Glenn Appearing on the Unbelievable Radio Show

Well, he has gone on record in his books defending Cartesian substance dualism. I have suggested Stewart Goetz as someone else to approach as well.

I hope Keith can make it. I’ll be browsing through his book on the soul in my free moments while I’m over there, just in case!

Hello Glenn,

I love the blog and the podcast!

“The second show – only a possibility at this stage, but we’re both keen to see it happen – will be related to the moral argument, and will look at the question of whether or not moral facts could exist if God did not exist. Justin’s looking for another guest to join us on the show at the moment, but the names of Stephen law and Julian Baggini have been suggested as possibilities – but we’ll see what works out!”

I was wondering, what do you think about Stephen Law’s evil god challenge?

Yeah – what Matt said!

As far a I can tell, Law doesn’t think that his evil God scenario would address the moral argument. And his appeal to Plato’s Euthyphro in order to do that job is utterly doomed, as the Euthyphro dilemma, when presented as an objection to divine command ethics, is a rather well documented failure.

Those who think the evil God Challenge is so easily dismissed should check out the academic version of the idea published in Religious Studies recently. I will also forward an rtf version to anyone interested. Notice that it deals with “impossibility” type objections very effectively (and some objections based on moral objectivity are “impossibility” type objections).

As to the Euthyphro – I don’t claim it is decisive. I merely point out that the claim that morality requires a good God is highly controversial (using Euthyphro merely as an example), that the vast majority of philosophers reject it, and in fact even many religious philosophers reject it. I have yet to see a cogent version of an argument that Good requires God.

I grant you that some arguments are immune to the Euthyphro dilemma. But all the ones I have seen are still crap. Also, people typically exaggerate what such arguments establish. Often they establish at best only something like Plato’s Form of the Good. That is not at all the same as establishing the existence of the Christian God. Moreover the existence of such a Form or objective standard is apparently entirely compatible with the existence of an evil God (and in any case, even if it wasn’t, my response to “impossibility” arguments deals with that).

Perhaps Glenn has a better argument. That would be a turn up for the books.

I guess there’s the subjectivity of it Stephen. While you, apparently, think that the evidential problem of evil is an enormous boulder compared to the moral argument (even if that argument were sound, which you don’t grant), I see it exactly the opposite way around: The moral argument is the mountain here. If it’s sound, then any actual cases of moral evil serve as reasons to accept the moral argument. But this point aside, I rather strongly suspect that what strikes plenty of us as obviously more persuasive will be determined by pre-theoretical commitment.

As for people exaggerating what is established by the moral argument, I have to admit that I’m yet to see anyone say that the moral argument proves a fully fledged Christian theism. I’m surprised that anyone would, because that’s not what the argument is meant to do. Who did you have in mind?

The academic version of the paper on the evil God hypothesis, for anyone like me who is interested, is online here. I haven’t set it aside. I have only noted that the moral argument is not addressed by that paper, and the very strongest critique of the moral argument that is offered in that paper is twofold: 1) It is contentious even among theists (although in fact it is largely accepted by theists, and I know of no cogent response to the argument so far from non-theists), and 2) the Euthyphro dilemma is an example of why the moral argument might be flawed (when in fact this line of refutation is a well known failure). So I don’t think the status quo is that we’re all sitting around waiting for a new, reinforced amazingly different moral argument. The standard moral argument for theism continues to be a strong argument for theism that is not compatible with the evil God hypothesis.

re my final para – put it like this – I think an awful lot of Christian philosophers would be most surprised to hear that there exists anything like a proof of the existence of God. You think you have one?

Unfortunately, both of these arguments (which are terrible – I’ll come to that later), as they stand, work just as well for an evil god – who is indeed a god and a supernatural personal being. What’s the argument for a specifically *good* god?

Moreover, that the EPE is a very significant piece of evidence against the good god hypothesis is, I repeat, not to be dismissed as “subjective opinion”. For that the EPG is a very significant – indeed “decisive* – piece of evidence against the evil god hypothesis clearly *isn’t* just a matter of subjective opinion. Whether that’s what you intended to suggest or not (I’m not sure).

By “compelling”, I meant cogent. Not psychologically compelling. Fallacies are often psychological compelling. Whether args are psychologically compelling is irrelevant here.

