To begin the final chapter, I’ll briefly summarise what has come before. I began this book by saying that our philosophical understanding of the problem of evil is not in a healthy state. It is characterised by various markers of philosophical ill-health, showing symptoms of sophistry and confusion. I offered a patient history to aid diagnosis, suggesting that our philosophical discussion of the problem of evil has lost something important: the ‘that for the sake of which’ it is done. This, I suggest, is to orient ourselves rightly, ethically, to the evil and suffering of the world. Without wishing to be hyperbolic, for those of us who discuss the problem of evil at the ‘highest level’ (as it were), we have the option of our discussion being amongst the most important things that can be understood by any human being. Instead we choose to nit-pick trivialities.
But I accept that this is how the game has come to be played and there is some virtue in specialism, and that this virtuous specialism comes with some unavoidable consequences. I just don’t think we should have given up our ethical vocation so easily.
We begin by sincerely asking what it means to live well as a human being and we notice that the problem of evil can have some significant bearing on that question. So we investigate the problem of evil. We become so focussed on this problem and its component parts that we become specialists in it. And as we get specialised we forget our original purpose and slowly get detached from it to the point that we can’t find a way to reconnect what we’re doing with the reason for doing it. Then we look up from our work and turn around in surprise to find that what we’re doing seems not to be valued? How can we be surprised, when we left what mattered so far behind?
I can’t help but think all we need to do is retrace our steps a little and reconnect with our original purpose. Then it seems obvious that philosophy is the most important of all things.
To this end, I suggest an alternative way of engaging with the problem of evil. I retrace our steps and question whether we ought to philosophise about an evidential formulation of the problem of evil that challenges the rationality of theistic belief. I offer a logical formulation of the problem of evil that is based on an inconsistency of values and not of facts or contingent states of affairs. In theory this could work with any values, but since we are asked to offer a ‘necessary’ and not merely contingent contradiction, I focus only on the absolute values of moral necessity. I suggest the concept of the ‘morally impossible’ and suggest that this is not an empty concept: the morally impossible can and does happen. A sincere recognition of the morally impossible would be inconsistent with an insistence on God’s perfect goodness (and sufficient power) because such a God could only permit the morally impossible in morally tragic cases where the only way (logically) to prevent one morally impossible thing is to allow another: i.e. a ‘Sophie’s choice’. But such a morally-perfect being could not avoid acknowledging the wrong they would have done in such a situation and so could not be considered wholly good. That being would ask for our forgiveness.
As with all logical formulations of the problem of evil, this problem is not without solutions. One solution would be to construct a theodicy and argue that nothing bad happens without good reason; or else say, with sceptical theism, that ‘for all we know’ nothing bad happens without good reason. Everything that happens in this world is justified by a morally-sufficient reason. But for this to be the case, it must be that everything can be justified. And if that is the case, then nothing is not justifiable. But the morally impossible is unjustifiable. And so theodicy (and sceptical theism) must deny the morally impossible. This, I say, comes only at great moral cost. If you are willing to bear that cost then theodicy remains an option, but be clear about what it takes from you. It will remain morally reprehensible to anyone who clear-sightedly recognises the morally impossible.
An alternative solution would be to reject the meaningfulness of the concept of the morally impossible. Talk of the morally impossible is as easy to dismiss as talk about angry clouds. It is nothing but a philosophical hobgoblin. But I say it is no hobgoblin, that you can and do recognise the morally impossible in your quotidian moral reasoning, insofar as it is no more than a recognition of moral limits. We all have moral limits, even if we might differ wildly about when and where we hit those limits. These limits are the morally impossible. I argue that we cannot do without them because they shape our moral world. Having some moral limits is a condition for the possibility of sound moral judgement. I argue that we have as much reason to hold firm to our understanding of these moral limits as we do to our properly basic religious beliefs, or our belief in the existence of other minds. I say that our moral limits are fused to the foundations of our moral understanding. They are the hinges around which our moral understanding turns. I cannot dismiss my recognition of the morally impossible and remain a morally-thinking thing.
The Argument
The combination of these claims throws up an argument:
1. A consistent set of theistic beliefs requires a solution to the logical problem of morally-impossible evil.
2. Solutions to the logical problem of morally-impossible evil are morally problematic.
3. Therefore, a consistent set of theistic beliefs is morally problematic.
The first premise follows from the construction of a logical formulation of the problem of evil: a theistic set of beliefs, in the traditional form of the ‘inconsistent triad’, can be exposed as inconsistent if part of that set of beliefs are beliefs about the morally impossible. This inconsistency would be within and between value claims about God’s goodness and the morally impossible. A wholly good God could not permit the morally impossible and remain wholly good. If this is true, then in order for a theistic set of beliefs to be consistent it must offer a solution to the problem of evil. It must surrender its recognition of the morally impossible or else abandon its notion of divinely-perfect goodness.
The second premise follows from the arguments that point out the morally problematic nature of denying the morally impossible. In simple terms this means that denying the morally impossible is morally insensitive, too detached, too consequentialist or instrumentalist, too willing to treat people as a means to an end, and all in all too willing to transgress moral limits and excuse the inexcusable, justify the unjustifiable, and permit the impermissible. These moral limits are essential to our moral understanding, they shape our moral world, and as such we cannot abandon or dismiss them. We ought not abandon or dismiss them. But if we do not abandon or dismiss them, then we must know that we cannot transgress them without suffering the consequences in terms of guilt and shame.
The conclusion of this argument is controversial, however you look at it. The problem of evil shows theism to be morally problematic. Any theist who denies or dismisses or downplays the morally impossible ought to be ashamed of themselves. Any theist who sincerely recognises the morally impossible but doesn’t see why this has any bearing on their theistic belief is inconsistent with themselves, and if they are a philosopher then they ought to know better. Either way, they could be judged very harshly by those of us who do not participate in their inconsistencies.
But it would be a mistake to think that I am pronouncing judgement on the theist. It would be a mistake to think I am straightforwardly offering this argument as a reason to accept the conclusion. I am not saying that theistic belief is morally unsupportable per se. And this is certainly not an argument for atheism.
