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Journal articles on the topic 'Metaphysics of evil'
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McGroggan, Stephen. "The Metaphysics of Evil." Maynooth Philosophical Papers 3 (2006): 101–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/mpp2006311.
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Jacquette, Dale. "Anselm's Metaphysics of Nonbeing." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4, no. 4 (December 22, 2012): 27–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v4i4.258.
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In his eleventh century dialogue De Casu Diaboli, Anselm seeks to avoid the problem of evil for theodicy and explain the fall of Satan as attributable to Satan’s own self-creating wrongful will. It is something, as such, for which God as Satan’s divine Creator cannot be held causally or morally responsible. The distinctions on which Anselm relies presuppose an interesting metaphysics of nonbeing, and of the nonbeing of evil in particular as a privation of good, worthy of critical philosophical investigation in its own right. Anselm’s concept of nonbeing does not resolve the philosophical problem of evil implied by Satan’s fall from grace, but is shown perhaps more unexpectedly to enable Anselm’s proof for the inconceivable nonexistence of God as the greatest conceivable intended object of thought to avoid Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason objection to the general category of ‘ontological’ arguments.
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Finlayson, Gordon. "Adorno: Modern Art, Metaphysics and Radical Evil." Modernism/modernity 10, no. 1 (2003): 71–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/mod.2003.0010.
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Snellman, Lauri. "”Anti-theodicy” and Antitheodicies." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11, no. 1 (March 17, 2019): 201. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v11i1.2579.
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The article reviews different antitheodicies in response to Toby Betenson’s article “Anti-Theodicy”. Antitheodicies involve rejecting the position that God or meaning exist only, if evils have justifying morally sufficient reasons. The article builds on Betenson’s division into moral and conceptual antitheodicies and his characterization of antitheodicies as a metacritique of the problem of evil. Moral antitheodicies are problematic, as they do not address the key conceptual issues and might end up in question-begging or moralism. Dissolving the problem of evil requires a conceptual antitheodicy that exposes its presuppositions as speculative metaphysics. Religious conceptual antitheodicies help to focus on different ways of sense-making that do not fall into theodicism.
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Allen, Wayne. "Hannah Arendt's Foundation for a Metaphysics of Evil." Southern Journal of Philosophy 38, no. 2 (June 2000): 183–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2000.tb00896.x.
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Göcke, Benedikt Paul. "Panentheism, Transhumanism, and the Problem of Evil - From Metaphysics to Ethics." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11, no. 2 (June 20, 2019): 65. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v11i2.2971.
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There is a close systematic relationship between panentheism, as a metaphysical theory about the relation between God and the world, and transhumanism, the ethical demand to use the means of the applied sciences to enhance both human nature and the environment. This relationship between panentheism and transhumanism provides a ‘cosmic’ solution to the problem of evil: on panentheistic premises, the history of the world is the one infinite life of God, and we are part of the one infinite divine being. We ourselves are therefore responsible for the future development of the life of the divine being. We should therefore use the means provided by the natural sciences to develop the history of the world in such a way that the existence of evil shall be overcome and shall no longer be part of the divine being in whom we move and live and have our being. The metaphysics of panentheism leads to the ethics of transhumanism.
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Lombardi, Joseph L. "Possible-Worlds Metaphysics and the Logical Problem of Evil." International Philosophical Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2018): 19–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/ipq20182198.
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Rosemann, P. W. "The Metaphysics of Good and Evil According to Suárez." Irish Philosophical Journal 6, no. 2 (1989): 314–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/irishphil19896217.
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Newlands, Samuel. "Leibniz on Privations, Limitations, and the Metaphysics of Evil." Journal of the History of Philosophy 52, no. 2 (2014): 281–308. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hph.2014.0033.
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Huffling, Joseph Brian. "Is God Morally Obligated to Prevent Evil? A Response to James Sterba." Religions 12, no. 5 (April 28, 2021): 312. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12050312.
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James Sterba’s book, Is a Good God Logically Possible?, argues that given the amount of significant and horrendous evil in the world, it is not possible for a (morally) good God to exist. This article draws on the work of Brian Davies’ interpretation of Thomistic metaphysics and theology proper and argues that God is not a moral being, and thus has no obligations to prevent such evil. If such is the case, then the problem of evil as presented by Sterba is not a problem for God’s existence.
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Roney, Patrick. "Evil and the Experience of Freedom: Nancy on Schelling and Heidegger." Research in Phenomenology 39, no. 3 (2009): 374–400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/008555509x12472022364127.
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AbstractThis essay examines Jean-Luc Nancy's re-posing of the question of freedom in The Experience of Freedom in relation to three issues—what he calls the “thought of freedom,” the reality of evil, and the closure of metaphysics. All three elements that he discusses point directly to Heidegger's engagement with Friedrich Schelling's attempt to establish a system of freedom. My intervention into the discussion between these three thinkers will address several issues. The first part draws out the implications of Nancy's argument that the thought of freedom, not the question of being as Heidegger would have it, is the ultimate matter for thinking that arises at the end of metaphysics. This in turn has important implications for Nancy's understanding of evil. The next part confronts and criticizes Nancy's contention that there is an “ontodicy” in Heidegger's thought that lends a certain justification to evil. The final part aims to show how Heidegger's engagement with Schelling and the reality of evil has to be understood within the context of the question concerning technology. This leads to a second confrontation with Nancy, who proposes a quite different interpretation of technology according to his own ontology, which he calls “being singular plural,” which amounts in effect to a liberation of technology from the being-question.
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Rae, Gavin. "The Problem of Grounding: Schelling on the Metaphysics of Evil." Sophia 57, no. 2 (April 5, 2017): 233–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11841-017-0594-9.
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Ghini, Giuseppe. "Il pentimento in Tolstoj e Dostoevskij. Dal cerchio magico dell’Io al bisogno di perdono." Linguae & - Rivista di lingue e culture moderne, no. 2 (December 2013): 67–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.7358/ling-2013-002-ghin.
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Given the religious metaphysics of Russian Realism (Steiner 1995: 49), repentance is one of the pivotal moments necessary for the characters of Tolstoy’s and Dostoevsky’s works: it is through repentance that such characters radically change their lives, become aware of evil committed, and renounce evil forever; in other words, they die and are reborn. The two great novelists have, however, two very different attitudes towards repentance: Tolstoy examines all its aspects in the psychological consciousness of his characters, while Dostoyevsky shows their necessary openness to the transcendent world.
