Animal experimentation

We have an intuitive line as to where the suffering in animal’s life is so great compared to the goods in it that when we are able to do so, we euthanize animals when the suffering causes the value of the animal’s life to fall below that line. On the other hand, the life of an animal that falls above this line is a life that is a benefit to the animal.

It seems to me that this intuitive line could be a helpful discernment criterion for animal experimentation. Animals that are used for experiments are often bred for that purpose. Thus, they wouldn’t exist absent the practice of experimentation. It seems, hence, that experiments where the stresses on the animals make the animal’s life fall below this intuitive line are very easy to justify: the animals are benefitted by the practice, even if the experiments do impose some suffering on the animal. It seems plausible that such experiments could thus be justified by the intrinsic value of the knowledge gained for its own sake, or even by pedagogical benefits for students.

On the other hand, if the stresses in the animal’s life are such as to make their life fall below the line, then stronger justification is needed: the prospective benefits of the research need to be rather more significant.

I don’t know how good we are at discerning where that line goes. People with pets and farm animals do make hard decisions about this, though, so we seem to have some epistemic access to the line.

(I do think that it is permissible to be much more utilitarian about animal life than about human life. I certainly would not generalize what I say above to the case of humans.)

An asymmetry between physical and emotional pain

Here is a puzzling asymmetry. It seems that:

• Typically, we should seek to remove serious physical pains, even when these pains are normal and we are unable to alleviate the underlying problem.

• Typically, when emotional pains are serious but normal, we should not seek to remove them, except by alleviating the underlying problem.

Thus, if one has lost a leg in an accident, it seems one should be given pain killers, whether or not the leg can be reattached, and even if one’s degree of pain is proper to the loss. But if one has lost a friend, the grief should not be removed, unless it can be done by restoring the friend (there is, after all, more than one sense of “lost a friend”).

Structurally, it seems that leg and friend cases are parallel: In both cases, there is a harm, which it is normal to perceive painfully.

Solution 1: The difference is due to instrumental factors. In the case of the loss of a friend, the pain helps one to restructure oneself mentally in the tragic new circumstances. In the case of the loss of a leg, however, assuming one is already seeking medical attention, the pain is unlikely to lead to any further goods.

Solution 2: Due to the Fall, typically our physical pains are excessive. We feel more pain for a physical loss than we should given that our primary ends are not physical in nature. The appearance of asymmetry is due to an equivocation on “normal”: the kind of pain we feel at physical damage is statistically normal for fallen human beings, but is not really normal. On the other hand, when we talk of normal emotional pains, there the pains are either really normal, correctly grasping the tragedy of the situation, or else they are actually deficient. (A standard theological intuition is that Jesus suffered mentally more at evils than any of us, because his virtue made him more acutely aware of the badness of these evils.)

A Christian argument against divine suffering

Some Christians think that God changes and is capable of changing emotions such as suffering. Now, if God is capable of suffering, then God feels empathetic suffering whenever an evil befalls us, and does so to the extent of how bad he understand the evil to be.

The worst evil that can happen to us is to sin. God knows how bad our sin is better than any human being can. Thus, if God can suffer, he suffers compassionately for our sins. He suffers this qua God and independently of any Incarnation, more intensely than any human being can.

But if so, that undercuts one of the central points of the Incarnation, which is to allow the Second Person of the Trinity to suffer for our sins.

A view on which God is capable of emotions such as suffering makes the Incarnation and Christ’s sacrifice of the Cross rather underwhelming: God’s divine suffering would be greater than Christ’s suffering on the Cross. This is theologically unacceptable.

Preventing suffering

Theodicies according to which sufferings make possible greater moral goods are often subjected to this objection: If so, why should we prevent sufferings?

I am not near to having a full answer to the question. But I think this is related to a question everyone, and not just the theist, needs to face up to. For everyone should accept Socrates’ great insight that moral excellence is much more important than avoiding suffering, and yet we should often prevent suffering that we think is apt to lead to the more important goods. I don’t know why. That’s right now one of the mysteries of the moral life for me. But it is as it is.

Famously, persons with disabilities tend to report higher life satisfaction than persons without disabilities. But we all know that accepting this data should not keep us from working to prevent disability-causing car accidents. While higher life satisfaction is not the same as moral excellence, the example is still instructive. Our reasons to prevent disability-causing car accidents do not require us to refute the empirical data suggesting that persons with disabilities lead more satisfying lives. I do not know why exactly we still have on balance reason to prevent such accidents, but it is clear to me that we do.

