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Theodicy and Animal Pain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Peter Harrison
Peter Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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The existence of evil is compatible with the existence of God, most theists would claim, because evil either results from the activities of free agents, or it contributes in some way toward their moral development. According to the ‘free-will defence’, evil and suffering are necessary consequences of free-will. Proponents of the ‘soul-making argument’—a theodicy with a different emphasis—argue that a universe which is imperfect will nurture a whole range of virtues in a way impossible either in a perfect world, or in a totally evil one. The pain of animals is widely thought to constitute a major difficulty for both of these accounts, for if we ask whether the only evils present in the world result directly from the free actions of created agents, or contribute in some way to ‘soul-making’ of such agents, we are bound to admit that, on the face of it, much animal pain does not.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 64 , Issue 247 , January 1989 , pp. 79 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1989

References

1 Modern accounts of these theodicies may be found in Pantinga, Alvin, God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967) chs. 5 and 6Google Scholar; and Hick, John, Evil and the God of Love (London: Fontana, 1968).Google Scholar

2 Descartes, René, A Discourse on Method, trans. Veitch, John (London: Dent, 1957) pt. v (44ff.)Google Scholar; Letter CXCII (to Mersenne), in Oeuvres de Descartes, Adam, Charles and Tannery, Paul (eds) (Paris: L. Cerf, 1897–1913) III, 85.Google Scholar

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4 Bayle, , ‘Rorarius’, note ‘C’Google Scholar, ibid., 220.

5 See, e.g., Lewis, C. S., The Problem of Pain (London: Fontana, 1957), 121–124Google Scholar; Mascall, E. L., Christian Theology and Natural Science (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1956) 301–302Google Scholar; Webb, D. B., Why Does God Permit Evil? (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1941) 33–35.Google Scholar

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23 Wittgenstein once asked what difference it would make if anaesthetics only made us forget pain. This example is developed from that question.

24 If I read him correctly, this is a line of argument which C. S. Lewis also adopts. See The Problem of Pain, 119f.Google Scholar

25 Mackintosh, Nicholas, ‘Learning’, Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour, 337.Google Scholar