Saturday, October 22, 2011

The Evil God, Continued

As a previous article discussed, Stephen Law’s argument concerning Evil God was very interesting. Within the Internet discussion that followed some suggested this argument lends itself to a parallel moral argument. It goes like this:

1. If Evil God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.

2. Objective moral values do exist.

3. Therefore, Evil God exists.

Now, at first glance, one may be tempted to say that the first premise is false, since we believe the Christian God (who is all-good) exists. Hence, it is the case that Evil God does not exist, and yet objective moral values do exist. However, as an objection to the argument it qualifies as question-begging. Hence, we must find another way to critique the premise(s) if we are to avoid the conclusion.

(1) seems to rely on just the same sort of reasoning we use to justify (1*) (the premise of the original moral argument for God). That is to say, plausibly, objective moral values can only originate from a person. Well, Evil God is a person. The atheist or Good God Skeptic (GGS) here contends there is just as much explanatory power in Evil God or God, and therefore we should remain, at best, agnostic about both (1) and (1*).

I do not think this succeeds either. A number of considerations need to be explained here. First, it is somewhat controversial whether or not evil is actually a “thing” in relation to good. Evil just seems to be a privation of the good. The GGS may here simply state that it is the other way around on an Evil God-account of objective morality. This leads us to our second consideration. Most people perceive objective moral duties as obligations to do good. Note what this is not saying: this does not claim that what people perceive they ought to do is always objectively good. Rather, it is the mere fact that they perceive what they ought to do (regardless of what that actually is) is actually good. This is an incredibly powerful observation when one thinks about it.

The third observation logically proceeds from the second. It seems to be a truth inherent to moral duties (which are derived from moral values) that whenever one performs an act in accordance with an objective moral duty he has done what is good. That is, it seems if it is the case that one ought to do X, then one’s doing of X is in fact good, and not evil! Perhaps here the GGS will retort that rather than being good and evil, the real delineation for objective moral duties is “right” and “wrong,” and thus the axiom above should be read: “if it is the case that one ought to do X, then one’s doing of X is in fact right, and not wrong.” Fair enough. This leads to:

Fourthly, related to the previous point, is that it makes no sense to speak of duty-fulfillment in terms of moral objectivity as “right” and yet objectively evil. This is what I mean. Suppose the being who grounds morality commands Jackie to do some act A. She happily agrees to do A, since she typically desires to do what the being commands. At this point, A constitutes an obligation. Jackie’s fulfillment of A is right and if she were to reject or fail to fulfill A it would be wrong. Now if this moral being were to be all-evil, then her fulfillment of A, though right, would be itself evil! This seems horrendously confused and violates normal sensibilities.

Finally, if Evil God existed, this would make good a privation of evil. That is to say, good very plausibly is just the lack of committing evil. But since evil is usually described in terms of failing to do good, or doing the opposite of good, or whatnot, and good cannot be explained on this account except as a failure to do evil or privation of evil, it seems the Evil God account of objective morality fails after all. At the very least, it is less plausible than an all-good account of objective morality, given what morality is and our moral intuitions.

And that is the central point. The key distinguishing feature with respect to morality is that Evil God just is less plausible, all things being equal, than an all-good God, if morality is to be explained by one of them. Even if we decide to grant both beings the same level of explanatory scope and power (the latter of which is dubious), the Evil God hypothesis is a far more complex (and thus gratuitous) explanation, and without compelling evidence is not to be preferred over the good God hypothesis.[1]

So we can see, on moral considerations and intuitions alone, that good God is untainted, and Evil God remains implausible, even for the GGS.[2]


                [1] It is helpful here to note this kind of “inference to the best explanation” is only in regards to the competing first premises of the respective arguments, (1) and (1*), and not to the arguments themselves, which are deductive.

                [2] Some may point to the ontological argument and the idea of maximal greatness to show God is to be preferred over Evil God. This is, I think, quite correct. However, I wanted to vindicate the moral argument as typically presented by the Christian in favor of God.

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23 comments:

  1. The key distinguishing feature with respect to morality is that Evil God just is less plausible

    I myself would go even further: an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnimalevolent being is a logical impossibility. And I'm going to show why.

    A moral system is all about committing good acts and avoiding to commit bad acts. This isn't done for its own sake but has a rational justification. Philosophers give arguments for their theory of correct morality. This also means that moral doing is intimately connected with prudence. It is imprudent to know what good and bad are, and yet prefer bad over good. Such a transgression is only possible under ignorance of what good or bad is or serious deficiency of one's cognitive faculties.

