The Problem of Evil through the eyes of Moral Theory

Deliberating on the ‘problem’ of evil involves discussing its theodicy, the aim of which may be characterized in the celebrated writer John Milton’s words as the attempt to â€Å"justify the ways of God to men.† That is, a theodicy endeavors to vindicate the justice or goodness of God in the face of the existence of evil found in the world, through reasonable explanation(s) of why God allows evil to exist among his creation (Griffin 1976). For it to qualify as reasonable, such explanation must conform to (a) a commonsensical world view, e.g. there exists other people in the world; (b) widely accepted scientific and historical views, e.g. Plate Tectonics theory and the theory of evolution; and (c) plausible moral principles, e.g. punishment in general needs to be significantly proportional to the offense committed (Griffin, 1976). For Richard Swinburne (1987, 143) in his contribution to theodicy, ‘an omnipotent being can prevent any evil he chooses, but I deny that a perfectly good being will always try to do so.’ That is, a perfectly good being such as a God who is claimed to be both omnipotent and omniscient, has the right to allow evil to occur as such action brings about some greater good. He expounds on several moral views, such as the most basic good of all – the satisfaction of desire, and above all, pleasure, which he considers ‘a good thing’ (Swinburne, 1987).   However, for Swinburne (1987), the satisfaction of certain desires is not good if this is done for things which are bad in themselves, as pleasure no longer becomes good where the belief needed to sustain it is false. His reasoning follows that God has reason to bring forth into existence creatures with desires for good states of affairs which are satisfied, as desires in themselves are good, except when they are desires for what is bad. If God wants to make creatures sensitive to what is good He will allow them to have desires which are permanently frustrated. It follows that God will not give man endless pain, failure and loss in order to allow one to show proper compassion and grief, but he ‘may well give us some pain, failure†¦ in order to allow us to be involved with each other in ways and levels we could not otherwise have’ (Swinburne, 1987, 145). Good action derives its goodness not merely from intention but from its effects. Conversely, an unsuccessful action aimed at something good is also good for the agent, which is better if done freely or not being fully caused. Thus, it is good for the agent to have free choice as an autonomous ‘mini-creator’ (Swinburne 1987) not totally beholden to the mercy of forces in the universe. The choice of ‘forwarding the good’ becomes a lot better if the agent has free choice between good and evil, and not merely between alternate goods. Free choice of action only comes in choosing between two actions the agent regards as equally good, or between two actions which he desires to do equally, or between one he desires to do more and one he believes is better to do (Swinburne, 1998). God cannot give us the great good of the possibility of intentional, efficacious, free action involving a choice between good and evil without at the same time providing the natural probability of evil which he will not prevent so that the freedom he grants us may truly be efficacious freedom. Thus, the â€Å"free will defense† remains a central core theory of theodicy. In addition, a world where agents can only benefit but not harm each other is one wherein they have only a limited responsibility for each other, and in this sense God would not have given much because he would have then refused to share that responsibility with us. Even more so, it is a blessing for a person if his suffering makes possible the good for others of having the free choice of hurting or harming him, and if the actual suffering would make possible the good for others of feeling compassion for him and choosing to show or not show sympathy, or through providing knowledge for others, i.e. ‘blessed is the man or woman whose life is of use’ (Swinburne, 1998). Various evils and the possibility of their existence, including both moral (the harm we do to each other or negligently allow to occur) and natural evils (animal and human suffering) are thus deemed logically necessary for the attainment of good states. In general, the claim is that we need a similar amount of evil if we are to have the similar amount of good by way of satisfaction of desire, significant choice and serious beneficiary action. Furthermore, God does not inflict endless suffering for there is a limit in time and intensity to the suffering of any individual, i.e. the length of human life. From the perspective of eternity, the evils of the world occur narrowly in terms of number and duration, and more importantly, God allows them to occur for the sake of the great goods they make possible (Swinburne, 1998). Getting the evils of this world into the right perspective involves lengthy long-term and long-distance reflection – things outside of life, e.g. cause and effects, makes a greater difference to the value of that life if one does not arbitrarily confine those things near to life in space and time. Given all these, is such a theodicy adequate to account for the existence of evil in this world? Swinburne (1978, 1987, 1991, and 1998) does raise some valid points and offer convincing arguments yet the researcher is of the opinion that in its entirety, traditional moral theory and this particular theodicy by their lonesome cannot stand alone and fully account for the problem of evil. Various objections could still be raised against this theodicy, such as questioning the intelligibility/empirical adequacy of the argument’s underlying notions – i.e. of free will. Others such as Tooley (1980) and Rowe (1996) propose that just as we have a duty to curtail another’s exercise of free will when one is aware of its use to inflict suffering on innocents, God as well has a duty of a similar nature. Furthermore, it provides brilliant insights but still an inadequate account for the existence of natural evil and its ensuing logical arguments and evidential problem, i.e. the problem of determining whether and (if so) to what extent the existence of evil would constitute evidence against the existence of God. References Chrzan, Keith. 1994. â€Å"Necessary Gratuitous Evil: An Oxymoron Revisited,† Faith and Philosophy 11: 134-37. Griffin, David Ray. 1991. Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Hasker, William. 2004. Providence, Evil and the Openness of God. London: Routledge. Hick, John. 1966. Evil and the God of Love, first edition. London: Macmillan. Hick, John. 1981. â€Å"An Irenaean Theodicy† and â€Å"Response to Critiques,† in Stephen T. Davis (ed.), Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, first edition. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, pp.39-52, 63-68. Hick, John. 1990. Philosophy of Religion, fourth edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. McNaughton, David. 1994. â€Å"The Problem of Evil: A Deontological Perspective,† in Alan G. Padgett (ed.), Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.329-51. Rowe, William L. 1996. â€Å"The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look,† in Daniel Howard-Snyder (ed.), The Evidential Argument from Evil, pp.262-85. Swinburne, Richard. 1977. The Coherence of Theism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Swinburne, Richard. 1978. â€Å"Natural Evil,† American Philosophical Quarterly 15: 295-301. Swinburne, Richard. 1987. â€Å"Knowledge from Experience, and the Problem of Evil,† in William J. Abraham and Steven W. Holtzer (eds), The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in Honour of Basil Mitchell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.141-67. Swinburne, Richard. 1991. The Existence of God, revised edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Swinburne, Richard. 1998. Providence and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tooley, Michael. 1980. â€Å"Alvin Plantinga and the Argument from Evil,† Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58: 360-76.            