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LÁZARO PULIDO, Manuel. "Dios permite el mal para el bien. Dos aproximaciones diferentes desde la metafísica del ser del bien en Santo Tomás y San Buenaventura / God permits Evil for the Sake of Good. Two different Explanations From the Metaphysics of Being and the Good in St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure." Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 21 (October 1, 2014): 95. http://dx.doi.org/10.21071/refime.v21i.5908.
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This paper confronts the relation between two paradigmatic positions about being and good in the 13th century: Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. The last part of the article analyses the question of evil in the context of a metaphysics in which the totality of being identify is identified with good.
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Parageau, Sandrine. "Christ in Anne Conway’s Principia (1690): Metaphysics, Syncretism, and Female Imitatio Christi." Journal of Early Modern Christianity 5, no. 2 (November 27, 2018): 247–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jemc-2018-0005.
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Abstract This article examines the representation and function of Christ in Anne Conway’s only treatise, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, published posthumously in 1690. Christ plays a prominent role in Conway’s philosophical system as he is both a medium between God and the creatures in the ontological hierarchy, and the instrument that will make possible the conversion of Jews and Muslims to the Christian religion. Conway draws upon Quakerism and the Lurianic Kabbalah to build a Christocentric metaphysics that also aims to make sense of pain – Conway’s own physical pain as well as the existence of evil in the world. Finally, the article enquires into Conway’s personal relationship with Christ. As a suffering woman, she might be expected to feel a closer connection with the human Christ, following the example of medieval female mystics, but Conway’s philosophy actually presents a metaphysical, genderless Christ, which can paradoxically be interpreted as a way of reintroducing women into Christianity.
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Smith, Anthony Paul. "Darkened Counsel: The Problem of Evil in Bergson’s Metaphysics of Integral Experience." Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 24, no. 2 (December 21, 2016): 131–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jffp.2016.774.
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Henri Bergson's work is often presented as an optimistic philosophy. This essay presents a counter-narrative to that reading by looking to the place of the problem of evil within his integral metaphysics. For, if Bergson’s philosophy is simply optimistic, or simply derives meaning from the wholeness of experience, then it risks a theodical structure which undercuts its ability to speak to contemporary social and political problems of suffering. A theodical structure is one that, at bottom, justifies the experience of suffering by way of a concept of the whole or some concept that functions to subsume everything within it. Suffering is subsumed and given meaning by placing it within a relation, often with a telos that redeems or sublimates the experience of suffering. This takes such a singular experience such as suffering and renders it merely relative to the part it plays within the system of everything. On my reading, Bergson’s philosophy contains a supplement of what we might call pessimism or negativity inherent in his metaphysics as integral experience. This supplement undermines the theodical structure that may be assumed to undercut Bergson’s philosophy when confronted with evil or suffering and is seen most clearly in his critique of the notion of “everything.”
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Sutton, Emma K. "When Misery and Metaphysics Collide: William James on ‘the Problem of Evil’." Medical History 55, no. 3 (July 2011): 389–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025727300005457.
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William James is often described as one of America's foremost philosophers and the founder of American psychology. During the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century he published several key texts on a broad range of topics, including the psychology of religion, ethics, epistemology and metaphysics. Many are still in current use, and contemporary philosophers continue to pore over them. Biographers, meanwhile, happily speculate on everything from James's parental relationships to the state of his marriage. However, there has been relatively little detailed exploration of how James's published writings and his private life may have intersected. This article explores one such intersection: that between James's protracted experience of ill health and the elaboration of the notion of evil in his writings.
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Savonova, G. I. "The ontology of good and evil and the problem of freedom of choice christian philosophical reasoning of S. Kierkegaard." Науково-теоретичний альманах "Грані" 22, no. 1 (March 26, 2019): 110–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.15421/171914.
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The article reveals the peculiarity of S. Kierkegaard’s philosophical arguments about the essence of good and evil, the problems of ethical and psychological compression of human existence in transcendence «or-or». The ontology of good and evil is revealed by the philosopher in the problem of freedom as a given and unfreedom as a limitation, when good as God resides in freedom. God does not know unfreedom precisely for his freedom is unrecognized, and this is the greatest punishment for evil. It is noted that a Christian who is an ethical person finds himself in a situation of choice between good and evil, and the hovering of the process of choice in time leads to a choice in unfreedom, which is already sin and evil. The emphasis is placed on the concept of “sin” in the Christian definition of it by S. Kierkegaard, as well as on the problem of «blocking» the choice by fears. The article establishes the connection between sin and fear in the problem of faith and human action. The analysis of differentiation of fear as fear to be oneself and fear not to be oneself is carried out. Fear in philosophy S. Kierkegaard is defined as the psychological problem of choice and the metaphysical essence of evil that experiences fear of good. Evil is afraid of good because it defines it as something that encroaches on the essence of evil – unfreedom. People are afraid of their knowledge of lack of freedom and loss of faith. The question of Christian faith in the metaphysics of freedom of choice is a means of salvation from the demonicness of non-freedom, according to the philosophy of S. Kierkegaard. The loss of faith at any stage of life leads a person to despair. There are two types of despair in the philosophy of S. Kierkegaard: despair to be I and despair not to be I. The article focuses on the problem of sin. The problem of defining sin reveals the meaning of despondency as the beginning of any sin. Discouragement is bound to the darkness of evil, the place of permanent stay restless demoni and eternal falling into the abyss. A disappointed person does not have a point of support for the “leap of faith”, so she seeks comfort in the realization of her desires and the injection of fear. That is why the “leap of faith” from the ethical to the religious person is considered in the article as a way out of the choice between good and evil. The article also provides a brief comparative review of the philosophical arguments Of S. Kierkegaard and existentialist philosophers.
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Kovalev, Andrei Andreevich. "The peculiarities of dialectic of good and evil in works of the philosophers of the Early Modern Age (T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, G. V. Leibniz)." Философия и культура, no. 3 (March 2021): 85–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.7256/2454-0757.2021.3.35851.