I didn’t say many theists are unconvinced by the moral arg, I said many theistic philosophers are unconvinced. Hence I took your use of “theists” in your response to be shorthand for theistic philosophers. But I see you were merely changing the subject!

I think your assessment of the “prior commitment” issue is awry, Stephen. The issue is not that your prior commitments allow you to assess arguments in a new way. What I mean is that your pre-theoretical commitments influence your judgement about what seems impressive or psychologically compelling. It’s not just you, of course, it’s the same for everyone, and there’s no escaping it. It’s not a smokescreen for anything.

As for whether or not those moral arguments are compatible with an evil God, that certainly remains to be seen, to put it mildly. I note that in your article, Stephen, you suggested that perhaps moral facts (which are facts about morally right and wrong actions) might be compatible with an evil God because this God wills that we do great moral evil. But this is just to turn language on its head, and to rather gratuitously beg the question on other issues: For instance, if I am right and the basis of moral facts is in a supernatural person, then it is because of a relationship between the will of that person and our actions. Moral rightness is connected to that will in such a way that it is nonsense to talk about that being willing that we do evil. I am, after all, a divine command theorist!

Nice bit of banter to get the folks fired up prior to Glenn’s trip. How philosophy should be!

Notice BTW that I am *not* here relying on the Euthyphro dilemma.

If you wonder why I am irritated, it’s because people wave aside the evil god challenge on the basis of arguments which they say are great, but which are patently terrible. The arguments you have wheeled out, Glenn, do not even, as they stand, favour a good god over an evil one. That’s a fatal problem before we even get to assessing whether the arguments are cogent.

I’ve put a draft follow up to Glenn’s “A New Euthyphro” here: http://liberalrationalism.blogspot.com/

(Direct: http://bit.ly/cg7pus )

Comments gratefully received!

Law say..”Unfortunately, both of these arguments (which are terrible”

Not wrong.Not wrong at all.They is more than terrible.They is almost child like even .

Just like wow .What happen to university in NZ ?.

I just remind myself again why i dont bother here on this blog often

Hi Glenn

AFICS the two “Moral Arguments” are appalingly bad.And I am disappointed to see that you did not even attempt to show to Stephen that they were not.

Now you did claim that “As it stands, the moral argument appears not to be compatible with an evil God, and it’s no good resting one’s case because it remains to be seen whether or not this appearance can be overturned.”

Can you please give an actual argument as how either of your two moral arguments shows that they are not compatible with an evil god? Until you do it appears that they just as likely support an evil god as a good one.

Further you further say, in reply to Stephen “Now, it looks like you don’t think the moral arguments I’ve given are sound, so you ask what else I have. But surely it is premature to”

This is not just Stephen’s opinion but the generally held position on these arguments AFAIK. In addition, you must be aware the majority of non-theistic philosophers support moral realism, and, although they do differ amonsgt themselves upon ethical bases, one could conclude that all would reject P1, whilst accepting P2 and rejecting the C3 conclusion and, similarly, reject P4,P5, most likely P6 and certainly conclusion c7.

I certainly do and you need to give cogent argument for P1 and P4 at the very least in order to establish the soundness of those arguments. Until you do it appears these are indeed unsound arguments, that no decent philosopher would promote.

Am I the only one waiting for Glenn to explain why either of his moral arguments (if accepted) are more compatible with a good god than an evil one?

Glenn,

One obvious example of a moral argument would be Robert Adam’s version. Summarised by him as follows:

“what does the rightness or wrongness of an act consist in? I believe that the most adequate answer is provided by a theory that entails the existence of God–specifically, by the theory that moral rightness
and wrongness consist in agreement and disagreement, respectively, with the will or commands of a loving God. One of the most generally accepted reasons for believing in the existence of anything is that its existence is implied by the theory that seems to account most adequately for some subject matter. I take it, therefore, that my meta-ethical views provide me with a reason of some weight for believing in the existence of God.”

Adams contention is that a divine command theory provides the best or most adequate account of the nature of wrongness. The challenge then would be to show that an evil God’s commands could explain morality equally as well.

I wonder also if Swinburne’s point about cumulative case applies here as well. Swinburne notes that of two hypothesis A and B, and phenomena P1. it might be the case that A explains P1 better than B does, but that there are several other phenomena P2-P6 which A does not explain . However B while explaining P1 less well than A, does explain P1 and also explains P2-P6 jointly better than A does. In this instance B would be the better hypothesis.