Kurt Vonnegut essays

Kurt Vonnegut essays He [Vonnegut] had no taste for war; and even less for being a survivor of it. (Blieler 553) When a person faces the hardships of life, he must develop a way of dealing with the dark situation set before him. Kurt Vonnegut, one of Americas outstanding modern authors, certainly dealt with the atrocities of life himself. His experiences during the Great Depression, his childhood, and World War II helped mold his perspective on humanity. Vonneguts means of coping with these horrific difficulties was to see the humor in the midst of tragedy. Born in 1922, into a family who emigrated from Germany in 1848, Kurt Vonnegut was one of three children of Kurt and Edith Vonnegut who settled in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Vonnegut family prospered in a flourishing German-American society. In his early teens, however, Vonnegut dealt with the first major setback of his life. During the Great Depression, his affluent lifestyle became a meager one. His family was forced to move to a smaller, less flamboyant house built by his father, a successful architect (Litz 754). Th e new economic circumstances formed by this Depression traumatized his parents. His father later gave up on life, and after Kurt Jr.s enlistment, his mother committed suicide in 1944 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. In a later interview Vonnegut confessed: I learned a bone-deep sadness from them [his parents] (Allen 2-3). In addition to the influences of his adolescence, Vonnegut faced the brutality of war. In 1944, Vonnegut was serving infantry duty in Europe, when he was caught behind German lines at the Battle of the Bulge and sent to Dresden, Germany, as a prisoner. In February, 1945, the Allies unleashed a firestorm that essentially annihilated the historic city of Dresden, killing nearly 135,000 thousand people. Luckily Vonnegut was working in an underground meat locker, somehow emerging to the blasted landscape one of ...

