If theodicy is the attempt to offer a morally-sufficient justification for the evils of the world, moral anti-theodicy is the morally-motivated rejection of that justification. Moral anti-theodicy doesn’t dispute that it’s possible to solve the problem of evil in the way that theodicy suggests; what it disputes is whether it’s permissible to solve the problem of evil in this way.
To paraphrase a “famous scientist”: Theodicists spent so much time wondering if they could find a justification for all the evils of the world, they never stopped to think if they should.
Moral anti-theodicy says that we should not construct theodicies because it would be morally wrong to do so. Constructing a theodicy goes beyond certain moral limits that ought to constrain any reasonable person.
Most morally-reasonable people wouldn’t allow a little genocide or slavery for the sake of the beneficial effects that it would bring to the wider population and future generations, but I have seen these things defended in the context of theodicy. Most morally-reasonable people wouldn’t leave a child’s illness uncured for the sake of allowing the parents the opportunity to cultivate their virtuously caring character, but I have seen these things defended in the context of theodicy. Most morally-reasonable people wouldn’t leave a child abuser to their work for the sake of respecting the free will of both perpetrator and victim, but this is little more than a matter-of-fact description of a free-will theodicy.
Theodicists have been working on this for 2,000 years and these types of justifications are the best that’s been achieved. They would be utterly unreasonable in any context other than theodicy. Can you imagine the reaction if any of our political leaders, or doctors, or judges, suggested any such things? It wouldn’t matter what arguments were offered; it would be called ‘unthinkable’, ‘impossible’, and ‘outrageous’ to even suggest such a thing. And yet, within the context of theodicy, these types of justifications are necessary and unavoidable.
If a certain context requires you to do something morally unreasonable, the conclusion seems obvious: do not put yourself in that context.
And so that is what the moral anti-theodicist says: do not put yourself in the context of constructing a theodicy. Theodicy is a corrupted moral context and it will corrupt you with it. The longer you stay in the game of trying to find a reasonable justification for all of the evils of the world, the more reasonable these justifications will seem. This is a creeping thing: first it will seem possible, then it will seem plausible, then it will seem probable. In the end you will call it necessary and you will be lost.
According to moral anti-theodicy, theodicy is guilty of a catalogue of moral errors: it is morally insensitive, it encourages a too-detached perspective, it is unrestrictedly consequentialist, it uses people as a means to an end, it refuses to acknowledge the morally impossible. If you choose to construct a theodicy, you will inherit these errors and with that run the risk of becoming a reflection of them: insensitive, detached, and resistant to acknowledging the evils of the world.
Theodicy will distance you from your moral world, whether you realise it or not. (And what’s worse: you won’t realise.) It will commit you to positions that you ought not hold. It will make you excuse the inexcusable, defend the indefensible, and justify the unjustifiable, and you will consider yourself justified in doing so. You will become an implicit apologist for genocide, child abuse, disease, rape, murder, and all of the worst evils of the world. You will say that these things aren’t as bad as they seem. You might say that they are all for the best.
Don’t solve the problem of evil in this way. Find another way, or don’t look for any way at all. Better to remain silent and be thought to have no morally-adequate solution to the problem of evil than speak out and remove all doubt.
Read more: The Problem of Evil as an Ethical Problem
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