Mother Teresa thought that the West is suffering from a deep poverty of relationships, with both God and neighbor. Plausibly she was right. We probably are not in a position to know that affluence is a significant cause of this deep poverty, but we can be open to the real epistemic possibility that it is, and we can acknowledge the deep truth that the riches of relationship are far more important than physical goods, without this sapping our efforts to improve the material lot of the needy.

Or suppose you are witnessing Alice torturing Bob, and an oracle informed you that in ten years they will be reconciled, with Bob beautifully forgiving Alice and Alice deeply repenting, with the goods of the reconciliation being greater than the bads in the torture. I think I should still stop Alice.

A quick corollary of the above cases is that consequentialism is false. But there is a deep paradox here that cuts more deeply than consequentialism. I do not know how to resolve it.

Here are some stories, none of which are fully satisfying to me in their present state of development.

Perhaps it is better if humans have a special focus on the relief of suffering and improvement of material well-being of the patient. An opposite focus might lead to an unhealthy condescension.

Perhaps it has something to do with our embodied natures that a special focus on the bodily good of the other is a particularly fitting way for humans to express love for one another. While letting another suffer in the hope of greater on-balance happiness might be better for the patient, it could well be worse for the agent and the relationship. Maybe we should think of what Catholics call the “corporal works of mercy” as a kind of kiss, or maybe even something like a sacrament.

Perhaps there is something about respect for the autonomy of the other. Maybe others’ physical good is also our business while moral development is more their own business.

I think there is more. But the point I want to make is just that this is not a special question for theism and theodicy. It is a paradox that all morally sensitive people should see both sides of.

Coming back to theodicy, note that the above speculative considerations may not apply to God as the agent. (God cannot but condescend, being infinitely above us. God is not embodied, except in respect of the Incarnation. And we have no autonomy rights against God, as God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.)

Presentism and counting future sufferings

I find it hard to see why on presentism or growing block theory it’s a bad thing that I will suffer, given that the suffering is unreal. Perhaps, though, the presentist or growing blocker can say that is a primitive fact that it is bad for me that a bad thing will happen to me.

But there is now a second problem for the presentist. Suppose I am comparing two states of affairs:

1. Alice will suffer for an hour in 10 hours.
2. Bob will suffer for an hour in 5 hours and again for an hour in 15 hours.

Other things being equal, Alice is better off than Bob. But why?

The eternalist can say:

1. There are more one-hour bouts of suffering for Bob than for Alice.

Maybe the growing blocker can say:

2. It will be the case in 16 hours that there are more bouts of suffering for Bob than for Alice.

(I feel that this doesn’t quite explain why it’s B is twice as bad, given that the difference between B and A shouldn’t be grounded in what happens in 16 hours, but nevermind that for this post.)

But what about the presentist? Let’s suppose preentism is true. We might now try to explain our comparative judgment by future-tensing (1):

3. There will be more bouts of suffering for Bob than for Alice.

But what does that mean? Our best account of “There are more Xs than Ys” is that the set of Xs is bigger than the set of Ys. But given presentism, the set of Bob’s future bouts of suffering is no bigger than the set of Alice’s future bouts of suffering, because if presentism is true, then both sets are empty as there are no future bouts of suffering. So (3) cannot just mean that there are more future bouts of suffering for Bob than for Alice. Perhaps it means that:

4. It will be the case that the set of Bob’s bouts of suffering is larger than the set of Alice’s.

This is true. In 5.5 hours, there will presently be one bout of suffering for Bob and none for Alice, so it will then be the case that the set of Bob’s bouts of suffering is larger than the set of Alice’s. But while it is true, it is similarly true that:

5. It will be the case that the set of Alice’s bouts of suffering is larger than the set of Bob’s.

For in 10.5 hours, there will presently be one bout for Alice and none for Bob. If we read (3) as (4), then, we have to likewise say that there will be more bouts of suffering for Alice than for Bob, and so we don’t have an explanation of why Alice is better off.

Perhaps, though, instead of counting bouts of suffering, the presentist can count intervals of time during which there is suffering. For instance:

6. The set of hour-long periods of time during which Bob is suffering is bigger than the set of hour-long periods of time during which Alice is suffering.

Notice that the times here need to be something like abstract ersatz times. For the presentist does not think there are any future real concrete times, and so if the periods were real and concrete, the two sets in (6) would be both empty.

