#3

Response to Karen’s 4^th comment on
‘The Problem of Evil’

“4. My son, Jack, said that he thought that if there was only good, then there would be no good and evil. We need evil to be able to see goodness. If evil is not there as an option, then there is just - life. I suppose there is a related idea that goodness has no meaning without evil. What do you think about that?”

There are four apparently different ideas in this.  But, more than likely, they all proceed from what German philosophers might call an Urdenken, some mental mother-lode.

(a)  If there were only good, then there would be no good and evil.

(b)  We need evil to be able to see goodness.

(c)  If evil is not there as an option, then there is just life.

(d)  Goodness has no meaning without evil.

Stalking (a) first.  If there were only good, then, of course – I agree – there would be no evil.  Which would be good, no?  Otherwise put, the set of {the good and the evil} would collapse into {the set of the good}.  And, again, if there were only good, there would be good, no?  Which would be good as well. Where does that get us?   Probably not quite – or, more likely, not even nearly – to the point that Jack was driving at in (a), which I expect is more exactly expressed in his...

(b):  We need evil to be able to see goodness. 

Still, following the lead of (a), but now taking (b) on board as well, I am tempted (though I don’t like putting words in anyone’s mouth) to take (b) – now tutored by (a) – as meaning:  

(b’)  If there were only good, there would be no concepts (or ideas) of good, nor of evil.  

Now, even if (b’) is true, it does not follow that there would be no good.  (In fact, in a non-empty world, it follows that there would be good.)  We can be justifiably confident, can we not, that the actual things and actual characteristics out-there-in-the-world are not exhausted by our concepts.   It seems we are always playing catch-up ball in that matter.  So, there being no concept of good in a particular world does not mean that nothing is good in that world; at most, it means the beings in that world don’t/won’t recognize it as such.  They will be innocent, Garden of Eve creatures.  Actually, that sounds like a pretty attractive world.

But I am not at all sure that either (b) or (b’) – and, by the way, I think these are probably close to Jack’s Urdenken – is true.  Suppose, as a matter of fact, we live in a world which – as the materialist would have it – is such that every single thing in it is in the space/time continuum.  That is, suppose every thing is located somewhere and somewhen.  And there ain’t nothin else.  You know, this may actually be the way things are!  So in our materialist world, there is nothing that is not in space-time; just as in the all-good world, there is nothing that is not good – that’s the nature of the parallel I’m aiming at.  But, even so, is it plausible that this utterly material context (which we may actually inhabit) would prevent us from having ideas of perfect circles, or irrational numbers, or abstractions (such as ‘the shortest distance between two points is a straight line’.  Ideas of these ‘things’ (Euclidean objects, numbers, abstractions) – and doubtless many more – are available to us even if it is true that we live in a world which is as the materialist conceives it.  Of course, according to the materialist, they (perfect circles, irrational numbers, abstractions, etc.) are not real things (since, presumably, they do not exist in space-time), but that does not seem to prevent the fecund human mind from coming up with some idea of them.  Everything we see, come across, or meet in experience, is – according to the materialist – in space/time.  And he/she may be correct in this particular:  it is not implausible.  Nevertheless, we have ideas of all these other things.  How might we come by them?  Who knows?  Perhaps they are innate.  Anybody ever seen an irrational number? Absolutely not!  But we have the idea of it all the same.

Take another kind of case, a bit less convoluted.  We do live in a world where every living creature is mortal.  Every last one.  Yet we have the idea of mortality and immortality.  The fact that there is no immortality evident to us does not seem to prevent us from coming up with the ideas of mortality and immortality.  So, like I say, I’m not really sure that either (b) or (b’) is true. 

Perhaps the all-good creatures of the world we are thinking about are all good because when they are thinking about what is to be done in some circumstance, they look at all the alternatives available to them (as we do), and choose, I mean always! choose, one that seems better to them; or choose the one that seems best to them – the one that seems better than all the others.  (Of course, in their case, the one that seems better to them is better, the one that seems best to them is best.  They get it right.)  Maybe the idea of the good and the bad ‘hang off of’ the idea of the better.  That is, maybe the better (and the worse) are the parent ideas, and the good and the bad are derivative – at least when it comes to the process of acquiring them.  -And what might seem better to our do-gooders could plausibly vary from circumstance to circumstance.  In one circumstance, it just might amount to the action which produces a healthier (or most healthy) outcome.  In another, a more pleasurable outcome.  In yet another, a more profitable outcome, or a just outcome.  In the circumstance occasioning the action, one or the other of these might be what is at risk if a certain action is taken, so that action is avoided; and another is chosen, one which does not put at risk, say, health or safety. 

But – even if what I’ve said in the previous three paragraphs is unconvincing – and Jack is right to suspect that people who always did what was good could have no concept of the good (never having seen evil), the most that would follow from this is that the good that they did could not be motivated by the intention to achieve the good (and avoid the bad), since having such an intention would require being able to deploy the relevant concepts (the good and the bad).

Which brings me to

(c):    If evil is not there as an option, then there is just life.

