Egoism or the problem of evil: a dilemma for sceptical theism

Religious Studies 49:313-325 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Sceptical theists undermine the argument from evil by claiming that our ability to distinguish between justified and unjustified evil is weak enough that we must take seriously the possibility that all evil is justified. However, I argue that this claim leads to a dilemma: either our judgements regarding unjustified evil are reliable enough that the problem of evil remains a problem, or our judgements regarding unjustified evil are so unreliable that it would be misguided to use them in our decision-making. The first horn undermines theism, while the second undermines our moral decision-making. Thus, sceptical theism is problematic.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Sceptical Theism and Divine Lies.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2010 - Religious Studies 46 (4):509-523.
Sceptical theism and evidential arguments from evil.Michael J. Almeida & Graham Oppy - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4):496 – 516.
Skeptical theism, moral skepticism, and epistemic propriety.Jonathan Rutledge - 2017 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 81 (3):263-272.
Skeptical theism and the problem of evil.Michael Bergmann - 2008 - In Thomas P. Flint & Michael C. Rea (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophical theology. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 374--99.
The Problem of Evil & Sceptical Theism.Justin McBrayer - 2017 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 81:45-54.
Evil and the many universes response.Jason Megill - 2011 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70 (2):127-138.
Sceptical Theism and the Paradox of Evil.Luis R. G. Oliveira - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (2):319-333.
Sceptical theism and the evil-god challenge.Perry Hendricks - 2018 - Religious Studies 54 (4):549-561.

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-02-03

Downloads
127 (#141,634)

6 months
127 (#37,471)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Benjamin T. Rancourt
North Carolina State University

Citations of this work

Skeptical Theism.Timothy Perrine - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.William L. Rowe - 1979 - American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (4):335 - 341.
Sceptical theism and evidential arguments from evil.Michael J. Almeida & Graham Oppy - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4):496 – 516.
Skeptical theism.Justin P. McBrayer - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (7):611-623.
Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism.Stephen Maitzen - 2009 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (2):107 - 126.

View all 9 references / Add more references