And now we have a puzzle. How can fact (6), which is just a fact about sets of abstract ersatz times, explain the fact about how Bob is (or is going to be) worse off than Alice? I can see how a comparative fact about sets of sufferings might make Bob worse off than Alice. But a comparative fact about sets of abstract times should not. It is true that (6) entails that Bob is worse off than Alice. But (6) isn’t the explanation of why.

Our best explanation of why Bob is worse off than Alice is, thus, (1). But the presentist can’t accept (1). So, presentism is probably false.

Compensation

It seems to be widely accepted in the philosophy of religion community that supposing God's merely compensating a person for evils suffered will not make for a good theodicy. Rather, the evils must be defeated in a way that goes over and beyond compensation, that draws a defeating good out of the evil. I think that in many cases this conviction might well be mistaken. Compensation may well be good enough.

Start with this story:

You are a financially well-off Olympic archer. You are about to take your last shot at the Olympics, indeed at the last Olympics you will ever compete at (you have promised your spouse to hang up your bow after these Olympics) and whether you get a gold medal depends on this shot. Getting a gold medal means a lot to you. At the same time, you see in the stands a vicious dog attacking me. You could turn your bow on the dog, and painlessly kill it at this range (nor would it be wrong to do so; the dog will be put down anyway after the vicious attack). There is no other way for the attack to be stopped. But then you would lose your last chance for a gold medal: the dog is not the official target. You also know that what kind of a dog it is and how terrified of dogs I am, so that you know that if that were the whole story, the sufferings that I would endure through being bitten are so great that your gold medal wouldn't be worth it: you would have a duty to shoot the dog. But you also know me well enough to know for sure that I would survive the attack without permanent damage, and that you have a sum of money that you could give me such that both by my own lights and objectively I'd be much better off bitten and compensated than neither bitten nor compensated. You resolve to compensate me financially, take your shot at the target, win your gold medal, write me a large check, and we are both much better off for this.

This is a clear case of compensation for evil rather than defeat of evil. At the same time, your failure to stop the attack is justified. I chose this case so that my own biases would go against the justification. I am in fact terrified of dogs. Being bitten again would be a truly horrific experience. Nonetheless, if you gave me a sum of money sufficient to pay off the rest of our mortgage and there was no permanent damage, I think it would be well-worth being bitten. (I don't think I would go for it for half of the mortgage!)

Notice what compensation does here. The good you achieve by allowing me to be bitten—the gold medal—is insufficient to justify your permitting me to be bitten. (If this isn't true, we can tweak the case so it is.) But when you add your resolve to compensate me, and your knowledge that the compensation would be sufficient both objectively and by my own lights, you come to be justified.

An important feature of this story is that the good you achieve—the gold medal—is one to which my sufferings are not a means, and indeed you do not intend my sufferings either as an end or as a means. (Here one remembers Double Effect, of course.) But there is an end that you are pursuing, and your pursuit of this end precludes your preventing the evil.

There are many real-world cases that might well have this structure. Consider Rowe's fawn dying painfully in a forest fire. God could miraculously prevent this, but doesn't, because he wants the laws of nature to have as few exceptions as possible. Now, it's good, I suppose, that the laws of nature have as few exceptions as possible. But this good does not seem to be sufficiently great to justify several days of the fawn suffering. However, if God resolves to compensate the fawn in an afterlife, to a degree such that both objectively and by the fawn's lights (to the extent that the fawn is capable of making the relevant judgments) the fawn will be much better off for having both the suffering and the compensation, then we will have the structure of the archery-dogbite case.

I do not know that the compensation story will work for every case. One worry is that if you foreknew that the dog would bite and were responsible for the dog's presence in the stands in the light of this foresight, then the justification in the compensation story is less clear, even if you don't intend the dog's biting. So there will be relevant questions about determinism, Molinism and the like in the theological cases.

Here's another interesting thing, by the way, about the fawn case. The compensation would not have to come in an afterlife. Suppose:

You are a super-rich archer. You know that sometimes dogs show up and bite people in one area of the stadium. So ahead of time you write sufficiently large checks to all these people such that both objectively and by their lights they would be much better off for having the check and the dogbite than for having neither. And then when it's time to compete, you don't even need to think about the dogs.

This seems quite justifiable as well. So if God sufficiently compensates all deer that are in danger of forest fires ahead of time, all is well, too.

