What is so Good about Moral Freedom?

Many Christian philosophers believe that it is a great good that human beings are free to choose between good and evil, so good indeed that God is justified in putting up with a great many evil choices for the sake of it. But many of the same Christian philosophers also believe that God is essentially good – good in every possible world. Unlike his sinful human creatures, God cannot choose between good and evil. In that sense, he is not 'morallyFree'. It is not easy to see how to fit these two theses into a single coherent package. If moral freedom is such a great good in human beings, why is it not a grave defect in God that he lacks it? And if the lack of moral freedom does not detract in any way from God's greatness, would it not have been better for us not to have it? I develop, but ultimately reject, what I take to be the most initially promising strategy for resolving this dilemma.     

Skeptical theism,moral skepticism,and epistemic propriety

Respondents to the argument from evil who follow Michael Bergmann’s development of skeptical theism hold that our failure to determine God’s reasons for permitting evil does not disconfirm theism (i.e. render theism less probable on the evidence of evil than it would be if merely evaluated against our background knowledge) at all. They claim that such a thesis follows from the very plausible claim that (ST) we have no good reason to think our access to the realm of value is representative of the full realm of value. There are two interpretations of ST’s strength, the stronger of which leads skeptical theists into moral skepticism and the weaker of which fails to rebut the argument from evil. As I demonstrate, skeptical theists avoid the charge of moral skepticism while also successfully rebutting the argument from evil only by embracing an equivocation between these two interpretations of ST. Thus, as I argue, skeptical theists are caught in a troubling dilemma: they must choose between moral skepticism and failure to adequately respond to the argument from evil.     

“THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS”: KANT ON THE HANG ZUM BÖSEN AND THE UNIVERSAL EVIL OF HUMANITY

This paper offers a new interpretation of the propensity to evil and its relation to Kant's claim that the human race is universally evil. Unlike most of its competitors, the interpretation presented here neither trivializes Kant's claims about the universal evil of humanity nor attributes a position to him that is incompatible with his repeated insistence that we are blameworthy for actions only when we could have acted differently. This interpretation also accounts for a number of otherwise bewildering claims in the Religion and makes sense of the analogy Kant draws between the propensity to evil and addiction.     

Philosophical Methodology and Conceptions of Evil Action

There is considerable philosophical dispute about what it takes for an action to be evil. The methodological assumption underlying this dispute is that there is a single, shared folk conception of evil action deployed amongst culturally similar people. Employing empirical research the authors undertook, this article suggests that this assumption is false. There exist, amongst the folk, numerous conceptions of evil action. Hence, the authors argue, philosophical research is most profitably spent in two endeavours. First, in determining which (if any) conception of evil action we have prudential or moral (or both) reason to deploy and, second, in determining whether we could feasibly come to adopt that conception as the single shared conception given our psychological make‐up and the content of the conceptions currently deployed.     

Anti-Luminosity: Four Unsuccessful Strategies

Adam Morton, Stephen de Wijze, Hillel Steiner, and Eve Garrard have defended the view that evil action is qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. By this, they do not that mean that evil actions feel different to ordinary wrongs, but that they have motives or effects that are not possessed to any degree by ordinary wrongs. Despite their professed intentions, Morton and de Wijze both offer accounts of evil action that fail to identify a clear qualitative difference between evil and ordinary wrongdoing. In contrast, both Steiner's and Garrard's accounts of evil do point to qualitative distinctions between kinds of action, but it is implausible that either account correctly characterizes evil. The most plausible accounts maintain that evil actions have a necessary connection to extreme harms, and this suggests that evil is not qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing.     

Dispositional accounts of evil personhood

It is intuitively plausible that not every evildoer is an evil person. In order to make sense of this intuition we need to construct an account of evil personhood in addition to an account of evil action. Some philosophers have offered aggregative accounts of evil personhood, but these do not fit well with common intuitions about the explanatory power of evil personhood, the possibility of moral reform, and the relationship between evil and luck. In contrast, a dispositional account of evil personhood can allow that evil is explanatory, that an evil person can become good, and that luck might prevent evil persons from doing evil or cause non-evil persons to do evil. Yet the dispositional account of evil personhood implies that some evil persons are blameless, which seems to clash with the intuition that evil persons deserve our strongest moral condemnation. Moreover, since it is likely that a large proportion of us are disposed to perform evil actions in some environments, the dispositional account threatens to label a large proportion of people evil. In this paper I consider a range of possible modifications to the dispositional account that might bring it more closely into alignment with our intuitions about moral condemnation and the rarity of evil persons. According to the most plausible of these theories, S is an evil person if S is strongly disposed to perform evil actions when in conditions that favour S’s autonomy.     

