Procreation and the Problem of Evil

Bartricks

Many people think it is implausible that an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god would create a universe like this one and then force innocent sentient creatures to live in it. I agree. Other things being equal that does seem quite implausible and thus I take it that the evils of the world do make it unreasonable to think it the creation of such a being.

Yet these same people - most of them, anyway - think nothing of creating innocent sentient life and forcing it to live in this place! That is, they agree that no omnipotent, omnisicent, morally good being would do such a thing. And then they do it themselves!

True, they did not create the universe into which they are forcing innocent sentient life to live. But really that wasn't the problem, was it? I mean, there seems nothing morally problematic in the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god creating a universe similar to this one but devoid of innocent sentient life. It was the act of creating innocent sentient life and forcing it to live in this world that seems incompatible with being omnipotent, omniscient and morally good.

True, we are not omnipotent. But we do have the god-like power to create innocent sentient life. And we (most of us in affluent western economies anyway) can freely decide whether to exercise it.

True, we are not omniscient. But we do know that the world is an evil place for innocent sentient life to live.

So it seems to me that if an omnipotent, omniscient being would demonstrate himself to be something short of morally good if he created innocent sentient life and made it live in this place, then we too demonstrate a moral failing if we create innocent sentient life and make it live in this place.

You can't have your cake and eat it. If there's a problem of evil for God, then there's a problem of evil for you if you've procreated. You knew this world is a place full of horrors that no good God would suffer innocent sentient beings to live in, yet you did precisely that: you created innocent sentient beings and made them live in it.

hachit

You can't have your cake and eat it. If there's a problem of evil for God, then there's a problem of evil for you if you've procreated. You knew this world is a place full of horrors that no good God would suffer innocent sentient beings to live in, yet you did precisely that: you created innocent sentient beings and made them live in it.

This entire argument is literal heresy. If you put forward it you are no longer taking about the God of abraham, which I assume you are because of the upper cases G in God.

jellyfish

And we (most of us in affluent western economies anyway) can freely decide whether to exercise it. — Bartricks

How free are we in this hypothetically godless world? Personally I think the world is godless, but I also think that we are animals who exaggerate our freedom. Freedom is a potent fiction. It's a vague goal. We want to be like God, above the disgusting machine of Nature.

Man distinguishes himself from Nature. This distinction of his is his God: the distinguishing of God from Nature is nothing else than the distinguishing of man from Nature. — Feuerbach

Bartricks

↪hachit

I am talking about an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good being, which is traditionally what the word 'God' with an upper case G denotes. But let's not get into a debate about labels.

Anyway, you can't refute someone by labeling what they've said heretical. Why would I care?

Bartricks

↪jellyfish

It is unclear to me how you are addressing my argument. You have just said some things about freedom. Relevance?

jellyfish

↪Bartricks

You said we can 'freely' decide. In the same way an addict can 'freely' decide to stop using --which is to say ideally or theoretically. And yet for much of the rest of the time we experience our fellow humans are bound by implicit 'laws' of human nature. People are free when we want to blame them, but bound when we want to forgive or predict them.

So godlessness suggests that man is another beast caught up in nature who more or less cannot violate the 'prime directive' of feed-to-breed.

Streetlight

Huh? Problem of evil is about the sheer existence of evil at all, not about forcing 'innocent, sentient beings' to live in a world.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

That's what creates the evil. As I said in the OP, imagine an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god creates a world similar to this one except that it is devoid of all innocent sentient life. So, there are still earthquakes and tidal waves and viruses, but no innocent sentient creatures to suffer from them.

Does that scenario create a problem of evil? No. The act of creating a universe like that is as morally innocuous as me, say, building a cathedral out of matchsticks.

So, what creates the problem of evil is the fact that introducing innocent sentient life into a universe such as this doesn't, on the face of it, appear to be the kind of thing a morally good person would do.

Bartricks

↪jellyfish

I still don't understand how you're addressing my argument.

Are you saying that no decisions are free and thus nothing we do is right or wrong, blameworthy or praiseworthy?

If so, then that's both implausible (for any case against free will is going to appeal to a claim that is less self-evident than our possession of free will) and too all-encompassing to be relevant.

TheWillowOfDarkness

↪Bartricks

I find something strange going on here.

What does the innocence of sentient creatures or otherwise have to to with the moral character of introducing life into the world? Should we find a way to make every baby a serial killer to allow our procreation to be moral?

Streetlight

That's what creates the evil — Bartricks

But it doesn't, on your own terms: the evil must be there for innocents to be 'introduced' to it. What creates the problem of evil is the existence of evil. Seems odd that this needs to be said.

Bartricks

↪TheWillowOfDarkness

If they're innocent, then they don't deserve to suffer or be treated unequally or lose their dignity.

