Reincarnation and theodicy

As I was teaching on the problem of evil today, I was struck by how nicely reincarnation could provide theodicies for recalcitrant cases. “Why is the fawn dying in the forest fire? Well, for all we know, it’s a reincarnation of someone who committed genocide and is undergoing the just punishment for this, a punishment whose restorative effect will only be seen in the next life.” “Why is Sam suffering with no improvement to his soul? Well, maybe the improvement will only manifest in the next life.”

Of course, I don’t believe in reincarnation. But if the problem of evil is aimed at theism in general, then it seems fair to say that for all that theism in general says, reincarnation could be true.

Here is a particular dialectical context where bringing in reincarnation could be helpful. The theist presses the fine-tuning argument. The atheist instead of embracing a multiverse (as is usual) responds with the argument from evil. The theist now says: While reincarnation may seem unlikely, it surely has at least a one in a million probability conditionally on theism; on the other hand, fine-tuning has a much, much smaller probability than one in a million conditionally on single-universe atheism. So theism wins.

Punctured vanity

I noticed that my Principle of Sufficient Reason book was 52nd in Metaphysics on Amazon. That sounded kind of nice, though not amazing, until I noticed that it was right behind We Are Our Ancestors, a book on reincarnation. Great title, though. :-)

Naturalism and injustice

1. (Premise) All instances of severe suffering of small children are unjust.
2. (Premise) Only things agents are responsible for are unjust.
3. So, all instances of severe suffering of small children are things that agents are responsible for.
4. If (3), then naturalism is false.

A quick argument for (1): all unfair things are unjust, and all such instances are unfair. The naturalist will, I think, in the end want to deny (1) if she is to remain a naturalist. However I do think a lot of people have a strong intuition that such suffering is not just really bad, but that it is unjust.
Premise (2) is very plausible.

I think (4) is plausible, as well. For while some cases of severe suffering of children are things agents are responsible for even if naturalism is true—say, suffering directly imposed by agents—there will be many cases which are not like that. Say, a couple lovingly procreates in order to share their good life with a child, and the child has a congenital disease that causes severe suffering. There is no naturalistically-acceptable agential explanation.

What sort of non-naturalistic agential explanation could be given of these injustices? Here are the three most obvious options:

• An evil deity.
• A devil.
• The Fall.

Moreover, there is a special non-naturalistic story that could be given as to (1) is false: one could hold to reincarnation and say that all instances of severel suffering of small children are fair punishments for a life of wickedness.

Which is the right story? Well, it's not an evil deity and it's not reincarnation.