Apes are intuitive statisticians

Inductive learning and reasoning, as we use it both in everyday life and in science, is characterized by flexible inferences based on statistical information: inferences from populations to samples and vice versa. Many forms of such statistical reasoning have been found to develop late in human ontogeny, depending on formal education and language, and to be fragile even in adults. New revolutionary research, however, suggests that even preverbal human infants make use of intuitive statistics. Here, we conducted the first investigation of such intuitive statistical reasoning with non-human primates. In a series of 7 experiments, Bonobos, Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans drew flexible statistical inferences from populations to samples. These inferences, furthermore, were truly based on statistical information regarding the relative frequency distributions in a population, and not on absolute frequencies. Intuitive statistics in its most basic form is thus an evolutionarily more ancient rather than a uniquely human capacity.     

A puzzle about visualization

Visual imagination (or visualization) is peculiar in being both free, in that what we imagine is up to us, and useful to a wide variety of practical reasoning tasks. How can we rely upon our visualizations in practical reasoning if what we imagine is subject to our whims? The key to answering this puzzle, I argue, is to provide an account of what constrains the sequence in which the representations featured in visualization unfold—an account that is consistent with its freedom. Three different proposals are outlined, building on theories that link visualization to sensorimotor predictive mechanisms (e.g., “efference copies,” “forward models”). Each sees visualization as a kind of reasoning, where its freedom consists in our ability to choose the topic of the reasoning. Of the three options, I argue that the approach many will find most attractive—that visualization is a kind of “off-line” perception, and is therefore in some sense misrepresentational—should be rejected. The two remaining proposals both conceive of visualization as a form of sensorimotor reasoning that is constitutive of one’s commitments concerning the way certain kinds of visuomotor scenarios unfold. According to the first, these commitments impinge on one’s web of belief from without, in the manner of normal perceptual experience; according to the second, these commitments just are one’s (occurrent) beliefs about such generalizations. I conclude that, despite being initially counterintuitive, the view of visualization as a kind of occurrent belief is the most promising.     

The trauma of evil and the traumatological conception of forgiveness

In recent years there has been widespread interest in assimilating forgiveness into a rational conception of the moral life. This project usually construes forgiveness as a way of “moving past” evil and resuming the moral narrative it disrupted. But to develop a philosophical sound conception of forgiveness, we must recognize that moral evil is world-shattering and cannot be assimilated into the moral narrative of our lives. It is not an event that happens in one’s world but to one’s world. In this respect it is similar to death as Heidegger has described it. But, contrary to what Heidegger implies, evil is more traumatic than death because, unlike the latter, it shatters moral reasoning and moral narrative. Evil is a monstrosity; it traumatizes historical existence by impossibilizing the future. A philosophical account of forgiveness must therefore be traumatological: recognizing the traumatizing impact that evil has on historicity, it has provide us a heuristic that will help us to imagine the unimaginable possibility of transforming historical horror into good.     

Yearning for certainty and the critique of medicine as “science”

A debate has simmered concerning the nature of clinical reasoning, especially diagnostic reasoning: Is it a “science” or an “art”? The trend since the seventeenth century has been to regard medical reasoning as scientific reasoning, and the most advanced clinical reasoning is the most scientific. However, in recent years, several scholars have argued that clinical reasoning is clearly not “science” reasoning, but is in fact a species of narratival or hermeneutical reasoning. The study reviews this dispute, and argues that in a theoretical sense, the dispute rests upon a naïve—but very popular—caricature of what constitutes “science reasoning.” But, if the dispute rests upon just such a caricature, why is it so persistent? The study concludes by suggesting that we, as patients and as physicians, have deep psychological tendencies that incline us to adopt the very naïve “science” concept/model of diagnostic reasoning, even if (or when) we understand its inaptness.     