Note, though, that in general pre-compensation works less well for human sufferers than for non-human sufferers. For humans see their lives as a narrative, and the narrative structure and order of events matters a lot as a result. So in the case of a human it is particularly tragic if existence ends in a particularly bad way, no matter how good the earlier parts were. So compensation for evils that happen around the time of death still likely requires an afterlife in the case of humans. (And even in the case of non-human animals, it may be better for God to compensate in an afterlife, since it would require fewer miracles in this world.)

Self-inflicted sufferings, Maimonedes and anomaly

Suppose I know that if I go kayaking on a sunny day for two delightful hours, I will have mild muscle pains the next day. I judge that the price is well worth paying. I go kayaking and I then suffer the mild muscle pains the next day.

My suffering is not deserved. After all, suffering is something you come to deserve by wrongdoing, and I haven't done anything wrong. But it's also awkward to call it "undeserved". I guess it's non-deserved suffering.

It would be very implausible to run an argument from evil based on a case like this. And it's not hard to come up with a theodicy for it. God is under no obligation to make it possible for me to go kayaking on a sunny day and a fortiori he is under no obligation to make it possible for me to do so while avoiding subsequent pain. It is not difficult to think that the good of uniformity of nature justifies God's non-interference.

How far can a theodicy of this sort be made to go? Well, it extends to other cases where the suffering is a predictable lawlike consequence of one's optional activities. This will include cases where the optional activities are good, neutral or bad. Maimonedes, no doubt speaking from medical experience, talks of the last case at length:

The third class of evils comprises those which every one causes to himself by his own action. This is the largest class, and is far more numerous than the second class. It is especially of these evils that all men complain,only few men are found that do not sin against themselves by this kind of evil. Those that are afflicted with it are therefore justly blamed .... This class of evils originates in man's vices, such as excessive desire for eating, drinking, and love; indulgence in these things in undue measure, or in improper manner, or partaking of bad food. (Guide for the Perplexed, XII)

Maimonedes divides evils into three classes:

1. evils caused by embodiment,
2. evils inflicted by us on one another, and
3. self-inflicted evils.

In the third class he only lists self-inflicted evils that are inflicted by bad activity, but we can extend the class as above. He insists that evils in the first and second classes are "very few and rare" and says that "no notice should be taken of exceptional cases".

The last remark is quite interesting. It goes against the grain of us analytic philosophers—exceptions are our bread and butter, it seems. But Maimonedes' insight, which mirrors Aristotle's remarks about precision in ethics, is deep and important. It suggests that the evils for which there is a plausible "problem of evil", namely the evils of the first and second classes, are an anomaly, and should be handled as such (for a development of this idea, see this paper by Dougherty and Pruss, in Oxford Studies).

Speculation on the virtuous person's emotions

Take seriously the Socratic idea that emotional awareness is a kind of perception of normative states of affairs: pain is a perception of actual ill-being, fear of potential future ill-being, joy of present good, and so on. Aristotle seems to think that the virtuous person's emotions will be perfectly in tune with reality. The courageous person will only fear what is genuinely fearsome, and so on.

But if we take the Socratic view of emotional consciousness, then we will have reason to doubt Aristotle. For the virtuous person's emotional awareness is going to be properly functioning. But it is false that properly functioning perceptions are always veridical. Indeed, sometimes, a sensory perception must be non-veridical to be properly functioning. As Descartes notes in the Meditations, any cause that produces the same effect in our body will result in the same perception. A barn and a barn facade (seen face on) produce the same effect on our retinas, and result in the same perceptions. Moreover, when this happens, our perceptions are properly functioning, and were we to see these same effects differently, our perceptions would be improperly functioning. If the barn facade didn't look like a barn, your sense of sight would be malfunctioning. (Our senses might always produce veridical results in heaven. If so, then that is a sense in which our nature is somehow transformed in heaven.) Most of the time, we see barns, not barn facades, and our senses' proper functioning is adapted to what gets us to truth for the most part (much as according to Aquinas, the proper functioning of the reproductive faculties is adapted to what leads to the good for the most part, which is why he thinks fornication is wrong even when it does not harm children, since for the most part, fornication is bad for offspring, and therefore our nature is such that fornication is not a part of our proper function.)

