Can the best arguments for a privation theory of evil be parodied, with equal plausibility, as arguments for a privation theory of good? The privation theory of evil claims that evil has no positive existence, and it is but a privation of good. The privation theory of good claims the opposite. I approach this topic as one element in the so-called evil-God Challenge. Stephen Law has argued that the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God (theism) is on a par with the epistemic support for belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, but completely evil-God (maltheism). In fact, he concludes, the arguments for an evil God are symmetrical with, and isomorphic to, those for a good God. The privation theory of evil has often been used to defend theism against the argument from evil. Thus, part of the evil-God Challenge is to evaluate arguments for the privation theory of evil for their vulnerability to maltheist parody. I consider a broad range of arguments for the privation theory of evil, and I argue that most of them are vulnerable to parodic neutralization. Furthermore, I argue that although the thesis of the convertibility of being and goodness is often held to entail the privation theory of evil, or to be entailed by it (or to be equivalent to it), it is independent of the privation theory. I do find that David Oderberg’s recent argument for the privation theory of evil resists any easy maltheist parody, but I argue that it has a defect. I sketch an argument according to which his good-as-fulfillment account is compatible with a perfectly evil god. My tentative conclusion is that the privation theory of evil enjoys little more plausibility than does the privation theory of good.

Poverty analysis is in the midst of a multidimensional “turn” due, in part, to the growing awareness of the limitations of relative income measures of poverty. In this paper, we argue that the conceptualisation of poverty remains a neglected aspect of this multidimensional turn to date, and demonstrate that the counter-intuitive results which flow from relative income analyses are not problems of measurement, but are entirely consistent with the conceptualisation of poverty under Peter Townsend’s dominant Poverty as Relative Deprivation framework. In response to these problems we articulate an alternative framework, Poverty as Capability Deprivation, drawing on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and argue that this provides more persuasive explanations as to why some nations have greater poverty than others and why poverty remains a problem even in the richest nations.

This article aims to demonstrate that Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics of being, in which evil is considered a privation or lack of perfection introduced only by the creature against God's intention, is a remarkable starting point for solving the main problems involved in the modern and contemporary debate on the problem of evil. It also seeks to prove that Aquinas's position is neither reducible to an ‘optimistic theodicy’ –such as Leibniz's theodicy– nor to a ‘free will defence’.

In this essay I examine the idea that evil is to be understood as a kind of absence or a privation. I put forward two arguments against this idea. The first claims that if evil is an absence it becomes causally powerless, which seems strongly contradicted by experience and revelation. The other argument says that the idea that evil is an absence cannot do justice to the evil of depression. Depression is a set of feelings which are all too real, and so cannot be understood as literally identical with a set of absences.

Twinning rates were studied in Swedes, Åland Islanders, Finns, Germans, and Dutch during years of starvation when death rates were two to three times higher than average. In contrast to the situation among some animals, this study suggests that nutrition above a certain threshold is unimportant for human reproduction, including twinning. The twinning rates for these different populations display marked temporal differences, but low values in the twinning rate are not consistently associated with periods of epidemics, famine, or similar nutritional stress. After years of privation and/or separation of spouses, a rapid “catch-up effect” can often be seen in the twinning rates, as well as marriage and birth rates. Psychoendocrine factors and interparental immunological conditions that may be involved in this phenomenon are discussed.