But in the world we are imagining, evil is an option.  It is just that it is an option that is never taken up.  Remember, our do-gooders elect the good options only, and never the bad ones.  That’s the nature of the world we are considering.  Even if Jack is right about (b) (which I’ve tried to dispute in the three paragraphs above beginning, respectively, with “But I am not...”, “Take another...”, and “Perhaps...”) the bad options are still options, and they are options freely not taken.   So the antecedent in (c) – the “if”-clause – is false, and doesn’t apply to the world we are considering.  The world we are considering is one where, yes, there is life, but it’s life sprinkled with good and bad options. 

And so, finally, to

(d)  Goodness has no meaning without evil.

That is, to beings in a world without evil, goodness would have no meaning.  Actually, I think this is very close to (b) and (b’) above.  But just as I am sceptical, really, about them – so, for similar reasons am I sceptical about (d).  We live in a world without immortality.  Does it follow, analogously, that mortality has no meaning for us?  Following the logic of the claim at (d), it looks like it would have to have no meaning for us.  But it does.  So the ‘logic’ is unreliable.  Mortality, after all, means

THE END

P.S.  Thanks for the workout, Jack.

#2

Response to Karen's 3rd comment on 

'The Problem of Evil'

Karen, let me start with your #3 – which reads:

“3. I am intrigued with the argument that God could have made people with free will who always choose to be good. But. It feels wrong and I'm not sure why. Something about the choice doesn't feel right. Maybe I think that the possibility of evil needs to be an actual possibility in order for there to be a real choice?”

And here again is the suppositional argument (as found in the blog) to which you are responding. 

“God, all-knowing, is able to distinguish between (i) those potential concepti which if allowed to become actual, and to mature, would ultimately mature into beings who always freely elect the good on the one hand, and (ii) those who will frequently stray on the other.  The latter potential concepti are not allowed by God to become actual zygotes.  The problem is thereby nipped in the bud, so to speak.”

The imagined world is one in which, from the beginning, God doesn’t allow potential people (with free will) who would "frequently stray" – or, really, stray even once – to be realised. He only allows those people (with free will) to be born who will always (as he knows, being omniscient) freely elect the good.  The possibility of such people doing evil is real enough alright, or  – as you put it – it’s an “an actual possibility”, and there is, accordingly, a real choice.  It’s just that – as it happens – they always choose the good. 

But, why might one suppose otherwise?  That is, why might one suspect that this alleged possibility is not a real one?  The fact is that the suspicion is a common (but I think mistaken) one.  Here is what I think is very likely behind your suspicion. 

We do think things like this: 

(1)  “If it is really known that Smith will do A, then Smith’s gotta do it.” 

And then, mistaking the acceptable meaning of (1) (a meaning I will come to), we can go on to conclude in a fatal kind of reflection,

(2) “But if Smith’s gotta do A, well, there’s no free will in that.” 

Now, heard one way, the foundational proposition, (1), is absolutely right.  But the particular hearing is crucial.  What justifies our thinking that (1) is true is this: 

(1’)  It’s gotta be true that:  If it is known that Smith will do A, then Smith will do A. 

In (1’), we aptly record one of the logical requirements of anything deserving to be called  ‘knowledge’.  If you know something, then the thing that you know is true.  And all of that has to be so.  As logicians less colloquially put these things (where “K” stands for “it is known that”, and “p” stands for any proposition whatever):

(1’’)  Necessarily, if Kp, then p.

But (1’’) is quite a different propositional type than:

(3)  If Kp, then necessarily p.

It’s different, and it doesn’t entail it either. 

The trouble is, we commonly take our colloquial way of thinking or speaking about these matters in the wrong way – in the case at hand, we take it rather literally.  The statement or thought that “If it is really known that Smith will do A, then Smith’s gotta do it” (viz. (1)) does expresses an important truth, but the truth it expresses (viz., 1’) has the form (1’’):  “Necessarily, if Kp then p”.  It is not a truth that “If Kp, then necessarily p”.  But our colloquial way of thinking/speaking leads us, in certain contexts, especially philosophical ones, wrongly – if only momentarily – to take it this way.  It’s a kind of cognitive illusion. 

To see that this is so, just consider our knowledge of ‘past truths’.  For example, I know that you wrote a comment on the previous blog.  Does it follow from that that you had to write a comment, especially in any sense of “had to” which implies you had no free will in the matter?  Nah.  My knowledge – so easy to come by – of what you did doesn’t rob you of your free will in so doing.  Knowledge isn’t like that.  If you know someone really really well, let’s say, quite a good person, then does the fact that you know what sort of thing they would do in some trying kind of situation mean that they really have no free will in the matter? 

Of course, free will may be some kind of illusion itself, but showing that will take more work than merely alluding to the fact that sometimes we know what someone will do.  When we complain, “How could you even think I would do such a thing?”, or “You should have known I wouldn’t do that!”, or even “You should have known I would have helped you out!”, surely we are not wishing upon ourselves a circumstance (the other’s knowledge) which – had they possessed it –  would have robbed us of our free will in the matter.  

*

And now for a little divertissement from Wittgenstein - though I think a relevant one.  He famously wrote about philosophical problems, saying:

“These are, of course, not empirical problems; they are solved, rather, by looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us recognize those workings:  in despite of an urge to misunderstand them.  The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known.  Philosophy is a battle against the betwitchment of our intelligence by means of language.”

I think his last statement can be taken in two ways, both of which he intends.