Apply this here, lets suppose ( as you and I do) that a Divine command theory is a defensible explanation of moral properties. One also knows that God if he exists explains other phenomena such as the existence of contingent beings, the moral gap, the origin of the universe and so on, even if in each case a better secular explanation for each of these things individually God would be a better explanation because he explains all of them jointly. As far as I know no secular meta-ethical theory answers questions of cosmic origins or fine tuning or the existence of contingent beings

Turning to the evil God case: God explains such things like design, contingent existence, the origin of the universe, and moral properties. The evil God explains the first three of these equally well as God but does not explain the last. The God good faces the problem of evil the evil God faces the problem of God. Hence when compared God explains jointly a series of phenomena better than the evil God does and so is the more sensible hypothesis to believe.

Martin: “AFICS the two “Moral Arguments” are appalingly bad.And I am disappointed to see that you did not even attempt to show to Stephen that they were not”

Well generally when someone claims that an argument is bad, they bear an onus to show that it fails. Since Stephen made no effort to do so, I had nothing to reply to.

Now, the premises of the argument that you note that I didn’t defend here in my comment (surprise surprise, I didn’t defend any of the premises, I only told people what they were. It’s called a summary) are quire defensible. I’ve defended them previously in a podcast series on the moral argument and will probably do so again. For you to walk around with blinders on and then complain that these premises have not been defended is not terribly persuasive.

Let’s briefly check out Glenn’s preferred argument:

3) The basis of moral facts is either natural or supernatural (where these are construed to be mutually exclusive)
4) The basis of moral facts is not natural
5) Therefore the basis of moral facts is supernatural
6) The best way to construe a supernatural basis of moral facts is in terms of a supernatural personal being
7) Therefore the basis of moral facts is in a supernatural personal being

Every premise is questionable, but 6 particularly so. Why is the best way to construe a supernatural basis for moral facts is in terms of a supernatural being (rather than a Platonic Form, say), and even if a personal being why a good, rather than an evil, or morally neutral, being?

However, there is a more telling overall objection, which is this: that this moral argument is based on the intuition that there are moral facts. Suppose it could be shown, as Glenn tries to here, that there can only be moral facts if there is a good God. Then, given excellent empirical evidence that there is no such God, the right conclusion to draw is that the intuition that there are moral facts is probably wrong (I don’t say it is wrong, because I am not persuaded by Glenn’s argument, just like most other professional philosophers)

In fact, we already have very good grounds for supposing our moral intuitions are somewhat unreliable. See Marc Hauser, Peter Singer et al.

So the bottom line is that, if Glenn’s argument were any good, which it isn’t, the right conclusion to draw, given overwhelming empirical evidence his God does not exist, is that there are no moral facts (but like I say, I don’t draw that conclusion, because Glenn’s argument seems so shot full of holes, such as the one I flagged up above).

It boils down to, on Glenn’s side, a suspect argument based on a dubious intuition, against, on my side, overwhelming empirical evidence.

The real mystery, to me, is why people can’t see this!
]
As for Fesser’s “refutation”:
(i) it depends on the privation view of evil, which is wrong. (Why not flip this and say good is a privation of evil?!) Actually, *some* evils, like blindness, are best seen as privations of goods. But many appear not merely to be merely privations. And in fact in some cases it is more natural to see the good as a privation of evil (look up “peace” in the dictionary). That evil is always nothing more than a privation of good is a myth that even many theists reject (philosopher Tim Mawson, for example)
(ii)in nay case, the privation view is not obviously incompatible with the existence of an evil God (we are at least owed some explanation for why it is – this is particularly clear if we see good as an abstract Form, say. Fesser at this point just seems to *define* God as good – well, that doesn’t establish the impossibility of an evil God!)
(iii) even if the privation view were incompatible with an evil God, and it could thus be shown that an evil God was impossible, the evil God challenge can *still* be successfully run, as I point out in the paper.

Fester is one of those theists who, when asked to justify the privation view, waffle and refer us to Aquinas, Aristotle, etc. Ask him him to explain, clearly, *exactly* what the argument is.

If I could just attempt to nuance a little Dr. Law’s comment at 38. Let’s bracket the query on premise 6 – I’m sure Dr. Peoples can defend himself there. As regards the more telling objection, that seems to me to be the atheist’s best response. But I take a somewhat different view of the implications.