This argument is a result of my reflections on the problem of evil as an ethical problem, not what we could call the ‘intellectual problem’ of weighing up the rationality of theistic belief. As I see it, an ethical problem does not work in the same way as an intellectual problem. It has different purposes, different aims, a different scope.
Not an Intellectual Problem
The purpose of intellectual problems, as I am using the term, is to find the truth or the ‘right answer’; ordinarily the ‘objective’ or real truth, not just the truth as I see it (which would not be enough of a solution to an intellectual problem). It is intended to settle a matter of fact. The problem of evil tends to be understood in this way: it is an attempt to get a clear picture of the real state of things, one of many tools (or arguments) that we use in our attempts to ascertain whether or not God exists. It serves this purpose; it is like a saw that cuts wood. But this is not how I am treating the problem.
Let me offer some examples, to make it clearer what I have in mind: The task of calculating how much tax I owe is an intellectual problem. It’s a combination of empirical facts and mathematical calculations. It is ethically-relevant, obviously, but it is distinct from the questions of whether I ought to pay tax or how much I ought to be taxed. The ethical problem is whether and how much tax there ought to be, the intellectual problem is then the calculation of the objective ‘right answer’ according to those ethically-guided aims. These problems are separable. The calculation itself requires no moral understanding: a machine could do it. You could say it is my responsibility that this intellectual problem be solved – because I am responsible for ensuring that my tax is paid – but the problem itself is not necessarily my problem to solve. Because of this, I can detach myself from it and suffer no loss. I can hand the calculation over to someone else to do for me; and perhaps I ought to do this, if I’m not confident I will get the right answer. This is what I mean by an intellectual problem. As I am using the term, intellectual problems can be called impersonal. There is nothing in an intellectual problem that says I must solve it. Obviously it is different in the specific context of studying for examinations and such (where the purpose is not so much to find the objective truth but to demonstrate your personal understanding of it), but as a rule I can ask you to solve an intellectual problem for me and nothing is lost in that. I can outsource my intellectual pursuit of the objective truth. I can read a report of scientific data and take it as informative; I do not need to gather the data myself in order for it to be meaningful. In fact, that is intellectual understanding at its best and truest, because subjective perspectives are generally considered a corrupting influence on purely intellectual matters: in the pursuit of ‘the facts’ you are called to be as objective as possible; you are called to take yourself out of the matter as much as possible.
Ethical problems, by contrast, as I am using the term, are irreducibly personal. An ethical problem is something that I must solve. I cannot ask you to make my ethical decisions for me because, if I do so, they cease to be my decisions and so cease to be ethical decisions at all: in that circumstance, the ethical decision I have made is to not make a decision. I have abdicated. I have just passed the buck and taken no responsibility. And whilst I can inform my ethical understanding, I cannot outsource it. My ethical life is my responsibility, as yours is yours. When it comes to settling on my ethical values, I must decide where I stand, and only I can decide this because it is me that has to stand behind my words. You must decide where you stand.
What, then, is the purpose of philosophising about the problem of evil? What is the scope of the problem?
As an intellectual problem, it is to find the objective truth of the matter. It is to settle the question of whether or not God exists, or at least appraise the rationality of theism. This is, in principle, an impersonal exercise. I can (and perhaps should) outsource it to better minds than my own. If I want good bread, I should go to a baker. But if I am here writing a book on the topic, it would seem to be up to me to provide you with an answer. Is this what I am doing?
Say I have found the objective truth of the matter, and I present this to you as an argument: what is the purpose of that? To show you that you are mistaken (unless you agree with me)? What is it to me if you are mistaken about this matter? Surely your ethical and religious beliefs are your own responsibility, not mine. Who am I to tell you what to believe, objectively, about these things? Perhaps it would be different if you were my student and I were your teacher and I had some kind of duty to furnish you with true beliefs. But is that the case? Have you asked for a lesson? Can I impose my teaching on you, when you have not asked for it? And if I am a good teacher, can I be proud of that imposition, when I know that few will be taught who are not willing to learn?
What is my aim in presenting an argument to people who I know will disagree with me? Is it to show you that you are stupid? Why would I want to do that; what good would it do me (or you)? And why would I care if you are stupid? I know there are many stupid people in the world; it would be an odd thing to care about and even dedicate a life to, telling them all that they are stupid. Can I be so sure that you are stupid, and I am not? Is it then to show everyone else (who has sense enough to see) that I am not stupid, but clever? And yet if I really am clever, can I be proud of that aim?
What possible purpose could it serve for me to provide you with an answer to the problem of evil? I mean that to be a serious question. Treated as an intellectual problem, I think you will struggle to find a purpose that you can be proud of. Can we be surprised, then, when writing on the topic becomes defensive, grandiose, condescendingly combative, and full of nit-picking self-importance?
If the problem of evil is, instead, an ethical problem, what is the purpose of philosophising about it? As an ethical problem, is it an irreducibly personal problem. It is a part of my ethical life. I want to be good and do right; I want to orient myself rightly in the world; I want to have true beliefs about what really matters and to live as much as I can in alignment with those beliefs; I want to live well as a human being. This is my responsibility, not yours. And your ethical life is your responsibility, not mine. What good would it do either of us for me to provide you with ‘the answer’ when any answer must be your own?
To put it bluntly: the ‘answer’ is not the aim here; the process is the aim. I am not offering an answer: I am provoking you to find your own answer. That is why I say that it would be a mistake to think that I am offering my argument as a reason to accept the truth of the conclusion. I am not doing that, because that would be to offer this conclusion as an answer to the intellectual problem of the problem of evil, an attempt to settle the ‘objective truth’ of the matter. But the problem of evil is not an intellectual problem; it is an ethical problem, and it calls for a different kind of response. It calls for your response.
If I am offering any argument then it is to the effect that treating the problem of evil as an intellectual problem will not get you the answers you are looking for. The problem of evil is better thought of as an ethical problem. My intention has been to show this whilst saying something else. I ‘say’ that theism is morally problematic. In arguing so, I ‘show’ that ethical considerations are most fundamental to our understanding of the problem of evil. It is an ethical problem to its core; why treat it as anything else?
