Discussion Thread for Tarasan & Meow on TD

[Songbird]

Haha. I would so make that my signature.

"The dearth of lesbolicious philosophers who counter TD is a niche in the making." -- Songbird.

Yeah. That's music to my eyes

Haha, you made my day!

 

[Meow Mix]

Hey, *raises hands* ... If you want to include anything as possible, okay, but that's not a conversation I'm going to participate in.

Carry on.

Not anything is possible, though. Possible worlds semantics are used for deciphering exactly that.

For instance, in NO possible world can there be a married bachelor. In other words, it's necessarily impossible.

But there could be a possible world in which my keyboard is pink instead of black.

Here: Possible world - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_logic.

 

[Mister Emu]

Meow,

Of course, I am not him, but I don't think Plantinga's significant freedom is a physics based idea, walking on the ceiling/stabbing someone, rather, a question of moral agency, the ability to choose or reject that which is wrong and/or right.

Is a government who puts cameras everywhere, including homes, to reduce crime(and let us assume great success) more moral than the one who does not, but has more crime?

 

[Meow Mix]

Meow,

Of course, I am not him, but I don't think Plantinga's significant freedom is a physics based idea, walking on the ceiling/stabbing someone, rather, a question of moral agency, the ability to choose or reject that which is wrong and/or right.

Is a government who puts cameras everywhere, including homes, to reduce crime(and let us assume great success) more moral than the one who does not, but has more crime?

Having police standing around in our homes wouldn't seem more moral than one that doesn't either, but we agree in principle with the existence of police. Why? Because it's an invasion of privacy by fallible beings which otherwise shouldn't have a right to our inner lives, whereas we do fundamentally agree that evil should be prevented if possible on the same note.

Plantinga's argument is more along the lines that there are some "goods" which entail evils such that the good "outweighs" the evil (in Plantinga's terms, from "God, Freedom & Evil"). This is what I'm arguing is absurd, and that assuming it is good is question begging.

If it's true that things like justice and heroism are so good that it's worth it to purposely allow the capacity for the evils which entail their mere possibility then there are some dire problems with morality. Why can I not, say, walk into a daycare and dump a basket of venomous snakes in the middle of the children? Think of the daycare like a possible world and the children like the population of that world, existing in a state where physical suffering was previously impossible.

Have I done them a favor by introducing the capacity for suffering just so they can have the possibility that a heroic child might save some other children, or that one might grow up to be the first police officer in their world and arrest me (therefore introducing justice)?

I hardly think anyone would say that I'm consistent with being benevolent by dumping venomous snakes in the daycare.

Why, then, is God consistent with benevolence for dumping snakes on our universe -- no Garden of Eden pun intended?

 

[Mister Emu]

Having police standing around in our homes wouldn't seem more moral than one that doesn't either, but we agree in principle with the existence of police.

Exactly, we agree not with a world completely without restriction, nor do we agree with one entirely restricted. We recognize that the moral course is found on a path that favors a balance between freedom to act and restriction from causing harm.

This is what I'm arguing is absurd

You assert that there any goods that entail evils, or that the idea of the good which entails evil outweighing the subsequent evil, is absurd? Or both?

As for your snake scenario, I don't believe God metaphorically dumped snakes in our daycare... I believe He did not restrict some of us from becoming snakes. I see a marked distinction there.

 

[Meow Mix]

Exactly, we agree not with a world completely without restriction, nor do we agree with one entirely restricted. We recognize that the moral course is found on a path that favors a balance between freedom to act and restriction from causing harm.

From fallible beings. You're forgetting that the "camera" would be God in this instance, a being ostensibly which possesses omniscience anyway in the first place. If you assert that God is not omniscient then the PoE wins anyway, since it's just pointing out that one of any of its premises must be wrong (since it's arguing by reductio ad absurdum that there exists a contradiction in them).

Of course no one wants a police state that breaks into your privacy, but paradoxically I doubt that anyone would object to the existence of a super-police force that prevents (rather than responds to) a crime 100% of the time by nature of their very existence. You might say "but that would involve their setting up cameras everywhere," which I agree would be creepy, but we're talking about a super-policeman who already has cameras everywhere regardless. So what's the big deal now?

You assert that there any goods that entail evils, or that the idea of the good which entails evil outweighing the subsequent evil, is absurd? Or both?

As for your snake scenario, I don't believe God metaphorically dumped snakes in our daycare... I believe He did not restrict some of us from becoming snakes. I see a marked distinction there.

I'm asserting that the idea that allowing evil in order to bring about good is somehow good in itself is absurd.

You are missing the point of my objection. Even if God "did not restrict some of us from becoming snakes," by creating the laws of the universe (such as its physics) He created -- directly -- the ability of the snakes to strike us at all in the first place. Your objection doesn't remove any culpability for the evil whatsoever from God's hands.

An analogy: suppose there are two universes, each with some people in them. In one the physics disallow people from harming one another, in the other God created the physics to allow things like stabbings and shootings.

Now consider there's a murderous person in each universe.

Clearly in one universe there would be no murders and no innocent victims. In the second universe there very well may be. Does all the blame lie solely on the murderer?

Most of it, yes -- but the architect of the universal laws which allowed the murderer to kill is also culpable if the architect knew it could happen and knew it could have been otherwise. We normal humans call this knowing allowance of evil "negligence" and we usually file charges for it. Allowing innocent victims to occur when it could logically be otherwise is no different than wiring faulty electricity in a home and pretending to be innocent if a fire breaks out later.

 

[Mister Emu]

Sorry about the delay...

From fallible beings.

This why I assumed success.

You're forgetting that the "camera" would be God in this instance, a being ostensibly which possesses omniscience anyway in the first place.

Of course, at some point all analogies fail... the point was that we must discuss some measure not currently being taken to reduce "evil". For police it could be cameras everywhere; for God, rules of physics that stop evil from occurring.

If you assert that God is not omniscient then the PoE wins anyway

For my own person clarification, I thought the PoE was omnipotence/benevolence/existence of evil?

So what's the big deal now?

As I said, we must discuss it from the view of adding new measures, simply saying "God already sees everything" does not address the point.

We must ask ourselves if there is a point at which a restriction placed upon us to prevent evil becomes evil itself. If yes, at what point. I don't think it is as straightforward as "There is a preventable evil that exists, therefore PoE".

I'm asserting that the idea that allowing evil in order to bring about good is somehow good in itself is absurd.

You have the order reversed. It is performing a good that allows for possible evil. The First Amendment, our freedom of speech, it is a good thing, no? But it allows for people to speak in evil ways, nazi-ism, Fred Phelps, etc.

Is it absurd to say that the good involved in the good act of protecting free speech outweighs the evil allowed?

To tie into my last point, I'd say not providing for free speech to prevent all evil speech would be a point at which prevention becomes evil in and of itself.

Allowing innocent victims to occur when it could logically be otherwise is no different than wiring faulty electricity in a home and pretending to be innocent if a fire breaks out later.

I'd put it more akin to wiring electricity at all. I'd say an electrician is at no fault if the home owner does something irresponsible and starts a fire.