In Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part I and Part II, I discussed Michael Tooley’s deontological argument from evil. In The Problem of Evil Peter Van Inwagen makes a reference to the type of argument I proposed. In this post I intend to make some critical commentary on Van Inwagen’s comments.

Tooley states, “most contemporary formulations of the argument from evil … are formulated in terms of axiological concepts – specifically, in terms of the goodness or badness, the desirability or undesirability, of states of affairs.”[1] [Emphasis original]

Tooley then argues that axiological formulations of the argument from evil are problematic. Any attempt to argue that a perfectly good being would not fail to prevent some evil or undesirable state of affairs will rely on “controversial ethical claims” that are “within ethical theory, deeply controversial, and likely to be rejected by many theists, and others.”[2]

In response to this problem Tooley proposes, instead, a deontological formulation of the argument from evil; “rather than employing concepts that focus upon the value or disvalue of states of affairs, one instead uses concepts that focus upon the rightness and wrongness of actions, and upon the–rightmaking or wrongmaking–properties that determine whether an action is one that ought to be performed or ought not to be performed.”[3]

Tooley summarises, “the basic idea involved in a deontological formulation of the argument from evil” as follows,

The basic idea involved in a deontological formulation of the argument from evil is then as follows. First, it is claimed that the world contains certain states of affairs such that any action of allowing any of those states of affairs to obtain would involve one or more known wrongmaking characteristics that would outweigh the sum total of known rightmaking characteristics that the action would have. If this is right, then any such action is prima facie wrong, relative to the total information that one presently has concerning the action’s rightmaking and wrongmaking characteristics. Secondly, the crucial question is then whether there is any sound inductive argument that will take one from the conclusion that such an action is prima facie wrong to the further conclusion that the action is probably wrong all things considered. If there is, one will then have an ‘inductively sound’ version of the evidential argument from evil.[4] [Emphasis original]

What is crucial for my purposes is the claim that “any action of allowing any of those states of affairs [will possess] wrongmaking characteristics.” [Emphasis added] By “any action” Tooley means to include not just actions by human beings or other creatures sufficiently like human beings but also actions performed by God. Tooley’s argument then assumes that both human and divine actions can possess wrongmaking properties, and hence, both humans and God have duties.

I argued in Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument Part II that this assumption is questionable. I noted that, on a divine command theory of ethics, “an action or kind of action is right or wrong if and only if and because it is commanded or forbidden by God.”[5] It follows then that God’s own actions can have wrongmaking properties only if God issues commands to himself to refrain from these actions and then violates his own commands. It is dubious that God would have the kind of weakness of the will this picture suggests, and hence, if a divine command theory is true it is dubious that any of God’s actions have wrongmaking properties or that God has duties.

I also noted that many leading theists have offered sophisticated and rigorous defences of a divine command theory so it remains a serious option for theists in ethical theory. Tooley’s own deontological argument from evil relies on “controversial ethical claims” that are, “within ethical theory, deeply controversial, and likely to be rejected by many theists.” Given this, Tooley’s position is no better than the axiological formulation that he rejects.

In The Problem of Evil Peter Van Inwagen makes some comments in a footnote that address this line of argument. In formulating the problem of evil Van Inwagen states, “I’m going to assume that there is an objective moral standard, that this standard applies to both God and to creatures.”[6] By objective standard here I will assume that Van Inwagen is referring to the existence of duties, and hence, is contending that God has deontological obligations to act in certain ways. Van Inwagen is aware that some theists “resist the idea that there is an objective moral standard that ‘applies to God’.”[7] In response to this position he offers two important responses, which I will address in turn under the headings God and Moral Perfection and Non-Deontological Arguments from Evil.

God and Moral Perfection

Van Inwagen suggest the idea that if God has no duties then “presumably, there is no such property or attribute as “moral perfection”. … If there is no such attribute as moral perfection, the aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit will not be morally perfect–and not because it will be morally imperfect, but because there will not be any such thing for it to be.”[8]

Van Inwagen seems to hold that unless there is “an objective moral standard, that … applies to both God and to creatures” it follows that God cannot have the property of being morally perfect. On the face of it, it is unclear why Van Inwagen thinks this. Earlier in the same book he defines moral perfection as follows:

God has no moral defect whatever. It follows that he is in no way a subject of possible moral criticism. If someone says something of the form, ‘God did x and it was wrong of God to do x‘, that person must be mistaken: either God did not in fact do x or it was not wrong of God to do x.”[9]

It is unclear why the absence of divine duties entails, according to this definition of moral perfection, that God would not be morally perfect. If there is no “moral standard that applies to God” then God will not display any moral defect by disobeying such a standard as one cannot disobey a standard that does not exist. Similarly, if God has no duties then it is impossible for him to act contrary to these duties, and hence, impossible for God to do wrong. On the face of it then, the absence of divine duties is compatible with Van Inwagen’s definition of moral perfection.