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The subject of this research is the categories of good and evil in philosophy of the representatives of the Early Modern Age (on the example of the works of T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, and G. W. Leibniz). These philosophers conceptualized the dialectic of good and evil leaning on the shifted paradigm at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. However, the article advances a hypothesis that despite a fundamental turn in the philosophy of the Modern Age, the prevalent n medieval philosophy dialectic of good and evil had a strong impact upon the views of the philosophers of the Early Modern Age. The research employs the dialectical method and metaphysics, which allowed viewing the categories of good and evil from the perspective of the logical-philosophical position of their contradiction, as well as revealing their initial nature and the role in human world. The novelty of this study consists in the fact that in a certain sense it explores the dual dialectic: on the one hand, it is a longtime problems of good and evil, while on the other hand, the philosophy of good and evil of the Early Modern Age is ambiguous and contradictory, when the previous paradigm is no longer relevant, although a new philosophical concept of good and evil is yet to be formed. There is a good reason why the author chos the ideas of T. Hobbes, B. Spinoza, and G. W. Leibniz – their approaches towards the problem of good and evil in the traditions of the Early Modern Age mark the key milestones in the research of these categories in the transitional historical period.
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Noller, Jörg. "Vom Unvermögen zum Un-Vermögen." Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 66, no. 2 (April 2, 2018): 162–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2018-0014.
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Abstract Are we free to act irrationally and evilly? Or are irrational and evil actions just consequences of our incapacity to act morally? The article discusses theses questions by referring to Kant’s practical philosophy. In a first step, I shall address Kant’s thesis given in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that a free will and a will under moral law be the same. This raises the problem of how it is possible to act immorally. In a second step, I will reconstruct Karl Leonhard Reinhold’s attempt to make freedom to act immorally also viable by conceiving of freedom as a “basic faculty” (“Grundvermögen”). Finally, I argue that Schelling in his Freedom Essay builds on Reinhold, defining freedom as a “vital, positive capacity for good and evil” and making immoral actions comprehensible.
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LLAMAS ROIG, Vicente. "Fragmentary Metaphysics of the Transcendentals in the Thought of Durandus of Saint-Pourçain." Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 24 (November 24, 2017): 159. http://dx.doi.org/10.21071/refime.v24i.10457.
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Throughout scattered passages in Quodlibeta Avenionensia and the comments on Liber Sententiarum we can reconstruct the hardly explored core of some metaphysics of the transcendentals in the thought of Durandus of Saint-Pourçain. Bonum: an extrinsic denomination of the entity diverted from the distinctions of negotiantis et ratiocinantis reason, which would redefine evil as disconvenientia, without dismissing its definition as privation of good. The relative being of truth as the relationship of the thing with itself according to its intellective being and its effective real being, or the characterization of the transcendental unum as convenience of the esse individuum to that which exists per illud quod est with explicit veto on the condition of separable accident, outline an original collage, with diverse doctrinal elements, which condemns the dimension of absolute res or the positive formal matrix of the transcendentals.
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Koca, Ozgur. "Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240) and Rūmī (1207–1273) on the Question of Evil: Discontinuities in Sufi Metaphysics." Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 28, no. 3 (December 13, 2016): 293–311. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2016.1267969.
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Mochinskaya, Kseniya A. "The value-moral meaning of suffering in the metaphysics of all-unity by S.L. Frank." Aspirantskiy Vestnik Povolzhiya 19, no. 7-8 (April 7, 2020): 22–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.17816/2072-2354.2019.19.7-8.22-27.
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The article examines the value-moral meaning of suffering and its significance in S.L. Franks paradigm of metaphysics of all-unity. The problem of suffering at the individual level of human experience is analyzed. The author defines the meaning of suffering in the religious and philosophical views of S.L. Frank and characterizes the ethical aspect of it. The basis of suffering is revealed in the context of its reflection from the point of view of evil and good. The author stresses the positive significance of suffering and reveals the meaning of compassion and its moral component in the aspect of the individual perception of a person. The axiological basis of suffering in S.L. Franks philosophical research is described. The present research highlights the essence of suffering in the context of its trials and experiences. A conclusion is drawn as to the importance of suffering in its relationship to the moral improvement of a man.
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Gressis, Robert. "Kant’s Theodicy and its Role in the Development of Radical Evil." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 100, no. 1 (March 7, 2018): 46–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/agph-2018-0003.
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Abstract: In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant claims that rational beings should want to have no inclinations. But in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, he asserts that the inclinations are good in themselves. While many commentators hold that Kant simply wrote hyperbolically in the Groundwork and the second Critique, I argue Kant was sincere, and changed his mind about the worth of the inclinations between the second Critique and the Religion. This is because he changed his mind about the source of immorality: whereas in the Groundwork and Critique of Practical Reason Kant took our inclinations to be tempters, starting in “Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” and concluding in the Religion, he posited a self-imposed propensity to evil as the source of immorality. Kant’s reason for changing his mind about the source of immorality was partly theological: if our inclinations were to blame for immorality, then God would also be to blame for creating us with them. The only way God could not be to blame is if our immorality were self-imposed. But Kant also concluded that looking for theoretical explanations of our immorality – whether theological or naturalistic – was itself problematic: such explanations ended up exonerating us for our immorality. Because they had this effect, I contend that Kant saw the offering of such exculpating theoretical explanations as itself motivated by immorality. This understanding of Kant makes sense of the approaches he takes in both “Miscarriage” and Religion.
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McMullin, Irene. "Levinas and Løgstrup on the Phenomenology (and Metaphysics?) of Moral Agency." Monist 103, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 38–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/monist/onz026.
