What Evil? (The Problem of Evil on Empiricism)

This is my reply to an article by J.W Wartick entitled

What Evil? (The Problem of Evil on Empiricism)

Posted by J.W. Wartick ⋅ December 23, 2010

The problem of evil is often seen to be the greatest philosophical challenge to theistic belief.

Count me out.  Proving somebody evil doesn't prove they don't exist.  And while the bible-god is without a doubt as evil as humans could possibly be, I don't argue that this proves he doesn't exist.  I simply insist that it proves that the bible-god's self-serving statements about being "loving" are total bullshit.

The problem of evil is also most frequently raised by people who are ardent empiricists (which undergirds their atheism).  There are many versions of empiricism, but the one we will investigate at the moment is naturalistic, atheistic empiricism, which holds both that there is nothing but the natural world in the sense of the world which can be directly accessed via the senses and only sensory, empirical evidence is sufficient evidence for holding a proposition to be true.

Sure is funny that it was by use of your naturalistic senses that you believe you came across proof that more things exist than simply those that are physical.  Sounds like the abilities of our 5 physical senses are much closer to being infallible than you give them credit for.  Unless of course you qualify and say that prayer and telepathy were part of the way you confirmed the existence of any non-physical thing.

On this view, it seems extremely difficult to figure out what exactly evil is.

 Perhaps because you haven't debated me yet.  Evil is the word that people subjectively use to characterize situations and actions which they subjectively think tend to cause unnecessary harm.  One woman will call abortion evil, another woman calls it a blessing. 

Sam Harris is well known for trying to show that science is capable of dealing with moral issues (discussed here). The method basically involves finding out what makes people happy (which is “good”) and what makes them unhappy (which makes it “bad”) (see here). It remains totally unclear to me, however, how Harris makes the jump from “happy” to “objective good.” Measuring people’s happiness doesn’t mean measuring goodness. There are serial killers who are very happy to go about secretly killing as many people as possible. That doesn’t make their action “good”, unless you boil “good” down to a purely subjective basis, on which nothing can be decried as “evil” unless 100% of people agree it is indeed evil.

 Haven't read him recently, but the problem I see here is that you are automatically assuming "good" can be objectively defined (given your apparent eschewing of a subjective definition of the word).  But you theists have your own problems, for example, if everything your god does must necessarily be morally "good" without exception, then when God "stirs up" the Medes to rape Babylonian women in Isaiah 13:15-17, the fact that these men are doing the will of God logically requires that such rapes were morally good.  If God knew evil would happen should he step out of the way and allow evil men to act unrestrained, that's not morally different from you, knowing your dog will attack the jogger should you let go of the leash, letting go of the leash.  Nobody will listen to you carp about how the dog's nature caused the attack and not your choice to let go of the leash.  Accordingly, we don't listen when you "explain" that the Medes' evil nature to commit rape, not God's letting go the leash on their evil tendencies, was the cause of the rapes in Isaiah 13.  Furthermore, the fact that the text says God "stirred up" the Medes to commit rape makes it sound more like God was encouraging them or putting a rape-desire into their hearts...a lot more evil than merely "stepping out of the way and allowing evil people to do what they want".

You will ask how I can call rape evil when I'm an atheist who doesn't believe in objective morals.  I'm not using my own sense of morality to judge god, I'm using the fact that there's a contradiction in the bible between God's causing men to rape women, and God saying he "loves" everybody, to show that the bible-god doesn't even live up to his own standards, in which case, he is probably also lying about himself elsewhere in the bible, in which case it makes better sense to regard him as a sadistic lunatic (and on the basis of other arguments not relevant here, a fictional story character made in the continually evolving image of ancient barbaric tribes).

Returning to the problem of evil, then, it seems like theists can simply ask the atheists a question: “What evil?” Judging something as “evil” is necessarily a valuation of an action. How does one make an experiment which can make a value judgment?

That's the wrong question.  The truth is that our morals come from two empirical sources; our genetic predispositions (which is why some people are just more aggressive and selfish their whole lives than other people), and environmental conditioning (in which case you can warp a normal child's mind and turn them into a criminal).

Certainly, one can try to argue, as does Harris, that values are just [scientific] facts (note that the theist agrees that moral values are facts… but facts centered on the nature of God, not on empirical grounds).