That said, I think Van Inwagen means to assert something a bit different here. He is proposing is that a person can be morally perfect, in the sense he defines these terms, only if there is an objective moral standard that applies to that person and if they perfectly conform to that standard. This is what he means when he says, “God has no moral defect whatsoever,” God never goes against the standard of right and wrong that applies to him;  God has duties and acts in accord with them. Similarly, when he affirms, “If someone says something of the form, ‘God did x and it was wrong of God to do x‘, that person must be mistaken: either God did not in fact do x or it was not wrong of God to do x”,⁹ he is suggesting that God has duties and never, in any possible world, acts contrary to them. If moral perfection is understood in this deontological fashion, it follows that if God has no duties he cannot be morally perfect. Of course he cannot be morally imperfect either; to be morally imperfect there would have to be a moral standard that applies to God that God acts contrary to. On the deontological conception of moral perfection, the property of moral perfection simply does not apply to God.

Van Inwagen is correct that, according to the deontological conception of moral perfection he sketches, the denial of divine duties entails that God is not morally perfect. However, divine command theorists have contended that this really does not amount to much of a criticism because there seems no reason as to why God’s moral perfection has to be spelled out deontologically. If God does not have duties, it does not follow that he does not or cannot have certain character traits such as being loving, truthful, benevolent, compassionate, long-suffering, just, that he cannot possess hatred of actions that are, in fact, unjust and various other attributes that are traditionally attributed to God. Van Inwagen is aware of this point,

But no doubt anyone who felt compelled to remove “moral perfection” from the list of properties a “something” must have if it is to be something than which a greater cannot be conceived (having been convinced by some argument or other that there was no objective moral standard) would want to “replace” it with some attribute whose existence did not presuppose an objective moral standard: “benevolent in the highest possible degree”, perhaps, or “exhibiting perfect love toward all creatures.[10]

If God is not “morally perfect” in the deontological sense that Van Inwagen defines this term, this does not preclude attributing goodness in some non-deontological sense to God in a meaningful way, hence, in the absence of any argument as to why God’s goodness must be construed in a deontological sense, it is hard to see any cogent objection here.

Non-Deontological Arguments from Evil

Van Inwagen’s second response to those who “resist the idea” that God has duties is to note that denying divine duties does not provide an answer to all versions of the argument from evil. Suppose that one adopts a non-deontological account of God’s goodness, such as those mentioned above, and understands God’s goodness not in terms of fulfilment of duties but in terms of certain character traits then non-deontological versions of the argument from evil are still available that do not rely on the assumption that God has duties. He states,

No doubt, the existence of vast amounts of truly horrible evil raises problems for those who believe in an omnipotent being who is benevolent in the highest possible degree (or whose love for all creatures is perfect) that are essentially the same as the problems it raises for those who believe in an omnipotent and morally perfect being.¹⁰

On this point Van Inwagen is correct. Denying that God has duties does not constitute a rebuttal to all forms of the argument from evil. It does, however, offer a rebuttal to the specifically deontological formulations of the argument, such as those proposed by Michael Tooley, and this is an important conclusion. Tooley formulated a deontological version precisely because he believed that other more axiological formulations of the argument are problematic. He believed that formulating it in deontological terms improved the argument and made it more plausible. If a divine command theory of ethics is a correct or defensible theistic account of obligation then this particular attempt to improve the argument fails.

[1] Michael Tooley “Does God Exist?” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) 70-147, 105.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid 106.

[4] Ibid 116.

[5] W K Frankena Ethics 2nd edn (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973) 28.

[6] Peter Van Inwagen The Problem of Evil: The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of St Andrews in 2003 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 161.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid, aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit is Latin for “something greater than which nothing can be conceived” referring to Anselm’s famous definition of God in the Proslogion.

[9] Inwagen, supra n 6, 26-27.

[10] Ibid, 161.

RELATED POSTS:

Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part I

Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument Part II

Tags:   Divine Command Theory · Michael Tooley · Peter Van Inwagen · Problem of Evil1 Comment