Abstract
I show that the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and essentially omnimalevolent being is impossible given only two metaethical assumptions (viz., moral rationalism and reasons internalism). I then argue (pace Stephen Law) that such an impossibility undercuts Law’s (Relig Stud 46(3):353–373, 2010) evil god challenge.
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Notes
I say more about this idea in “Evilism” section below.
Law (2010, p. 356).
Morriston (2004, p. 87).
Millican (1989, p. 196) emphasis in the original.
Forrest (2012, p. 37) stated:
“The anti-God that I take seriously is the malicious omnipotent omniscient being, who, it is said, creates so that creatures will suffer, because of the joy this suffering gives It. This may be contrasted with a different idea of anti-God, that of an evil being that seeks to destroy things of value out of hatred or envy. An omni-potent omniscient being would not be envious. Moreover, destructive hatred cannot motivate creation. For these two reasons I find that rather implausible. My case holds, however, against that sort of anti-God as well as the malicious one. The variety of anti-Gods alerts us to the problem of positing any character to God, whether benign, indifferent, or malicious. There are many such character traits we could hypothesize. Why not a God who creates as a jest? Or a God who loves drama? Or a God who, adapting Haldane’s quip, is fond of beetles? Or, more seriously, a God who just loves creating regardless of the joy or suffering of creatures?”
Forrest (2012, p. 37).
Ibid.
I need the above metaphysical assumption for otherwise I’m open to the objection that I’ve under-described the situation. Thanks to Andy Egan here. I should add that I am not assuming possibilism by denying the existence of haecceitic properties. There are ways of doing quantified modal logic without demanding that such a logic be about incommunicable properties.
This principle is similar to what David Enoch calls “crazily strong” judgment internalism (Enoch 2011, p. 249), though see his comments about Plato’s brand of internalism in (Ibid., p. 250). It seems that Daniels and Enoch disagree about what kind of internalism Plato affirmed.
One could put moral cognitivism in terms of beliefs. For example, one could say that moral cognitivism is the view that (to quote Michael Smith) “moral judgements...express beliefs about the way the world is morally...” Smith (2005, p. 4).
Swinburne wrote, “[f]urther, if one takes a certain view about the status of moral judgements, God’s perfect goodness follows deductively from his omniscience and his perfect freedom.” Swinburne (2004, p. 99).
Swinburne (2004, p. 101).
ibid. The above suggests that Swinburne also needs the view that moral principles can serve as reasons for action. For more on this kind of assumption see my discussion of moral rationalism below.
Swinburne (2004, p. 101).
Law makes a point like this one as well, though Law does not have Swinburne in mind (see Law 2010, p. 371).
Law 2010, p. 371.
Shafer-Landau (2003, p. 190), though he says the view also suggests that moral facts strictly imply “reasons for belief” as well (Ibid., 206); cf. Donagan (1977), Gewirth (1978); Harman (1975, pp. 4–11, 1984, pp. 34–41) with Brink (1989, p. 52) reading Harman (1975, 1984) in a way that suggests he is committed to moral rationalism; Parfit (2011a, p. 38, and pp. 141–149), Smith (1994); and see the criticism of moral rationalism in Timmons (1999, pp. 247–252).
Smith (1994, pp. 64–65).
Cf. Parfit (2011b, p. 441).
Shafer-Landau (2003, p. 204 emphasis in the original). There is also a view which says that normative truths are rule-implying or rule-entailing. The view recommends that normative truths imply rules which inform moral agents about what is incorrect or correct. See on this idea Parfit (2011a, p. 144). I’m not suggesting that Parfit endorses the view that normative truths are rule-implying, he merely discusses the view.
Darwall (2006, p. 286) hints at a hybrid position which suggests that the reason why duties are practical reason-implying is due to both the duties themselves, and some external factor or factors.
Smith’s wording from Smith (1994, p. 130).
Smith (1994, p. 177).
Discussed by Brink (1989, pp. 45–46).
Discussed by Shafer-Landau (2003, pp. 165–189).
Discussed by Enoch (2011, pp. 247–259).
Discussed in ibid., 259–266.
See the nice discussion of most of these internalisms in Enoch (2011, pp. 247–266).
Someone who determines that some action is right, but is simply indifferent about that action, motivation-wise.
I will call this principle modest internalism. This is similar to Darwall’s (2006, p. 286) understanding of existence internalism. See also Korsgaard (1986), and Williams (1981).
I’m assuming that C* does not include a world index.
The above idea of reasons internalism follows Shafer-Landau’s portrayal of the thesis in Shafer-Landau (2003, p. 170).
Darwall (2006).
Darwall (2006, p. 286).
\(Q.v\). note 23.
Smith (1994, pp. 156–159).