But can I separate the intellectual from the ethical so easily? Am I not saying that theism is inconsistent? And if it is inconsistent then why not say it is irrational? I am saying the problem of evil could show a theist to be inconsistent in only the same way that you could say a man who proclaims that beating children is wrong, whilst mercilessly beating a child, is inconsistent. I say this is ‘inconsistent’, but it is difficult to say that this is ‘irrational’ in the sense that it is a contradiction in propositional beliefs. It is not even that it is a contradiction between beliefs and behaviour, because obviously we can be weak-willed and do one thing when we know we shouldn’t. It is a contradiction between professed moral belief and manifest moral responsiveness: i.e., that he professes the belief whilst lacking the responsiveness expected of that belief. If this ‘mistake’ were pointed out to him, there could be all manner of ‘rational’ responses. Perhaps he will say this is a special case, an exception. Perhaps he will say that he has no choice. Perhaps he will simply acknowledge that, as it turns out, he wasn’t as committed to the idea that you shouldn’t beat children as he thought he was. These are all open options. They avoid any rational inconsistency, but the original accusation remains which is only that he lacks a moral responsiveness that he ought, really, to have; at least if his professed beliefs are anything to go by. (The connection with the problem of evil ought to be clear.)
The inconsistency works at the level of values. When someone expresses a moral belief – such as ‘it is wrong to beat children’ – they make a value claim. They could express this as an intellectual belief only, devoid of value, as if it were mere words, parroted but not really held with moral sincerity. They could express this belief without having any moral responsiveness to it, and they would show it to not really be a ‘moral’ belief at all. In that case there would be no inconsistency in going against that belief. But if it is a moral belief and not just mere words, then in being a value claim it has a motivational force, a ‘to be doneness’. Moral responsiveness is internal to sincere moral belief. And therefore, if there is no responsiveness, there cannot really be the belief. It is mere words, as it turns out. There is nothing wrong with it being mere words; we cannot insist that people ought to have a certain level of moral responsiveness. All we can say is that they cannot lack that responsiveness and make a serious claim to the moral belief. Not without being a hypocrite, at least.
Truman was no hypocrite. He had a perfectly consistent set of beliefs. Where he saw duty, he acknowledged that duty and responded accordingly. ‘It was no great decision.’ If, however, he were to have said that it is categorically morally wrong to incinerate the children of your enemies to preserve the lives of your soldiers, then it would be different. Then we’d have a point of apparent inconsistency. Then we might be able to ask the question: how could you bring yourself to do such a thing?
What would be the purpose (now, especially, many years after the event) of offering an argument along these lines, in an attempt to settle an intellectual problem? Were I tasked with offering a contribution to ‘the problem of Nagasaki’, what would I say? Would I tell him what he should have done, what he should have believed? Who am I to say such a thing! Would I offer an argument to rationally compel him to accept the ‘right answer’? What difference would that make, what purpose would it serve, other than to show him that he was wrong? Is it intended to be action guiding? Whose actions?! ‘The problem of Nagasaki’ is not an intellectual problem to be solved. Not now, at least. No one wins by winning that argument because everything is already long since lost.
Instead, what if I were to treat it as an ethical problem? What if I viewed it as a part of my ethical life? This is not selfish or grandiose; the opposite, in fact, because it is nothing more than a recognition that it is hardly my place to make decisions or judgements about other people and on other people’s behalf about something that is so far removed from me. But viewed as an ethical problem, I can reflect, philosophically, I can investigate the moral reality of the question, and I can decide where I stand. This process helps to shape my moral world. If I am asked to offer a contribution to ‘the problem’, I can only say where I stand and explain my thinking, because my ethical life is my responsibility and theirs is theirs. But in doing this, perhaps I show a different way of looking at things. I show the shape of a different moral world. Or else I reflect something of their own moral world back at them. Perhaps this will cause them to see things differently, but I leave them to their conscience. It’s not my place to tell them what to think.
I see the problem of evil as being analogous to this kind of example. After all, whose actions are to be guided by our intellectual understanding of this matter? Are any of us expecting to be in the position of having to decide how to create a universe? Are we intending to tell God what He should have done? Is our purpose only to judge Him? And would it make any difference whatsoever if we were right?
I think these reflections point to the true purpose of philosophising about the problem of evil. The purpose of philosophising about the problem of evil is to gain moral understanding, not intellectual understanding. And moral understanding is essentially personal. To gain moral understanding, we need to treat it as a moral problem, an ethical question. We need to understand the problem of evil within the context of our ethical lives, with the purpose of informing those ethical lives, and that is something only we can do. It is a matter of understanding where you stand. You already know that child abuse (and genocide, slavery, etc.) is unjustifiable. Remain true to yourself and anti-theodicy will follow naturally.
Not Not an Ethical Problem
That the problem of evil should not not be treated as an ethical problem has I think become clearer over the course of its recent history. The already-mentioned moral criticisms of anti-theodicy aside, many voices have called for the problem of evil to be seen as less of a purely theoretical intellectual problem and more of a practical or pastoral concern. I join in these calls, but I don’t think it’s enough. I think we can show that, when treated as a purely theoretical or intellectual problem, the problem of evil fails unless it takes its ethical nature seriously.
I have argued as much in previous work. I will restate one of those arguments briefly here, since it forms some of the background to my thinking on this matter and so it will help to explain it. I have always felt that there was something intuitively wrong with someone trying to argue for a non-moral conclusion – that God does not exist – on the basis of moral premises. The conclusion is something that sounds an awful lot like a statement of a fact, like a claim that ‘no human being that exists is over 10ft tall’, but the grounds for this fact are at times little more than a report of your moral feelings. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t give this kind of argument the time of day. ‘No human being that exists is over 10ft tall, because it would be really unfair to the game of basketball.’
When I came to present this argument with more rigour (philosophically nit-picky though it was), I cited it as an inconsistency in J. L. Mackie’s thought because he argues against moral arguments for the existence of God on the basis that they argue from values to facts, and that this gets the direction of supervenience between facts and values back to front. And yet he also offers the problem of evil as an argument against belief in God, which surely repeats the same error (if it is an error). I stand by that argument and the other lines of argument in that article, but I don’t think it needs to be as complicated as all that. Some illustrations can make the underlying point clear.
