to be murdered. However, it does not follow at all from this that John is justified in murdering Smith.

"Okay. Are you talking about de dicto or de re modality here? I would say that it makes no sense to talk about de re nested modal operators, and in fact, it therefore makes no sense to talk about de dicto nested modal operators for our purposes."

The whole point of S4 and S5 is to essentially do away with repeating modal operators. For instance, MMp is the same as Mp in S5. The point of my argument is that recombinationism immediately entails that S5 is false. Suppose there is a world w in which there is are no instances of electric charge. Since charged particles cannot be formed from any recombination of entities in w, it follows that charged particles are impossible in w. However, electric charge is clearly possible in the actual world, since there are instances of it in the actual world. The result is that some things are possible in some worlds, but not in others. But S5 says that whatever is possible, is possible with respect to every possible world. Thus, if recombinationism is true, then S5 is false.

"Also: I would be interested to read your response to the to-my-knowledge new criticism of the UPD I posted at the beginning of this thread. Essentially, what makes a Good "good" can never logically be tied to "Was caused by suffering," unless that it was caused by suffering is what makes it good."

The essence of the UPD is that there are certain goods for which suffering is tied not necessarily to their goodness, but to the possibility of their instantiation. For instance, suppose God loves every person that exists in the actual world. Secondly, suppose that a thing's causal history is essential to who it is. If my parents are Susan and Joe, then it is an essential property of me that I was conceived by Susan and Joe. If there are any changes in the conditions that existed prior to my birth, it is quite plausible to suppose that these changes could affect the question of whether the resulting person born is me or merely someone a lot like me. Now, if this analysis has been correct, it seems plausible to suppose that there are instances of suffering which are logically necessary conditions for certain people to be born. It does not follow that this suffering is one of the factors that contributes to the "goodness" of this thing. In short, the question is not what makes good things good, but the question, "What are the conditions for the possibility of x being instantiated?"

Sincerely,

Philip

SRB

PO
The UPD need not make the positive assumption that all evil is actually justified; by showing that there is no way to know either way, it shows that the evidential argument from evil cannot be used to support atheism.

SRB
This is incorrect. UPD, as considered here, is a defence against evidential arguments from evil. The proponents of evidential forms of AE acknowledge that one of the premises of AE is possibly false (i.e. logically possibly false). An argument with one or more possibly false premises can establish the truth of its conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, many arguments used in the sciences or in courts of law are like that. If UPD is taken in such a way that it merely entails that God *possibly* has an unknown purpose of the right sort, and hence that one of the premises of evidential forms of AE is *possibly* false, UPD has no force at all.

The issue of whether UPD is any good comes down to whether there is any suffering-related evidence which suggests one of the two competing hypotheses is more likely (i.e. the hypothesis that God exists and has an unknown purpose of the right sort to account for all the unexplained suffering vs. the hypothesis that God does not exist).

One reason for doubting the first hypothesis relates to the idea that God wants humans love him, but yet he keeps his reason for allowing all the apparently gratuitous suffering in the world a secret. Assuming the reason for God allowing the suffering is so complicated that even an omnipotent deity could not get believers to understand it, God still keeps it secret from most believers that he has some sort of *unknown* reason for allowing all the suffering. For example, there is no passage in the Bible that says that God has a justifying but unknown reason for allowing all the apparently gratuitous suffering in the world. God is supposed to desire that humans love him, but he maintains secrecy between himself and believers, which puts an obstacle in the way of many of those believers coming to love him to a maximal extent. So as well as the problem of God allowing tragedies, there is the problem in many cases of God's silence in the face of those tragedies. Theists have no credible explanation for why this is so, given that God has the additional property of desiring that believers love him as much as possible.

Theists could of course appeal to the unknown purpose idea once again. God not only has a good but unknown reason for allowing all the suffering. He also has a good but unknown reason for keeping this matter secret from humans (thereby thwarting his expressed desire for those people to love him maximally). He also has a good but unknown reason for keeping secret the fact that there is some unknown reason for him to be secretive about all such matters. The problem with this line of thinking is that it is very implausible. A much better explanation of the relevant evidence is that God simply does not exist. Furthermore, the "inscrutable God" idea comes at a high price. Relatively little can be said about such a deity. Prima facie reasons to expect him to do one thing do not even make it slightly improbable that he will not do them for some justifying but unknown reason, and that he will then leave us in a state of epistemic confusion for some justifying but unknown reason. Since many believers, and all Evangelical Christians, do not conceive of their deity as being someone who is highly unpredictable like this, UPD is unavailable to such people.

Another reason for doubting such a defence is that that when followed up consistently it apparently leads to a kind of epistemological and moral skepticism. Such a defence has much in common with evil demon hypotheses. For example, how can we know that God has no unknown but justifying reason for making much of the world seem very different to how it really is, and a further unknown but justifying reason for letting us think otherwise? How can we know that, unknown to them, humans who commit terrible crimes are not actually overall somehow benefiting others? If God had an unknown but justifying reason for letting pilots crash the planes into the WTC, how confident can we be that there are no good reasons, presently unknown to us, for *us* to have let pilots crash the planes into the WTC, assuming we could have somehow stopped those pilots?

I think that UPD is only available to a very skeptical bunch of believers, and even then they have serious problems, since they expect people to believe that it is as likely as not that God has a string of unknown purposes which are just the right ones to cover up a string of anomalies. The other hypothesis, that God doesn't exist, is the much more reasonable one.

SRB

lcb

lcb, please try to keep your questions and responses relevant to the topic. If you want to ask questions such as the one I have deleted here, you are free to start your own thread. J.

[ August 15, 2002: Message edited by: Jobar ]</p>