Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:55:11.351Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The problem of evil and moral indifference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1999

TIM MAWSON
Affiliation:
Keble College, University of Oxford, OX1 3PG

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that if the libertarian free will defence were seen to fail because determinism were seen to be true, then another solution to the problem of evil would present itself. I start by arguing that one cannot, by consideration of agents' choices between morally indifferent options, reach any conclusion as to these agents' moral qualities. If certain forms of consequentialism were false, determinism true, and if there were a God who chose to create this universe, then His choice would have been between such options. Consideration of the general nature of the universe God putatively chose to create would not then license any conclusion as His moral qualities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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.)