Skeptical Theism and Rowe's New Evidential Argument from Evil

Abstract

For twenty years now, William Rowe has been defending an evidential argument from evil. 1 Here's his 1996 summary of that argument: E1 is the case of a fawn trapped in a forest fire and undergoing several days of terrible agony before dying. E2 is the case of the rape, beating, and murder by strangulation of a five-year old girl.! P: No good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E1 and E2; therefore @it is probable that#, Q: no good at all justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E1 and E2; therefore @it is probable that#, not-G: there is no omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being.~262-63! 2Recently, however, Rowe has concluded that his attempt to defend the inductive inference from P to Q in the above argument is "weak" and "inadequate". It is inadequate, he says, because its adequacy requires what he hasn't given us, namely, a "reason to think it likely that the goods we know of... are representative of the goods there are". Instead of trying to provide us with such a reason, he has decided to "abandon this argument altogether and give what @he# believe@s# is a better argument". 3 This new "better" argument, along with skeptical theism, will be the focus of this paper.Before turning to that new argument, let's consider the stance Rowe seems to have taken toward skeptical theism. What is skeptical theism? It has two components-a skeptical component and a theistic one. The skeptical theist's theism is just the traditional monotheistic view that there exists an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being. It is the skeptical theist's skepticism that

The problem of evil: skeptical theism leads to moral paralysis

“…First, I will argue that were the skeptical theist to take her approach seriously, she would find herself the victim of moral paralysis: she would undermine her own ability to make any moral judgments whatsoever. 4 Second, and much more briefly, I will claim that the adoption of skeptical 4 Almeida and Oppy (2003) make a similar claim: they claim that skeptical theism as proposed by Bergmann (2001) would lead to moral skepticism. Their argument for the claim is somewhat different from the ones I will present in section 3.…”

Skeptical theism and the problem of moral aporia

“…I have elected to use the terms 'good' and 'evil,' and to speak of actions 'conducing to the good' or 'best serving the good,' however, owing primarily to convenience and economy of use. 9 Bergmann (2001), p. 284. 10 Alston (1996, p. 109.…”

On defense as opposed to theodicy

“…The following passage comes from Michael Bergmann's (2001), "Skeptical theism and Rowe's new evidential argument from evil," and expresses the heart of skeptical theism: ST1: We have no good reason for supposing that the possible goods that we know of are representative of the possible goods that there are.…”