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Abstract For both Levinas and Løgstrup, the moral encounter is characterized by an asymmetrical prioritization of the other over the self. Some take Løgstrup’s account to be an improvement on Levinas’s, however, insofar as it appears to both foreswear the hyperbole of the latter’s view and ground the ethical claim in the natural conditions of human life (thereby avoiding Levinas’s alleged nominalism). This paper argues, in contrast, that Løgstrup’s own account is equally hyperbolic in its characterization of the self as fundamentally evil, and that his attempt to ground the ethical demand in structures of ‘life’ raises serious difficulties. I will argue that Levinas’s stronger commitment to phenomenology both rules out the problematic metaphysical claims on which Løgstrup’s ontological ethics depends and helps explain the methodological function of Levinas’s own hyperbole. Unlike Løgstrup, Levinas insists that the challenge is not eradicating the claims of the self, but rather resisting its pretention to a global normative priority. In making this case I refute the argument that Levinas, unlike Løgstrup, is committed to a ‘command’ view of morality—whereby it is the other person’s authoritative status that underwrites the moral force of the claim, not the content of the claim itself. But on Levinas’s view, ‘demand’ and ‘command’ accounts merge in his understanding of the face-to-face encounter because responding to the content of the demand—that I treat the other’s claim as reason-giving—just is to see the other person as an authority capable of making legitimate claims on me.
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Schrum, Ethan. "Establishing a Democratic Religion: Metaphysics and Democracy in the Debates Over the President's Commission on Higher Education." History of Education Quarterly 47, no. 3 (August 2007): 277–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2007.00101.x.
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World War II stands as a defining moment for American higher education. During the crisis of international relations that existed by the late 1930s, American thinkers of various stripes felt compelled to mobilize the country's intellectual and educational resources in defense of democracy, thus creating “a great ideological revival of democracy that accompanied the war.” The war aims of the United States—as enunciated in the Atlantic Charter and popular portrayals of the “good war” in which the United States fought to free the world from the grips of evil dictatorships—gave tremendous legitimacy to these efforts, which built into a national discussion on the goals of higher education. Between 1943 and 1947, at least five major reports on general education or liberal education appeared, three of which explicitly treated the relation of such education to “democracy” or “free society.”
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Vieira, Mauro Rogério de Almeida. "A CRÍTICA DE NIETZSCHE À NOÇÃO DE VERDADE DA METAFÍSICA CLÁSSICA." Cadernos do PET Filosofia 4, no. 8 (November 3, 2013): 60–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.26694/cadpetfil.v4i8.1408.
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Resumo: Este artigo apresenta a crítica de Nietzsche à metafísica tradicional, priorizando a análise do conceito de verdade. Partimos da suposição de que é necessário delinear a crítica feita por Nietzsche à tradição metafísica a partir de sua análise sobre a verdade. De acordo com Nietzsche, nossa possibilidade de conhecer as coisas não atinge um “em si”. O sentido do verdadeiro se faz para garantir a paz e abolir a guerra de todos contra todos. De acordo com o filósofo alemão, o critério de verdade não é a correta nomeação da realidade. A instituição do “verdadeiro” é produto de um único propósito, o de garantir a vida em sociedade. Para tanto, procuramos realizar a verificação das considerações críticas de Nietzsche procurando refazer o registro dos conceitos presentes no capítulo primeiro de Além do bem e do mal. Também utilizamos os escritos póstumos produzidos no período da juventude. Nosso intento, portanto, é apontar, em linhas gerais, algumas das críticas que Nietzsche faz as ideias modernas. Abstract: This paper presents Nietzsche's critique of traditional metaphysics, prioritizing the analysis of the concept of truth. We start from the assumption that it is necessary to outline the critique of Nietzsche's metaphysical tradition from his analysis of the truth. According to Nietzsche, our ability to know things do not reach a "per se". The true meaning of it is to ensure peace and to abolish war of all against all. According to the German philosopher, the criterion of truth is not the correct naming of reality. The institution of "true" is the product of a single purpose, to ensure life in society. Therefore, we perform the verification of critical considerations Nietzsche's looking to redo the record of the concepts presented in the first chapter of beyond the good and the evil. We also use the posthumous writings produced in the period of youth. Our intent, therefore, is to point out, in general terms, some of the criticism that Nietzsche modern ideas. Keywords: Metaphysics. Truth. Modern ideas.
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Tandyanto, Yulius. "Membaca 'Kebenaran' Nietzsche." MELINTAS 31, no. 2 (November 23, 2015): 130. http://dx.doi.org/10.26593/mel.v31i2.1622.130-153.
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<p>Nietzsche’s early work that gives wide exploration of the idea of truth is his unpublished essay entitled <em>Wahrheit und Lüge in Ausermoralischen Sinne </em>(1872). His controversial statement in this essay was “Truths are illusions”, opening many interpretations among scholars in understanding his position on truth. Sarah Kofman argues that it is useless to speak about truth in Nietzsche’s philosophy, for values are neither true nor false. Referring values to truth means forgetting to place oneself “beyond good and evil.” Unlike Kofman, Maudemarie Clark separates sharply Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics and his denial of truth. Clark argues that Nietzsche rejects metaphysics and eventually overcomes it in his own work, but also that he ultimately affirms the existence of truths and therefore does not undermine his own theory when he claims truth for his own position. Clark’s strategy in defending her theses tries to explain that there is a turning (<em>Kehre</em>) in Nietzsche’s position. This article wants to offer an interpretation that Nietzsche does not make a new theory of truth in <em>WL</em>, but rather examines and constates truths that hold true. With his subtile and metaphoric style, Nietzsche might want to vivify the symbolic and figurative elements in language before the truth or reality that already escapes languages.</p>
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Meir, Ephraim. "A Virtual Dialogue between Gandhi and Levinas." Religions 12, no. 6 (June 8, 2021): 422. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12060422.
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Mahatma Gandhi and Emmanuel Levinas have much in common. They interpret religion in a radical ethical way and develop an ethical hermeneutics of religious sources. Levinas’s thoughts on a holy history, not to be confused with history, are comparable with Gandhi’s swaraj as the spiritual independence and self-transformation of India. Escaping war logics, they maintain a “beyond the state” in the state and insert ethics in politics. Yet, Gandhi’s ethico-politics works with radical interrelatedness, whereas Levinas differentiates more between the self and the other. Gandhi trusted that, in the end, the good would vanquish evil. Levinas, in turn, did not venture into the future: the present was under “eschatological judgment.” Gandhi’s love of the enemy and his attempt to soften the opponent’s heart are absent in Levinas’s metaphysics. In addition, Levinas does not radically deconstruct the term self-defense, although Gandhi notoriously made also exceptions to his ahimsa. A dialogue can be established between Levinas’s ethical metaphysics and Gandhi’s ahimsa and satyagraha. Both thinkers make a radical critique of a peace based on rational contracts and equate peace with universal brother- and sisterhood. Without underestimating the many similarities between Levinas and Gandhi, I also highlight their dissimilarities. I argue that precisely the differences between both thinkers allow for a “trans-different” dialogue, which respects specificities and promotes communication, in a movement of hospitality and mutual learning.