I take the strength of the evil god hypothesis to be the Humean point that, even if we grant the major theistic arguments (moral argument excluded arguendo), these give us no sense of the divine character (cf. Dr. Peoples’ remarks on the limitations of theistic arguments). Hence we can discount the evidence of the arguments when assessing the argument from evil, IF we decide to run that argument as evidencing an evil god (rather than God’s non-existence). Then follows the symmetry argument that any theodicy or sceptical theist move or whatever can be paralleled as justifying an evil god’s existence. Now surely it is within *this* framework that we must evaluate Dr. Peoples’ moral argument. Dr. People’s argument, or rather, the intuition behind it, does not have to compete evidentially with all the data from the evidential problem of evil. For the only competing hypothesis (unless we decide to countenance a partly evil or partly good God, which is only going to draw fire from simplicity arguments, and which, in any case, is going to lose evidential support commensurate to how plausible it is) is that of an evil god – and that has just as much data against it from the evidential problem of good. Atheism cannot be an option to weigh against it because we have bracketed it in order to avoid the evidential force of the theistic arguments. So all Dr. Peoples has to show is that the intuitions behind the moral argument increase the evidential support for the good God in a way that it does not for the evil God to a non-negligible degree – i.e. to show an asymmetry. And the moral intuition clearly provides SOME prima facie evidential support.

A second point to observe would be that if the atheist does give up moral facts, then he can only advance the issue of evil ad hominem (in the non-fallacious sense of the phrase), which converts the argument from evil to a problem of evil. This is a considerable weakening of the position, for a problem with a position does not mandate a rejection of that position. An sound argument against a position would force the rejection of it or part of it, but we cannot give one here. A logical problem with the position is not a ‘problem’ at all (except insofar as it is putative), but an assertion of the incoherence of a position; if this can be made good on, it will show that the position cannot be rationally maintained. But a non-logical problem (I assume we are working with an evidential argument here) does not require that we give up a position, only that we hold it cautiously and maintain appropriate research into the problematic area. Almost all positions are implicity or explicitly problematic to some extent (this is especially true of fruitful scientific theories in the history and philosophy of science), but that does not mean we must reject them. (A good example is the position of new mysterians like Colin McGinn.) And the theist, given that this is an internal problem, can always quell some of his qualms (even if not all), by theodicy or sceptical theism and the like. In fact, given that there asymmetry due to the moral argument, it may be possible to happily take these moves to be dispositive.

Thanks, Dr. Law – I hadn’t read your latest paper (I know, shame on me!), so I’ve taken a look now. My opinions, for what they’re worth:

I think where we may differ is in our evaluation of the relativity of unreasonableness. The significance of the evil god objection is that it takes the typical evidence for God (teleological, cosmological, etc.) out of the picture. So we’ve bracketed atheism as a ‘reasonable’ alternative – we’ve not said it’s unreasonable, just that we don’t want to evaluate the evidence for or against. So we’re going to end up with some form of theism, no matter what we do.

This leaves us with the problem of which theism to pick. Now you maintain that, given the evidence of good OR evil, both good God and evil God are unreasonable. Now, let’s leave aside questions of a partially evil/partially good divine being. In that case, we *know* that the objective probability of either of these hypotheses is .5, whatever the epistemic probability is – because they exhaust our logical options (which we have been corralled into by sidelining a discussion of the evidence for a divine being of any moral nature). So the conclusion seems at least to me that the hypothesis of both a good God and an evil god is just as reasonable as not (whatever our subjective probability intuitions might be). To be a bit more colourful, you see the evil god and good God hypotheses as being on different sets of scales, but I see them as being on the same set of scales.

Given this, any asymmetry is going to raise the reasonableness of the side it is on to more reasonable than not. But I’m not sure it would matter if we do take (per impossibile) both hypotheses to be equally unreasonable. For we have to pick one of them, as we have no other live options. And if that is the case, even an otherwise negligible piece of evidence on one side will provide us with guidance on which to pick. And given your statement in the paper that the moral argument is the theist’s best option, we would both seem to acknowledge that this evidence is decent.

Hope that makes some sort of sense!

Professor Law,

I don’t think an appeal to the dictionary definition of the term “peace” says anything at all about what metaphysical conception of “evil” obtains. After all, if we’re going to go the the dictionary to settle metaphysical questions, then the “Evil God Challenge” is a nonstarter, since the dictionary tells me that God is all good. Now I don’t for a second think that this settles anything; rather, I’m addressing the irrelevance of your reference to the dictionary when a metaphysical question is at issue.