Free Essays on Yoknapatawpha County

he uses to give such vivid descriptions of his settings and characters is what makes him great. His own non-fictional setting is the stepping stone that he used to give such great imagery. The happenings of Faulkner’s stories occur in a fictional place called Yoknapatawpha County, set in Northern Mississippi. Yoknapatawpha is very natural for Faulkner to describe because it’s familiarity to his own non-fictional Lafayette County. Yoknapatawpha is the country where the Snopes family roams. The Snopes go from place to place traveling the southern terrain that Faulkner grew up in, and is so familiar with. Miss Emily lives in the town of Jefferson within Yoknapatawpha. Jefferson is the non-fictional version of Oxford Faulkner’s home town. He describes Miss Emily’s house if it was on a main street that was once residential, and as time went on became more commercial. Her house was once a place of envy, a big beautiful home. Judging from the employment of Faulkner’s grandparents he was likely very wealthy, or at least much more wealthy than the people around him. He likely grew up... Free Essays on Yoknapatawpha County Free Essays on Yoknapatawpha County Yoknapatawpha County Yoknapatawpha County is a fictional place after William Faulkner’s own Lafayette County. It is where many of his works are staged and carries a legendary reputation in the Deep South. The town of Jefferson is within Yoknapatawpha County and is the fictional equivalent of Oxford, Faulkner’s home town. In the short story â€Å"Barn Burning,† Faulkner uses his familiar Yoknapatawpha County, and in â€Å"A Rose for Emily,† his town of Jefferson. Not only does Faulkner recycle his settings, he does the same with many of his characters. There’s a book by Margaret Patricia Ford and Suzanne Kincaid called the Who’s Who in Faulkner, devoted entirely to explaining how his characters carry over from story to story. Though the roots of his settings and character may not be original, the economy and elegance of the words he uses to give such vivid descriptions of his settings and characters is what makes him great. His own non-fictional setting is the stepping stone that he used to give such great imagery. The happenings of Faulkner’s stories occur in a fictional place called Yoknapatawpha County, set in Northern Mississippi. Yoknapatawpha is very natural for Faulkner to describe because it’s familiarity to his own non-fictional Lafayette County. Yoknapatawpha is the country where the Snopes family roams. The Snopes go from place to place traveling the southern terrain that Faulkner grew up in, and is so familiar with. Miss Emily lives in the town of Jefferson within Yoknapatawpha. Jefferson is the non-fictional version of Oxford Faulkner’s home town. He describes Miss Emily’s house if it was on a main street that was once residential, and as time went on became more commercial. Her house was once a place of envy, a big beautiful home. Judging from the employment of Faulkner’s grandparents he was likely very wealthy, or at least much more wealthy than the people around him. He likely grew up...

