Your personal take on “The Problem of Evil?”

[Michael]

Esquilax, why would we want to divorce the concept of good and evil from actions and consequences? A good act is a loving act. We are called to love. Or at least I know I am, in the core of my being. I can only definitively speak of my own conscience, my own vocation, though that echoes the call in our scripture.

[Chad32]

I've never thought much about the problem with evil. I guess my personal take is that if tries repeatedly to do something the way he wants, and repeatedly fails at it, then he's not very competent. You make a couple of people, and they mess up once and you throw them out. The world goes to crap, with little to no mention of efforts to mitigate it, so instead of really fixing the problem, he just wipes the slate almost clean. Then things go to crap again, so he sends one guy to an uneducated part of the world to save everyone. Thousands of years later, only 2.5 out of 7 billion people in the world actually believe in your son, some percentage of the rest of the population still attempt to worship you while ignoring your son.

Despite claiming that you want all your children to get into heaven, only a small fraction, a quarter or less, will actually get in. You have failed. Of course many will say it's the kid's fault. Not the parent. Except that the larger the group that you're in charge of, the more telling it is if the majority of them turn out bad. Someone had one kid, and he goes bad? Possibly blame the kid. Someone has twenty kids, and nineteen of them go bad? You blame the parent.

[Esquilax]

Esquilax, why would we want to divorce the concept of good and evil from actions and consequences? A good act is a loving act. We are called to love. Or at least I know I am, in the core of my being. I can only definitively speak of my own conscience, my own vocation, though that echoes the call in our scripture.

Well, in your last post you said that evolutionary models of morality don't discuss good or bad, merely different stripes of behavior. But that implies that goodness and badness are defined by something other than actions or the consequences of them; if morality is connected to behavior then evolutionary models are certainly speaking on morality when they speak on behaviors.

You define a good act as a loving act, but I think you need to be careful with that, as many actions performed with loving intent can be considered evil: the father who beats his child to get him to behave may be doing so for what he perceives to be the child's own good, and yet beating a child is evil. A stalker might kidnap someone because they love them so, but kidnapping too is evil. Evidently, determinations of morality work on more than merely intentions. We could say that loving actions are good within the context of those actions that are traditionally considered loving, but then we're forced to confront the question of how those traditional behaviors became so. The answer to that is via the popularity of the reliable consequences of those actions, and that popularity is determined by the positive impact those consequences leave on the individuals involved.

... Which is exactly how evolved moral systems determine good or bad behaviors. Positive impacts= happier, healthier individuals= tighter community=better survival. Now, those are just generalities, I'm sure you can produce exceptions, but evolution isn't a tightly focused, responsive thing that can address every contention as they arise; it takes a while to see the impact of things.

[Michael]

Certainly I believe in a moral law giver Esquilax. Sorry if that was not clear from my earlier posts. But I don't divorce that from actions or consequences; I don't see how we could.

But I still don't agree that evolution explains 'good' and 'bad'. There's nothing in science that says happier = better, using your guide to good behaviours. You have to import that notion from outside of science to try and make the jump from behaviours to morality, to go from descriptive to prescriptive. You need to borrow from the philosopher, or acknowledge a presupposition (we all have them).

[XK9_Knight]

I like to keep things tidy. As such, I’ve split and hid my response to the individuals prescribed.

(In response to Esquilax)

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In some respects we have a moral obligation even under evolutionary morality, it's just that the obligation is to our fellow evolved animals, rather than to some distant supernatural force. Our survival, generally speaking, is contingent upon the health of the group, and certainly our current level of comfort and convenience is due to the society we have built together. We're obliged to keep it all running if we want to reap the benefits of it, and to propagate charitable memes as a method of causing it to run better.

Typical evolutionary evaluation; I think that sums up how I feel about “moral law” sometimes (as I mentioned earlier). But I can’t help but shake the feeling that I’m missing something here, something simple. I think my contention lies with the fact that it’s simply taken as a matter of fact that “no other society like ours could thrive without our set of moral intuition.” (intuition, standard, call it what you want). I can’t help but feel like this is somehow reasoning in circles.

I can’t put my finger on it, but time will tell I suppose?

