Swinburne on Natural Evil

In this video, I discuss Richard Swinburne's interesting argument from a need for knowledge which claims that the need for knowledge of the consequences of our moral actions necessitates some natural evils.

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[MoovySoundtrax]

I detect quite a few of shortcomings with Swinburne's argument.

The first problem, which many commenters have pointed out, is that P3 is false. Knowledge could simply be innate, the product of divine revelation, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be inferred from past experience.

But even if P3 were true, it does not follow that the past experience must involve any actual evil or harm. This is to do with P5. We could just as easily infer the consequences of moral actions from past experience with similar but morally neutral actions. For instance, if we witness a watermelon falling from a cliff and splattering on the ground, we could readily infer the consequences of pushing a person from said cliff. No actual person needs to be sacrificed to educate us on this matter.

A further problem with the argument is that, even if successful, it only seems to explain the first occurrence of each specific natural evil. Once the consequences of a natural evil are known, there would be no need for it to recur, and we would expect God to put an end to it. Yet this does not happen. It remains entirely possible to fall off a cliff by accident, even if you and every witness possesses full knowledge of the probable consequences.

Finally, I would simply observe that the induction from natural evil to an equivalent moral evil is not always apparent. What moral knowledge are we to gain from tornadoes, for instance, when we have no power to cause tornadoes? What of earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters? This is a problem because, according to Swinburne, the purpose of such natural evils is contingent upon us inferring their equivalence with moral evil. If we fail to make that inference, then their purpose is defeated along with God's reason for allowing them in the first place.

[crynne]

Premise 3 fails when we observe nature and ourselves and realise that not all knowledge requires past experiences. A newborn baby knows to suckle, a puppy, as soon as it's eyes open knows not to walk off the edge of a table

[nelsongalvan]

Thanks for posting this.
Natural evil causes people to survive. We don't want to get sick, starve, get injured, etc.
We prevent these problems through cooperation, organization, ideas of equality and justice, education, etc. These things help us survive.
On the other hand, I can survive by committing evil as well. If I steal money, I can feed myself and pay the rent.
Sometimes we have the choice between which way one wants to survive.

[Ansatz]

Step 5 is awfully restrictive about the sorts of induction that we might use to learn about consequences. It is assuming that an actual occurrence of evil is ultimately required to inform us about potential evil consequences, but it's not clear why that should be.

Swinburne doesn't require us to personally witness evil in order to learn of it, but if our information is second-hand then why do we need the original evil to have actually occurred? The person delivering the second-hand information could simply be inventing it, or she could be inspired by some supernatural force, or any number of possibilities other than having actually witnessed the evil.

There is a hidden premise in this argument that says something like: There is no supernatural guide capable of telling people about consequences of actions. We need to rule out all sources of information about evil other than observations of evil.

[gotinogaden]

Interesting argument! It would probably take a fair amount of time to evaluate it without an appeal to religious scripture, and attacking the premises on purely philosophical grounds. Still, since Swinburne appeals to "first-time evils" as a way of explaining the existence of _some_ natural evil(s), and since he does believe in the truth of the Christian story, it makes sense to try and find some tension between the former and the latter. Let us conceed that the argument is successful, and that the existence of some natural evils could be explained by it. First and foremost, one of the core claims in the argument itself is that moral agency and the freedom to it is very tightly linked to some natural and downright bad state of affairs, because we've already accepted that "the freedom to bring about a good or evil state of affairs cannot be had by an agent unless there exist some natural evil." The implication is that moral accountability and blameworthiness on part of moral agents is developed through an inductive process. But now an issue seems to crop up almost immediately: according to Scripture, there was a _primeval_ event which marks the beginning of sinfulness and wickedness. We're not talking "Adam and Eve incident" here; remember the fall of the angels, the heavenly children of God. Well, it is reasonable to assume that since scriptural passages suggest that fallen angels will be cast into the fiery pits of Hell for wrongdoing and disobedience to God's will after being judged by the creator himself; thus, it is reasonable to assume that they had the necessary freedom and responsibility in making the choices and actions they took and made, respectively. But now we have to square this with the realization that the world was created perfect: there were no evils, death or suffering. At least, this is the picture which the opening pages of the Old Testament lay out. So, the question is how did the fallen angels took these fatal decisions when there was nothing to back that sort of decision? If evil was non-existent back then, then how could they be held accountable for their actions: after all, what past experience can be relied on in a world devoid of evil, including natural evil? If a proponent of Swinburne's argument wants to be consistent, then he must conclude that "the freedom to bring about a good or evil state of affairs" _can_ be had without needing past observations of the type Swinburne appeals to. Unless he/she believes that natural evils were with us from the very beginning, that is.


