Review of Andrea Weisberger's suffering belief

Philosophy

Review of Weisberger, A. (1999) Suffering Belief: Evil and the Anglo-American Defence of Theism, Toronto Studies in Religion 23, New York: Peter Lang, pp.xvi+245 Perhaps almost all non-theists will agree that 'the problem of evil' has some role in their reasons for rejecting traditional Western theism. When they consult their intuitions, non-theists typically do not find it credible to suppose that this is the kind of world which could have been created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being. Moreover, when they review their reasons for non-belief, non-theists typically find that a catalogue of the amounts and kinds of evils which are to be found in the world adds some weight to the case against the existence of such a being. However, it is one thing to suppose that 'the problem of evil' has some kind of justificatory role in non-theistic rejection of theistic beliefs; it is quite another question whether 'the problem of evil' poses some kind of insuperable problem for reasonable theistic belief. After all, theists and non-theists typically disagree about the plausibility of belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being in the light of all of the other relevant evidence (i.e. all of the evidence apart from considerations concerning the amounts and kinds of evils which are to be found in the world)-and they also typically disagree about the truth of various kinds of subsidiary claims which can have a bearing on 'the problem of evil', e.g. claims about the compatibility of determinism and freedom. While it seems clearly reasonable for non-theists to allow 'the problem of evil' to have some role in their reasons for rejecting traditional Western theism, it is much less obvious that it is reasonable for non-theists to claim that 'the problem of evil' raises insuperable difficulties for theists. In her book, Weisberger argues a case for the stronger claim, i.e. Weisberger argues for the conclusion that 'the problem of evil' amounts to a disproof of the existence of the god of traditional Western theism. For various reasons, I think that her case is not quite as strong as she supposes, and that she doesn't manage to establish that anyone who is both reasonable and fully apprised of the facts about the amounts, kinds, and distribution of evils in the world will deny the existence of the god of traditional Western theism. However, this is not to say that there are no things to admire about her book, which does succeed in making vivid the kinds of difficulties which 'the problem of evil' can pose for traditional Western theism. The structure of Weisberger's book follows the structure of John Mackie's deservedly famous paper 'Evil and Omnipotence', which was published in Mind in 1955. Preface Introduction 1. The Argument from Evil 2. The Concessionary Solutions 3. The Non-Concessionary Solutions: Natural Evil 4. Moral Evil and Soul-Making 5. The Free Will Defence 6. The Final Solution Conclusion In the Preface, Weisberger lays her cards on the table: she gives a clear and concise summary of the overall shape of her argument. She announces her belief that the success or failure of the theodicies which she investigates is pivotal for determining the success or failure of the argument from evil. In defence of this controversial claim, she appeals to considerations of burden of proof: it is the theist who is making an 'extraordinary' claim, and hence who faces the burden of squaring this claim with the 'ordinary' facts about the world. Moreover, she claims that to reject this burden of proof is to admit that the 'extraordinary' claim in question is 'unfalsifiable' (and hence, at least by imputation, not deserving of reasonable belief). In the Introduction, Weisberger begins with a discussion of some of the kinds and amounts of evils in the world. She then turns to a brief discussion of some of the key terms which are used in framing her discussion-'omnipotence', 'omniscience', 'moral perfection', 'God', 'evil'-and then provides a quick summary of the contents of the rest of the book. In Chapter 1, Weisberger considers issues concerning the proper framing of 'the argument from evil'. After some preliminary observations, Weisberger claims that the proper formulation of 'the argument from evil' is as follows: the claims 1. God is all-powerful. 2. God is all-wise. 3. God is all-good. 4. Such and such amounts and kinds of evils exist. 