Now, one might be tempted to argue that it's easy to shirk that obligation, to which my immediate response is that it's even easier to shirk a christian one; that's why we have so many different belief systems. At least under secular models the punishment is immediate- either social or legal consequences- and proportionate to the crime.

I don’t know how you feel about David Berlinksi, but I think this quote is rather apt.

“All the laws of heaven and earth are unable to prevent man from his crimes. Surely relaxing the laws of heaven and earth shall not dispose man to better behavior.’ That seems to me self-evident.”

It is easy to shirk any responsibility, secular or non a like.

I really don't mean to come across as combative…

I didn’t wish to imply you were, but in some cases I feel when an atheist makes a case they can come across as a little hurtful, especially to those people who are “new to the game.”

This is presuppositionalism, and I find it to be the enemy of rational thought…

Ooh! This brings us to an interesting point. I wonder whether we should pick this conversation up else where because it seems to be a HUGE tangent to the current topic. How would you feel about a private correspondence?

And my immediate response is, tell that to psychopaths. Or to any individual human placed within a situation where cheating without the possibility of repercussions arises. You can say we're compelled to be moral, but that's just not true, even as a general rule. Any person thinking of a compulsion to morality has clearly never spent a lot of time around young children, for example. The truth is, our society plays a much larger role in our better natures than you'd think.

Interestingly enough, I was the one who brought up this same point to a friend of mine. For a while it seemed dubious, but I came across something that perhaps shed a bit of light on the subject. Forgive me if I’m vague, I’ve only just started Aristotle (also, I’m sorry if I sound like a pompous ass for “dropping names.” I’ll readily admit my shortcomings, and this idea I’m presenting may not be fully formed.)

The psychopaths have the potential to function like an ordinary human being but have a mental deficiency making them unable. Children have this potential but don’t have the mental wherewithal to act it out. The point is that whether or not you have the ability doesn’t mean that you should; compulsion is not derived from capability.

Also, I’m 22, I am an uncle, I’ve spent a good deal of time around young kids. I can verify first hand how psychopathic they can be; my nephew pushed his sister down, put his knee on her neck and began tearing her hair out, all because she lifted up one of his toys! Kid got the spanking of his life.

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(in response to Shaman)

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I don't have a problem with evil. "Evil" changes with the direction of the wind. We make it up as we go along, and I've chosen not to play the game.

Once upon a time, homosexuality was considered 'evil' and slavery was considered 'good'. Now, they've switched roles. What is called evil today will be called good tomorrow and vice-versa. It's almost as though our morals are evolving along with us

Sorry Shaman, I feel like we were excluding you from the conversation.

There’s certainly groups who see things as being “morally relative.” No doubt; culture has certainly changed our perceptions of right and wrong, but wouldn’t you agree we have made “moral progress?” And if we are progress, towards what exactly? Typically theists response is that this is an example of moving towards a moral standard that exists apart from human ingenuity (I believe this was C.S Lewis’ position).

How do you feel about that; what’s your take on that?

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[ShaMan]

(in response to Shaman)

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I don't have a problem with evil. "Evil" changes with the direction of the wind. We make it up as we go along, and I've chosen not to play the game.

Once upon a time, homosexuality was considered 'evil' and slavery was considered 'good'. Now, they've switched roles. What is called evil today will be called good tomorrow and vice-versa. It's almost as though our morals are evolving along with us

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Sorry Shaman, I feel like we were excluding you from the conversation.

There’s certainly groups who see things as being “morally relative.” No doubt; culture has certainly changed our perceptions of right and wrong, but wouldn’t you agree we have made “moral progress?” And if we are progress, towards what exactly? Typically theists response is that this is an example of moving towards a moral standard that exists apart from human ingenuity (I believe this was C.S Lewis’ position).

How do you feel about that; what’s your take on that?

No apology required. I wasn't really entering into the discussion with any intent other than to share my observations.

As far as my agreement that we (Humans I presume) have made "moral progress" (whatever that is), I'll have to disagree. That's my entire point. You say we've made progress - I say I doubt that very seriously. If anything at all, we Humans have juggled and shifted what we call good and evil so many times that eventually everything will not be as we identify it today. I believe we're not at all unlike the first humans, we've just redefined our terms to appear more civil.

