The argument from evil is successful

To defeat the argument from evil, my opponent has sought to deploy both epistemic limitations and knowledge of justified evil in Modi’s Magnificent Manoeuvre (MMM). Our disagreement over MMM is twofold: 1) exactly what premises would be required to make MMM a valid defeater, and 2) whether those premises are true. Here, I’ll show that my formulation (not Modi’s) of MMM is valid, and then show the premises have no support. Lots (if not “lots”) of confusion about “lots” Modi argues my prior reductio of MMM rests on “a fairly obvious equivocation” about “lots”. Modi notes that the fact black swans are a minority is what gives the reductio its intuitive bite. Yet my reductio does not require minority “lots”: R1) We know of an unquantifiable number of instances where a swan is white R2) Given such epistemic limitations as (visual defects) and (lack of omnipresence) it is unlikely we will observe white swans for every instance of a white swan. R3) Given (R1) and (R2) it is at least as likely any given swan is white than it is not. R4) Therefore, we are under no obligation to raise our credence concerning the existence of non-white swans [when faced with apparently non-white swans] So it doesn’t matter whether it is minority “lots” or majority “lots”. (R3) still doesn’t follow: granting (R1) and (R2) does not mean we should say (for example) a swan which appears black under ideal (or even middling) viewing conditions is, actually, just as likely to be white.[1] If I did misread Modi and his use of “lots” excluded minority “lots”, then my apologies. However, MMM is still subject to lethal reductio in non-minority “lots” too. Bayes Modi recasts his argument in Bayesian form: P(I|E & O & J & ~G) is at least as likely as P(I|G) Where O is omni-god, J is justified evils, and E is epistemic limitations. Modi asserts once we add O, J, and E, we lose the apparent confirmation I provides for G. He also adds this passage: [N]otice that (J) and (I) = 1. For either an evil appears to be justified or it does not and if (~G) is at least as likely as (G) then both = .5 and it seems clear that any claims against this equivalence will require methods of quantification we simply do not have access to. This is false. (J) and (I) are not compliments. Although a given evil will appear justified or not, (J) is meant to refer to other evils we know to be justified. If (J) really refers to the same evil, (so I and J are compliments) then Modi’s Bayesian gloss is uninformative, as P(I|J&anything else) = 0. (It also doesn’t seem to follow for P(~G) = P(G) that P(J) = P(I), and besides, these priors have nothing to do with the likelihood ratio). Regardless, Modi’s argument is invalid – E & J & O are not sufficient to screen off confirmation. As the reductio above shows, if it was sufficient to point to some epistemic limitations and to some occurrences of A to defeat appearances of ¬A, we would end up ignoring lots of relevant evidence. The way MMM can work is my suggestion last round: something like (M1’), that most of our appearances are of justified evil.[2] For if we can combine that with a (fairly modest) sceptical claim, we do screen off the confirmation of I for G. We need is something like this: Modi’s Bayesian Assault (MBA): P(I|~G&J&E) is at least as likely as P(I|G&J&E)[3] Where J & E entail the incidence of inscrutable evils, compared to justified evils, is unsurprising given the limited specificity of our faculties to see justification.[4] If Modi thinks he can construct another (valid) route the argument can take, he is welcome to present it. He has failed to do so yet. “lots” of justified evils? I’ve argued above that the sort of justified evils we are interested in are God-justified evils – evils for which we see there is a God justifying reason, and so whatever evils humans perform that are justified are the wrong reference class. Modi replies: “However, by identifying evils for which we find justification we have a plausible reason why, in conjunction with our epistemic limitations and the vastly superior capabilities of an omni-God, the evils for which we do not have justification, quite plausibly, have justification we are ignorant of.” If Modi means “by identifying evils for which we find God- justifying reasons”, then I agree – doing that helps support MBA. But, as noted before, pointing to instances where humans perform evils justifiably does not help this case, no more so than pointing to instances where humans perform evils unjustifiably helps mine. The reason is that justification for evils we perform almost always relies on our limited casual powers, something God doesn’t have (Modi notes that God may labour under some restrictions, but as casual impotence is not one, his response doesn’t address my criticism.) I also said that we do not have evidence that any evil is God justified, and that some (the inscrutable ones) appear to be God unjustified. Modi hands this off as “well, that’s just your opinion, why should anyone care?” Yet it isn’t just my opinion, it is the opinion of virtually every scholar who has written on the problem of evil. If it wasn’t the case that evils appeared (at least prima facie) unjustified, then there would be no demand for theodicy (ditto sceptical theism). It could be that there are various eternal goods that ‘tie God’s hands’ in such a way that he can’t (for example) cure everyone with cancer. But could be isn’t plausibly, and given (at least prima facie) it appears that god could cure cancer without forestalling any eternal goods, Modi needs to make this case if he wants to include cancer as one of his God justified evils. As it stands, Modi has not shown that any evils are God justified, and, given it doesn’t appear any evils are God justified, we have no support for J. Moral paralysis I think Modi mistakes the moral paralysis concern. It isn’t “maybe we should behave immorally because immoral behaviour might bring justifying goods”, but rather “we have no idea what is the moral or immoral course of action to take, because we cannot trust our moral appearances – for all anyone knows the apparently ‘moral’ course of action will deny great goods beyond our ken, and the apparently ‘immoral’ action will bring great goods beyond our ken.” So I don’t think free will helps here. Even if God has a good reason to allow us to choose wrongly, that does not help us become unparalysed: we want to choose rightly, yet have no way to find out what the right action is. Conclusion MBA is the way MMM could be a valid defeater for the argument from evil. It relies on justified evils (J) and epistemic limitations (E). Modi has failed to support J, and thus the only chance MBA has is very severe epistemic limitations. However, such limitations entail moral paralysis, and should be rejected. As such, MBA is a failure, and the argument from evil remains undefeated. [1] You could read (R3) as saying “if we take a swan at random, it is at least as likely as not white”. This would follow directly from (R1). But it would be straightforwardly silly to suppose (R4) would follow from that, so I presume this is not the reading my opponent has in mind. [2] The value for ‘most’ depends on the degree of epistemic limitation. What is needed is E&J to show that our incidence of I is what we’d expect given the limited specificity of our faculties. For example: if we could be convinced that our ‘justification sensor’ was 90% specific, and we observed a ratio of 10J:1I, then that is not surprising on the hypothesis that there is no gratuitous evil. Progressively weaker sceptical claims demand progressively stronger claims about the incidence of justified to inscrutable evil. [3] I’ve dropped O, as if we’re granting (1) of the argument from evil, P(O|G) = 0. [4] Sceptical theism is a ‘special case’ of MBA. When E is such that our specificity is low (<50% or so), that is sufficient to screen off confirmation regardless of J.