5. If it is logically possible to eradicate evil without eradicating any possible (overriding) greater good, an all-powerful, all-wise, and all-good being will do so. 6. It is reasonable to believe that it is logically possible for God to eradicate at least some of the evil which exists without eradicating a greater good. are logically inconsistent, and yet 5., and 6., are claims which it is not reasonable for anyone to give up. There is then a lengthy discussion of the differences between 'logical' and 'evidential' formulations of 'the problem of evil', and a briefer discussion of the issue of burden of proof. (I have made some small changes to Weisberger's formulation of 'the argument from evil'. Even so, there are various ways in which it seems unsatisfactory. Moreover, there are more versions of 'the argument from evil' than is apparent from her taxonomy. However, I shall not worry about these matters here.) In Chapter 2, Weisberger discusses 'concessionary' solutions to 'the problem of evil', i.e. solutions which give up on at least one of the first four premises. Most of Weisberger's discussion is taken up by consideration of the claim that there really is no evil, since what we call 'evil' is nothing more than privation of good. Other positions which get some discussion include: the view that there is no evil, but only the illusion that there is evil; the view that God is not perfectly good (perhaps because our concept of 'goodness' is inadequate to the characterisation of a divine attribute); and the view that God is not all-powerful. Given the way that Weisberger characterises 'the problem of evil', is it a little odd to call these responses 'solutions'; unless God is supposed to be all-powerful, all-wise and all-good, there is not even the prima facie appearance of a problem ... In Chapter 3, Weisberger discusses 'non-concessionary' solutions to 'the problem of evil' which hold either that evil is a necessary counterpart of good, or that evil is necessary as a means to (greater) good. As Weisberger points out, these solutions do not seem very plausible, since it does not seem right to claim that evil is a logically necessary counterpart of good, or that evil is logically necessary as a means to (greater) good-and yet it is plainly inadequate for the purposes of theodicy to claim that evil is merely nomologically necessary as a counterpart of good, or that evil is nomologically necessary as a means to (greater) good. (God could have made a world with different laws. If some of those worlds are better than our world, then an allpowerful, all-wise and all-good God would have made one of those worlds instead.) In Chapter 4, Weisberger discusses 'non-concessionary' solutions to 'the problem of evil' which hold that the universe is (overall) better with some evil in it than it would be if there were no evil in it. In particular, she focusses on John Hick's 'soulmaking theodicy', and on the supposed virtues of worlds which permit the 'free development of morally mature agents'. Hick's views have been well-criticised by Kane, and by Madden & Hare; Weisberger's discussion here mostly recapitulates these previous criticisms. In Chapter 5, Weisberger discusses 'non-concessionary' solutions to 'the problem of evil' which hold, more or less, that it was logically impossible for God to make a world in which human agents always freely choose the good. (If not logically impossible, then at the very least, it was not within God's power to ensure that God made a world in which every always freely chooses the good.) Weisberger claims that there are at least the following three points on which free will defences can be challenged: (1) it is not clear that free will is so valuable that its value outweighs the costs of the consequent moral evil; (2) it is not clear that there is a decent free will justification of natural evil; and (3) it is not clear that it is logically impossible for God to make a world in which human agents always freely choose the good. The last of these claims has been much-discussed, and is usually linked to lengthy discussion of determinism and agent-causation: Weisberger's discussion of these matters is very brief, and does not really do justice to the recent literature. (Perhaps her views about this debate are similar to her views on technical discussions of evidential formulations of the problem of evil, viz. that theodicies in question can be seen to be inadequate even if the technicalities are not pursued. However, in both cases, it seems to me that this is questionable: I do not think that 'free will solutions' can be properly assessed without detailed consideration of questions about the links between determinism and freedom.) In Chapter 6, Weisberger discusses one last 'non-concessionary' solution to 'the problem of evil' which holds that evil is a forseen but unfortunate byproduct of the 'natural machinery' of the world. As Weisberger points out, there are various serious difficulties which confront this suggestion: in particular-as we noted already in connection with some previous 'non-concessionary' solutions-it isn't enough that the actual natural machinery has these unfortunate byproducts; rather, it has to be that any possible 'natural machinery' would have these unfortunate byproducts. (For, otherwise, God surely has an obligation to make a world using 'non-polluting natural machinery'.) Yet non-theists at least will find it hard to believe that there is no logically possible natural machinery which need not lead to evil as an unfortunate byproduct of its operation. Perhaps the main fault which I find with the overall line which Weisberger takes lies in her appeals to the burden of proof. It seems to me that the right method here is to formulate the competing views-i.e. theistic and non-theistic theories of the world- and then to ask