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Davies, Philip. "Teaching the Bible as Philosophy." Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts 7, no. 2 (August 20, 2014): 213–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/post.v7i2.213.
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Two models for the teaching of the Bible in the school system are well-known and often used: as part of a religious education or religious studies syllabus, or as literature (e.g. in the form of “Bible stories”). I propose a method that takes seriously some of the ideas of the Bible, without teaching them as religious doctrines: to analyse and discuss how the Bible deals with philosophical questions of metaphysics and ethics, such as the ideal human society, the nature of justice and evil, and the meaning of history. The Bible offers no single view on these matters, and hence can be used undogmatically as a basis for discussion, along with other sources. Since its “philosophy” is often expressed in the form of narrative, such a method of teaching the Bible will incorporate both its literary and theological dimensions.
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Viglas, Katelis. "A Historical Outline of Byzantine Philosophy and Its Basic Subjects." Peitho. Examina Antiqua, no. 1(1) (February 27, 2018): 121–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2010.1.8.
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The article seeks to present an overview of the history of Byzantine philosophy. It takes its point of departure in the most important factors that influenced and shaped the Patristic thought. Subsequently, the paper considers the relative autonomy of Byzantine philosophy and offers a brief profile of major philosophers that contributed to the stream in the period from 9th to 15th century. From the numerous subjects that were taken into account by the most prominent Byzantine philosophers, the article discusses such issues as: the view of God, the problem of ‘conceptual realism’, the relationship between such ‘disci plines’ as logic, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and philosophical anthro pology. Furthermore, such questions as the place of man in the world, the scope of their freedom and the problem of evil are also touched upon here. The paper concludes with some remarks on the develop ment of Byzantine philosophy after the fall of Byzantium.
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Tessitore, John. "The ““Sky-Blue”” Variety: William James, Walt Whitman, and the Limits of Healthy-Mindedness." Nineteenth-Century Literature 62, no. 4 (March 1, 2008): 493–526. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2008.62.4.493.
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Although Neo-Pragmatist scholars have long considered Walt Whitman an intellectual and literary forebear to William James and the American Pragmatic tradition, James believed Whitman to be a far more problematic thinker than has been acknowledged. Haunting much of James's writings, and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) in particular, is a Whitman who is less a figure for emulation than an embodiment of a particular kind of metaphysical excess, at once unworldly and effeminate. In characterizing Whitman as a paragon of an untrustworthy ““healthy-mindedness”” and a ““queer”” idealism that he wished to excise from his own Transcendental inheritance, James developed a gendered critique of the ““sky-blue”” optimism he recognized as the peculiar legacy of the poet, a critique that took into account Whitman's roots in Hegelian and Emersonian thought as well as the well-publicized homoeroticism of his life and work. Ambivalent about the sexual and moral ““indifferentism”” that he believed accompanied Whitman's ““sky-blue”” acceptance of evil and death, James then traced Whitman's influence——both implicitly and explicitly——through the writings of the leading gay Whitmanites of his era, including the ““mystics”” John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter. Thus, in the war for the American soul——a war that James waged on the battlefields of metaphysics, religion, and gender identity as well as within his own person——the father of Pragmatism turned a ““feminine”” and ““unnatural”” Whitman into his chief foil and his main adversary; Whitman became the standard against which his own ““manly”” beliefs and methodologies, particularly with respect to religious experience, were defined.
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Gowramma, Y. S. "Evil." Artha - Journal of Social Sciences 2, no. 2 (November 11, 2004): 48. http://dx.doi.org/10.12724/ajss.4.5.
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Man's sense of Mystery -Emergence of the concept of evil in his life Definition of evil -Kinds of evil -Natural and Moral Evils -Origin of moral evil traced to psychological and metaphysical aspects -Atheist's argument for the dismissal of theist's views - Hume's skeptic views on Theist's conception -Theodicee's answer to the question - Freewill Theodicees -Greater good theodicees and best possible world theodicees -Evil as a discipline and necessary means to Good -Effect of the shock of Evil.
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MINNEMA, Anthony. "A Hadith Condemned at Paris: Reactions to the Power of Impression in the Latin Translation of al-Ghazālī’s Maqāṣid al-falāsifa." Mediterranea. International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, no. 2 (March 1, 2017): 145. http://dx.doi.org/10.21071/mijtk.v0i2.6718.
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Of the more than two-hundred articles of the Parisian Condemnation of 1277, one contains an arresting reference to a camel that is killed by a magician by means of sight alone through the power of the Evil Eye. While it is difficult to identify the sources of many doctrines in the edict with certainty, this article can be matched positively to a discussion of the soul’s power of impression in the Latin translation of al-Ghazali’s Maqāṣid al-falāsifa. The concept of impression was condemned on account of its association with the Agent Intellect and the theory of emanation, but many philosophers preserved the illustrative example of the camel even when refuting the attendant argument. Unbeknownst to the Latin world, however, this statement about a camel does not originate with al-Ghazali, but with the Prophet Muhammad. This study traces the origin of the article in the Condemnation of 1277 back through Arabic and Persian worlds and examines its reception in the Latin intellectual tradition from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. It also demonstrates that, despite condemnation’s influence and notoriety, its interpretation of this passage in al-Ghazali was not the dominant one in the Latin intellectual tradition. The majority of scholars instead interpreted this passage as al-Ghazali originally intended as an expression of speculative metaphysics, not magic.
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Fetisov, Maxim. "Political Theology and Secularization: On the Inexorability of a Concept." Sotsiologicheskoe Obozrenie / Russian Sociological Review 17, no. 3 (2018): 30–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.17323/1728-192x-2018-3-30-55.