    An Evil God knows that he's committing evil acts, but this also means that he knows what good acts are in relation to those evil acts. You can't know what evil is without the good and vice versa; so Evil God knows what good and bad are, yet he prefers bad over good; but this is impossible. A supreme being is of infinite wisdom, knowledge, and prudence. It can't prefer bad over good. It can only be omnibenevolent, not omnimalevolent.

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  2. Hi Matko, thanks for the comment! I certainly agree with you, and hint at these things throughout my various objections. Also, my footnote makes mention of maximal greatness, which shows such a conception of God to be necessarily false. But in any case, great thoughts! :)

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  3. Matko, it seems like the atheist would objective to what you said on the basis of saying where Anti-god's morals come from. Much like God and His goodness, they would say evil is a necessary part of Anti-god's being and does not choose (and thus perfer) evil over good. But it does hint at what Randy is saying, that a being that is anything less then perfect would not be God, Anti-god is less than perfect, and therefore not God.

    Randy, I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on your 5th and final point.

    "Finally, if Evil God existed, this would make good a privation of evil."

    How is it that you come to the conclusion that the idea of Anti-god fails? It seems as if what you are saying is that just because evil is "usually" defined as an absence of good (which I agree) it therefore fails. But what if the skeptic wants to disagree with how evil has "usually" been defined?

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  4. Matko,

    An omni-type perfectly malevolent god is certainly *not* logically impossible. But why, exactly, can an omni-type god not be perfectly evil? In short you make the claim that '[i]t is imprudent to know what good and bad are, and yet prefer bad over good,' but give no reason *why* it would be imprudent.

    A perfectly evil, omni-type god is certainly prudential in actualizing *this* state of affairs rather than any other since *this* state of affairs is the worst of all possible state of affairs. Of course he knows what good is; it is the opposite of evil, but he doesn't wish to actualize a good state of affairs- it is against his nature.

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  5. Hi Robby, excellent question. My objections are somewhat intertwined in the sense that each one, I believe, logically proceeds from or is connected with the one prior to it. That said, I think, very plausibly, if one is morally obligated to do something, then the value to which it corresponds is what the thing is (the thing namely being Evil God or God). Hence, the lack of the grounded value is just what the other value becomes, making it very dubious as to whether or not this opposite value even is a "thing" as opposed to a mere abstracta. Although not uncontroversial, many people think that evil is just a privation off of the good. Hence, it's quite plausible that good is then just a privation of evil on the Evil God hypothesis. Not only does this sound bizarre, but also absurd, since coupled with one of my other objections, it means that we must take the fulfillment of a moral obligation to be "right" while still entailing the "right" action to be "evil." I'm not even sure what this means, and I suspect it is incoherent. Note that it won't do for the GGS to deny that a duty fulfillment would be right, for then it becomes non-sensical to say that fulfilling that duty was "wrong" on an Anti God hypothesis (for then we are really saying he should not have done it, which is just to say it wasn't an obligation after all).

    Now perhaps you might be wondering why can't the Evil God hypothesis-profferer simply say here that yes, doing right is evil? Well, simply because it violates my moral intuitions. I highly doubt there is any such person who, understanding the relevant terms, actually believes objective moral duty fulfillment is right but actually objectively morally evil. Not only can I not make sense of it, but I have a strong intuition that what is right is good, and I further suspect that no one holds any intuition or good argument for thinking otherwise.

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  6. Hi Aaron, thanks for the comment. Whether or not an omni-type Evil God is logically possible depends, in this context, largely on whether or not moral values are necessary and whether fulfilling (or not fulfilling) of a duty entails performing an act corresponding to a moral value necessarily. If certain answers are correct, then either the Evil God with obligations to do evil or the good God with obligations to do good are necessarily existent, and hence its opposite is necessarily nonexistent. Therefore, either Evil God or good God exist necessarily.

    So, what your claim amounts to is that Evil God exists. :>

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  7. Hey, Randy

    I mistyped in my initial comment, so I should clarify. I do not hold to the necessary existence of god- evil or otherwise. (In fact, I hold that an omni-type god does not exist necessarily.)

    My point is that it is not at all clear that *if* an omni-type god exists, *then* it must be perfectly good. Matko claims to have shown otherwise, but I see no argument; only assertion.

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  8. P.S. I am not sure what intuitions are if not one's own personal prejudices, determined via social and other factors.

    That aside, I know *many* people who have an 'intuition' that there is no perfectly good god.