which one is best supported by the total available evidence. If theists can reasonably suppose that they have lots of evidence which supports the claim that God exists, then they may reasonably believe that there is a solution to 'the problem of evil', even if they do not know what that solution is. To insist, that theists have to provide a satisfactory theodicy or else abandon their theism, is to fail to pay proper regard to 'the principle of total evidence'. Of course, this is not to say that non-theists cannot reasonably suppose that 'the problem of evil' helps to sway the weight of total evidence in favour of non-theism-indeed, I started out by claiming that this will very likely be the case-but that seems to me to be a very different issue. The other important fault which I find with Weisberger's book is her decision to ignore recent technical discussions of various matters. I do not think that there can be a fully adequate treatment of 'the problem of evil' which fails to pay attention to the recent literature on evidential formulations of 'the problem of evil', questions about the compatibility of freedom and determinism, and so forth. Of course, this judgement is really consequential on my former judgement: if I thought that her prosecution of 'the problem of evil' were fully successful, then I would have no such complaint. Despite its faults, I think that this book does a good job of presenting a large amount of material which ought to be considered in an assessment of 'the problem of evil'. It would not have taken too much reworking to make it a very good book indeed.


The Singularity of the Human Hive Mind

Philosophy

oped. The internet encourages and makes possible more types of collaboration involving larger groups and faster, more intimate sharing of ideas, and this takes us ever further in the direction of a hive mind, in an accelerating process not subject to any central plan. Is a hive-minded type of thought inevitable? At any rate it seems safe to assume that, so long as no catastrophe deprives us of electricity, we will increasingly lose our sense of individuality. If we think about the internet as a brain-to-brain connection interface, we might easily see that isolated thinking becomes increasingly difficult to sustain due to the quickening rate at which we're socially encouraged to share our thoughts. Somewhere along the way, an individual brain starts to act more like a neuron to the synapses of the internet brain than a self-contained unit. This is starting to become evident as we generally begin to mimic much more information than we create, especially with sharing, reposting and retweeting. Across a range of industries and activities highly complex content is now being created by online groups rather than individuals, because it is quicker to achieve richer content that way. In addition, it's easy and fast to capture our experiences through photos and videos, and pass them through filters which generically impress a sense of quality but in actuality only reduce diversity and therefore individuality. If we consider the speed at which we're evolving our connections in the virtual world, it seems safe to assume that hivemindedness is starting to happen. Our brains no longer seem to differentiate between dealing with information from the real world, and dealing with information from an artificial world. Emotionally and intellectually, we respond to social situations online as if we're part of a physical community. The Process Neuroscientists and psychologists keep revealing that the human mind is less centralized than we thought.The philosopher David Hume argued as far back as the eighteenth century that the unity of consciousness is an illusion, and each mind consists of a bundle of perceptions and experiences. It seems to me that for any awareness made up of multiple entities, it's a matter of perspective that a singularity of identity is felt to exist at all. Technology being researched now will soon be sophisticated enough to connect our minds to a degree beyond anything we can currently imagine. For example, a non-invasive mind to internet network demonstrated in 2019 allowed three widely separated individuals to play a collaborative Tetris-like game using only their thoughts. A singular consciousness emerging from this technological revolution must be considered possible because singular consciousnesses arisen from multiple processes already exist – namely us. But if the internet began to consider itself aware and integrated, in the same sort of way that we do, I wonder if we could ever detect that? Will T he internet has become so all-pervading that even the word seems a little old-fashioned now. No-one really uses it much anymore. We ask each other for wifi, or talk of going online, or complain about a lack of data, but rarely do we talk of 'the internet' as an entity; it has become too ubiquitous, too intrinsic to our lives, for that to be a very useful term. This prompts me to wonder: what are we becoming? Could the internet lead us to become more than individuals and disparate communities? I believe we're entering an era when the words 'individual' and 