Should we find a way to make every baby a serial killer to allow our procreation to be moral? — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, I don't see how that follows from anything I have said.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

No, a volcano erupting is not bad in and of itself. Or at least, it doesn't seem to be. But put a child on the slopes and then that eruption creates a very bad situation - for now it is causing an innocent sentient being to suffer.

Perhaps there can exist evils absent any sentient beings. But if so, they're not the kind that typically motivate the problem of evil.

Anyway, do you think that a god who creates a universe that is similar to ours but devoid of all innocent sentient life has done something morally bad?

Like I say, such an act seems as morally innocuous as me building a model railway.

TheWillowOfDarkness

↪Bartricks

I know... but my pointed question was directed at whether the non-innocent deserve to suffer or lose their dignity? If the only evil thing in the world is if innocent life suffers, there is a clear path for a moral procreation: make sure there is no innocent life. If we are all heinously torturing each other, life is apparently fantastic. Suffice to say, this seems a strange conclusion about morality.

jellyfish

↪Bartricks

You don't make it clear perhaps, but I re-read your OP and now I take it that you are rejecting the problem of evil in order to defend some kind of theism?

Streetlight

Anyway, do you think that a god who creates a universe that is similar to ours but devoid of all innocent sentient life has done something morally bad? — Bartricks

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? In any case, your OP is not about the problem of evil, but something perhaps tangental to it.

Bartricks

↪TheWillowOfDarkness

What's uncontroversial is that innocent sentient life does not deserve to suffer.

Whether guilty sentient life does is another matter. It's irrelevant. For what I've said in the OP is that what seems to create the problem of evil is that this world does not seem to be the kind of place an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good person would suffer innocent sentient life to live in (and thus this in turn implies that we - as beings who have the power to bestow life and knowledge enough of the world to know that it will subject those we force to live in it to many evils - ought not to suffer innocent sentient life to live in it).

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

It is about the problem of evil, as I've just explained. The evils of the world that seem to imply that it is not the creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good being are evils that are created by the insertion of innocent, sentient life into the world.

The philosopher Epicurus was the first to raise the problem, and he was a hedonist and thus cannot have considered the problem to consist of anything other than what I have said.

So it is about the problem of evil. And it is about procreation and the interesting implication that the problem has for human procreative activity.

Edit: I also do not understand your 'angels on the head of a pin' comment. I asked a question: do you think a world similar to this one but devoid of all innocent sentient life contains any evils?

Streetlight

Lol at anyone who thinks the PoE is a problem of procreation. Odd duck.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

You can't refute someone by lolling at them. That isn't philosophy, it is just rude.

I've explained why it raises a problem of evil for human procreation, haven't I?

Once more: it is not creating a universe like this one that creates the problem of evil (if you think otherwise, explain - for I have asked you twice now whether you think a universe like this but devoid of innocent sentient life would contain any evil but you haven't answered). But creating a universe like this one and, wait for it, making innocent sentient beings live in it creates the problem.

Why? Because an earthquake isn't bad until it starts maiming and killing people, yes? An eruption isn't bad until the larva starts burning people alive, yes? Viruses aren't bad until they make people ill. Innocent, sentient life.

Once more: it is introducing innocent sentient life into the world that creates the evils that we then think no good God would tolerate.

That is the problem Epicurus raised. it is the one discussed in the literature. The one the 'free will defence' is supposed to help alleviate. That one.

I am not denying that it might be possible for evils to exist absent innocent sentient life. But those evils are going to be controversial and are not the uncontroversial kind that motivate the problem of evil.

Streetlight

The problem of evil is simply that there is evil at all. Everything else is apologetics. If you think Epicurus wrote otherwise than lol at you again.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

Yes, and there's no evil in a world in which there's no innocent sentient life, yes?

Streetlight

Irrelavent, although perhaps a different, derivitive problem.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

And also 'no', the problem of evil is to do with apparently unjustified evils. But we'll put that aside.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

No, not remotely irrelevant. If the problem of evil is generated by the introduction of innocent sentient life into the world, then that's - you know - kinda relevant to the morality of human procreation. As explained in the OP.

Streetlight

If the problem of evil is generated... — Bartricks

The etiology of evil is irrelevant to the problem. Or rather, that's the question that demands solving, not the given from which it proceeds.

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

What's the other name for the problem of evil?

Bartricks

↪StreetlightX

It's also known as the Epicurean Paradox.

Can you distinguish the two versions of the problem?

180 Proof

For whom is 'evil' the problem?

Streetlight

↪Bartricks

Not here to play twenty questions. Just to point out your idiosyncrasy.

Bartricks

↪180 Proof

The original problem of evil is a problem for anyone who believes themselves and this world to be the creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good being.

What I am saying is that human procreators face the problem too.

Of course, saying that something is a problem is not to declare it insurmountable. However, in this case I think those who face the original problem have far greater resources to deal with it than human procreators do.

Procreation and the Problem of Evil

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