It would be surprising indeed if the same weren't true of emotional awareness. Sometimes, this is true simply because of sensory illusions. If you grew up happily on a farm, the convincing barn facade gives you the same nostalgic feeling as a real barn, and if you failed to feel nostalgia, something is wrong with you. But the same can be true even where there is no sensory illusion. Sometimes, virtue requires one to to knowingly (maybe even intentionally) cause pain to another. But the knowledgeable causing of pain to another quite properly makes one feel bad about what one is doing, and this should happen even when one knows that one ought to be doing what one is doing. In such a case, the emotional awareness may be non-veridical, but it is, nonetheless, properly functioning. If one did not feel bad, then one would have a malfunctioning emotional awareness, and one would not be fully virtuous.

I remember reading that St Catherine the Great Martyr, when young, was puzzled by Christ's suffering in the garden. Wouldn't Christ welcome suffering for righteousness' sake? So she supposed that his suffering was a kind of display for our benefit. But no: It wasn't a show. A virtuous person suffers fear when contemplating a terrible death, even if the virtuous person knows that this death should not be avoided. The feeling may be non-veridical, but why should Christ have been exempt from non-veridical emotions? After all, we do not think he was exempt from visual illusions: Surely a stick in the water looked broken to him. Of course, he might well judge the emotion non-veridical, much as we judge the one about the stick, but just as the stick still looks broken, Christ would still suffer.

But perhaps this is all wrong. It all depends on just how teleological proper function is.

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.

A Copenhagen story about the problem of suffering before human sin

It sure looks like there was a lot of suffering in the animal world prior to the advent of humanity, and hence before any sins of humanity. Yet it would be attractive, both theologically (at least for Christians) and philosophically, if one could say that evil entered the physical world through the free choices of persons. One could invoke the idea of angels who fell before the evolutionary process got started and who screwed things up (that might even be the right story). Or one could invoke backwards causation (Hud Hudson's hypertime story does something like that). Here I want to explore another story. I don't believe the story I will give is true. But the story is compatible with our observations outside of Revelation, does not lead to widespread scepticism, and is motivated in terms of an interpretation of quantum mechanics that has been influential.

Begin with this observation. If the non-epistemic Copenhagen interpretation (NECI) of Quantum Mechanics is literally true, then before there were observers, there was no earth and hence no life on earth. Given indeterministic events in the history of the universe, the world existed in a giant superposition between an earth and a no-earth state. The Milky Way Galaxy may not have even existed then, but instead there was a giant superposition between Milky-Way and no-Milky-Way states. And then an observation collapsed this giant superposition in favor of the sort of Solar System and Milky Way that we observe. There are difficult details to spell out here, which we can talk about in the discussion. But note that the story predicts that we will have astronomical evidence of the Milky Way existing long before there were observers on earth, even though perhaps it didn't--perhaps there was just the giant superposition. For when such a superposition collapses, it leaves evidence as of the remaining branch having been there for a long time earlier.

Now to make this a defense of the idea that suffering in the animal world entered through human sin, I need a few assumptions beyond the above plain NECI story:

1. the observations that collapse the wavefunction are observations by intelligent embodied observers
2. quantum states only come to be substrates of conscious states when the wavefunction is strongly concentrated on them (think of a very narrow Gaussian)
3. prior to there being humans on earth, there were no highly concentrated quantum states of the sort that would be substrates of conscious states
4. humans were the first embodied intelligent observers of the earth (or of other stuff relevantly entangled with it)
5. God set up special laws of nature such that if humans were never to make wrong choices, no wavefunctions would ever collapse into the substrates of painful states.
6. optional but theologically and philosophically attractive: the unsuperposed existence of humans comes from a special divinely-wrought collapse of the wavefunction (this would solve one problem with NECI, namely how the first observation was made, given that on plain NECI before the first observation there was a superposition of observer and no-observer states before it; it would also help reconcile creation and evolution)

One might even connect the giant superposition with the formless and void state mentioned in the Book of Genesis, though I do not particularly recommend this exegesis and I don't believe the story I am giving is in fact true (and I am mildly inclined to think it false).

Objection 1: The story makes standard paleontological and geological claims literally false. There never were any dinosaurs or trilobites, just a giant superposition with dinosaur- and trilobite-states in one component.

Response: So does the plain NECI story, without any of my supplements such as that it is intelligent observation that collapses the wavefunction. And just like the plain NECI story, my extended story explains why have the evidence we do.

Objection 2: Like the worst of the young-earth creationist stories, this story involves a massive divine deception.

