The free will defense against the problem of evil has been attacked on the grounds that god could have, without impairing human freedom, acted so that much of the moral evil that has occurred in human life would have been avoided. according to this criticism, he could have done so by creating human beings with a disposition to do what is right. in this article i argue that this criticism is mistaken. i argue that precisely the amount of moral evil (...) that has occurred in human history could have occurred even if human beings originally had the strongest possible disposition to do what is right that is compatible with their being free. (shrink)