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> In such a way, Leibniz, to cite Milton, dared to “justify the ways of God to men.” Voltaire responded with a snarky misreading that exploited the undeniable e

> In such a way, Leibniz, to cite Milton, dared to “justify the ways of God to men.” Voltaire responded with a snarky misreading that exploited the undeniable empirical fact that evil was not balanced by good in the lives of every discreet individual. But Leibniz made no such claim. The best world was optimized as a whole, containing just as much good and evil as was required for the totality of creation. I like this paragraph. I've never been a big fan of Voltaire's criticism (although I may have not understood it fully, not being a philosophy expert of any kind). To me it always seemed like Liebniz tried to explain why there was suffering on the whole, and Voltaire responding with "there is suffering!". Like you are not really arguing the point. My question has rather been that, if suffering is required and a child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best of all possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the planning phase. I assume God was not forced to create a world?

verisimi 2y ago
> My question has rather been that, if suffering is required and a child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best of all possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the planning phase. I assume God was not forced to create a world? It is not really possible to answer these questions when one does not know the spiritual infrastructure. Eg, say reincarnation of the soul is real, and in a previous life a soul has been in the body of an industrialist on whose account cancer causing pollution was spewed out. In the next incarnation, it seems valid for that soul to experience the effect of the earlier incarnation's actions. If that is it, the soul may in fact be learning and growing, which may be the point of the exercise. I know that this is all conjecture, but I hope I am relaying my point - that without understanding the spiritual domain, these sorts of moral appraisals are moot.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- feoren 2y ago
  That is a really excellent point and in fact gets at the difficulty of arguing any rational point about religion. I'd guess that every rational argument that appeals to religion at all can be made to work or not work depending on this background "spiritual infrastructure". This is one reason why rationalists often feel like religious thinkers are moving the goalposts. Maybe the 5-year-old who died of bone cancer was just playing Roy on the hardest difficulty. However, this shiftiness also undermines every religious platitude as well. God loves you, everything happens for a reason, etc. etc. etc. -- maybe, or maybe God is trapped in a human coma patient and Loki is just fucking with us. If you have degrees of freedom over this "spiritual infrastructure" then it's completely impossible to reach any conclusion.
moomin 2y ago
I think you and Voltaire are thinking along the same lines. Both are a rejection of a bloodless utility maximisation creed on the simple basis that human morality just doesn’t work that way.
mdp2021 2y ago
> and Voltaire responding with Like a very long joke, which builds and builds and builds and builds, the punchline in the end arrives. It's in the last sentence: "Yes, but you have to work for it". (I.e. he intended to stress an outer point.)
graemep 2y ago
> My question has rather been that, if suffering is required and a child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best of all possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the planning phase. Is that better? it would also require not having all the good things from creation.
- cocacola1 2y ago
  I can’t see the good being contingent on a five year old getting bone cancer.
  - graemep 2y ago
    In that case you have rejected Leibniz's argument anyway so the argument in the comment I was replying to does not arise.
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    You don't know that the child wouldn't have grown up Hitler. The argument seems similar - not exactly, but similar - to the question "if global warming is real, why is it snowing here". A function describing the maximum global integration over happiness could very well contain many local minima.
    - allturtles 2y ago
      Yes, but an omnipotent God could presumably just make Hitlers not exist. The argument rests on the assumption that there are hidden dependencies in the laws of the universe, such that it was logically necessary that Hitler (or insert whatever other evil here) had to exist to make the best possible world. That's hard to swallow.
      - dotancohen 2y ago
        Consider that many people today, who live better than the kings of centuries past, are depressed. One could conclude that happiness is a state of improvement over past experiences, not necessarily an absolute scale. If this is true (and I personally believe that it is), then evil is in fact a necessary baseline against which happiness can be improved upon.
thesz 2y ago
> maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the planning phase. This is an argument made by one of the Dostoevsky characters, a famous "tear of a child" argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky "Their first child, Sofya, had been conceived in Baden-Baden, and was born in Geneva on 5 March 1868. The baby died of pneumonia three months later, and Anna recalled how Dostoevsky "wept and sobbed like a woman in despair"." So Dostoevsky suffered the pain of losing a child. Despite that, an argument about "tear of child" was put into antagonist's mouth.
geysersam 2y ago
Couldn't that be a misreading of Voltaire though? I didn't interpret Candide as "there is suffering", I interpreted it as "this is obviously not the best possible world and no logical gymnastics can convince me it is" (With the collorary that logic is pretty useless in moral philosophy if it's only used to find contrived justification for the status quo.)
Tossrock 2y ago
Unsong has a pretty novel take on it.