Imagine an atheist offers a version of the argument from evil. For example, they say that there is something essentially morally wrong with God violating the Pauline Principle that we should never do evil so that good may come. But as far as they can see, God, in creating the world with so much evil and suffering but with the purpose of everything coming good in the end, does violate this principle. The only sensible conclusion to this paradox is that God does not exist. But imagine God appears to this atheist and sets them right: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’, etc. The atheist’s original paradox remains, perhaps, and they will certainly feel confused: it remains the case that they cannot consistently believe both that it is wrong for God to do this thing and that God, the morally-perfect being, does it. But can they still maintain their original conclusion? Of course not, because God’s existence has just been confirmed. What is their alternative, to avoid paradoxical inconsistency? They must conclude that they were mistaken in their moral beliefs. In light of new information, they change their moral minds. They align their value judgements with the facts. It turns out God can violate the Pauline Principle under certain circumstances. The atheist learns a valuable lesson and continues forwards, as a theist, with a more accurate understanding of the world.
An atheist (who is an atheist on the basis of the problem of evil) who learns that God exists must take a very different view of the moral world. Such a piece of information radically changes the shape of their moral world. The fact can and does and must affect their value judgements, because value judgements ought to be aligned with the facts, and especially if those value judgements are inconsistent with the facts. But it does not work the other way around. The discovery of a new moral principle cannot make it so that God does not and has never existed. That is not something that is within the power of values to do. The fact of God’s existence changes what is true or false about moral beliefs, but moral beliefs do not have the power to change the fact of God’s existence. Moral beliefs cannot change the facts; they can only change how you perceive those facts or how you feel about them. But facts can force you to change your moral beliefs.
Facts have a kind of logical priority over values: facts come first, then we try to align our value judgements with the facts. Because of this logical priority, if there is a contradiction between facts and value judgements, the value judgements must be rejected or modified, because value judgements do not have the power to change the facts; and yet we cannot remain with an inconsistent set of beliefs, so something must be done.
When J. L. Mackie makes this point, he does so in opposition to the moral argument for theism. Many atheists are keen to reject any of the moral arguments for belief in God for the reason that you cannot argue a point about how the world is on the basis of a set of beliefs about how the world ought to be. Just because the world ‘ought’ to be just and good does not mean that it is just and good, and certainly doesn’t imply that there must be something that makes it just and good.
Mackie’s primary target is Kant. (He does also target Newman, but he uses a different argument there.) In this, Mackie picked the high-hanging fruit; easier targets were available and would have been more appropriate for Mackie’s line of argument, which does not fit quite as easily with Kant’s peculiar transcendental context. As Mackie deals with Kant’s argument out of that peculiar context, Kant’s moral argument for belief in God is really an argument about practical consistency. It would be inconsistent to believe that you ought to uphold the moral law unless you also believed that you can uphold the moral law. Or at least, it would be practically impossible to maintain a commitment to the moral law without some assurance of goodness and justice in the end. According to Kant, the function of human reason is a good will or reverence for the moral law, and human beings are naturally (essentially) desiring of happiness. We need to do our duty and we want to be happy. Were it to be the case that these two essential drives contradicted each other in some way, then human beings would be doomed to a tormented absurdity. We must, therefore, on pain of tormented absurdity, believe that goodness and happiness and justice will align in the end. And the only way this can be is if there is a God who can make it happen. God is a necessary postulate of practical reason.
Mackie thinks this is a bad argument because you cannot argue for a fact (even if only as a ‘postulate of practical reason’) on the basis of a set of values. This gets the direction of supervenience between facts and values back to front. Values change in response to the facts, but the facts do not change in response to values.
The same principle is obvious beyond the context of the problem of evil. Imagine we say it is virtuous to give money to someone living on the streets. We think we do them good. This is a value judgement. Then someone comes along and shows us that, as a matter of fact, we are doing them more harm than good because they will only use the money to buy drugs. Say we accept this as a fact. Can we hold to our moral belief that it is virtuous to give money to someone on the street? Can we argue that we do in fact do them good by giving them money because we have decided it is the virtuous thing to do? ‘It would be wrong to give money to someone living on the street if they will only use that money to buy drugs; it is right to give money to someone living on the street; therefore, they will not use the money only to buy drugs.’ This argument runs: value, value: fact. It runs: ‘ought, ought: is’. That would get things back to front. Our beliefs about what is good to do depend on the facts of the matter, but the facts of the matter do not depend on our beliefs about what is good to do.
Imagine someone fatally shoots someone. They point a loaded gun, pull the trigger, fire a bullet, and the bullet hits a person, killing them dead. We make a value judgement. Such a thing ought not to be done. We judge the shooter badly. We judge in response to the facts. But if the facts change (or rather, if our understanding of the facts changes) then we change our value judgement. If we learn that the shooter had good reason to believe the gun wasn’t loaded, or that they had no way of knowing they were pointing the gun at a person, or that the bullet was meant to be a blank, we do not judge the person in the same way. Our value judgements respond to the facts. We try to establish the facts in order to make the right value judgements. We try to align our value judgements with the facts.
But the facts are not so kind as to align with our value judgements. No matter how much you tell it that it would be wrong to hit that person, or how clearly you hold that value judgement to be true, a bullet will not alter its course. It will not misfire or change into a blank for the sake of moral consistency. The shooter cannot say ‘it would be wrong to shoot this bullet at someone; I will not do anything wrong; therefore this bullet will not shoot at someone (even if I point the loaded gun and pull the trigger)’. This argument runs: value, fact: fact. It runs ‘ought, is: is’. But that’s not how the world works.
Our beliefs about what ought to be done depend on our beliefs about what is the case, but our beliefs about what is the case cannot depend on our beliefs about what ought to be done. Our moral beliefs do not have that fact-impacting power.
But isn’t that essentially what theists are doing when they present a moral argument for the existence of God? ‘It would be wrong for the world to require goodness without reward; the world requires goodness; therefore, there must be reward’. This argument runs: value, value: fact. It runs: ‘ought, ought: is’. But just because the world ought to be a certain way doesn’t mean that it is. The moral argument for the existence of God erroneously argues from values to facts.