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  9. Hi Aaron, but even those intuitions do nothing to override mine (and incidentally, one may check out my post concerning intuitions), and the intuition under consideration here is that doing right is good, not evil! :)

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  10. Robby said:

    Matko, it seems like the atheist would objective to what you said on the basis of saying where Anti-god's morals come from. Much like God and His goodness, they would say evil is a necessary part of Anti-god's being and does not choose (and thus perfer) evil over good.

    If he's unable to choose good over evil, this can only be due to his tarnished reasoning brought about by his defective nature, which makes him less than perfect. You don't have here the greatest being one can conceive of; you have here Azathoth the blind idiot god.

    Aaron said,

    .But why, exactly, can an omni-type god not be perfectly evil? In short you make the claim that '[i]t is imprudent to know what good and bad are, and yet prefer bad over good,' but give no reason *why* it would be imprudent.

    A perfectly evil, omni-type god is certainly prudential in actualizing *this* state of affairs rather than any other since *this* state of affairs is the worst of all possible state of affairs. Of course he knows what good is; it is the opposite of evil, but he doesn't wish to actualize a good state of affairs- it is against his nature.


    Perhaps I should've used a different word than prudence - rationality. With full knowledge of what good and bad is, choosing bad over good IS irrational. This can't happen to a perfect being, or it isn't a perfect being and doesn't deserve the honorific title "God".

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  11. Aaron, it seems to me that this ontological argument is valid. Because to be omni-benevolent is a perfect! We aren't talking about perfection as in a complete collection (e.g. if you finish all the answers on a test you have perfectly completed the test. Yet, that doesn't mean you got a perfect score!). Immorality is an imperfection, while morality is a perfect. So to be perfectly moral would be a perfect. If God wasn't omni-benevolent, than He wouldn't be perfect and therefore God.



    I think I understand you know Randy, and I think I like it hah.

    Essentially, there is no such objective thing that is right, and yet bad. Similarly, there is nothing that is wrong, and yet good.
    There are examples of things that are good that may not be right (e.g. it would be good for you to learn how to ride a bike, but it isn't 'right' for you to learn how to ride a bike). But there is nothing that is right that is not also good. And this, like objective moral values and duties, are based on our moral intuitions.

    This seems to be true. I thought about it all day today, and I couldn't think of anything that was wrong, and yet good. Or that was right, and yet bad.

    So our moral intuitions tell us what is good/bad and right/wrong. And in addition you are saying that our intuitions tell us what is right is also good and what is wrong is also bad. For if it were not this way, than it would be metaphysically impossible for us to do anything that is right and have it be good, similarly, for us to do anything that is wrong and have it be bad. Does this sum it up?

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  12. Randy,

    There are two things to say regarding intuitions.

    First, intuitions (of the sort we are talking about) are evidence for nothing. Intuitions are rather a view to the psychology of the one who expresses the so-called 'intuitions'. They are non-rational, but neuro-physiologically complex responses to external and internal stimuli and are very much dependent upon the contingencies of one's social circumstances and prior beliefs. So, any argument that relies upon intuitions for its justification is, for me, impotent.

    Second, even if intuitions (whatever they might be) were the types of things which could be evidence for beliefs, the contrary intuitions of epistemic peers would serve as defeaters for your intuitions, in the same way as the contrary visual reports of epistemic peers serve as defeaters for your visual reports.

    E.g., if you and a bunch of people are standing around watching a football game and you have what you think is a veridical experience of a flock of Canada geese landing midfield, but nobody else reports such an event- in fact, everyone else reports that the event did not occur-, then you have evidence against the veridicality of your perceptual experience. In that context, you are rationally obliged to believe that you did not, in fact, see a flock of Canada geese land midfield. The same goes for intuitions.

    Similarly, if 105,000 people (including yourself) are watching a football game and again you have the Canada geese experience, but this time 35,000 agree with you, 35,000 say there were instead tigers midfield, and 35,000 say there was nothing at all, then you are rationally obliged to remain agnostic about the veridicality of your so-called experience. The same goes for intuitions.

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  13. Robby, sounds like you got it man! :)

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  14. Matko,

    Re: 'With full knowledge of what good and bad is, choosing bad over good IS irrational.'

    Says who? The issue is this: There can be an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly evil (or perfectly amoral) god. It is incumbent upon you to prove otherwise.

    Randy,

    Re: 'Essentially, there is no such objective thing that is right, and yet bad.'