[Diablo]

I haven't read this whole thread, and I'm not replying to any individual, but there are a couple of observations worth making here. It's my opinion we have made progress, albeit somewhat limited and only in some areas.

Empire is now considered wrong, in general; we have the Geneva and other conventions, and the ICC, we have the UN, however flawed that is.

The liberal Western democracies are much better than what went before, and we have one man/one woman, one vote, even if we vote for liars.

The rights of women and minorities are recognised in at least some parts of the world, which is better than 100 years ago.

Religion continues to spread its hatred and immorality everywhere, though, and in that sense we are regressing; if we could rid the world of that pestilence we would surely be making progress in removing evil from the world.

[Esquilax]

Certainly I believe in a moral law giver Esquilax. Sorry if that was not clear from my earlier posts. But I don't divorce that from actions or consequences; I don't see how we could.

Law givers are easy to debunk: if your law giver came back tomorrow and announced that a previously immoral thing is now moral, does that make it so? Some people dodge this by saying it would never happen, but just engage with the hypothetical for a moment: are morals dependent on the say-so of this external force, or not?

But I still don't agree that evolution explains 'good' and 'bad'. There's nothing in science that says happier = better, using your guide to good behaviours. You have to import that notion from outside of science to try and make the jump from behaviours to morality, to go from descriptive to prescriptive. You need to borrow from the philosopher, or acknowledge a presupposition (we all have them).

Oh, you can't see one? Funny, because I can see two. To start off simply, psychology is linked to physiology; happy people tend to be healthier than depressed ones. Hence, happy people live longer, which is a definite benefit from an evolutionary perspective, making happiness better for members of social species like humans are.

Also, happiness being a positive emotion that people enjoy, being happy and being able to provide happiness to others (and even being able to derive your own happiness from the enjoyment of others) is something that makes you popular, or at least more likely to be tolerated; you are literally handing out the good times, after all. If you can make people happy, ingratiate yourself with them, then you've put yourself at the center of the social group, and given yourself a better chance of charming a mate. It's a reproductive advantage and thus an evolutionary one, so from a physiological and sociological perspective, happier does equal better. Conversely, the more negative emotions you invoke in people the less popular you'll be, so it's also true that less happiness equals worse.

Typical evolutionary evaluation; I think that sums up how I feel about “moral law” sometimes (as I mentioned earlier). But I can’t help but shake the feeling that I’m missing something here, something simple. I think my contention lies with the fact that it’s simply taken as a matter of fact that “no other society like ours could thrive without our set of moral intuition.” (intuition, standard, call it what you want). I can’t help but feel like this is somehow reasoning in circles.

I can’t put my finger on it, but time will tell I suppose?

Bolding mine. Absolutely not. Our society is in no way optimal, and the easiest way to demonstrate that is to show the gradual improvement and changes to morality over time; we had to learn that burning people as witches was wrong, we had to learn that slavery was wrong, etc etc. Our moral sense is constantly changing and improving with the input of new evidence: there is no presumption that we have it right, or even the best we could possibly make it.

Ooh! This brings us to an interesting point. I wonder whether we should pick this conversation up else where because it seems to be a HUGE tangent to the current topic. How would you feel about a private correspondence?

Tangent away: some of our longest running threads are nothing but a series of tangents, after all.

The psychopaths have the potential to function like an ordinary human being but have a mental deficiency making them unable. Children have this potential but don’t have the mental wherewithal to act it out. The point is that whether or not you have the ability doesn’t mean that you should; compulsion is not derived from capability.

My point is that the compulsion itself doesn't exist absent education by society at large. Even in your example with your nephew, he had to be taught not to perform an action via negative reinforcement. Now, though I do hope his moral upbringing consists of more than operant conditioning, the fact remains that your nephew didn't feel any compulsion to avoid the immoral act; there is no morality switch inside kids that gets flipped to "on" once they grow to a certain age, this stuff has to be imparted to them. Kids model behaviors and morals they are taught, they aren't just waiting for the moment their adult moral sense turns on. There's a vast library of child psychological study to verify this.

[Michael]

Hi Esquilax.