Similarly erroneous would be the attempt to argue for the existence of God on the basis of the existence of objective moral values. The moral law could not exist without a divine lawgiver, or so it is claimed. If we recognise a moral law, we must recognise it as divinely-given. Setting aside the clear falsity of this claim – because there are many ways we could understand having obligations to one another without needing it to be divinely-mandated – it would remain a case of arguing for a fact on the basis of a value judgement. ‘Murder is not wrong unless God exists to command us not to murder; murder is wrong; therefore, God exists.’ Whether the first premise here is considered a fact (of an a priori nature, presumably) or a value I leave undecided, but even if we concede it as an analytic fact, this argument would run: fact, value: fact. It runs: ‘is, ought: is’.
Is the argument from evil to the non-existence of God any different? ‘It would be wrong for a good and powerful God to permit evil; evil exists; therefore, God does not exist.’ This argument runs: value, value: fact. It runs ‘ought, ought: is’. (I take ‘evil exists’ to be a paradigmatic value-judgement, but even if you disagree and think it is a fact, it makes no difference because there will still be the value judgement that God ought not permit it, and this is enough to make the whole line of reasoning depend on a value judgement.) The argument from evil to the non-existence of God also argues from values to facts. If it is wrong to argue for the existence of God on the basis of values, why isn’t it also wrong to argue against the existence of God on the basis of values? For this reason I would say that the argument from evil to the non-existence of God is fundamentally flawed, exactly as Mackie says the moral argument for the existence of God does not work. You cannot argue for a fact from a value.
Perhaps we could say that, in contrast to the argument from evil, the problem of evil is not about arguing for a ‘fact’ but establishing a consistent set of beliefs. Obviously I would be sympathetic to this. But in that case is the moral argument for belief in God any different? Isn’t that also about establishing a consistent set of beliefs about how to live in this world? You need to do your duty and you want to be happy: to avoid the tormented absurdity that follows from these two being in any way contradictory, you need to find a way to make them consistent. Belief in God would make them consistent. So would Socrates’ claim that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Or else you can abandon your duty and try only to be as happy as you can (Epicurus can show you how). So long as these are value-based inferences from value-based claims then there is nothing obviously wrong with this. The mistake only emerges once you try to infer a fact from these. That’s like crossing the is-ought gap but the wrong way; not inferring an ought from an is, but an is from an ought.If Socrates were to say that he was bullet-proof, on the basis that he is a good man and ‘a good man cannot be harmed’, then we would say he has made an obvious mistake: his value judgements, however true, cannot determine the facts of the matter. Mackie would say that any moral argument for the existence of God makes the same mistake, though less obviously. I would say that the argument from evil to the non-existence of God makes the same mistake again, and the problem of evil shares this mistake if it infers a fact in an attempt to resolve an inconsistency between facts and values. You cannot infer an is from an ought.
What is the upshot of this? It is that any attempt to propose the problem of evil as an intellectual problem is doomed to failure. Intellectual problems, as I have termed it, aim to provide an objective ‘right answer’. These are claims of fact, not merely an expression of my feelings or the truth as I see it. Any move from the value claims made within the problem of evil – those claims that state what ‘ought to be’ the case – to a solution that is fact-type or making a claim about what ‘is’ the case, will inevitably get the direction of supervenience between facts and values back-to-front.
The point is clearer if we try to mangle our examples to fit with the idea of moral necessity. Imagine we say it is morally necessary to give money to people on the street, even if it does them more harm than good because they will only use the money to buy drugs. (I think this is a bad and mangled example because it is implausible to suppose that the specific action of ‘giving money’ to people on the street is the kind of thing that could be accounted a moral necessity. Even if you think it is the right thing to do, it makes sense to doubt the rightness of this action. That action could at most be seen as an expression of an underlying moral necessity – such as to ‘be charitable’ or ‘uphold fairness’, etc. – but those are moral absolutes whose expressions are very adaptable and variable. We might recognise it as morally necessary to do ‘something’, but it is not necessarily clear that ‘giving them money’ is that something. But let’s run with the mangled example for the sake of argument…) We say it is right to give money to people on the streets, and we refuse to change our value judgement because we find we cannot do so without abandoning our entire moral world along with it. It is recognised as a moral necessity: ‘I can’t just walk by and give nothing.’ If we hold to this moral necessity, does it change the facts? Of course not, and we don’t claim it to. We don’t expect our discovery of moral necessity to change a single thing in the world, because we understand we have only discovered something about ourselves, about our own moral limits. We conclude with a value judgement only, fully aware that is powerless to change the facts. What changes in us is our understanding of why we might give money to people on the streets. If we think we ought to give money to people on the streets even if it does them more harm than good, then clearly our motivations are not so nakedly consequentialist. Our actual motivations might not be clear; we are probably motivated by compassion, charity, empathy, pity. We see someone in need and we feel we’d like to help them. Perhaps we are expressing only our own guilt about having money in our pockets when others do not, and so we look to assuage our guilt by giving some away to the first needy person we see. Perhaps we just want to be seen to be good, regardless of the actual good we are doing. We can reflect on whether we are content to be motivated by those reasons and prioritise them over the harm we might be doing. This is a decision we have to make. Philosophical reflection can help us come to understand this moral matter more clearly. It seems that it’s not really about the good or harm we are doing them, but if it’s not about that then what is it about? Making yourself feel better? Is that a worthy aim?
Likewise with our other example (a more suitable example here: less mangled, more plausible), if the shooter understands what they have done to be morally impossible. Can they conclude with any kind of fact, that they did not in fact do what they did? Of course not, they just understand the full wrongness of it. They conclude with a value judgement but know, tragically, that it cannot change the facts. Even if they know that they have every ‘justification’ or ‘excuse’, that they didn’t mean to shoot the person, or they thought the gun wasn’t loaded, or that the bullet was a blank, etc., etc., they know that none of that changes the fact that they have killed someone. They find this in itself to be morally impossible but cannot deny that it happened; in this they know that moral necessity is not alethic. In fact, they come to know this all too well, because they find they have done what they know ought never be done. Moving forward from this place is not a matter of dismissing or downplaying or justifying or excusing: these are all understood to be morally inaccessible responses. The only way forward is remorse, acknowledgement, and forgiveness, if it is possible. But there’s no denying what they have done.