    Right. However, this is not my point. My point is this: If a god exists, it can be an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly evil god. Every argument for a perfectly good god can be employed to establish a perfectly evil god- even an argument from morality.

    If such a god exists, then he would want to actualize the worst of all possible worlds. That is, he would want to maximize pain and suffering. Now, pain and suffering are bads, of course, and certain other things could be goods, but this does not obviate the fact that a perfectly evil god exists.

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  15. *correction: I meant to address Robby, not Randy, in prior comment. Apologies.

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  16. Hi Aaron, I am a little bewildered about how you understand intuition. In most--in fact, every--discussion I've had on intuition, it is precisely the opposite of how it is construed here; it is knowledge or belief independently of experience. So understood, I see no problem with its rationality. However, I'm also confused as to how someone else's intuitions might serve as defeaters (as opposed to merely undercutters) of my intuitive belief. But let us suppose they do, for the sake of argument. The intuitions relevant to this discussion are two in number: that objective moral values exist and that to do right is to have done what is good. The former is an intuition shared by all mentally competent people except for those who suffer from psychopathy (by definition), and the latter is as well (in fact the set of those who hold the former intuition and the set of those who hold the latter may well be nearly identical). In that case, wouldn't everyone's intuition here function as a defeater for your counterintuition, by your own rules? If, on the other hand, you have these beliefs intuitively, then you should only discard them in the face of strong evidence to the contrary, of which we have been offered none. If you have these beliefs and have not discarded them, then the points are conceded, and hence the objection fails.

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  17. Randy,

    Defining 'intuition' to mean knowledge which is derived independent of experience is too broad. Mathematical and logical truths cannot, I would argue, be reasonably construed as 'intuition' (they are not intuition in the sense that people 'intuit' the existence of moral facts), but yet (and this *is* an active area of debate within the philosophy of logic), in a strict sense, most philosophers agree that they are known (in a weak sense) independent of empirical evidence.

    That aside, I myself do not hold that there is knowledge independent of empirical evidence and I hold that logic is merely a formal apparatus which admits of empirical revisability- we employ a logic instrumentally in the service of our best empirical methods (science), and insofar as it helps in formulating economical scientific theories and fruitful hypotheses, then we maintain it. But I digress...

    Re: 'The former is an intuition shared by all mentally competent people except for those who suffer from psychopathy (by definition)... '

    I am not a psychopath, neither are J.L. Mackie, Arif Ahmed, and very many other philosophers, yet we all reject the existence of moral facts. Moral error theory is a vibrant and active area within meta-ethics; I would recommend acquainting yourself with it.

    Btw: Psychopathy is not defined as the belief that there are no moral facts.

    Re: ' In that case, wouldn't everyone's intuition here function as a defeater for your counterintuition, by your own rules?'

    Nope. I do not count intuitions as evidence for anything. I do count rational argumentation and empirical evidence as evidence.

    But all of the above is a bit tangential to the primary issue, which is this: If you value doing morally good things, then you ought to do morally good things. The omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly evil god does not value doing morally good things. Thus, he does not do morally good things. In fact, he has created a world in which the greatest amount of evil possible under free will obtains.

    Moral goods and evils are not determined by decree, divine or otherwise. So, it is not the case that if there is a perfectly evil god, then moral evils become moral goods. No, to the contrary: goods are still goods, but evil is preferred by the god in charge in these parts. What *must* be given is an argument as to why an omni-type god must also be perfectly good. I have not read one yet- at least, not in this thread.

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  18. Hi Aaron, I would just say that it simply doesn't follow that saying if intuition is independent of experience, then truths independent of experience are all intuitive-- and thus the objection appealing to mathematics fails.

    "I am not a psychopath, neither are J.L. Mackie, Arif Ahmed, and very many other philosophers, yet we all reject the existence of moral facts."

    Yet this was not the claim! :) The claim was that those who do not truly intuit moral values are, by definition, psychopaths. Psychopathy does indeed entail, in specific form, the inability to perceive moral values. Now that is not to say those who reject moral values are all psychopathic; it is to say those non-psychopaths who reject moral values do so because of other considerations which they believe override, undercut, or defeat that intuition. I also assume the same is true for you--if I thought you were a psychopath, I probably wouldn't be having this conversation. :)

    But you did in fact, in your hypothetical, count intuition as defeating evidence, so long as a majority intuits something held as veridical only by one. So whatever the objection was supposed to be essentially worked against you--for the vast majority of people do hold those intuitions. Finally, I have only ever said that intutions are a way of knowing something as true--not as showing it is true. But if one holds a particular intuition, unless there is some justification for thinking that intuition is false, he may well hold it. If he does, then he (in most cases) can accept the existence of moral values and that doing what is right is good, and hence we are right back where we started. :)

    I'm also having trouble with what you mean when you say "ought" in your second to last paragraph. Ought in order to what? Be true to oneself? Why ought one to do that? To be non-self-contradictory? But in that case, this is not a moral obligation at all (unless some case can be made that, rather than entailing rationality as a consequence, rationality just is somehow morality, which in any case is not a theist's claim).