Response: Not at all. Consider Descartes' attractive idea that what we expect from God is not that we would always get science right, but that we would be capable of scientifically correcting our mistakes. And the discovery of quantum mechanics, with the invention of the NECI interpretation, came within a century of Darwin's work. As soon as we had quantum mechanics with the NECI interpretation, we had good reason to doubt whether prior to the existence of observers there was an earth simpliciter or just an earth-component in a giant superposition.

Objection 3: There are better interpretations of quantum mechanics than NECI.

Response: Weighing the pros and cons of an interpretation of quantum mechanics requires weighing all its costs and benefits. This will include weighing the theological benefits of this interpretation, given the evidence that there is a God.

Variant: If we want, we can reinterpret the paleontological and geological claims about how things were before observers as relativized to a component of the wavefunction, while exempting consciousness from this relativization--only where there are highly concentrated states is there consciousness. The Everett interpretation basically does this relativization for all claims. The present relativization is, I think, less problematic than the Everett one. First, it doesn't branch intelligent agents or conscious states in the way the Everett interpretation does, a branching that generates the severely counterintuitive consequences of Everett's theory. Second, I do not think it has the well-known serious philosophical problems with the interpretation of probability that the Everett interpretation suffers from: the probabilistic transitions all happen with intelligent observation, and are objectively chancy transitions with the probabilities being interpreted according to one's favorite view of objective chances.

Final remarks: Why don't I believe this story? Well, for one, I find myself incredulous at it. Second, we know that either quantum mechanics or relativity theory is false, and I see little reason to assign more credence to quantum mechanics. Third, I do want to preserve the claims of the special sciences, like biology and geology, without implausible relativization. Fourth, I am sceptical of (1), the idea that only intelligent observation collapses the wavefunction.

Searching for meaning in one's suffering

Here is a logically valid argument:

1. If theism is false, most evils are meaningless.
2. If most evils are meaningless, it is inadvisable for sufferers to put significant effort into searching for meaning in their suffering.
3. It is not inadvisable for sufferers to put significant effort into searching for meaning in their suffering.
4. So, theism is true.

All the conditionals here are material conditionals and I am not claiming any kind of necessity for them. I do find the premises fairly plausible. I am least sure of (2). I not clear on what "meaning in suffering" is, but there does seem to be such a thing—at least, many people report finding it.

An argument from evil against naturalism

Consider this valid argument:

1. (Premise) Moral outrage at an event is misplaced when no one is responsible for the event.
2. (Premise) Moral outrage at the suffering of animals before the advent of humankind is not misplaced.
3. (Premise) If naturalism is true, then no one is responsible for the suffering of animals before the advent of humankind.
4. So, naturalism is false.

I don't know if (2) is true, though. But this argument does put pressure on the naturalist running an argument from the suffering of animals against the existence of God. For that argument is persuasive in large part by creating moral outrage in the reader. But if naturalism is true, that outrage is misplaced.

What if theism is true? Is the outrage misplaced? That depends. If, say, the devil is behind that suffering, it's not misplaced.

At least on average, a human life is good

A stranger is drowning. You know nothing about the stranger other than that the stranger is drowning. You can press a button, and the stranger will be saved, at no cost to yourself or anybody else. What should you do?

Of course you ought to press the button. That's simply obvious.

But it wouldn't be obvious if at least on average a human life weren't good, weren't worth living. If on average, a human life were bad, were not worth living, you would have to seriously worry about the likely bad future that you would be enabling by saving the stranger. It still might well be right to pull out the stranger, but it wouldn't be obvious. And if on average a human life were neutral, it wouldn't be obvious that it's a duty.

So our judgment that obviously a random stranger should be saved commits us to judging that at least on average a human life is good (or at least will be good).

Now suppose we get exactly one of the following pieces of information:

• The stranger is a member of a downtrodden minority.
• The stranger is currently a hospital patient (and is drowning in the bathtub of the hospital room).
• The stranger's mother did not want him or her to be conceived.
• The stranger is economically in the bottom 10% of society.

None of these pieces of information makes it less obvious that we should save the stranger's life. This judgment, then, commits us to judging that on average the life of a member of a downtrodden minority, or of a hospital patient or of someone whose mother did not want him or her to be conceived, or of someone economically in the bottom decile is at least on average good.