But second, I think your misplaced reference to the dictionary actually makes Professor Feser’s point for him. As I said on Professor Feser’s blog, I don’t know much about the privation conception of evil, but I do at least know that the account distinguishes absences or mere negations from privations. As I understand it, a privation isn’t a mere absence, but the absence of something that should obtain (that is, it interferes with a thing’s final cause). Hence, it seems to me as if your ‘peace’ example shows that you know less about the privation conception of evil than I do — and I know very little about it — but you still confidently assert that it’s wrong!

Finally, given that privations are necessarily in potency, and given that the God of classical theism is pure act, it’s not the case, as you say, that “the privation view is not obviously incompatible with the existence of an evil God,” for an evil god would be pure act in potency, which is an obvious contradiction. You can of course question the privation account, or the account of God as pure act, but it does seem to me that it’s clearly the case that *if* God is pure act, and *if* a privation conception of evil can be defended, then the idea of an evil god is incoherent.

Hey Dave

John Haldane is a really nice guy actually, and I know that given a longer time and a more academic context he has a lot of stuff to say on the mind/body issue that’s worth hearing.

Also, he doesn’t hold to a strong substance dualism anyway, he holds a thomistic view, which has a few things in common with physicalism.

I’m not home yet – I’m still in Auckland on my way back home and have a couple of talks to give tomorrow. When I’m home I’ll give a decent report on how everything went.

Incidentally Eric you have entirely missed the point of my peace example. I obviously don’t take dictionaries to be philosophically authoritative.
But the dictionary reveals that a *prima facie* case for saying peace is best construed as an absence or privation of certain evils (evils being something that *shouldn’t* obtain, so “privation” seems like an appropriate word [peace is not merely an absence of something – it’s an absence of something that shouldn’t obtain: notice the symmetry].

But as I say this is all irrelevant as the evil god challenge can be run in any case.

I am always amazed at how the privation view is trotted out by people who think it solves problems it doesn’t, and who have no decent argument for it in any case (instead they just direct us at someone long dead who wrote tons of obscure stuff and say “I’ll think you’ll find an excellent argument in there somewhere!”)

“Eric. Give me a good argument for all evils being privations of goods.”

Professor Law, I’ve already said that I don’t understand the notion very well myself. My only point in raising it is that *if* such a view of evil can be defended, and *if* the classical theist’s conception of god can be defended, *then* it seems to me there’s a way to meet the EGC at least as far as the metaphysical possibility of an evil god goes.

“Incidentally Eric you have entirely missed the point of my peace example. I obviously don’t take dictionaries to be philosophically authoritative.
But the dictionary reveals that a *prima facie* case for saying peace is best construed as an absence”

Fair enough so far.

“or privation of certain evils (evils being something that *shouldn’t* obtain, so “privation” seems like an appropriate word [peace is not merely an absence of something – it’s an absence of something that shouldn’t obtain: notice the symmetry].”

Professor Law, the term “privation” is, as I understand it, a technical term in Thomistic philosophy that just is the absence of something that should obtain (or, perhaps more precisely, that would obtain normally given a thing’s final cause). So while the everyday word ‘privation’ may be used perfectly well as you suggest, the technical Thomistic use of the term obviously lacks the symmetry you suggest is there.

“But as I say this is all irrelevant as the evil god challenge can be run in any case.”

Here’s what you say about this in your paper:

“…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 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 the theist to explain why, if they would otherwise reject the evil god hypothesis is highly unreasonable, do they not take the same view regarding the good god hypothesis?”

Professor Law, this seems to presuppose that theists reach conclusions about god’s moral nature by calculating instances of goods and evils in the world, but I see no reason to think this is the case. Can you provide me with an example of a philosopher or a theologian who has concluded that god is good because there is much goodness in the world? At least we can say that this sort of calculus doesn’t play any role in the classical theist’s analysis of god’s moral nature, so again, as Professor Feser said, from that point of view it’s irrelevant.

As for the rest of this thread, I have seen no decent cogent or consilient responses to Stephen’s arguments. Given the confidence with which Glenn and Matt seem to think their moral argument are meant to have, I am surprised.

Anyway I will leave the debate here to Stephen and examine the other two posts.