Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T05:42:46.500Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The secular problem of evil: an essay in analytic existentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2019

PAUL PRESCOTT Open the ORCID record for PAUL PRESCOTT [Opens in a new window]
PAUL PRESCOTT*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, 13244, USA
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The existence of evil is often held to pose philosophical problems only for theists. I argue that the existence of evil gives rise to a philosophical problem which confronts theist and atheist alike. The problem is constituted by the following claims: (1) Successful human beings (i.e. those meeting their basic prudential interests) are committed to a good-enough world; (2) the actual world is not a good-enough world (i.e. sufficient evil exists). It follows that human beings must either (3a) maintain a state of epistemic ignorance regarding the nature of the actual world or (3b) abandon their basic prudential interests. Theists resolve this problem by rejecting (2), only to confront the problem of evil as it is traditionally understood. Successful atheists also reject (2), but without adequate grounds for doing so.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 101 - 119
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, M. M. (1989) ‘Horrendous evils and the goodness of God’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 63, 297–310.10.1093/aristoteliansupp/63.1.297CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd edn (Washington DC: American Psychiatric Publishing).Google Scholar
Améry, J. (1966) At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and its Realities, Rosenfeld, S. & Rosenfeld, S. P. (trs) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).Google Scholar
Baier, A. (1980) ‘Secular faith’, The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 10, 131–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baier, A. (1986) ‘Trust and antitrust’, Ethics, 96, 231–260.10.1086/292745CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base: Parent–Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development (New York: Basic).Google Scholar
Brison, S. J. (2002) Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Burchard, M. (2019) Philosophical Reflections on Mothering in Trauma (London & New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Camus, A. (1955) The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, O'Brien, J. (tr.) (New York: Vintage).Google Scholar
Camus, A. (1956a) Lyrical and Critical Essays, Thody, P. (ed.), Kennedy, E. C. (tr.) (New York: Vintage).Google Scholar
Camus, A. (1956b) The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, Bower, A. (tr.) (New York: Vintage).Google Scholar
Derrida, J. (1996) ‘Faith and knowledge: two sources of “religion” at the limits of reason alone’, in Anidjar, G. (ed.) Acts of Religion (London & New York: Routledge), 42–100.Google Scholar
Descartes, R. (1988 [1641]) ‘Mediations on First Philosophy’, in Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R., & Murdoch, D. (trs) Selected Philosophical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 73–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dostoevsky, F. (1993 [1879]) The Grand Inquisitor, with Related Chapters from the Brothers Karamazov, Guignon, C. (ed.), Garnett, C. (tr.) (Indianapolis: Hackett).Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. (1943) ‘Burnt Norton’, in Four Quartets (New York: Mariner).Google Scholar
Erikson, E. H. (1959) Identity and the Life Cycle (New York: W. W. Norton).Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1961 [1928]) The Future of an Illusion, Strachey, J. (tr.) (New York: W. W. Norton).Google Scholar
Freud, A. (1966) The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, rev. edn (Madison CT: International Universities Press).Google Scholar
Garrard, E. (2002) ‘Evil as an explanatory concept’, The Monist, 85, 320–336.10.5840/monist200285219CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herman, J. L. (1992) Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic).Google Scholar
Horowitz, M. J. (1999) Essential Papers on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (New York: New York University Press).Google Scholar
Hume, D. (2007 [1779]) Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, and Other Writings. Coleman, D. (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Janet, P. (1889) L'Automatisme Psychologique (Paris: Alcan).Google Scholar
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992) Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma (New York: Free Press).Google Scholar
Jones, K. (1996) ‘Trust as an affective attitude’, Ethics, 107, 4–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kekes, J. (2005) The Roots of Evil (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Lear, J. (1990) Love and its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux).Google Scholar
Lerner, M. J. (1980) The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion (New York: Plenum).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagasawa, Y. (2018) ‘The problem of evil for atheists’, in Trakakis, N. (ed.) The Problem of Evil: Eight Views in Dialogue (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 151–163.Google Scholar
Neiman, S. (2002) Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. (1999 [1872]) The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, Geuss, R. & Speirs, R. (eds), Speirs, R. (tr.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. (1986) The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Panchuk, M. (2018) ‘The shattered spiritual self: a philosophical exploration of religious trauma’, Res Philosophica, 95, 505–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schopenhauer, A. (2018 [1818]) The World as Will and Representation, IINorman, J., Welchman, A., & Janaway, C. (trs & eds) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Shay, J. (1994) Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York: Atheneum).Google Scholar
Stocker, M. (1983) ‘Psychic feelings: their importance and irreducibility’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symonds, M. (2010 [1980]) ‘The “second injury” to victims of violent acts’, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 70, 34–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van der Kolk, B. (2014) The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain, and Body in the Transformation of Trauma (London: Allan Lane).Google Scholar
Winnicott, D. W. (1958) Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis: Collected Papers (London: Karnac).Google Scholar