Suppose, however, that we get some more specific information, such as that the stranger is suffering horrendous pain that cannot in any way be relieved, or that the stranger will tomorrow be tortured to death. It may still be right to save the stranger, but it is no longer obvious that that's the right thing to do. So the on-average judgments above aren't simply derivative from a general judgment that all human life is worth living or from a deontic judgment that any drowning person who can easily be saved should be saved.

So, not only is the average human life worth living, but the average human life in conditions of significant adversity (being a downtrodden minority member, etc.) is worth living.

Now, I happen to think that every human life is worth living. But in this post I've only argued for a weaker claim.

Eternal suffering and materialism

The following argument is valid:

1. No possible four-dimensional arrangement of mere matter is intrinsically such that it is worth sacrificing one's life to prevent its existence.
2. If materialism is true, then there is a possible four-dimensional arrangements of mere matter that is a society consisting entirely of good people who suffer horrible torment forever.
3. A society consisting entirely of good people who suffer horrible torment forever is intrinsically such that it is worth sacrificing one's life to prevent its existence.
4. So, materialism is false.

Is this a good argument against materialism? I think there is a lot of intuitive plausibility in the idea that arrangements of matter, in themselves, are just not very important, except for possible esthetic value. But nothing is so intrinsically ugly that it is worth sacrificing one's life precisely to prevent its existence.

The materialist, I think, will simply deny (1). Nonetheless, I think that there is some cost to denying (1).

No one would be better off not existing

1. (Premise) If t is a time at which a human being x exists, then x owes thanks to God for existing at t.
2. (Premise) If x would be better off not existing at t, then x does not owe anybody thanks for existing at t.
3. Therefore, there is no human being that exists at a time at which it would be better for her not to exist.

A corollary is that every human in hell is better off existing than not existing, and owes thanks to God for continuing to exist, as per my remarks here.  

This post is inspired by a remark I overheard wafting from another restaurant table near the Central APA that on some view (I didn't hear whose), even those in hell owe thanks to God.

A common mistake about hell

A common mistake about hell, often made by both contemporary advocates of the doctrine and their opponents, is the Horrific Thesis:

(HT) It is better not to exist at all, or even not to have existed at all, than to spend eternity in hell.

Given HT, it is easy to argue against hell.  All things that exist, exist by the continual creation of God.  Everything that God creates, or continually creates, is on balance good.  Therefore, nobody is better off not existing.  Hence if HT is true, nobody spends eternity in hell.  

But HT is false.  First, consider its Scriptural warrant.  There is one New Testament text directly related to HT, given in Matthew and Mark:

As for that man [the betrayer], it would have been better [kalon] for him had he not been born [ei ouk eggenêthê] (Matthew 26:24, Mark 14:21).  

But that text simply does not sufficiently support HT.  First, it does not say that it was better for Judas not to have existed, but at most that it would have been better for him not to have been born.  Since Judas had already existed by the time of his birth--I say he existed about nine months before his birth, but in any case surely he existed some time before his birth--the counterfactual taken literally compares two scenarios: Judas being born and Judas dying in utero.  Now had he died prior to birth, his eternal destination would be wherever Jewish babies ended up after death--either heaven or limbo.  On this reading, then, we are told that Judas would have been better off dying in utero and ending up in heaven or limbo than wherever he ended up.  (If he would have ended up in heaven had he died prior to birth, then the text does not even entail that Judas went to hell.  Maybe he would have been better off had he died in utero because then he would have ended up in a better state in heaven or because then he would have avoided purgatory.)  Second, the word kalon might also have been translated as "noble" or "honorable"--in classical Greek that is the primary meaning and the word seems to have that meaning in some New Testament uses as well.  Thus, even if we take the "had he not been born" non-literally as meaning "had he not existed", the text could simply be telling us that it would have been more noble or more honorable for him had he not existed, rather than altogether better.

The other part of HT's Scriptural warrant are the scary descriptions--lake of fire, worm that dieth not--of what existence in hell is like.  But we should read Scripture consistently with Scripture.  And Scripture also tells us of a God who loves all, whose sun shines on sinner and righteous alike, who created everything and it was all good.  Thus we should temper our interpretations of the harrowing descriptions with the conviction that God does not create or sustain in existence that for which it would be better not to exist.

