Well, what’s so bad about it, either? Do you think the turtle in the egg suffers a great deal, enough to ground the conclusion that the existence of turtles therefore overall brings more bad than good to the world? It would certainly be a bummer for turtle conservation efforts if this turned out to be true, so I hope you won’t go that far.
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Thanks for your opinion Stephen! Good to read your comments. It is interesting that we can agree on this despite our different opinions regarding God and Christianity.
I hope that my paper will lead to people distinguishing the problem of scale from evolution - so you and John may be right that it would have been worth emphasizing this more, and also bringing it up again in the conclusion. I still like the term “evolutionary history” myself there though. In the conclusion, it’s not meant to bring to mind only the conventional way the problem of scale has been expressed, but also the problem of natural selection. But, I will have to think about this again for future publications.
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Tim, I will stop responding to you after this, so feel free to have the last word. But let me just reiterate once again that Nagasawa’s article does not provide any model of atheist cognition, so your criticisms are off base. There are different studies that go in that direction - but, researchers of atheism would emphasize there is probably no single model of atheist cognition, just as there is no single psychology of religion.
I will also submit an alternative explanation for why the existential problem of evil, as it relates to evolution, does not bother people more. Most people probably just do not really believe that nature is evil or that the existence of animals is overall bad. This just does not match most people’s experience of the world, and their awe and appreciation of animal life. Thus, the most pessimistic views become simply a theoretical problem that some people use to criticize theism, in a way that is inconsistent with many of their other beliefs and behaviours, such as gratitude for existing etc.
However, if the most pessimistic descriptions of evolution were correct, then I would continue to think that really believing in them would have a psychological cost. Then, we would be living in something surprisingly close to a lovecraftian universe. Here’s how H. P. Lovecraft put things in The Call of Cthulhu:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
So, as a thought experiment, let’s suppose we live in a lovecraftian universe, where the old gods from Cthulhu onwards exist (so, the world is hostile, evil, ugly, horrifying, cruel, indifferent to human and animal suffering etc. as stated in the most pessimistic description of evolution). But yet, most people live their lives gratefully, optimistically, etc. I would submit that the most plausible explanation for such existential optimism would be just that most people do not really know or believe the world is evil - the knowledge of Cthulhu is just too remote and difficult. But, I would also agree with Lovecraft and Nagasawa that for those who do come to believe that the universe is hostile in this way, this will have psychological costs and present a challenge of existential evil. Once discovered and really believed, we cannot just ignore the existence of Cthulhu and go on as if it makes no difference.
Anyway, in our actual world Cthulhu does not exist, and neither does evolution add to the problem of evil. And that also helps explain why people are not concerned that much with these particular existential evils. There are plenty of other, real existential evils though - I would (perhaps unsurprisingly) start that list with human sin and death rather than evolution. But, that would be a separate conversation.
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Are you saying a premature death isn’t a bad thing if it somehow “pays” for lives of the few that make it to adulthood? That seems to be basically what you are saying.
I wonder if this argument can be made without bringing out some rather obvious contradictions if we start talking things like abortion, or infanticide.
It occurs to me that if you think an animal’s life is a net good, it’s premature end must be preventing a lot of additional good in the world. And that in a more ideal world, an excess of offspring would not need to be produced so that only a few can make it to the next generation.
So the many offspring must die young so the few can live through reproductive age and produce the next generation, most of which must die young too so the cycle can repeat.
That doesn’t add good to the world as best I can see. It seems to me to highlight why we think dying young is a bad thing.
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He’s wrong, for the simple (and common) reason that he’s assuming that atheists have some consistency of view beyond rejection of religion. We don’t. There is nothing in atheism that can lead to the view that suffering is bad, so there can be no problem of suffering for atheists.[1]
Some individual atheists might think this is a problem, but that would result from whatever worldviews and opinions they have adopted in addition to their atheism.
I’ll also say that antinatalism is unlikely to be adopted by anyone atheist or otherwise, who is trying to make the world a better place - because what’s the point of the world being a better place if there’s no-one in it?
I’ll note that what Rope is describing as the ‘Problem of Evil’ is actually the ‘Problem of Suffering’, which is not the same thing. ↩︎
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I didn’t say there was anything bad about it.
You said that animals that die young “add good to the world … their existence is good and beautiful”. But if you can’t say what that good actually is, your claim is vacuous.
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@Rope, as I have found your replies to me to be less-than-responsive, I’m not sure I will notice the difference.
It matters little to me whether we call it a “model of atheist cognition”, or something else. What I was talking about is how Nagasawa imagines atheists think.
But my point, which you failed to “respond” to, was that “systemic evil” yields no “existential problem”. Your “explanation” would therefore seem superfluous.
This claim would appear to have no substantive basis.
Thank you for that baseless and gratuitous imputation of the worst possible motives to your opponents Rope.
Nobody is suggesting that we live in a “lovecraftian universe” Rope. That is simply a straw-man caricature.
At worst, we are simply raising the possibility that life as a whole (and not necessarily even life for humans) is, on the balance, weighted more towards suffering than happiness.
But I am at loss why, if this were true, I would be expected to go into complete existential meltdown – such that my failure to meltdown is taken as evidence that it isn’t true.