P. S. Btw, it should be "ex hypothesi" instead of "ex hypothesis".

[wimsweden]

Couldn't this knowledge be imparted via a dream? That is, the person who wants to commit the first instance of a type of evil has a dream about it beforehand that shows the implications? And doesn't this argument also presuppose that every type of moral evil has some type of equivalent natural evil? What type of natural evil would Swinburne point to to convince the first person to gossip that gossiping is not a good idea?

[kpta]

Evil or good by definition implies intent. As a result of a natural occurrence, let's say an earthquake, a falling rock might crush a coconut by chance. This is a random act of events with drastic consequences for the state in which the coconut continues it's existence, however it would obviously not question the precursors to it's current state. By that logic this random chain of events cannot be seen as moral or immoral.

An intelligent observer of these events might conclude that the effects of that rock on that coconut could be duplicated by using a similar force on a similar rock to a) crush more coconuts, or b) crush coconut-like objects (like the skull of a prey or rival). The observer could apply this knowledge to a non-coconut object (like a skull) to alter its current state, without fully understanding the consequences of his/her actions.

It follows that morality can be derived by observing and understanding the (consistent) result(s) of applying the same mechanics that crushed a coconut (random) to crush a skull (intent), without the need for the existence of a natural evil.

[PdottJOfficial]

This only speaks for certain natural evils, like accidents, what about tsunamis and earthquakes?

[Fkkize]

A clever argument indeed. Although it would explain the necessity of natural evil, it appears to me that it merely explains a necessary minimum of evil.What it does not achieve is to explain the recurring earth quakes, lightning storms etc.

[IncarceratedCow]

If I understand Swinburne, evil is necessary for freewill. I don't see that is it necessary to have a world with evil so that we are able to have the freewill to chose to gather sticks on the Sabbath.

[vwazp]

does anyone know if this argument has been successfully refuted by the philosophy academia?

[itsjustameme]

Actually the argument did not address why we have the natural evils you mentioned. I cannot practically use the existence of earthquakes to kill my neighbor in an act of moral evil because they exist as natural evils. Nor would it limit my free agency to be moral or immoral if earthquakes were to disappear. The argument makes no sense in explaining the existence of eathquakes.

[Overonator]

I don't understand the long term goal of this argument. Is it to establish the existence of a god? If so then apologists seem to think that lots of not so good arguments for the existence of god somehow come together and taken together add up to more than the sum of their parts. This Swinburne argument could work if the god that the theist wants is not a maximally good nor a maximally powerful nor a maximally knowledgeable god. After all a god with these 3 properties would obviate the need for humans to use induction to discover that some act is evil. This god could just convince them without anyone getting hurt. So this argument is incompatible with those 3 other properties many theists want their god to have.

And even if this argument works to show that some degree of natural evils is necessary, it doesn't explain the gratuitous levels of natural evil we can use induction to discover.

[JohnShrader]

Interesting. I'll have to relisten and digest it a bit more, but my gut says it's a decent argument.

[CosmicFaust]

This video is on "666" video views. Not a good sign LOL.

[Drigger]

The most infuriating thing about arguments from evil is PEOPLE NEVER DEFINE WHAT EVIL IS! Why is an earthquake 'evil'?

[maradenn]

Depressing to a believer who now realizes that if there is a god, that it is not good.

[outofturn]

Is there natural evil in heaven, if so it is not heaven, if not then an infinity without natural evil would imply that there is no free will in heaven.

If the angels revolted and that revolt was evil then they had to have free will, and if they had free will while living in heaven then there must have been natural evil preexisting in heaven.

These contradictions are inherent in the Christian mythos, not an argument again a theist god.