You ask me to consider a hypothetical that is contrary to both our beliefs. I'm not sure where we can go with that because we're then discussing something that neither of us believe in, and that never seems to have much value to me. But I'll say what I can within what I do actually believe. I would say that whenever the situation is the same there is always one better path. I don't think two situations can be identical, and one day one action be best and the other day another action be best. I'm happy to acknowledge that I accept that as an axiom, I accept it as a basic presuppositional belief. For the best action to vary by day and not by setting, would seem to require the abandonment of any moral standard of right and wrong. But certainly choices are specific to the setting; I might tell a child not to hurt another child, while fully accepting that a doctor is going to hurt me with a needle. Or I might tell a young child that they must be back by 6pm, while I now tell my grown up children simply to be quiet if returning late.

On your defence of happiness as the moral standard, are you now saying happiness is not actually the aim, but is subservient to length of life? So happiness is not good in and of itself, but because it achieves something else (length of live in this first instance). If so we can abandon happiness as the aim and clearly state that the aim is for longer life (but what if that costs society, for example keeping people alive after their 'productive' life?). Or you say happiness has an aim of securing a mate. But if happiness is subservient to mating why not ditch happiness and embrace rape? Surely the rapist is much more valuable, morally 'better', than the homosexual in this line of thought that makes morality subservient to mating success? Do you see how you've moved away from happiness being the goal, and are now in a rather awkward place? I believe that if you follow this path then you are going to have to defend some things that are pretty reprehensible to our consciences. Again, there is no moral 'right' here - if we choose to adopt the behaviour of animals who kill and rape each other, and are successful in passing on our genes, then why not? Why shouldn't our genes win victory through these means? It seems to me you're simply back to behaviour with no moral standard. Actions speak louder than words here, I think, and I see few people living by that philosophy, and those that do are usually subject to our just opprobrium.

[Esquilax]

Hi Esquilax.

You ask me to consider a hypothetical that is contrary to both our beliefs. I'm not sure where we can go with that because we're then discussing something that neither of us believe in, and that never seems to have much value to me.

Well, you mentioned belief in a moral law giver, and the purpose of the hypothetical was to show how unconnected such an entity would be to the determining of morals. Perhaps you're familiar with the Euthyphro Dilemma? It essentially asks what I did: is your given moral law giver capable of changing the nature of his moral laws? If the answer is yes then the actual content of morality is meaningless, compared to the preferences of the one in authority over it. If the answer is no, then morality exists apart from the law giver, and its role is reduced to little more than a messenger, passing the facts about morality down to the people.

Now, you seem to be saying- correct me if I'm wrong- that morals cannot be changed by the declaration of the law giver, which is good because if you'd said otherwise I literally could not continue the conversation, as that position is completely unassailable. But in a world where the moral system cannot be changed even by the being whom you believe created that system, then evidently the system and determinations therein are not a product of the law giver, but rather a compilation of its observations about morality. Given this, it isn't beyond us to make the same observations without recourse to the law giver at all, but it also should prompt us to ask where those observations came from.

My belief is that moral actions align roughly along an axis of their predicted benefit or harm to individuals. Evil acts uniformly cause harm without any balancing benefit, or benefit only to the party performing them, at a greater cost to those they are inflicted upon. Good acts uniformly provide benefits surpassing their costs, or benefit others at a cost only to the one performing the act. I don't think this is a coincidence, that morality just happens to align to our benefit, despite being determined from elsewhere. I think morality is inextricably linked to our observed reality as thinking biological agents.

But I'll say what I can within what I do actually believe. I would say that whenever the situation is the same there is always one better path. I don't think two situations can be identical, and one day one action be best and the other day another action be best. I'm happy to acknowledge that I accept that as an axiom, I accept it as a basic presuppositional belief. For the best action to vary by day and not by setting, would seem to require the abandonment of any moral standard of right and wrong. But certainly choices are specific to the setting; I might tell a child not to hurt another child, while fully accepting that a doctor is going to hurt me with a needle. Or I might tell a young child that they must be back by 6pm, while I now tell my grown up children simply to be quiet if returning late.