Heuristic thinking and human intelligence: a commentary on Marewski,Gaissmaier and Gigerenzer

Marewski, Gaissmaier and Gigerenzer (2009) present a review of research on fast and frugal heuristics, arguing that complex problems are best solved by simple heuristics, rather than the application of knowledge and logical reasoning. We argue that the case for such heuristics is overrated. First, we point out that heuristics can often lead to biases as well as effective responding. Second, we show that the application of logical reasoning can be both necessary and relatively simple. Finally, we argue that the evidence for a logical reasoning system that co-exists with simpler heuristic forms of thinking is overwhelming. Not only is it implausible a priori that we would have evolved such a system that is of no use to us, but extensive evidence from the literature on dual processing in reasoning and judgement shows that many problems can only be solved when this form of reasoning is used to inhibit and override heuristic thinking.     

Weighing evils: the C. S. Lewis approach

It is often argued that the great quantity of evil in our world makes God’s existence less likely than a lesser quantity would, and this, presumably, because the probability that some evils are gratuitous increases as the overall quantity of evil increases. Often, an additive approach to quantifying evil is employed in such arguments. In this paper, we examine C. S. Lewis’ objection to the additive approach, arguing that although he is correct to reject this approach, there is a sense in which he underestimates the quantity of pain. However, the quantity of pain in that sense does not significantly increase the probability that some pain is gratuitous. Therefore, the quantitative argument likely fails.     

AN EPISTEMICALLY DISTANT GOD? A CRITIQUE OF JOHN HICK'S RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE HIDDENNESS*

God is thought of as hidden in at least two ways. Firstly, God's reasons for permitting evil, particularly instances of horrendous evil, are often thought to be inscrutable or beyond our ken. Secondly, and perhaps more problematically, God's very existence and love or concern for us is often thought to be hidden from us (or, at least, from many of us on many occasions). But if we assume, as seems most plausible, that God's reasons for permitting evil will (in many, if not most, instances) be impossible for us to comprehend, would we not expect a loving God to at least make his existence or love sufficiently clear to us so that we would know that there is some good, albeit inscrutable, reason why we (or others) are permitted to suffer? In this paper I examine John Hick's influential response to this question, a response predicated on the notion of ‘epistemic distance’: God must remain epistemically distant and hence hidden from us so as to preserve our free will. Commentators of Hick's work, however, disagree as to whether the kind of free will that is thought to be made possible by epistemic distance is the freedom to believe that God exists, or the freedom to choose between good and evil, or the freedom to enter into a personal relationship with God. I argue that it is only the last of these three varieties of free will that Hick has in mind. But this kind of freedom, I go on to argue, does not necessitate an epistemically distant God, and so the problem of divine hiddenness remains unsolved.     

Double effect,all over again: The case of Sister Margaret McBride

As media reports have made widely known, in November 2009, the ethics committee of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, permitted the abortion of an eleven-week-old fetus in order to save the life of its mother. This woman was suffering from acute pulmonary hypertension, which her doctors judged would prove fatal for both her and her previable child. The ethics committee believed abortion to be permitted in this case under the so-called principle of double effect, but Thomas J. Olmsted, the bishop of Phoenix, disagreed with the committee and pronounced its chair, Sister Margaret McBride, excommunicated latae sententiae, “by the very commission of the act.” In this article, I take the much discussed Phoenix case as an occasion to subject the principle of double effect to another round of philosophical scrutiny. In particular, I examine the third condition of the principle in its textbook formulation, namely, that the evil effect in question may not be the means to the good effect. My argument, in brief, is that the textbook formulation of the principle does not withstand philosophical scrutiny. Nevertheless, in the end, I do not claim that we should then “do away” with the principle altogether. Instead, we do well to understand it within the context of casuistry, the tradition of moral reasoning from which it issued.     