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The collapse of the Soviet bloc and the demise of grand secular emancipatory ideologies led to a growth of interest in the topics concerning religion and secularization. One of the vivid manifestations of this interest is a significant resurgence of research interest in political theology during the last three decades. The paper is intended to deal not so much with political theology in the narrow sense of the term, usually associated with the names of Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss or Walter Benjamin as to explore some cases in the history of thought revealing the political power of religion. The first case deals with Michel Foucault’s experience of Iranian Revolution. It argues that his exploration of the so-called “political spirituality”, a vague and widely criticized notion, discloses the problematics of political theology not as a historical inheritance or a marginal intellectual activity but as a living constituent reality pointing towards the limits of Western political mind. The second case is devoted to a widely known study of religion within post-secular societies done by a renowned German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. It claims that his idea of “postmetaphysical thinking” boasting to have done away with the “old prejudices” of classical metaphysics and theology does not suffice to ensure the peaceful coexistence of various religious as well as secular worldviews within the Western public sphere. Postmetaphysical treatment of politico-theological problems as irrelevant leads to their reappearance under the new guises: this is what happened to the “problem of evil” that plays a crucial role in the drawing up of the most part of modern political distinctions. “Evil” is dealt with in the third case, as a subject of political theories of radical democracy. Some proponents of radical democracy such as Paolo Virno, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt consider that part of political theology to be very important for their own projects of “non-sovereign” political institutions that will arise when the current crisis of modern political rationality is over. The paper comes to a conclusion with the idea that political theology should be considered not only as a radical opposite to a political philosophy or secular reason in general but also as an ever-present possibility that comes to reactivation in the moments of crisis.
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Seregin, Andrei V. "Against metaphysical retributivism." Philosophy Journal, no. 3 (2021): 5–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.21146/2072-0726-2021-14-1-5-19.
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The paper offers an argument against metaphysical retributivism, i.e. the belief that the existence of physical evil (suffering) can be causally explained and normatively justified by being interpreted as a just punishment for the moral evil committed by those who suffer. First, the author introduces a disjunctive distinction between the humanistic and the non-humanistic normative theories of moral good and evil. Then, he justifies his anti-retributivist thesis with regard to both of these alternatives. The humanistic theories, according to which an activity can only be morally evil due to the fact that it inflicts physical evil on other agents, logically imply that physical evil is a precondition of moral evil and, therefore, cannot just be one of its consequences. This is demonstrated with respect both to the linear (e.g. “abrahamic”) metaphysical scenarios and the circular ones (e.g. ancient or esoteric). Besides, according to these theories, the infliction of very intensive physical evil presupposed by metaphysical retributivism cannot be morally justified even if it is formally just. On the other hand, the non-humanistic normative theories logically imply that the very content of the notion of moral evil is in no way related to the notion of physical evil. However, in that case moral and physical evil are essentially heterogeneous and incommensurable. Therefore, one cannot establish a proportional correlation between them which is a necessary prerequisite for a just and morally justified retribution.
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Lizzini, Olga L. "Matter and Nature." Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 7, no. 1 (January 1, 2019): 7–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2212943x-00701002.
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Abstract The fundamental principle—ruling both Avicenna’s metaphysics and his ethics—that the action of superior causes cannot be explained in virtue of the existence of inferior effects—seems to deny any possibility of a consistent idea of providence in Avicenna’s system. Despite this fact, Avicenna recurs to the term (ʿināya; tadbīr) as well as to the idea of providence in various contexts in his oeuvre. More precisely, providence is equated to the flow of being that originates and explains the world; and this not only in respect to the fundamental, existential, positive and “good” properties that belong to it—the world itself is good, the flow is the principle of good and the First Principle is the cause of the world in so far as the order of good is concerned—but also as regards the marginal, negative, non-existential and “bad” properties that can affect its individuals and that are necessarily consequents of the good itself: evil is something the First Principle “wants”, although in an accidental way, and it is therefore implicit in and contained by divine causality. In this paper I shall outline the fundamental structure that explains the existence of individuals in the sublunary world. I do not claim to be exhaustive (some questions require further investigation); my aim is to provide an overview of the topic, with a main question in mind: on what principles does Avicenna base his idea of providence?
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Chlup, Radek. "Proclus' Theory of Evil: An Ethical Perspective." International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 3, no. 1 (2009): 26–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187254708x397405.
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AbstractWhile the metaphysical aspects of Proclus' theory of evil have recently been studied by a number of scholars, its ethical implications have largely been neglected. In my paper I am analysing the moral consequences that Proclus' concept of evil has, at the same time using the ethical perspective to throw more light on Proclus' ontology. Most importantly, I argue that the difference between bodily and psychic evil is much more substantial that it might seem from On the Existence of Evils alone. Though both kinds of evil are characterized by their 'parasitical existence' (parhypostasis), evil in bodies is unavoidable, resulting from a wide network of cosmic corporeal interactions that no partial being can ever have control of. Psychic evil, on the other hand, is a product of human choice and is independent of external circumstances, depending wholly on the soul's ability to keep its proper vertical hierarchy. In this regard it is evil in a much more serious sense of the word, being actively caused (though unintentionally) rather than just passively suffered. In the last section of my paper I throw further light on this more dangerous kind of evil, showing it as resulting from an essential bi-dimensionality of human beings.
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Crisp, Oliver. "On the orthodoxy of Jonathan Edwards." Scottish Journal of Theology 67, no. 3 (June 26, 2014): 304–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0036930614000131.
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AbstractJonathan Edwards had some strange ideas. He was an idealist like Berkeley. He denied that the world persists through time, claiming that it is continuously created out of nothing by God moment-by-moment. He also denied creaturely causal action in his doctrine of occasionalism. Moreover, he thought that the world is the necessary output of the essential creativity of the deity, embracing the idea that this is the best possible world. Often these views are not reported in popular accounts of his work, though they are widely known in the scholarly community. But is his position theologically orthodox? This article argues that he is faced with anEdwardsian Dilemma:Either he must admit that his theology proper implies that God is not metaphysically simple, or he must embrace pantheism. Neither horn seems particularly attractive. Of the two, the second seems less appealing than the first. Nevertheless, it looks as if the logic of his position presses in this direction. His idealism and Neoplatonic conception of God's necessary emanation of the world imply panentheism. When coupled with his doctrine of divine simplicity, it looks as if his position could be pressed in a pantheist direction. However, if he opts for the first horn, he must deny the doctrine of divine simplicity, which he endorses in a range of works. If God is simple, then it looks as if all his ideas imply one another and the divine essence. Yet the world is an emanation of divine ideas, which Edwards believes God constantly ‘communicates’. Suppose with Edwards that the world is an ordered series of divine ideas. Then it looks as if they must imply each other and the divine nature as well, given divine simplicity. Clearly this is intolerable, as far as orthodoxy goes. One option is for the Edwardsian to revise divine simplicity, so that God is merely a metaphysical simple like a soul. Then he may have distinct states and properties. However, in addition to this revision one would need to amend Edwards’ occasionalism because it provides an apparently insuperable problem of evil for his metaphysics. Thus, revising the first horn involves more than a little tinkering with the deep structures of Edwards’ thought. However, I argue that this is what the Edwardsian must do if she wants to hold onto a broadly orthodox Edwardsian view on these matters.