What you're describing here is situational ethics, and it's basically my position too: context matters, and moral decisions must be made within the framework of the scenario at hand. But have you ever wondered why that is? What is the difference between stopping one child from hurting another, and taking that same child to be hurt by a vaccination? In truth, it's the result: the former action has no beneficial result, only harm, while the latter brings a substantial benefit versus the temporary pain. The moral value you're using is the same- inflicting pain is morally bad- but in the situations you're comparing that value to, the results are very different.

That's why I'm more inclined to view morals as sets of general rules that can be applied to varying degrees depending on circumstance, and abandoned temporarily in extreme circumstances; killing is morally wrong but I doubt any one of us would find killing someone in the defense of an innocent to be evil. At the same time, we recognize that killing even the potential murderer isn't the preferred option, and that if you have a way to end the conflict non-lethally that should be the path you take. So not only do we gradate our moral values based on context, but also on how they come into conflict with each other; in the above scenario the moral principle of preserving life is in conflict with the moral principle of protecting those in danger, and the latter wins out, for obvious reasons.

The point is that morality is fluid, at least to a degree, and that this has a lot to do with how we derive it.

On your defence of happiness as the moral standard, are you now saying happiness is not actually the aim, but is subservient to length of life? So happiness is not good in and of itself, but because it achieves something else (length of live in this first instance).

Not quite. From a purely evolutionary standpoint what I'm saying is that those traits and instincts that prolong the life and better ensure a mate are propagated throughout a population better than those that do the opposite. That's just natural selection at work, and our social instincts are largely based around that fact. We are the sons and daughters of those who possessed those traits that led them to procreate, and gregariousness achieves that end better than social awkwardness does.

I'd also point out that by saying happiness is good because it achieves something else, all you're really saying is that there is a reason that happiness is good. Things have effects, there is nothing in the world that exists without influencing something else in some way, and of course the benefits and consequences of a thing will affect how we view it. The alternative is saying that a thing is good just because, and I don't know why anyone would find that convincing.

If so we can abandon happiness as the aim and clearly state that the aim is for longer life (but what if that costs society, for example keeping people alive after their 'productive' life?).

That would be fine, if the only moral good was the extension of life. I don't think either of us believe that's the case, though. Nor is it the only reason that happiness is good; the fact that it feels good is a perfectly valid reason on its own.

Or you say happiness has an aim of securing a mate. But if happiness is subservient to mating why not ditch happiness and embrace rape?

Please, this isn't a utilitarian either/or dichotomous situation, you don't need to swing out wildly in the other direction whenever I give an example. There are other axes of morality at play here, and also you're mistaking the natural origins of morality for its current state. When I'm speaking on the evolutionary beginnings of morality I'm only discussing the basic, prototypical version of it; obviously as our culture expands and becomes more advanced, so too do the moral considerations. "Is" does not imply "ought," and in the case of humans we have advanced beyond the instinctive, naturally selected morality of our ancestors.

Surely the rapist is much more valuable, morally 'better', than the homosexual in this line of thought that makes morality subservient to mating success?

Do you happen to remember that group dynamics are our survival niche? Even within the parameters of the- I believe false- scenario you're constructing, the rapist sows distrust and harm within the group, he is a detriment to it even if his genes flourish, and the propagation of such harmful traits would lead to the destruction of the population, in time.

Do you see how you've moved away from happiness being the goal, and are now in a rather awkward place? I believe that if you follow this path then you are going to have to defend some things that are pretty reprehensible to our consciences. Again, there is no moral 'right' here - if we choose to adopt the behaviour of animals who kill and rape each other, and are successful in passing on our genes, then why not? Why shouldn't our genes win victory through these means? It seems to me you're simply back to behaviour with no moral standard. Actions speak louder than words here, I think, and I see few people living by that philosophy, and those that do are usually subject to our just opprobrium.

Don't mistake "one goal" for "just one goal," is my advice to you. As I mentioned above, there is no one overarching principle, but rather a series of intersecting and occasionally conflicting ones that need to be metered by the context in which they are relevant. It's a complicated topic, which is why I didn't waste thousands of words exhaustively describing it, but unfortunately in these conversations people often make the mistake you did, of seeing my brevity as me reaching the limits of the topic. Oh well.

Hopefully what I've written here clears that up.