It would almost seem that Nagasawa is formulating some weird form of panpsychism, such that the suffering of every animal that has ever lived must weigh on every mind.
I have encountered this view only from young-earth creationists as an argument against deep time, i.e. in favor of a shorter period of suffering, and that due not to God but to the fallen world.
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You wouldn’t be agreeing with HP Lovecraft, you’d be agreeing with Francis Wayland Thirston, a fictional character living in a fictional reality where unpronouncable horrors in non-Euclidean dwellings get thwarted by steamships.
You might as well agree with Gandalf that “Hobbits really are amazing creatures”.
Quite so. They’ll lose 1d10 Sanity points.
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I believe the claim is that, without belief in God, we’d be so hideously guilty and depressed that animals suffered hundreds of millions of years ago (and today) that we’d stop having children. So the fact that we’re not hideously guilty and depressed is taken as ‘evidence’ that animals didn’t suffer so much hundreds of millions of years ago (and today) – and possibly that we secretly believe in God.
Belief in God seems to either mean that animals didn’t suffer, or that God has the “right” to make them suffer.
This accusation is not remotely credible. It’s a laughable mischaracterization of what @Rope wrote, and even a glance at the text you quoted would show that. Your attacks on @Rope are a disgrace.
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Stephen, you are entitled to your own opinion.
I would however point out that one of the “most pessimistic views” that Nagasawa explicitly mentioned was that of Darwin (expressed in a letter to Asa Grey):
With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.—I am bewildered.—I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I should wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.
Do you think Darwin was merely presenting “simply a theoretical problem that [he uses] to criticize theism, in a way that is inconsistent with many of [his] other beliefs and behaviours”?
Rope was accusing everybody who argues in favor of the ‘Problem of Natural Evil’ of intellectual dishonesty and/or self-deception.
This is what I find “a disgrace”. Your mileage may vary.
I would like to make the point that this is somewhat personal for me.
My own apostacy, thirty years ago, resulted from a realisation that I could not square the world I observe with an omnibenevolent God. This was very traumatic for me at the time, and deeply personal, so I didn’t discuss it with anybody at that time. It certainly was not “simply a theoretical problem … use[d] to criticize theism”.
I would not go so far as to say that I can definitively state that the suffering is greater than the happiness. My default intuitive view was (and still is) that there is some rough form of balance. But I can feel sympathy for those who see an imbalance towards suffering.
But I see nothing inconsistent between either of these views, and being “grateful” (or “appreciative” would probably be a better word for me, personally) for what fragments of happiness I find.
And this makes me take a very jaundiced view of a pair of out-of-touch philosophers suggesting how I should feel, and that there’s something wrong, dishonest or “inconsistent” in me feeling the way I do.
Humans do not live in Douglas Adams’ Total Perspective Vortex, and their emotional state is not based on the sum of the balance of all suffering and happiness in the universe ever.
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Hey @Tim,
While I don’t think that’s a fair picture of what @Rope was saying, I do totally empathize with your story and the personal nature of these topics. Thanks for sharing that.
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You should read the paper or even the quoted sections from before - that’s not what I am arguing. The point is that you have to argue that animal lives on average add disvalue to the world in order for get the argument from scale going. It’s not enough that bad things just prevent good things - turtles, for example, would have to overall add more disvalue than value to the world. I don’t think people really believe that, though.
This does not solve the problem of evil, as emphasized many times already. It just means that the scale added deep time is not what people should be focusing on.
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Quite so. They’ll lose 1d10 Sanity points.
Yes, and I think it is quite credible that they should do so, and it seems Lovecraft means Thirston’s comments to reflect a rational attitude to that world.
Lovecraft also seems to have believed that science has a similar, though weaker effect in the actual world, due to the cosmic insignificance of humanity in the scientific picture of the world. Lovecraftian horrors are symbolic representations of this. I don’t think he is right about this, but I thought of this now as a fun analogy to think about in comparison to extremely pessimistic views of the cruelty of evolution.
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Yes, I think the assumption I was criticising in this thread is a very rare view (note: and distinct from the problem of scale in general). I am not sure if even any YEC’s actually believe it, or even any of the authors cited by Nagasawa. For example, Darwin’s views on nature and the problem of evil are certainly more nuanced than that. One can believe that the problem of evil is a real, serious problem without thinking that animal lives overall add more bad / disvalue than good to the world.
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I’m not sure that’s true. If the argument was “the more apparent cases of unnecessary suffering there are, the more likely that some are genuinely unnecessary” for instance then it’s obviously not necessary.
If it were argued that there are some species which on average add a net disvalue to the world, then the issue of scale would seem to apply, with no need for the more general claim.
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Thanks for the a good point. I address a related objection on p. 392-393 - that the variety of evolutionary history makes it unlikely that a theodicy will be repeatable. Nevertheless, I think it would definitely be an improvement on usual statements of the problem of scale to focus it on certain types of creatures or ways of life, rather than all of life. But then I would suspect the problem would be more with those features than with deep time as such. To argue that the world with deep time is worse and a young cosmos, one would also have to argue that the world with deep time has no counterbalancing good features.
I always wondered about this myself. It certainly is chauvinistic and unfair to our friends in the plant world…
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