Defending the Free Will Defense: A Reply to Sterba

Abstract

James Sterba has recently argued that the free will defense fails to explain the compossibility of a perfect God and the amount and degree of moral evil that we see. I think he is mistaken about this. I thus find myself in the awkward and unexpected position, as a non-theist myself, of defending the free will defense. In this paper, I will try to show that once we take care to focus on what the free will defense is trying to accomplish, and by what means it tries to do so, we will see that Sterba’s criticism of it misses the mark.

Skeptical Theism: A Panoramic Overview (Part I)

“…3 3 See Plantinga (1974) for a thorough treatment of Mackie's argument. For recent discussion of Plantinga's reply, see Otte (2009), Pruss (2012), Speak (2015), Wielenberg (2016), and Oliveira (2022). …”

“…For other helpful overviews of this literature, seeBergmann (2009),McBrayer (2010), andPerrine and Wykstra (2017).2 "These additional principles are that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do"(Mackie, 1955, p. 201).3 SeePlantinga (1974) for a thorough treatment of Mackie's argument. For recent discussion of Plantinga's reply, seeOtte (2009),Pruss (2012),Speak (2015),Wielenberg (2016), andOliveira (2022).4 Rowe does not use the notion of a "justifying reason" in his own statement of the argument. That he has this notion in mind, however, is clear from his claims in the preceding paragraph: "Intense human or animal suffering is in itself bad, an evil, even though it may sometimes be justified by virtue of being a part of, or leading to, some good which is unobtainable without it… In such a case, while remaining an evil in itself, the intense human or animal suffering is, nevertheless, an evil which someone might be morally justified in permitting.…”