Academic Writing in the Digital Age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Academic Writing in the Digital Age - Essay Example High school students nowadays write academic essays as well. Universities are also using academic essay writing as a way of selecting the right students for admission and as a way of assessing performance of their students in the final exams especially in the schools of humanities and social sciences. This essay will look into what essays are, what is its importance especially in colleges, skills gained by academic essay writing, multimedia genre that can equip students with the same skills, how the skills will be of benefit to the students after school and how the digital age will address the needs of the digital students. Academic Essay Writing One cannot understand what an academic essay is before understanding what an essay is. An essay can be described as a piece of writing or wittings from an author’s point of view and it can carry some other authors’ thinking with citations from the authors’. An essay can be inclusive of a number of issues from political m anifestos, learned arguments, literary criticism, daily life observations, reflections, to the recollections. There are different forms of essays with academic essays being one. The types are admission essays, film essays and photographic essays. An academic essay is therefore a piece of writing from the writer’s point of view on a particular issue for educational purposes (Ellis & Louise 24). For years, academic writing has been part of college. Students, especially in this digital era, have just been doing it because they had no choice but just to do the essays if they are to graduate. They would do the essays with carelessness or haphazardly just to be done with the painful experience of writing without realizing how important it is to them. Essay writing is not part of the college curriculum to punish or torture students but to equip them with skills that they would use not just in their professions but also in their daily lives (Ellis & Louise 62). Essay writing equips s tudents with a number of skills with the most common one being the ability to write. It is not everyone who can read and write has good writing skills just not everyone who can speak out words is excellent in the language. Essay writing makes one become perfect in this skill of writing because practice makes perfect. One gets to know how arrange their ideas in a systematic and chronological manner (Ellis & Louise 266). Ability to research, use handy information is another skill gained through writing academic essay. When given an assignment to write an essay, more often than not it will include researching for useful information or data. After getting the data from the research, the student will be required to use the information into use in writing the essay. Continuous writing of these essays gradually develops the student’s research skill and the ability to put information to use (Ellis & Louise 260). Few people have the ability to express their point of view whether throu gh speaking or writing clearly. College essay writing comes in handy in helping people with this. This is so because some essays ask the students' point of view about something. As they express their opinions or thoughts about the issue, they develop the skill of expressing one’s thoughts. The skills are developed as expressing through writing first then gradually their ability to express themselves through speaking (Ellis & Louise 32). The other skill that is acquired through writing essay essays is the ability to analyze issues and solve problems. Sometimes essay involve analysis of issues, or giving solutions to problems like say drought, corruption and others. The writing of such essays will require the student to look into such an issue critically and offer way outs. The

Achilles Will Return After These Messages Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Achilles Will Return After These Messages - Essay Example There are three traditional levels of conflict in fiction: man against the world, man against man, and man against himself. The distinguishing characteristic of soap opera is that it takes place entirely on the second level. A soap opera character may have a job or a role in society, or inner conflict, but the most important thing about them will always be their relationships with other people. A soap character might be introduced via an external event, such as a murder or a corporate merger, but they will be defined entirely by their friends, lovers, enemies, grudges, and so on. Soap operas subordinate all other concerns to personalities and interpersonal conflict. To take a recent example (SoapCentral.com) from popular daytime soap Guiding Light: â€Å"Desperate to redeem himself as a father, Alan convinced Phillip to undergo the bone marrow transplant with Alan as the donor.† The phrasing is key: this isn’t a medical drama or even about saving a life, it’s about Alan trying to redeem himself. In soap opera, the character felt it personally necessary, and no other considerations need enter. Achilles’ behavior through much of the Iliad, that is to say hiding in his tent doing nothing, is often described as that of a sulky adolescent ignoring his responsibilities out of pique. While that reading isn’t far off base, another angle would be to point out that his behavior is that of a soap opera character. Is he tired of the war, or does he have some larger problem? No, he has simply been personally affronted by Agamemnon over t he matter of Briseis, and so refuses to fight. â€Å"Truly the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon has dishonoured me: for he has taken and keeps my prize through his own arrogant act.† (Book 1, line 355) His feelings are of paramount importance, and the war can go hang. Indeed, within the context of a soap opera, the war is irrelevant. The questions of offense and personal honor are where the story lies. Of course, Achilles does return to the war in time, but why he does so is just as telling. He does not rally heroically just as the Trojans are about to overrun the Achaean positions, as would happen in a war story. He does not come to the realization that some things are more important than his hurt feelings, as might happen in the story of a personal journey. Rather, he charges back into battle when the Trojans have the temerity to kill his lover, Patroclus. To put it another way, he left the war because the Achaeans hurt his feelings, and reentered it because the Trojans hurt his feelings even worse. â€Å"†¦neither doth my own heart bid me live on and abide among men, unless Hector first, smitten by my spear, shall lose his life, and pay back the price for that he made spoil of Patroclus, son of Menoetius.† (Book 18, line 90) If this is not soap opera characterization, it is difficult to say what else it might be. The Iliad is often described as one of the founding documents of Western literature. It is certainly one of the earliest stories to have come down to us roughly intact, and its influence on other works is incalculable. To point out that it is, effectively, a soap opera is not to somehow demean the Iliad, but rather to ennoble the concept of a soap opera. I find it hard, today, to read the Iliad and not think at