 God's nature causes men to rape women in Isaiah 13:16, so apparently, the only reason you think rape is always evil, is because your god hasn't "stirred" you up to commit rape just yet.

But simply asserting something doesn’t make it so. I often say “God exists.” People don’t tend to take this as profound evidence that the statement is true. (Though, perhaps if I said “God exists is a fact.” I might win some over… at least those who take Harris seriously when he makes a similar claim about values in the video linked above.)

So the question remains: What evil?

 If you think God views rape as evil, then my criticism of God is that he makes people engage in the very actions that he himself calls "evil".  That is, your god is a hypocrite, thus justifying suspicion that he has more to do with being made in the image of mankind and less to do with inspiring people to write scripture.

And while he might not necessarily be "forcing" men to rape women in Isaiah 13, force is obviously present in Ezekiel 38:4 ff, where God boasts that his control over the freewill of future pagan armies is correctly analogous to putting a hook into their jaws.  Nothing spells force quite like putting a hook in somebody's jaws and drawing them along in whatever direction you want.  NOW your god isn't just "stirring" up people to do evil, he is forcing them to do the very acts that he himself views as evil.  And read those chapters of Ezekiel carefully, god will also punish those puppet nations for moving in the direction that he was pulling their strings in.  Sort of like the irrational fool who kicks you through his living room window, then charges you with destruction of property.

On an atheistic empirical standpoint, there doesn’t seem to be any way to judge actions or events as “evil” other than by saying “I don’t like that.”

 And there is no evidence that evil is anything more than an action that somebody or a group of people have expressed dislike for.

But perhaps I do like that same event/action. Who’s to judge between us? Bringing numbers into the mix won’t help either. Imagine a scenario in which 1,000,000 people thought some action (rape) was evil. On the other side there were 10,000 who thought the same action was perfectly reasonable, because, after all, that’s how our ancestors behaved. Who is right?

 I deny the legitimacy of the question.  If it is a moral issue, there is no objective "right" answer.  But there might be a lot of people who mistake their strong subjective feelings for objective truth. 

Well, on empiricism, perhaps one could argue that the 1,000,000 are right, but then we’re making a judgment on values simply because of a majority vote. Science doesn’t work that way. We don’t just vote on what is empirically correct.

Correct, but irrelevant.  You haven't demonstrated any logical or evidential flaws in moral relativism.

The only way to solve this problem would be to argue that in moral questions, the majority is correct. Yet I don’t see any way to argue in this matter other than metaphysically, which is exactly what the empiricist is trying to avoid. Therefore, on empiricism, there is no such thing as evil. Just good and bad feelings. And that’s not enough.

 Why not?

And so we get to my main argument.

1) One cannot rationally hold both to a proposition’s truth and falsehood.

2) On atheistic empiricism, there is no evil.

Correction, there is no "objective" evil.  That's because there's no objective standard for evaluating the morality of human actions, there's only human opinion.

3) Atheistic empiricists argue that evil disproves (or challenges) the existence of God [implicit premise: evil exists].

Then count me out, it's perfectly obvious that you cannot disprove Hitler's existence by showing he was evil, so it would be the same with God.  And personally, I find that the alternative position (i.e, your god's forcing people to do things that he himself thinks are evil, then blaming them for acting that way,  therefore, your god is a hypocrite) has much more force when dealing with apologists.  They don't like atheism, but they are much more offended by biblical proof that their God is a sadistic lunatic.

4) Therefore, atheistic empiricists hold that both evil does not exist, and that it does exist (2, 3).

5) Therefore, atheistic empiricism is irrational (1, 4).

 I've already admitted that yes, it doesn't make sense to say that a being doesn't exist, because the information allegedly showing his existence, shows him to be evil.

However, the evil nature of the OT god does indeed logically contradict John 3:16 and other passages that allege god "loves" us...unless the apologist is willing to redefine divine "love" so that it eventually looks suspiciously opposite of the only kind of "love" that we can agree exists, human love.  There would be little reason to call it "love", if it is supposed to be so broad and encompassing that it will allow even those acts that loving people would never allow to happen to each other.  If we can rightfully dispute that a father "loves" his daughter after finding out he stepped out of the way and allowed some other man to rape her, there is no compelling reason to reach a different conclusion if the "father" who allows rape happens to be the bible-god.  And since I correctly reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, no, I do not think that scriptural statements assuring us that God always does good, must be read into Isaiah 13:16 and other statements where God is obviously contradicting his own alleged values.

