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The free-will defence: evil and the moral value of free will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2009

KENNETH EINAR HIMMA
KENNETH EINAR HIMMA*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Seattle Pacific University, 3307 Third Avenue West, Seattle, WA98119
*
e-mail: himma@spu.edu
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Abstract

One version of the free-will argument relies on the claim that, other things being equal, a world in which free beings exist is morally preferable to a world in which free beings do not exist (the ‘value thesis’). I argue that this version of the free-will argument cannot support a theodicy that should alleviate the doubts about God's existence to which the problems of evil give rise. In particular, I argue that the value thesis has no foundation in common intuitions about morality. Without some sort of intuitive support, the value thesis lacks the resources to serve as the foundation for a theodicy that addresses the powerful intuition, which affects believers and non-believers alike, that a perfect God would not allow so much evil.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 395 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

Notes

1. See, e.g. Rowe, William ‘The problem of evil and some varieties of atheism’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 16 (1979), 335–341.Google Scholar

2. The Problem of Free Choice, Ancient Christian Writers (Westminster MD: The Newman Press, 1955), XXII, book 3, 9.

3. I should emphasize here that I consider only the issue of whether free will provides a moral value that outweighs the evil that results from its poor exercise. Alvin Plantinga departs from what is the standard formulation, claiming that the FWA succeeds only if free beings do more good than harm: ‘A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all’; Alvin Plantinga God, Freedom and Evil (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1974), 30. I will argue in a companion piece in the next issue of Religious Studies that, from the standpoint of Christian ethics, this formulation is problematic.

4. Marilyn McCord Adams ‘The problem of evil’, in Edward Craig (ed.) The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York NY: Routledge, 2005), 248–249.

5. After all, we want more than just a defence against the problems of evil. We want to make sense of the evil in this world in a way that will not only help agnostics and atheists overcome their doubts about God's existence, but also help believers when the struggle with doubt because of the evil in the world.

6. Plantinga convincingly argues that once God chooses to create free beings, it is up to those beings to determine whether they inhabit ω1 or ω2. See Plantinga God, Freedom and Evil, 44.

7. In this connection, it is worth noting that many anthropologists have come to the conclusion that this highly abstract moral judgment is the only moral claim that is generally accepted in all cultures. In every culture, one must have a moral justification for causing harm to other persons.

8. John Hick Evil and the God of Love, 2nd edn (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1985), 274.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Michael J. Murray ‘Heaven and hell’, in idem (ed.), Reason for the Hope Within (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 308.

13. Schlesinger, George N. ‘Divine perfection’, Religious Studies, 21 (1985) 147–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Of course, the libertarian and compatibilist disagree on what this possible world looks like. The libertarian would say this world is identical with respect to all causal factors, while the compatibilist would deny this.

15. Indeed, this line of analysis seems to suggest that it is a moral defect of this world that human beings lack the kind of free will that God has.

16. John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism (Buffalo NY: Prometheus Books, 1987), 17.

17. See, e.g. Thomson, Judith Jarvis ‘On some ways in which a thing can be good’, Social and Political Philosophy, 9 (1992), 96–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Ibid., 108.

19. Foot, Philippa ‘Utilitarianism and the virtues’, Mind, 94 (1985), 196–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Robert Elliot ‘Environmental ethics’, in Peter Singer (ed.) A Companion to Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1991), 289.

21. It is important to distinguish this from the view, held by some classical theists, that using contraceptives is morally impermissible because it involves the misuse of one's sexual organs, which are intended for reproduction. This familiar claim does not imply that one ought to bring intrinsic value into the world because it is a standard of sexual morality that articulates constraints on the conditions under which persons may permissibly engage in sexual behaviour.

22. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for comments on an earlier draft that helped me to improve this essay significantly.