(Objection: Maybe it is agent-centeredly worse for the person in hell to exist than not to, but it is better that she exist than not.  Response: But better for whom or what?  God's activity is primarily guided by love.  When he acts for a good cause, he does so for someone or something.  Is it better for God that the person suffer?  The Christian tradition will not be happy with this reading.  Is it better for others?  But how?  Tertullian suggested that the saved will get joy from watching the punishment of the damned.  But even if he is right, this can only be true if the punishment of the damned has a value independent of the saved watching it, since the saved get joy only out of watching good things.  No, if it is better simpliciter that the person be in hell than not exist, it is better for the person in hell.)

One might ask, of course, if it is possible to have eternal suffering and yet to have a life worth living.  But surely the answer is positive.  One way for the answer to be positive is for Augustine and Aquinas to be right about the value of existence, or at least human existence: this value is such that it is worth existing no matter how much one suffers.  Another way would be if the overall suffering is combined with other valuable features that make the life overall worth living, whether or not the agent feels it to be worth living.  These could perhaps include:

• the intrinsic value of receiving one's just deserts
• the value of knowing various truths (such as that God exists and that one is a sinner)
• moral improvement (though one never actually reaches moral purity)
• the value of useful work
• playing a part in God's plan, especially the justice aspect of it
• etc.

It should also be remembered that an externally infinite length of suffering is logically compatible with the total amount of suffering being finite (though I am not endorsing the view that the total amount of suffering in hell is finite), e.g., due to asymptotic decrease or changes in the subjective flow of time.

We should, in fact, take the rejection of HT to be a part of the doctrine of hell.  For the rejection of HT follows from central theological commitments of the Christian tradition, and doctrines must be understood not in isolation but in the context of the implications for them of other doctrines.  And a fortiori we should not take HT to be an essential part of the doctrine of hell.  If we did that, we would have to absurdly say that neither Augustine nor Aquinas believed in hell, since they rejected HT.

Suppose we reject HT.  Then we can imagine the following.  God is considering creating ten billion people and then making sure, or all but making sure, that they are all saved, whether by means of offering them opportunity after opportunity for salvation, over a potentially infinite amount of time, until they agree, wiping their memories as needed, or by means of eventually canceling people's freedom and making them be saved whether they so choose or not, or by giving them such strong inclinations towards virtue that they are practically certain to do right.  But God might consider the following attractive alternative.  Create twenty billion people instead, where each has probability 3/4 of being saved.  So, about 15 billion people will be saved on this scenario (and so in terms of the number of people saved, it is better than the first scenario).  Moreover, each of these 15 billion people now has a much more serious chance of being damned, and hence her free choice has a greater significance and value than the choices that the ten billion people in the first scenario does.  Now, this scenario is tough on the approximately five billion people who will end up damned.  But these people are at least as well off existing as not, and so as long as God didn't intend them to be damned, and as long as God offered them serious opportunities for salvation, it does not seem that anything problematic has been done by God.  So there seems to be a serious case for God to actualize the second scenario instead--God could have a good reason to do so.  (This argument works poorly if Molinism is true.  Too bad for Molinism.)

Hence, if we reject HT, hell seems justifiable.  And we should reject HT.

Is eternal suffering in hell infinite?

The damned will be in hell suffering forever. Does it follow that their overall sufferings will be infinite? I will argue in the negative. (I am not claiming that the suffering sin hell are finite, just that infinity of suffering does not follow from everlastingness.)

Argument 1: Suppose that the amount of suffering decreases exponentially to zero as time goes on. Then, it seems, the total suffering (the integral of momentary suffering) is finite, even though the suffering goes on forever.

This argument has some weaknesses. One of them is that total suffering is not just the sum of momentary sufferings. Such phenomena as boredom, dread of the future and hopelessness also have to be factored in.

Argument 2: What determines how much total suffering one has gone through is not the objective length of time that the sufferings have taken, but the subjective length of time. If one had a painful operation that in fact lasted an hour, but neurological manipulation made that hour seem subjectively like ten seconds, then one really had only ten seconds' worth of suffering. Now imagine that the internal clock of one of the damned is continually slowed down. During her first year of objective time in hell, she undergoes a year's subjective time of suffering. During her second year of objective time in hell, she undergoes half a year's worth subjective time of suffering. During her third objective year, she has a quarter of a year's worth of suffering. And so on. Even though she suffers for eternity, her total subjective time of suffering is two years. So, assuming that the intensity of her sufferings doesn't go up with time, her total suffering is finite.

An oddity about this scenario. If her future is subjectively finite, does that mean that her life feels like it is cut short early? But in fact she objectively lives forever. This is weird.