In order to avoid the argument, the atheistic empiricist can simply deny 3). However, this would disarm the strongest anti-theistic argument. I see no reason to feel threatened by the problem of evil when it is leveled by an empirical/naturalistic anti-theist. In fact, some have argued that:

1) If evil has meaning, then God exists.

 no, evil can have a meaning in the dictionary. that hardly implies that God exists.

2) Evil has meaning.

Subjective meaning.  The answer to whether Hitler was evil only seems "obvious" because Frank Turek's audiences are predominantly Christian, take place in the continental USA, and those who support Hitler usually don't attend.  But the truly objective analysis doesn't automatically conclude the majority American view on Hitler is correct, the analysis will give legitimate weight to all human opinion on the subject.  And I'm afraid that human opinion about human worth has radically changed over the centuries. 

3) God exists (1, 2, modus ponens).

This argument is a kind of reverse moral argument, and I think it works, though I doubt one will find many anti-theists who will accept premise 1). As is the case with the moral argument [1) If objective morals exist, then God exists; 2) Objective morals exist; 3) therefore God exists], I believe atheists will vary between denying 1) and 2) as they find convenient.

 We do.  You haven't demonstrated that any morals are "objective" in the sense of their basis transcending human opinion.

I leave it to the naturalistic/empirical atheist to show that science can, in fact, test for objective morality, rather than just measuring feelings.

I leave that to Sam Harris too, since I don't say objective morals exist any more than I say an objective value exists for a used dvd player at a garage sale.

Atheism’s Universe is Meaningless and Valueless? Ultimately, yes...so what?

This is my reply to an article by J.W. Wartick entitled

Atheism’s Universe is Meaningless and Valueless
Posted by J.W. Wartick ⋅ January 3, 2011    

“‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’

says the Teacher.

‘Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.'” – Ecclesiastes 1:2

My most recent post on the problem of evil granting empirical atheism generated some thoughtful discussion. Most importantly, it lead me to the following argument:

1) On materialistic [I use materialism and physicalism interchangeably, as is common in philosophy today] atheism, all we are is matter in motion.

Correct.  Our sense of evil is no more ultimately significant than the sense of danger experienced by a gazelle being chased by a lion.  But lack of ultimate meaning doesn't imply lack of subjective purpose.

By the way, plenty of you Christians believe that God intended for carnivores to populate the earth before sin.  Read up on Hugh Ross.  Apparently, when your god said all he had created was "very good" before the Fall (Genesis 1:31), he was talking about a world which, before sin, was full of animals ripping each other apart.

2) There is no objective reason to value matter moving in way A over matter moving in way B

 Correct.  That doesn't mean it is unreasonable to identify certain bits of matter as moving in ways contrary to our personal subjective goals, and to fight back or avoid accordingly.  And by the way, your Frank Turek reductionism is unconvincing.  We might be nothing but atoms, but that doesn't mean all atomic structures share equal abilities and limits.  You may as well say that 9 is equal to 4, simply because they ultimately reduce to "numbers" or "signs".  Yes, that's ultimately what they are, but what they ultimately are doesn't tell you whether they have specific individual properties that distinguish them from each other.

3) Therefore, on materialistic atheism, there is no value or meaning

Ultimately?  Correct. You probably don't blink your eyes with the intent of laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven.  Doing things in life for reason not having jack shit to do with god or religion, is perfectly normal everyday reality even for fundamentalist Christians.

Premise 1 seems self-evident. Materialistic atheism, by definition, says that “everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). The physical world is matter.

Premise 2 also seems like it should need little defense, yet atheists continually come up with ideas to try to get around it.

I disagree with Dan Barker and other atheists who think some morals can be objective.  I'm a really big problem for apologists like Frank Turek who push the objective morality bit.  I agree that if atheism is true, there would be no objective morality, only subjective opinions.  When such apologists debate me, they are debating somebody who agrees with them on more principles than most atheists agree with them on, making it much more difficult for them to refute my arguments.

