The argument from evil is successful

The argument from evilHere is a modern-ish version of the argument from evil, although variations on this theme go back at least to (Rowe, 1979) 1) If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist. 2) Gratuitous evil exists C) God does not exist. By gratuitous evil, one means that an evil without justification. One take on gratuitous evil is "an evil that can be prevented without losing some greater good nor permitting something equally bad or worse" (Rowe, 1979). There are many other, subtly different takes on gratuity, but the argument does not turn on which of these subtly different forms is, in fact, correct.Most agree with premise 1 (the 'theological' premise). If God is morally perfect, then (at least) he would not permit evils without moral reason. As Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder put it: "[I]f god can get what he wants without permitting some horror (or something similarly bad), why on earth would he permit it?" (Howard-Snyder and Howard-Snyder, 1999). Given most people accept P1 (or something so close to P1 as to have no effect on the argument), I will not argue for it further unless my opponent attacks it.The factual premise (that there really are gratuitous evils) is controversial. There are obviously lots of evils, and most agree (pace theodicy) that many of evils appear gratuitous: we cannot see how these evils could be justified. Call these apparently gratuitous evils, inscrutable evils. But inscrutable evil is not gratuitous evil: appearances can be deceiving. Here are three reasons why inscrutable evils make gratuitous evil likely.1: CredulityIt is reasonable to believe "probably X" from "it appears that X": in the absence of defeaters, we should treat our appearances credulously. So, as Rowe urges (see Rowe, 1979, 1996), if it appears that an evil has no justifying reason, then we should believe there probably is no justifying reason. If an evil is inscrutable, it is probably gratuitous. If we do not see a justification, that is probably because there is not one there.This 'Noseeum' argument has been extensively discussed and criticized (see Wykstra 1984, 2009, see also Bergmann, 2001, inter alia), and I do not wish to pre-empt my opponent. But I will say now (as the literature neglects it) that for us not to trust our appearances, it needs to be shown that our moral faculties are too poor to have access to whether an evil is gratuitous: it is not enough to show that our faculties are far inferior to someone else's (e.g. God's). My chess faculties are far worse than a Grandmaster's, but although I (unlike he) am unable to determine who is winning from a complicated mid-game scenario, I am still able to reliably determine whether a position is in mate, or that Black is winning if Black has all his pieces and White only a King and pawn. I aver that our moral world is similar: some moral states of affairs are harder to apprehend than others, but our faculties are not so poor as to make it all opaque. In the more straightforward moral cases (like the 'hard cases' for evil: bambi, sue, the mutilation, etc.) determining an evil appears gratuitous is more like 'king and pawn versus all pieces' or 'check-mate' like than 'complicated midgame'. In such cases, we can trust our faculties have good enough access (even though there are others who may have even better access) to be confident in the 'noseeum' judgement. And, so long as we are confident in making that judgement in at least one case, the argument from evil can proceed.2: Inscrutable evils are more likely to be observed if there is gratuitous evilCall gratuitous evil G, and inscrutable evil I. It seems plain we are more likely to observe inscrutable evils in worlds that have gratuitous evils than those that do not: we are more likely to see appearances of X if X is actually there.{1} So:P(I|G) > P(I|¬G) We can plug this into Bayes:P(G|I)/P(¬G|I) = P(I|G)/P(I|¬G) * P(G)/P(¬G)As P(I|G) > P(I|¬G), our likelihood ratio is >1, and consequently our posterior odds are greater than our prior odds. This only shows that there is some confirmation - nothing about its magnitude. But for the resolution some (even minutely little) confirmation is enough. If there is confirmation for the key premise of the argument from evil, then we should adjust our credence in God's existence down in light of this argument from evil.3: Lots of inscrutability gives us lots of confirmation{2}How many inscrutable evils are there? A vast number: millions, billions, perhaps more. Every single one of these instances, taken alone, is evidence for gratuitous evil (by the first or second arguments). All of them taken together give extraordinary confirmation.A worked example, after (Bass, 2011). {3}For N instances of inscrutable evil, the Bayesian calculus becomes:P(G|{I})/P(¬G|{I}) = P(In|G)/P(In|G)^N * P(G)/P(¬G)Where {I} is the set of all inscrutable evils, In is the nth member of this set, and N the total number of members. Grant that we should be really sceptical about our moral faculties, so that any given instance of inscrutable evil is only marginally more likely on G than not-G: so little that our likelihood ratio for a single instance is 1.001. Also, set the prior odds as strongly favouring no gratuitous evil - 0.01, say. Finally, pretend there are only 10,000 inscrutable evils The posterior odds are about 219, which translates into >99.5% likelihood that there is gratuitous evil given the 10,000 inscrutable evils. It is overwhelmingly likely there is gratuitous evil, even when our prior convictions were that there almost certainly was none, and when we take our faculties to be almost completely unreliable. Set N to one million (the same order of magnitude as those killed in the Holocaust), or ten million (the same order of magnitude as those killed by HIV) the posterior odds become too big for the average calculator, and these are still ludicrously conservative. A little confirmation, repeated a lot, gives a big effect. So even if you are really sure that there is no gratuitous evil, and you think that the fact an evil is apparently gratuitous makes it only fractionally more likely it is actually gratuitous, you should nonetheless, in the light of all these instances of inscrutable evil, be very confident that there is gratuitous evil. ConclusionI have presented a fairly standard modern version of an argument from evil. I have taken the theological premise as uncontroversial, and given three reasons for the factual premise. If any of these reasons are cogent, then the resolution carries, as consideration of these evidences should raise ones credence in the likelihood of gratuitous evil, and so lower ones credence in Theism. There are several fronts my opponent can attack from. He could take issue with the theological premise. He could attempt a theodicy to rebut my presumption of lots (or any) inscrutable evil - that although many evils appear inscrutable at first, further consideration shows they are justifiable. He could offer a sceptical theist challenge to undercut the evidence presented: that there is a stronger case that we have no warrant to move from inscrutable to gratuitous than my case above that we do. Or, of course, he could do something else entirely. I look forward to seeing what he has to say.Thrasymachus{1} This is argued at length in (Stephenson, 2009), but I take it to be fairly obvious, and so omit the more elaborate demonstration for space's sake. My opponent is welcome to challenge me here.{2} This is strictly unnecessary for defending the resolution - any confirmation, no matter how slight, is good enough. However, I would like to show something stronger - not just that evil is disconfirmation of theism, but that evil is stonking good disconfirmation of theism.{3} Bass uses a slightly different Bayesian gloss, but the results are similar, and the strategy of using many instances to drive an argument I owe to his work.