verisimi 2y ago

> My question has rather been that, if suffering is required and a child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best of all possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the planning phase. I assume God was not forced to create a world? It is not really possible to answer these questions when one does not know the spiritual infrastructure. Eg, say reincarnation of the soul is real, and in a previous life a soul has been in the body of an industrialist on whose account cancer causing pollution was spewed out. In the next incarnation, it seems valid for that soul to experience the effect of the earlier incarnation's actions. If that is it, the soul may in fact be learning and growing, which may be the point of the exercise. I know that this is all conjecture, but I hope I am relaying my point - that without understanding the spiritual domain, these sorts of moral appraisals are moot.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
feoren 2y ago
That is a really excellent point and in fact gets at the difficulty of arguing any rational point about religion. I'd guess that every rational argument that appeals to religion at all can be made to work or not work depending on this background "spiritual infrastructure". This is one reason why rationalists often feel like religious thinkers are moving the goalposts. Maybe the 5-year-old who died of bone cancer was just playing Roy on the hardest difficulty. However, this shiftiness also undermines every religious platitude as well. God loves you, everything happens for a reason, etc. etc. etc. -- maybe, or maybe God is trapped in a human coma patient and Loki is just fucking with us. If you have degrees of freedom over this "spiritual infrastructure" then it's completely impossible to reach any conclusion.

moomin 2y ago

I think you and Voltaire are thinking along the same lines. Both are a rejection of a bloodless utility maximisation creed on the simple basis that human morality just doesn’t work that way.

mdp2021 2y ago

> and Voltaire responding with Like a very long joke, which builds and builds and builds and builds, the punchline in the end arrives. It's in the last sentence: "Yes, but you have to work for it". (I.e. he intended to stress an outer point.)

graemep 2y ago

cocacola1 2y ago
I can’t see the good being contingent on a five year old getting bone cancer.
- graemep 2y ago
  In that case you have rejected Leibniz's argument anyway so the argument in the comment I was replying to does not arise.
- dotancohen 2y ago
  You don't know that the child wouldn't have grown up Hitler. The argument seems similar - not exactly, but similar - to the question "if global warming is real, why is it snowing here". A function describing the maximum global integration over happiness could very well contain many local minima.
  - allturtles 2y ago
    Yes, but an omnipotent God could presumably just make Hitlers not exist. The argument rests on the assumption that there are hidden dependencies in the laws of the universe, such that it was logically necessary that Hitler (or insert whatever other evil here) had to exist to make the best possible world. That's hard to swallow.
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      Consider that many people today, who live better than the kings of centuries past, are depressed. One could conclude that happiness is a state of improvement over past experiences, not necessarily an absolute scale. If this is true (and I personally believe that it is), then evil is in fact a necessary baseline against which happiness can be improved upon.

thesz 2y ago

> maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the planning phase. This is an argument made by one of the Dostoevsky characters, a famous "tear of a child" argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky "Their first child, Sofya, had been conceived in Baden-Baden, and was born in Geneva on 5 March 1868. The baby died of pneumonia three months later, and Anna recalled how Dostoevsky "wept and sobbed like a woman in despair"." So Dostoevsky suffered the pain of losing a child. Despite that, an argument about "tear of child" was put into antagonist's mouth.

geysersam 2y ago

Couldn't that be a misreading of Voltaire though? I didn't interpret Candide as "there is suffering", I interpreted it as "this is obviously not the best possible world and no logical gymnastics can convince me it is" (With the collorary that logic is pretty useless in moral philosophy if it's only used to find contrived justification for the status quo.)

Tossrock 2y ago

Unsong has a pretty novel take on it.