For example, one may argue that the subjective suffering of persons should matter. Yet I fail to see how this argument succeeds. Pain and suffering, on materialism, at most supervenes upon neurons firing in the brain (along with chemical reactions and other physical phenomenon). My question for the materialist is: What reason can be provided for favoring matter moving in way A (call it, the way neurons fire when someone is in a state of bliss) over matter moving in way B (neurons firing in the way which causes pain)?

 The reason?  Personal subjective opinion.  And if you can find a bunch of people to agree with you, all the better.  Sorry, but physicalism being true doesn't suddenly make motives and desires irrational or pointless.  As living beings, we automatically like anything that tends to enhance our life without harming those we consider part of our group, and to correspondingly eschew anything that does the opposite.  To be alive is to naturally and automatically prefer anything that keeps you alive, and to naturally and automatically eschew anything that tends to suppress life.  That remains a solidly justified generalization despite the fact that exceptions, such as suicide, exist.  For to be alive is to also be imperfect and to perhaps one day find oneself in a completely hopeless situation.

By the way, your arguments would, if correct, prove that animals, reptiles and bugs have eternal "spirits", since they too find purpose in life and have preferences.  Yet your bible doesn't permit you to say these lower life forms were made in the image of god.  Ok...if the animals can be reasonable to see purpose in life without being made in the image of God, then humans can also possibly be reasonable to find purpose in life without crediting any of it to God.

One answer which may be forthcoming is that creatures and persons tend to try to get away from things which cause B. This argument fails to provide an answer to the question, because all it does is push the question back to a higher level. It would change to: Why should we favor physical observable phenomenon which don’t cause avoidance over those that do?

Because it is axiomatic that to be "alive" is to automatically and naturally favor anything that helps the group survive, and eschew anything that hinders the group from surviving.  You may as well pretend that asking "why should pain hurt" or "why should water require oxygen" are equally legitimate.  They are not.  You need to study up on axioms.  There really is a first rung in the ladder of reasoning, which, by its being FIRST, is exempt from the "why" question.

Again, the avoidance of B would simply be matter moving in a different way. In order to make a judgment between them, one would have to reach beyond the material world and into the world of objective meaning and value; this is, necessarily, a world which is nonexistent on materialism.

 No, once again, being alive automatically requires, at least for mammals, that anything tending to inhibit thriving of the self or group is to be avoided in most situations.  Since we aren't perfect, yes there will be exceptions like suicide and crime and duplicity, inconsistency and hypocrisy.  You do not keep skeptics over a barrel by simply pretending that materialism allows you to ask "but why...." ad infinitum.  When you ask why living things tend to eschew death, it's like asking why water is wet.  Once again, there are things that are axiomatic or foundational to the premise of "being alive". To be "alive" is to therefore be something more than merely "alive", it also implies putting forth some type of effort to STAY alive, even if the effort is de minimus.  If such traits aree axiomatic, then YOU are the one engaging in error by pretending that the "why" question can never be inappropriate in materialism.

Even if one could provide an answer to this second question, say “We tend to not like B. Things we don’t like are bad”, then we would have a purely subjective reality.

So?  Isn't that exactly what humans have proven to be in this world?  The legal world supplies abundant testimony that sometimes there is just no possible way to get two people to agree on what would be the morally good thing to do.

Do your shoelaces not exist because when and whether to tie them or not is an entirely subjective opinion that various shoe-wearers disagree on?

What of the serial killer who delights in torturing himself, causing things to B? What reason do we have for saying what he is doing is wrong, because, after all, he likes B?

Our axiomatic motive to automatically eschew anything that inhibits the survival or thriving of ourselves and those in our group. I already accounted for outliers like criminals and hypocrisy.  Individual people often change their ideas about the degree to which the good of the group should be prioritized in their subjective decision-making.  Should get something to eat on the way home from work because I'm hungry?  Or would it be better to wait so I can eat with the rest of the family at home?  Etc., etc.

Ultimately, on materialism, everything boils down to matter in motion.

Perhaps you've been listening too uncritically too often to Frank Turek's illogically extremist reductionism.