This is just an example, and I am obviously speaking as an outsider here. I have never killed anyone, either intentionally or accidentally, so I have no idea what a recognition of that heavy moral necessity would be like. I can only speculate. But it’s not like it’s fiction. People do kill people. From accounts I have seen of it, in people who are morally sensitive and not psychopaths, it is world shattering. It can be life-defining, a weight of guilt that will never quite lift. It needs to be worked through. This can be the case even when the killing was ‘justified’; again showing its morally necessary nature. I would be very hesitant to dismiss someone as being morally oversensitive or irrational for feeling guilty about killing someone, even if they had no choice.
How right would it be to treat this guilt as if it were an intellectual problem? Even if what we say is factually correct, is it our role to educate the guilty killer about the facts of their situation, about their justifications or excuses for killing? And when they say ‘I know all that, but can’t you see what it means to kill someone?’, we reply: ‘Well now you are just being irrational…’ Ought we dismiss their ethical problem, and reduce it to an intellectual problem, just so it is something we can understand and do away with? (The connection with the problem of evil ought to be clear.)
The moral argument for belief in God is very amenable to a reading in terms of moral necessity. The believer finds it to be morally impossible not to believe in God. This is not a statement of fact, like ‘God exists’. It is a statement about their own moral judgements or beliefs, about the limits of their moral world. For them, their moral world is defined by their belief in God: therefore, for them, there is no moral world without that belief in God. Belief in God is a foundation stone, a hinge around which their moral reasoning swings. These are expressions of value, absolute value, not of fact. How right would it be to treat this as if it were only an intellectual matter of fact? It would miss the point to do so; it would reduce the argument to such an impoverished form that it wouldn’t be worth giving it the time of day. The conclusion of the moral argument is not that God’s existence has been demonstrated but only that the believer is firm in their moral resolve and equally firm in their hope that this resolve is not foolish.
I am saying the problem of evil should be understood exactly like this. It is an ethical problem that tells you about your moral limits. The conclusions of these ‘arguments’ are not facts, but values, absolute values. Due to the fundamental role that value judgements play within it, the problem of evil cannot conclude with a fact-type claim. It can only conclude with a value judgement. This means that it should not be treated as an intellectual problem, as I am using that term. It ought to be treated as an ethical problem. The conclusion of the problem of evil, either ‘for’ or ‘against’, ought to be expressed as a value judgement only. It tells us nothing whatsoever about the fact of God’s existence.
The problem of evil does not tell you anything about the world because it cannot do such a thing. It can only tell you about yourself and your moral beliefs. This is why it ought to be treated as an ethical problem.
Ivan Karamazov is a Hopeless Romantic
If we look beyond the world of academic philosophy we find that there is nothing particularly novel in treating the problem of evil in this way. Is Job tackling an intellectual problem? Is that the kind of answer he is looking for? Is that the kind of answer being offered to us? And if not, then why should we take it as so? Is it a task he, or we, can outsource to his friends? How shallow it would be to think so! Can the deep moral questions raised by something like Shūsaku Endō’s Silence be settled by a matter of fact? Are they trying to be? Is that their true meaning? Can they be responded too in the same way we might respond to a problem in physics? How would we react to someone who engaged with the Book of Job and responded: ‘Well of course his questions would have been answered by a better understanding of economics and dermatology.’ How would we react to someone who engaged with Silence and thought the whole matter could be settled by recognising that ‘it’s just a piece of bronze’?
Most of these types of literary instances escape a philosophical rendering. Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov is not so lucky. He has been paraded across the philosophical literature on the problem of evil, made to stand as an example of a particular kind of argument from evil, one that is concerned not with the quantity or severity of evil in this world but with a certain qualitative type of evil. This argument focusses on the suffering of innocent children. Adults deserve what they get, perhaps, and it could be argued that they are acting from their free will and so are accountable for their actions. But children? How can it be that they are accountable for the sins of the world? What have they done to deserve this? How can we say that they have been helped along in their soul-making process, when they suffer and die at such a young age? They were not given the chance to endure and develop virtue. They were not given the chance to sin. And we are told that they must suffer for our freedom and soul-making? Who can abide with that?!
I think Ivan is often misunderstood. Or rather, Dostoevsky is often misunderstood, in the way that Ivan is put to use in the context of the philosophy of religion. In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan is a ‘famous atheist’, it’s true, but the novel shows him to be an atheist of a peculiar kind. For one, he does not deny the existence or goodness of God. Ivan confesses to having a ‘Euclidean’ mind, bound to earthly laws and incapable of making inferences beyond those laws. He accepts that he cannot understand God, and that he cannot deny the existence of what he cannot understand. And so Ivan says that he accepts God, ‘directly and simply’. What he cannot accept is the world created by God:
Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men – but though all that may come to pass, I don’t accept it. I won’t accept it.
Ivan cannot accept this world because the suffering of innocent children, especially for the purpose of buying a future harmony, violates a moral necessity. In recognising this as a violation of moral necessity, he cannot agree to endorse it; and so he will not go along with it, and he would rather remain with his unassuaged indignation, as he says (with emphasis, in some translations), ‘even though I am not right.’ Consequently, famously, it isn’t God he doesn’t accept, it’s just God’s ticket that Ivan most respectfully returns to Him (and if he is an honest man he should return it as soon as possible).
There is a philosophical argument here but it would be a mistake to think it is an argument from evil to the non-existence of God. Ivan’s argument is a paradigmatic example of the problem of evil being treated as an ethical problem, not an intellectual problem. Consider the concluding phrases of his ‘argument’:
Imagine that you yourself are erecting the edifice of human fortune with the goal of, at the finale, making people happy, of at last giving them peace and quiet, but that in order to do it it would be necessary and unavoidable to torture to death only one tiny little creature […] and on its unavenged tears to found that edifice, would you agree to be the architect on those conditions, tell me and tell me truly?
[…]
And are you able to allow the idea that the people for whom you are constructing the edifice would themselves agree to accept their happiness being bought by the unwarranted blood of a small, tortured child and, having accepted it, remain happy for ever?