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Latzer, Michael. "Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical Evil." Journal of the History of Ideas 55, no. 1 (January 1994): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2709950.
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Latzer, Michael. "Leibniz’s Conception of Metaphysical Evil." Leibniz Society Review 3 (1993): 17–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/leibniz199332.
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Gratton, Peter. "An Extreme Example?" Essays in Philosophy 6, no. 2 (2005): 357–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/eip2005623.
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With Eichmann in Jerusalem, we have, I would admit, a most unlikely case study for use in a business ethics classroom. The story of Eichmann is already some sixty years old, and his activities in his career as a Nazi were far beyond the pale of even the most egregious cases found in the typical business ethics case books. No doubt, there is some truth to the fact that introducing Eichmann’s story into an applied ethics class would inevitably depict an unseemly analogy between the practices of latter day corporations and the bureaucracy of the Nazi era. My argument here, though, is that the story of Adolf Eichmann, as depicted in Hannah Arendt’s well-known Eichmann in Jerusalem, offers a philosophically cogent account of judgment and ethical decision-making that future business managers and employees would do well to heed. Indeed, Eichmann in Jerusalem, originally a series of press accounts for New Yorker magazine, deserves consideration alongside the Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, and other classic ethics texts in a business ethics syllabus. This is not to say that Arendt’s work is uncontroversial; there are serious questions to be raised about both her depiction of Eichmann and her conclusions about “the banality of evil.” Nevertheless, her account of ethics, which, with its account of ethical duties and its case study of Eichmann’s character, shows both its Aristotelian and Kantian influences, is a warning to readers who would conflate morality with state laws and their duties with the needs of superiors. In short, I argue that, despite her well-known critique of modern large scale economies and her general avoidance of discussions of post-industrial corporations, Arendt may be a business ethicist of the first order.
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Nasibova, Sevinj Kh. "Сomparative analysis of female images in F.M. Dostoevsky’s and J. Fowles’s novels (based on the novels of Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”, “The Brothers Karamazov” and Fowles “The Collector”, “The Mistress of a French Lieutenant”, “The Magus”)." Philological Sciences. Scientific Essays of Higher Education, no. 2 (March 2021): 116–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.20339/phs.2-21.116.
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The purpose of the article is the comparative analysis of female images in F.M. Dostoevsky’s and J. Fowles’s novels. The basic method applied in given research is the method of the comparative analysis F.M. Dostoevsky’s and J. Fowles’s novels. Dostoevsky and Fowles are in searches of root of all evil. Both of them are assured that in human spirit are indissolubly merged kindly and angrily, God and Satan. In a shower of hero Dostoevsky indissolubly merge “an ideal of the Madonna” with “an ideal Sodom”. The woman is present at a life of the man as elements. The woman is only temptation and passion of men. In female images of the writer, unlike man’s characters, there is no change at soul level. Unlike Dostoevsky, products of Fowles testify to constant interest of the writer to a problematic “eternal feminist”. In novels of Fowles of the woman have the personal space. Dostoevsky’s heroes submit to life laws; they through great suffering come to humility. But heroes of Fowles to themselves create laws and submit only to the rules. The article contains important conceptual conclusions on the problems of the realistic novel of the 19th century and the postmodern novel of the 20th centuries, defines the peculiarities of the traditions of F.M. Dostoevsky and J. Fowles. The presented work provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at the cult works written in the 19th–20th centuries. F.M. Dostoevsky as the “founder” of neo-mythological consciousness — the cultural paradigm of the 20th century — gave J. Fowles valuable “tips” against the background of modern literary thought and his comparison with the mythopoetic thought of the English writer was especially embodied in mythological premises associated with the sphere of deepest questions of ethics and religious metaphysics.
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Hude, Henri. "The Neuronal Crisis: Meditate to Comprehend the Nature of Psychosomatic Epidemic." Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences 64, no. 2 (May 23, 2021): 110–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.30727/0235-1188-2021-64-2-110-127.
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This articles describes the “neuronal crisis,” the epidemic of psychosomatic illnesses observed all over the world, particularly in the West. The paper looks into the deeper real causes and seeks the most effective kind of cure for this malady. This leads to rational consideration of the metaphysical dimension of the human being and the fundamental problems (those of evil, of freedom, of God, of the soul, and of the body), where lack of sufficiency plays a major part in the etiology of these pathologies, as the desire for the Absolute is the basis of the unconscious. This approach presumes the Freudian model but denies its purely libidinal interpretation that substitutes desire for the Absolute with libido. Hence, an explanatory system applied to increasingly serious pathologies: ailments, neuroses, depressions, and psychoses. Frustration of one’s desire for the Good gives rise to a sublimation of finite goodness. The inevitable desublimation, caused by anguish because of the Evil, intense guilt, and the dramatization of evils, causes neuroses as awkward but inevitable solutions to the existential problem that is still unresolved, due to lack of functional and experimental knowledge. Psychiatry and even medicine must take into account the metaphysical layer, and, therefore, operate within an existential dynamic, aiming to progress in wisdom and to discover man, man’s brain and body, as these are structured around the axis of his desire.
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Hasker, William. "Providence and Evil: Three Theories." Religious Studies 28, no. 1 (March 1992): 91–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034412500021405.