'community' take on new definitions or meanings as we increasingly become interconnected in what I think of as a 'hive mind'. I also believe that a hive-minded process could itself be a transition towards a singularity in consciousness across the Earth. Is that desirable, or even possible? Are we in the process of creating it? Is it inevitable? Can it be controlled? What does it even mean? Before addressing these questions, however, we'll need definitions of the words 'Hive' and 'Mind' and the phrase 'Hive Mind'. What is a 'hive mind', exactly? Mind An awareness of existence with experiential content, referring both to what is outside itself and to its own existence. Hive Multiple entities sharing an element of awareness not unique to any individual but present to each, and experienced by all as some awareness of their collective existence. Hive Mind An awareness formed from the communication of individual minds but different from each of its individual minds, and so not defined by the separateness of the individual minds which compose it. Let's consider the possibility of hive-mindedness through the framework of free will, under the assumption that a loss of individual free will is undesirable. The Inevitability of the Hive Mind Basic human survival has always depended on some kinds of cooperation. By extending their abilities through cooperation in pursuit of common goals, individuals secure for themselves and each other a basic or minimum state of well-being. To a degree this could be said to result in a shared will, although we usually refer to it as 'group psychology'. In this basic sense, humanity certainly depends on 'hive-mindedness'. We're clearly not as hive-minded as the birds, bees or ants but nevertheless, cooperation in a sense extends the consciousness of the individual. This is evident in our historical evolution, all the way up to the information technology (IT) we have recently devel20 Philosophy Now ● August/September 2020 The Singularity of the Human Hive Mind James Sirois gives us a strong warning about overusing the net. Future Shocks we know if the net becomes conscious – or perhaps more plausibly to many, coordinates a singular human mind-set? We are undeniably in a process of increasing interconnectivity. Are we just improving our social and professional lives as individuals, or are we beginning to create 'one mind'? Comparing our online selves to the neurons in a brain, can our individual minds be rightly called 'one mind', or is it more like a hive of 'mini-minds'? Perhaps we will fracture into several hiveminds before any singular global consciousness can be formed, and even eventually revert back into individualism. We must also ask whether this process could be controlled or limited in some way. For instance, could a hive mind like the internet in the future be compartmentalized enough to preserve a sense of individuality for its users? We cannot know the answer to this now, but I believe that in order to remain individuals and exercise individual freedom we would eventually need to reject the cyberconnection altogether. This seems very unlikely to happen. This leads to a sharp question: how much control do we have even now? Control over the hive would require there to be a widely shared desire for individual control. But if individual control is dependent on the desire of the collective, this is tantamount to saying that we have no control as individuals. The question is, will the hive relinquish some of its power and tolerate dissent among the units that compose it? Maybe not. We already see this drama being played out with massive mobbing on platforms such as Twitter of individuals felt to have transgressed against the values of the online community. It seems as if the connectedness of the mob erodes the awareness of individual voices even being necessary, therefore eliminating the basis for a desire for individuality to begin with. In short, if any rebellion against the hive mind were possible, we probably would not even know it. This could take us all the way up to the point where individual thinking would be completely consumed by a new singular awareness, surpassing the idea of a 'hive mind', and instead simply becoming a mind. In this situation, control becomes a matter of self-control: that is, control by the Self. As for the morality of such a singular mind, we can only reflect that a single mind, even if composed of what used to be individuals, would be utterly alone. It might be morally pure and absolute, therefore 'divine', if you wish; or perhaps it would mean morality would no longer exist or be applicable. Until then we're left with the same old difficult questions about the risks to individuality and its freedoms: At what point does societal organization become tyrannical? What is freedom anyway? How free should we be? How can we be moral? and so on. These questions are always over us while we simultaneously try to establish what a human really is – right up until 'we' are no longer simply human, and have become the 'I' of the collective individual. © JAMES SIROIS 2020 James Sirois is what? August/September 2020 ● Philosophy Now 21 Future Shocks