Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T00:06:39.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What's wrong with Tooley's argument from evil?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

CALUM MILLER*
Affiliation:
St Benet's Hall, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX1 3LN, UK

Abstract

Michael Tooley has recently advanced a novel formulation of the problem of evil. The argument primarily intends to address sceptical theist responses to the problem of evil by giving a theoretical argument that prima facie evils are probably ultima facie evils. He thus argues from a single prima facie evil to the conclusion that God probably does not exist, before extending his argument to encompass many prima facie evils using Carnapian inductive logic. In this article I respond to Tooley's two arguments. I improve the first by clearing up some ambiguities, before noting a variety of problems. In particular, the fatal problem is that, contra Tooley, the occurrence of some event is in fact evidence that such an event is not in fact impermissible for God to allow. I then challenge Tooley's extension using Carnapian induction, offering a parody which suggests that Carnapian induction of this variety leads to manifestly absurd results.

Type
Original Article
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

Chisholm, Roderick M. (1990) ‘The defeat of good and evil’, in Adams, M. M. & Adams, R. M. (eds) The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 5368.Google Scholar
Otte, Richard (2013) ‘A Carnapian argument from evil’, in Howard-Snyder, D. & McBrayer, J. P. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons), 8397.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin & Michael, Tooley (2008) Knowledge of God (Oxford: Blackwell).CrossRefGoogle Scholar