Sure, ultimately everything is just atoms.  But that doesn't mean materialism requires us to find that the collection of atoms we call "pillow" is equally capable of driving nails into wood, as is that collection of atoms we call "hammer". Materialism neither expresses nor implies that everything is equal.  Materialism fully acknowledges that some atomic structures are more efficient than others at achieving certain goals.

Making value judgments about matter in motion is meaningless.

Ultimately, yes, but not subjectively.  Once again, to be alive is to automatically imply that one will put forth some type and degree of effort to stay alive, therefore logically entailing that one will automatically eschew to some degree anything in the environment that does or appears to inhibit life.

But if everything is matter in motion, then there doesn’t seem to be any way to make value judgments.

Well not everything is matter in motion.  Some of that matter exists in specific configurations that give rise to consciousness and therefore the innate tendency to favor anything promoting life and eschew anything tending to hinder life.

And I could throw the same question back in your face:  You probably think that rape is objectively evil, but this contradicts that bible passage that says God "stirred up" the Medes to rape Babylonian women (Isaiah 13:15-17).  Apparently, the only reason you think rape is objectively evil is because God hasn't stirred up you to rape anybody just yet.  You get precisely nowhere by pretending that atheism cannot account for the human preference to make value-judgments.  Even if we admitted this is a mystery, your own alternative (i.e., a god who causes men to rape women) doesn't look much better.  And regardless, you Christians have no trouble saying the vast majority of your expanatory hypothesis (God) remains an inscrutable mystery, yet you don't think it's mysterious nature justifies the non-Christian to dismiss it. 

So, to be fair, since you don't think "we admit this is a mystery" constitutes defeat, then you cannot characterize atheism as false merely because there are realities that you think atheism cannot explain. 

How does one value a rock over a stick?

The rock might prove much more efficient at breaking open shells or other forms of food contained within hardened enclosures.  What are you going to ask now?  Why somebody would find the tool that is more efficient at attaining their goals, to be more desirable?

But then, on materialism, people are just stuff too; albeit more complex. However, if you were to break us down into our ultimately realities, we are no different than the rock. We are matter organized in a different way. Why value us?

You are simply repeating your questions.  Once again, to be alive is to therefore automatically evince some degree and type of preference for anything that promotes life and eschew anything that tends to inhibit life.  It comes with the territory.  You continue mischaracterizing the situation as one that needs a moral answer, when you ask the "why" question, but as I pointed out earlier, that's like asking "why" water is wet.  You are simply ignorant of what axioms are and why they are fully exempt from questioning.

There is no objective reason to do so.

There's no objective moral law that says what time kids must go to bed on a school night.  But the subjective law imposed by their respective parents, a law that differs wildly from house to house, seems to suffice.  Apparently ultimate subjectivity isn't as hopeless as you think.

Therefore, there is no objective meaning or value.

A problem for those who believe in a higher purpose, not a problem for those who accept the logical implications of their own mortality.

Life is purposeless, meaningless, valueless.

Ultimately?  Yes.  Subjectively?  No.  And one form of Christianity, Calvinism, would say that when atheists draw their incorrect conclusions, they do so because God infallibly predestined them to do so.  An atheist knowledgeable of Calvinism could make a reasonable biblical case that we are doing the will of God by denying any ultimate purpose to life. 

And that point you have to do the stupid thing and insist that we are wrong to fulfill the will of God.

Atheistic materialism demands this bleak view of the universe.

 It's only "bleak" to those who have been previously conditioned to believe that life involves something more glorious after physical death, or it is only bleak to those who fear death and are thus naturally inclined to give in to some after-world religious view.

I’m not saying it’s a good reason to abandon that [un]belief. I’m merely saying that those who hold such a view must be consistent.

You are correct that many atheists falsely aspire to objective morality and purpose.  If atheism is true, then no, there would be no ultimate or objective morality and purpose, only a morality and purpose of individuals living on some damp dus-tball lost in space.

“Now all has been heard;

here is the conclusion of the matter:

Fear God and keep his commandments,

for this is the duty of all mankind.

For God will bring every deed into judgment,

including every hidden thing,

whether it is good or evil.” -Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

 That was about as productive as quoting something from the Koran.  Let's just say I'm not exactly shivering with fright over the question "what if Christianity is true?"