These are questions that Ivan puts to his younger brother, as part of their process of ‘getting acquainted’, but they are also questions that Dostoevsky puts to you, to us. They are questions about our moral limits. The two Karamazov brothers, Ivan the atheist and Alyosha the novice monk, are trying to understand where one another stands, and in reading their story, we come to understand where we stand. With whom do we identify, or admire or pity, and why? Dostoevsky writes for this purpose, offering up a mirror to our nature, showing virtue in its true form, exposing its false image. In correspondence he describes the ‘point’ of The Brothers Karamazov as being:
…blasphemy and the refutation of blasphemy. The blasphemy I have taken as I myself have realised it, in its strongest form, that is, precisely as it occurs among us now in Russia with the whole (almost) upper stratum, and primarily with the young people, that is, the scientific and philosophical rejection of God’s existence has been abandoned now, today’s practical Socialists don’t bother with it at all (as people did the whole last century and the first half of the present one). But on the other hand God’s creation, God’s world, and its meaning are negated as strongly as possible.
This is what Ivan stands for, not the ‘scientific’ or intellectual rejection of God’s existence, but the negation of the meaning of the world: it is a matter of values, not facts. Dostoevsky’s plan is to counter this with a reassertion of Christian values (not facts); or, more accurately, a Christian form of life:
The refutation of this (not direct, that is, not from one person to another) will appear in the last words of the dying elder. […] In the next book the elder Zosima’s death and deathbed conversations with his friends will occur…If I succeed, I’ll have…forced people to recognise that a pure, ideal Christian is not an abstract matter but one graphically real, possible, standing before our eyes, and that Christianity is the only refuge of the Russian land from its evils. I pray God that I’ll succeed; the piece will be moving, if only my inspiration holds out…The whole novel is being written for its sake, but only let it succeed, that’s what worries me now!
Dostoevsky wants his critical readers to understand that ‘…it is not I who am speaking in distressing colours, exaggerations, and hyperboles (although there is no exaggeration concerning the reality), but a character of my novel, Ivan Karamazov. This is his language, his style, his pathos, and not mine.’ Ivan is meant to stand for something; he is an embodied (fictional) example of something that Dostoevsky is not: a blasphemy. Ivan is intended to be an illustration of a mistake. What mistake?
Dostoevsky is speaking in defence of Christianity. He not so subtle in presenting Ivan, the atheist, as a grandiose and contradictory figure, ultimately flawed. In truth Ivan is a hypocrite. He claims to argue his case out of ‘love for humanity’, but this is shown to be mere words:
I have never been able to understand how it is possible to love one’s neighbour. In my opinion the people it is impossible to love are precisely those near to one, while one can really love only those who are far away. […] In order to love a person it is necessary for him to be concealed from view; the moment he shows his face – love disappears.
And later: ‘It’s possible to love one’s neighbour in the abstract, and even sometimes from a distance, but almost never when he’s close at hand.’
Ivan does not seem to like people. For the most part, he looks down on them. He thinks he is cleverer than them. In what we are shown of Ivan prior to the brothers ‘getting acquainted’, Ivan talks like an intellectual: detached, self-important and satirical. Though the meeting between the brothers takes place in an inn, we’re told Ivan is ‘no lover of inns in general’ and that Ivan has been a confessedly uncaring brother. He says he has no friends. He speaks of disenchantment and revulsion at life. He plans to ‘drink from the cup’ until he is 30, then fling it to the ground even though he hasn’t drained it all. Ivan is angry, depressed, misanthropic. He has little real love for humanity, but what he does have, from his lofty arrogant heights, is pity. This pity becomes focussed on innocent children because it is difficult to maintain pity for adult human beings who behave badly (and anyway are ugly). Pity for an adult human being too easily turns into condescension and it is hard to love what you look down on. You are more inclined to kick them away like dirt on your shoe.
So for all his talk of his moral stance being taken ‘out of love for humanity’, Ivan doesn’t show manifest signs of compassion. This is a common feature in Dostoevsky’s ‘villains’, in contrast to his ‘heroes/heroines’. I suppose you could call it false moral pretensions: claiming moral motivations to be grand when they are really petty. These are always held up in contrast with the humble moral pretensions of Christianity, the only truly moral pretensions Dostoevsky thinks one ought to have. These pretensions manifest as self-effacing compassion and an acknowledgement of one’s own moral inadequacy, not grandiose moralising.
But it is not a moral sense that Ivan lacks; that is not his mistake. We are shown this when we are shown that Ivan is misunderstood by Smerdyakov. Ivan is mistakenly thought to believe that ‘everything is permitted’, and many naive readers take him at his word. But Ivan says of this hypothesis only that he ‘wasn’t entirely joking’. The holy Elder Zosima sees through his satirical facade, saying to Ivan: ‘you don’t believe your own arguments, and with an aching heart mock at them inwardly.’ (Zosima recognises Ivan’s tormented absurdity and acknowledges the ‘great future suffering’ that awaits him, inevitably.) In truth Ivan feels all too strongly what it means for not everything to be permissible. He chooses to stick to the facts of the horrors of the world, the unconscionable sufferings of innocent children, and will not accept any story that requires him to relinquish these moral facts. His moral sense is strong and absolute. It is precisely this moral sense that is his fatal flaw. He is too absolute, and lacking a faith that is a necessary co-requisite for that strong moral resolve.
What Ivan learns when he sees his words reflected in Smerdyakov, and what drives him mad with remorse, is the terrible consequences of living and speaking in the tormented absurdity that comes from a moral conscience denied the hope of a religious faith. Ivan is living out this tormented absurdity. Ivan is an embodied (fictional) example of Kant’s moral argument for belief in God. Dostoevsky is showing us why faith is a necessary postulate of practical reason. Ivan lacks this necessary postulate; he even recognises it as necessary, and yet still he cannot accept it. He will not let himself accept it. That is Ivan’s mistake. That is what drives him mad. (Well, that and his drinking, which is no doubt a product of his despair; a point that isn’t laboured but is hinted at throughout.)