The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity

abstract   As history shows, some human beings are capable of acting very immorally. ¹ Technological advance and consequent exponential growth in cognitive power means that even rare evil individuals can act with catastrophic effect. The advance of science makes biological, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction easier and easier to fabricate and, thus, increases the probability that they will come into the hands of small terrorist groups and deranged individuals. Cognitive enhancement by means of drugs, implants and biological (including genetic) interventions could thus accelerate the advance of science, or its application, and so increase the risk of the development or misuse of weapons of mass destruction. We argue that this is a reason which speaks against the desirability of cognitive enhancement, and the consequent speedier growth of knowledge, if it is not accompanied by an extensive moral enhancement of humankind. We review the possibilities for moral enhancement by biomedical and genetic means and conclude that, though it should be possible in principle, it is in practice probably distant. There is thus a reason not to support cognitive enhancement in the foreseeable future. However, we grant that there are also reasons in its favour, but we do not attempt to settle the balance between these reasons for and against. Rather, we conclude that if research into cognitive enhancement continues, as it is likely to, it must be accompanied by research into moral enhancement.     

WHAT SIN IS: A DIFFERENTIAL ANALYSIS

Sin is clearly evil, but what differentiates sin from evil? The idea that sin is moral evil is widely held, but important theological arguments have been posed against it. Theologians who reject sin moralism have, however, found it hard to distinguish sin from evil—partially because they share hidden assumptions with sin moralists. Helped by a philosophical theology of deep responsibility, I propound sin responsibilism: sin is culpable evil. This analysis of sin is open to multiple accounts of sin's relation to morality or theories of responsibility, and thus of sin's scope—but I defend a non‐moralistic, compatibilist sin responsibilism.     

Reasoning's relation to bodily action

Recent philosophical work on the relation between reasoning and bodily action is dominated by two views. It is orthodox to have it that bodily actions can be at most causally involved in reasoning. Others have it that reasoning can constitutively involve bodily actions, where this is understood as a matter of non-mental bodily events featuring as constituents of practical reasoning. Reflection on cases of reasoning out-loud suggests a neglected alternative on which both practical and theoretical reasoning can have bodily actions as constituents, where such bodily actions themselves amount to contentful mental events. Furthermore, the natural lines of resistance to this view trade on type-token errors, or on a questionable common-factor assumption.     

Human reasoning: Some possible effects of availability

This paper discusses some possible ways in which the availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973) may mediate subjects' responses to experimental ‘reasoning’ tasks. A brief review of some effects of availability in other areas is given and then the application of availability to reasoning data is considered with respect to problems employing both ‘thematic’ and ‘abstract’ content.In the case of thematic content, it is argued, with reference to a variety of studies, that to produce a differential effect (to abstract content), the content must provide available cues, resulting from the subjects' experience. Differential effects of content are thus interpreted as differential effects of availability. When abstract content is used, there are cues available from the experimental situation itself, and it is shown that several known error tendencies readily lend themselves to an explanation in terms of availability.In the final section, it is pointed out that a focus on available cues, rather than logical structure, provides a psychological, rather than logical, approach to human reasoning. It is argued that a bias may be psychologically, although not logically, optimal in that it may often produce correct responses in ‘real life’. Accordingly, the possible real life utility of availability is considered, and several ways in which the bias may lead to usually correct decisions are discussed. Given this, it is argued that availability is an effective heuristic and that observed biases on a range of experimental tasks may thus be interpreted as resulting from the application of a behavior that is optimal within the limits of human cognition. However, it is concluded that limitations in both deterministic and probabilistic problem solving may lead to a consistent, but erroneous, view of the world.     

Light and Shadow as a Function of the Religious Psyche: The Evil Eye

Psychology today has a tendency to pathologize anything which deviates from the Cartesian medical paradigm. It is a great injustice of the field to rob the psyche of its shadow, its evil side. The late Rabbi Shneerson spoke about this aspect of personality in terms of light and shadow (good and evil) and how we need to allow both in an attempt to create balance which then leads to harmony. This paper is an attempt to look at the ancient struggle of good and evil in terms of the Etz Chayim, or the Tree of Life. The ancient knowledge of Judaism has much to offer the young field of psychology concerning human nature and life cycle. The evil eye as a religious function of the psyche is an attempt to expound on the importance of taking the full spectrum of human nature into account, seeing and understanding the entire picture. Perhaps we can change from pathology to the stories of our monsters or gremlins and what they have to teach us. It is only through allowing the light and the dark to co-exist, that we can create a place for balance and unity. Lectures extensively at universities, to professional organizations, and community groups