    Also, the last paragraph seems to avoid the intuition that doing what is right is good. I don't see any reason to think that is false, and I don't see any reason why, if Evil God exists, doing what is right is also evil, and how this actually makes sense (squared with our shared, presumably, intuitions).

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  19. Aaron said,

    Says who?

    Rationality.

    The issue is this: There can be an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly evil (or perfectly amoral) god. It is incumbent upon you to prove otherwise.

    I already did. It is on you to show otherwise.

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  20. Randy,

    Re: 'But you did in fact, in your hypothetical, count intuition as defeating evidence'

    I gave the subjunctive conditional: 'even if intuitions (whatever they might be) were the types of things which could be evidence for beliefs,...'

    Thus, I am not committed to countenancing intuitions as evidence for anything. [Though, if I did count intuitions as evidence, then I agree that my position on moral facts would be problematic; but I don't, so it isn't :-)]

    Re: The 'ought'

    I used the 'ought' as an hypothetical imperative: If one wants to hold true beliefs, then one ought to hold consistent beliefs. Strictly speaking, I do not hold to any notion of moral obligation, and for the sake of philosophical hygiene I would like to refrain from using moral terminology (at least moral terminology which cannot be cast within hypothetical imperatives).

    Re: 'I don't see any reason why, if Evil God exists, doing what is right is also evil'

    I do not assert that if an evil god exists then what was wrong is now right and what was right is now wrong. To reiterate, good actions are still good actions and if you want to be a good person, you ought to do good things. But evil god wants to effect the greatest possible bad. Thus, he has created the the (morally) worst of all possible states of affairs.

    Matko,

    Negative, buddy. You have assertions, but no arguments. What you must show is that it is logically impossible that there exists a perfectly evil god.

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  21. Hi Aaron, but remember the full quote! :) "So whatever the objection was supposed to be essentially worked against you--for the vast majority of people do hold those intuitions."

    My point is that whatever the point was of bringing up the majority-as-defeater example, it did not count against the particular intuitions under discussion.

    Regarding the "ought," I was just checking. :) As to denying moral values, I assume you do this in spite of intuition (please know that I realize one may believe something in spite of intuition, so long as there is sufficient evidence to override it) and because of sufficient evidence, is that correct? If so, the most plausible reason I can think of is that atheism is true, and it entails no moral values exist. But in that case, Law's parody argument for evil God loses all force for you, for you do not deny Craig's first premise (to say nothing of the moral character of God--just a God who grounds objective moral values--surely this is unobjectionable). But then we are faced with the criticism I have already made which you may have misunderstood.

    My criticism is not that what is right is wrong and/or vice versa. I in fact distinguish between right/wrong and good/evil on moral intuition. The basic reasoning that relies on a God being the ground of objective moral values is that moral obligations are plausibly owed to a person (this is the primary argument). But it is still true, even on an evil God hypothesis, that fulfilling one's moral obligation is right. But as you correctly point out, what evil God wants you to do is evil. Therefore, the fulfilling of the obligation is right, and yet the act is evil--which is absurd! Let us consider denying, then, that fulfilling one's moral obligation to evil God is right, and say it is wrong. What does it even mean to claim one is obligated to do an act, but it is wrong to fulfill that obligation? If you are obligated, "right" is very plausibly just to say you fulfilled that obligation, and "wrong" very plausibly is to say you failed to fulfill that obligation. I just can't even make sense of denying these. It's a serious criticism that I think Law won't easily overcome.

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  22. Hey, Randy

    I think we have reached the point of diminishing returns, I will leave the last substantial word with you. Though I myself do not believe in moral facts, I do not believe atheism entails that moral facts do not exist. In fact, I do not even believe theism entails the existence of moral facts.

    Thanks for letting me post so much on your blog.

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  23. Negative, buddy. You have assertions, but no arguments. What you must show is that it is logically impossible that there exists a perfectly evil god.

    I did show. Now be honest and everyone can go his way.

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