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The last two decades have seen an unprecedented amount of philosophical work on the topics of divine foreknowledge, middle knowledge, and timelessness in relation to human freedom. Most of this effort has been directed at logical and metaphysical aspects of these topics – the compatibility of foreknowledge with free will, the existence of true counterfactuals of freedom and the possibility of middle knowledge, the conceivability and metaphysical possibility of divine timelessness, and so on. Far less attention, in contrast, has been devoted to the broader theological ramifications of these theories. Yet insofar as they are theological theories, they are properly appreciated and indeed fully understood only when placed in the appropriate theological context.
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Gauzer, Irina V., and Evgeny A. Ermolin. "MYTHOPOETICAL IMAGE OF GENIUS ARTIST IN K. BALMONT’S ARTISTIC EXPERIENCE: RECEPTION OF SPANISH ARTISTRY." Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Kul'turologiya i iskusstvovedenie, no. 39 (2020): 12–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/22220836/39/2.
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The Russian culture of the turn of the XX century is characterized by actualization of the prob-lems of intercultural dialogue. Thus, the analysis of the Silver age is impossible without considering the fact of such a dialogue as a cultural phenomenon. The problem of hispanism reception is considered in the aspect of creative genius in K. Bal-mont’s works. In the context of Balmont's symbolism, it is important to take into account his specific conceptualization of the artist's status and interpretation of creativity as dreaming. The task of the re-search is to study the implementation of this mental usus within the Spanish theme, the discourse of the painter as a genius-overman by Balmont, and the existentials of the poet's spiritual experience correlated with it. Spain by Balmont is primarily a country of great artists. He creates portraits-myths of the great Spaniards, almost overmen for him. In the article “Poetry of horror” Balmont calls Goya's “a poet-symbolist in painting”, and relates his genius with other representatives of world culture: Poe, Bosch, Teniers etc. Spanish artist is de-clared a predictor of a new art. Goya in Balmont’s interpretation is an actual genius-creator, artist of borderline, mystical experience. Goya’s grotesques are interpreted as a breakout to otherness. Artist's chimeras scare with credibility and live. Goya created an infernal world with the character of universality. Balmont calls “Capricious” a theodicy, as this hymn to the aesthetics of ugliness justifies the existence of evil. The poet highlights in Goya’s aesthetics something close to the era of the early ХХ century. Cultural fashion finds its source and consonance in Spaniard’s drawing (mysticism of terrible, “attraction” to demonism, themes of disease, suffering and dreams). Also, the great painter in the poet’s interpretation is a dreamer reflecting his prophetic dreams on canvas. If Goya’s dreams are marked by a dark, night element in the poet’s artistic metaphysics, the oneirism of Velasquez is marked as sunny. The artist’s mythological image is embodied in the rhyme “Velasquez”. Solar genius of Velasquez organically becomes one of the main figures in the artistic metaphysics of Balmont's poetic collection “Let's be like the Sun”. The last limit of the volitional effort called for in the title of the collection is specified with Velasquez’s image. By binary logic a dark genius should confront Velasquez-Sun. In the book this role is assigned to the painter José de Ribera, Goya’s analog in the context of Balmont’s works. A mythological image was created with reference to the stockpile of ancient myths, the antithesis of Prometheus and Epimetheus. Entering into a dialogue with the culture of Spain and creating myths of Spanish artists, Balmont was looking for a reflection of himself in the Spaniards. Regarding their heroes as the dreamers, he oneirically dreamed about the essence of the Spanish genius basing on his travel impressions but trusting much more his mythic-creative speculation and accentuating the central existentials of his experience.
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Almeida, Michael James. "On Necessary Gratuitous Evils." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12, no. 3 (September 24, 2020): 117. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v12i3.3019.
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The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true that God coexists with gratuitous evil in some world or other. Since gratuitous evil cannot be eliminated from metaphysical space, the existence of gratuitous evil presents no objection to essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially morally perfect, and necessarily existing beings.
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Sarot, Marcel. "Als De Koppen Van De Leviathan." European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas 36, no. 1 (December 1, 2017): 180–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ejsta-2017-0006.
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Summary In this article I discuss the concept of evil. I begin by showing that the concept of evil is not religiously neutral. Here, I will discuss the Western view of evil, influenced by Judaism and Christianity. Subsequently, I discuss Leibniz’s classic distinction between three forms of evil - metaphysical, physical and moral - and introduce the categories of natural and non-moral evil. Next, I show that one and the same event may be good in one respect and evil in another. Thus, the passion of Christ is a physical evil when we look at the suffering undergone, a moral evil when we look at the act of those who inflict it on Him, and a moral good when we look at the act of Christ: He gives His life for His friends. This I call the ambiguity of evil. Finally, I discuss two views on the origin of evil: dualism and the view of evil as a privation of a good that should be there, and argue in favour of the second.
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Koons, Jeremy. "Theism and the Criminalization of Sin." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10, no. 1 (March 11, 2018): 163–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v10i1.2320.
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The free will theodicy (a standard theistic response to the problem of evil) places significant value on free will: free will is of such substantial value, that God’s gift of free will to humans was justified, even though this gift foreseeably (and regularly) results in the most monstrous of evils. I will argue that when a state criminalizes sin (by punishing producers of sinful materials such as illicit drugs, or punishing consumers), it can restrict or eliminate citizens’ exercise of metaphysical free will with respect to choosing to partake in or refrain from these activities. Given the value placed on free will in the free will theodicy, theists who endorse this theodicy should thus oppose the criminalization of what I will call Millian sins—that is, actions which are immoral, but which do not directly harm another person. In other words, such theists should oppose legal moralism.
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Floyd, Graham. "Organic Unities." TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 3, no. 2 (December 23, 2019): 140–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.14428/thl.v3i1.15243.
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The principle of organic unities is a metaphysical claim regarding the nature of moral value. It states that the value of the whole is not equal to the summation of its parts. Even though this principle has a major impact on moral theory, it has been neglected in the consideration of the problem of God and evil. I claim that the theist can utilize the principle of organic unities to undermine the problem of evil. First, I explain the principle of organic unities and how it affects one’s understanding of moral value. Next, I explicate the two major historical versions of the problem of evil: the logical argument from evil and the evidential argument from evil. Lastly, I argue that the principle of organic unities demonstrates that God may logically co-exist with evil and that the atheologian lacks rational warrant appealing to gratuitous evil against God’s existence. As a result, both problems fail.