It seems to me that to show this clearly Dostoevsky gives the two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha, a shared ground. They both share a Romantic ‘Karamazovian’ inheritance. They agree that one should ‘live with one’s insides’ and ‘love life over logic’; ‘especially before logic’, Alyosha says ‘for only then will I understand its meaning.’ This is a late echo of Dostoevsky’s own youthful discussions with his brother, Mikhail. In correspondence, Mikhail implores his overly-sentimental younger brother, Fyodor, to be more rational: ‘To know more, one must feel less.’ Fyodor Dostoevsky replies: ‘What do you mean by the word to know? To know nature, the soul, God, love […] These are known by the heart, not the mind.’ This Romanticism is fertile ground for what Dostoevsky sees as true faith and it’s clear that he wants the Karamazov brothers to be read as Romantics. The text of their discussion is littered with allusions to Romantic literature and much is made to depend on them: Pushkin’s ‘sticky leaf-buds’, Fet’s ‘dear corpses’, Goethe, Tyutchev, Polezhayev, and, vitally, Schiller’s ‘I hasten to return my entry ticket’.
But where the Romantic Alyosha finds hope in Christianity, the Romantic Ivan finds only despair in the unconscionable evils of the world. His strong moral sentiment is combined with a lack of faith and hope, denying him any chance of reconciliation, forcing him to remain in his unassuaged indignation, and so he is doomed to a tormented absurdity. Dostoevsky surely means him to be a cautionary tale. Dostoevsky has shown us this without saying his argument. Ivan’s character and story is his ‘argument’.
Ivan has everything that his brother has apart from Christian faith and the true love for humanity that comes with that. In drawing this contrast, Dostoevsky isolates the variable. Ivan has the moral sense that is lacking in other mutinous pseudo-intellectuals like Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment) or Stavrogin (The Devils); he has the ‘acceptance’ of God, on an intellectual level, that is present in Alyosha; and he even shares the Romanticism necessary for truth to extend beyond scientific knowledge. But he lacks faith and hope, the non-cognitive dimensions of religious belief. Ivan Karamazov is a Romantic, like his brother, but he is a hopeless Romantic. He is driven by a Romantic recognition of moral necessity, a recognition that denies him any intellectual satisfaction because rationality cannot make sense of such senseless suffering. What is required is a leap of faith. But this is something Ivan cannot do even if he is not right. His Karamazovian moral sensibility will not permit him. The correct ‘refutation’ of this, as Dostoevsky says, is found in the depiction of the religious life of the Elder Zosima. Dostoevsky worries whether this will be ‘a sufficient reply’, it being only ‘indirect’ and ‘an artistic picture’. Needless to say, this is not a philosophical rebuttal. This offers no morally-sufficient reason for the suffering of innocent children. This does not make rational sense of senseless suffering, or even try to. It is like the Book of Job in that regard.
Camus says that Ivan Karamazov appeals to a ‘justice which he ranks above divinity. He does not absolutely deny the existence of God. He refutes Him in the name of a moral value’. But I am uncomfortable with Camus’ reading, which seems to portray Ivan as a sort of failed hero. Camus says in a footnote that ‘Ivan is, in a certain way, Dostoevsky, who is more at ease in this role than in the role of Alyosha’. But this is clearly false, and would be misleading if it were taken as a hidden truth. Ivan is a villain. Dostoevsky knows this. Zosima knows this. It is only Ivan who cannot understand how it is that he can stand in the name of justice, ‘out of love for humanity’, and still end up the villain. But his moral sense is enough to tell him that he is, undoubtedly, even if he cannot understand how or why. We are meant to feel sorry for him, but we are not meant to endorse his view. He is no hero. Zosima is the hero, and Alyosha for seeking to emulate Zosima. Ivan’s story ends with a confession.
The Brothers Karamazov is a paradigmatic instance of the problem of evil being treated as an ethical problem. It shows without saying; it shows a form of life; in it, the ethical is made manifest. It would be hideously reductive to extract an intellectual argument from that context.
Camus also said: ‘People can think only in images. If you want to be a philosopher, write novels.’ I’m sympathetic to that sentiment, especially when the truth-revealing quality of a great novel stands in such stark contrast to the quality of many academic journal articles and books (quite fine in their own right), but in the final reckoning I don’t think we need to talk only in novels. There’s nothing stopping us from sincerely engaging with these issues using rigorous philosophical argument. I would even defend the much-maligned ‘analytic’ style of philosophy as being able to do this better than any other philosophical approach. It just needs to be oriented rightly, with the right aims and intentions and recognition of scope. It is not settling facts; it is not sharing perspectives; it is seeking truth through clarity and consistency. And when truth is inaccessible it is seeking truthfulness, because whilst any good philosopher will know that ‘the Truth’ is hard to settle, meaning we cannot stand behind the essential truth of our beliefs, we can always stand firmly behind their truthfulness. And what is inconsistent can never be truthful. So we, as philosophers, to seek the truth and be truthful, must seek consistency.
Real-world examples show us when our pretensions to the truth or understanding come up short. Life exposes the inconsistency of our ‘mere words’; life shows us what we really believe. Fiction can do this too, when it is good enough to ring true. Philosophy ought to do this better and more directly than either. But rather than holding a mirror to our truest nature, we choose instead to build elaborate plans of castles in the sky that will be visible only from high towers.
Once upon a time (in a philosophical fairy tale far far away) all questions in philosophy helped to shape your moral world. Because what else was the point in doing philosophy, if not to be a better human being? I think this is the correct and true purpose of philosophy. I think we undersell it when we think of it as merely a handmaiden to the sciences, mopping up problems for which there is no data, or else treat it as if it were a leisure activity for the mind. I think when we do that we only argue ourselves into irrelevance. We cannot then complain when the world turns around and tells us that we are of no value, because we chose to do what has very little value to anyone not already interested in those philosophical problems. Philosophy is not a game; it is not trivial; it cannot be put down or set aside when you are bored or tired. It is your life because your philosophical understanding determines everything that is of value within your life. If what you are doing in philosophy does not measure up to that high standard then I would question whether you are really doing it properly. ‘The unexamined life is not worthy of a human being.’ Can we say that, with sincerity, about the ‘examined life’ depicted as a professional philosopher concerned only with nit-picking trivialities and winning academic arguments? Are we not ashamed to try to pretend that such a model of philosophy measures up to its Socratic ideal?
The great pyramid scheme of academic philosophy is in danger of collapsing; and if they are not careful the pharaohs responsible for its construction will be buried beneath ruins of their own making. They cannot complain for getting what they choose.
tobybetenson.com 