Question Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Question - Essay Example The Contingency Theory was particularly relevant in the 1970s, with the developing new role of technology in organizational analysis.(Hickson et al, 1969). However, with the passage of time, the validity and applicability of the Contingency Theory has been challenged by other researchers like Carroll (1988) who offers the view that the Contingency Theory is dead and that other approaches need to be considered, such as transactions cost, interdependence of organizational resources or population ecology. Weick’s organizational model views the entire process of organizing as a social process, where the normal order of working is periodically interrupted by shocks, where individuals are forced to rethink the traditional way of doing things.( Miller, 2005:84). As a result, there is a need for constant reappraisal of the need for sense-making of a situation where an organizational rupture of sorts takes place and serious or drastic measures must be taken. This model may be relevant to an organization during a time of acute crisis, however its relevance may be limited in everyday situations. The Open Systems model of organization on the other hand is based on the belief that all organizations are unique and are subject to general and environmental influences. Each organization should therefore be uniquely structured in such a manner that it is best able to respond to the problems and changes in its environment. To be successful and profitable, an organization must interact well with elements in the environment such as suppliers, distributors, government agencies and customers. This model appears to offer the best means of understanding how organizations work, because each organization must accommodate itself to specific influences in a changing environment and learn to function effectively within it. 2. In a process based organization, the activities of the Company are defined in terms of groups

Gender relationships in one of the two course plays Essay Example for Free

Gender relationships in one of the two course plays Essay Show how gender relationships in one of the two course plays is used by the playwright to throw light on our understanding of the main character, and the overall themes of the play. A view from the bridge is based in Brooklyn, an Italian community set in the 1950s. This particular part of the 20th century was seen as a rather sexist era. Men were a lot more dominant, women were known to stay at home cooking and cleaning-like every wife seems to do today! However aside from that, men felt like they had to be men all the time. They felt like if they expressed their feelings, talked about their troubles or cried, these men would be laughed at and ridiculed. Eddie Carbone is a hard working longshoreman who works on the docks in his local area. Eddie is a typical bloke; he is a proud and stubborn man but is a loving husband to his wife Beatrice and a caring father figure to his niece Catherine. To the audience in the first part of the play Eddies comes across as the typical over protective father, however as the play progresses his feelings for Catherine become obvious that they are a lot heavier than what we are led to believe. Throughout the play we discover Eddie has fallen in love with his niece but his feelings are not sexual, in my opinion it is an obsessive need that cant be controlled as realized by Alfieri, Something perversely pure calls to me from his memory not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known. Alfieri realizes his feelings for Catherine are exceptionally powerful and that their would be nothing that Eddie could do to control them or dissolve them. Eddie tries to open up to Alfieri but cant quite get the words out of what he wants to say. There is also one other particular part of the play when Eddie goes to see Alfieri in his office. Eddie goes to seek advice in order to prevent Catherine from marrying Rodolpho. Alfieri subtly mentions Eddies feelings but doesnt quite mention them in so many words. Alfieri says, When the law is wrong its because it is unnatural, but in this case it is natural and a river will drown you if you buck it now. Let her go. Alfieri is saying that it is illegal for Eddie to get involved with Catherine sexually. It goes against the natural order. However the only advice Alfieri can give is to turn Rodolpho and Marco in to immigration, but with them being family it wouldnt be a wise move. Eddies love for Catherine is so strong that he is willing to go to any means necessary to stop her marrying Rodolpho, making the call to immigration the only way out of the predicament. Eddie calls immigration, aware of his betrayal to Beatrice but he is doing it out of love for Catherine. Beatrice also realizes Eddies feelings for Catherine, in one [particular scene Eddie ad Beatrice have a slight disagreement over Catherine which later leads to an argument over lack of sex. Beatrice wants to know, When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie? Beatrice says it in this context rather than come straight out and says when are we going to have sex again. This way avoids embarrassment but still gets the point across without having to actually say it. Beatrice wants to talk about what is happening but she cant get Eddie to open up to her. Eddies feelings are putting a strain on the marriage, sexually, physically and emotionally. But Eddie,