See, for example, Dreier (1992, p. 15 noting that most philosophers, “who have thought about the matter” would agree with him), and Fine (2002, p. 270) also cites in this vein, Klagge (1984, p. 378), McFetridge (1985, pp. 251–252), Shoemaker (1987, p. 441), and Zangwill (1995). I can add Swinburne (2003, p. 320 for at least moral truths like “all acts of feeding the starving are good” (ibid.). Elsewhere he states, “[t]he fundamental moral truths are necessary truths.” 2013, p. 180); and two divine command theorists Craig (2008, p. 178) and Murphy (2011).
Since I invoked Kantianism for the purposes of motivating moral rationalism and modest (reasons) internalism, I should point out that it was precisely because Kant deemed moral principles to be necessary truths that he rejected divine command theories that depict God as the author of the moral law. He wrote,
“The one who declares that a law, which is in accord with his will, obligates another, he gives [legislates] a law. The legislator is not simultaneously an author of the law, only when the law is contingent. When the laws are necessarily practical and he only declares that they are in accord with his will, he is the legislator. Thus no one, including God is the author of the moral laws, since they do not spring from the will [choice], but are practically necessary. Were they not necessary, it would be possible that lying be a virtue. The moral laws can only stand under a legislator; it can be a being that has the power and authority to execute the laws and to declare that the moral law is simultaneously a law of his will, and obligate everyone to act in accordance. Thus, this being is a legislator, but not author. Precisely as God is not the author of the fact that triangles have three angles...” As quoted and translated by Kain (1999).
McMahan (2002, p. 189). I actually believe that the above impossibility argument fares better than the one I lodged against the type of evilism Law seemed to have in mind. This is because the argument I am now running requires as its key premise a truth I consider to be more obvious than either moral rationalism or reasons internalism (\(i.e\)., \(p)\).
The response is admittedly Moorean. If this bothers you, one could add to the above impossibility argument one’s favorite response to skepticism.
Notice that this brand of evilism still has need of (as a necessary condition) the existence of an evil god. It’s just that evilism is now, at best, a contingent thesis.
It is clear that Law has in mind logical possibility. He says (Law 2010, p. 371):
“[w]hat we have established, perhaps, is that there are certain logical limits on God’s evilness...just as there are logical limits on His power...Evil god can still be maximally evil—as evil as it is logically possible to be.”
Rumfitt (2010, p. 46. n. 11).
Schellenberg’s (1993, p. 83).
Schellenberg (1993, p. 83).
Ibid.
Ibid.
An instance of \(\Box \,(\hbox {p}\supset \hbox {q})\supset \Box \,({\sim } \hbox {q} \supset {\sim } \hbox {p}\)).
Schellenberg’s (1993, p. 83).
Ibid. by reiteration of (3).
I’m paraphrasing Rowe (2004, p. 5).
See Law (2010, p. 354).
The problem of good is roughly the idea that the existence of particular goods in the world show that an EG does not exist. See Law’s discussion of the argument from good in (Law 2010, p. 356).
Millican (1989, p. 207).
And so Law (2010, p. 372) states:
“The point is this: even supposing an evil god is, for some reason X, an impossibility, we can still ask the hypothetical question: setting aside the fact that so-and-so establishes that an evil god is an impossibility, how reasonable would it otherwise be to suppose that such an evil being exists? If the answer is ‘highly unreasonable’, i.e. because of the problem of good, then the evil-god challenge can still be run. We can still ask theists to explain why, if they would otherwise reject the evil-god hypothesis as highly unreasonable, do they not take the same view regarding the good-god hypothesis?”
Morriston (2004, p. 88 emphasis in the original) stated:
“...many theists would claim that demonism is logically incoherent...I think [this] is a mistake...but I won’t insist on that point here. Even if demonism is incoherent in just the way that some theists believe, I think it is still useful to ask whether there is any other way to show that demonism is false. Specifically, I want to ask whether there is some range of facts about our world, relative to which demonism is sufficiently unlikely to warrant the judgment that the Demon does not exist.”
Law (2010, p. 372).
Since for any \(p\) and \(q\), \(\Box \, (\Box \sim \hbox {p}\supset \Box \, (\hbox {p} \supset \hbox {q}\))). And of course, \(q\) can be a contradiction.
I am assuming that the strength of ampliative inference is reducible to something more primitive (something describable by the deliverances of the probability calculus). I do not actually believe this is the case, but because this is often assumed in the philosophy of religion literature I assume it in the above discussion.
Williamson (2000, p. 214).
I’m paraphrasing the thought of Rowe (2004, p. 5), but reversing the content.
Parfit (2011a, p. 141).
Cf. Sider (2010, p. 203).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Andy Egan, Blake Giunta, Alexander R. Pruss, Joshua Rasmussen, and Dean Zimmerman for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Weaver, C.G. Evilism, moral rationalism, and reasons internalism. Int J Philos Relig 77, 3–24 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9472-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9472-3