Monday, October 29, 2018

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.)

6 comments:

steve said...

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

i) Suffering has that ennobling effect one some people while having a morally detrimental effect on others. Since, unlike God, we don't know which is which, it's logical to priortize mitigating or alleviating the suffering of actual persons right in front of us rather than imperceivable hypothetical goods which may or may not lie further down the line.

ii) Also, the goods of one future edge out the goods of an alternate future, so God only knows the best overall outcome–assuming there even is one best overall outcome. So, again, that's a reason for us to focus on the present or near-future rather than imponderable goods (with attendant evils) further down the line.

Walter Van den Acker said...

Alex

Or suppose you are witnessing Alice torturing Bob, and God 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.

Do you still think you should stop Alice?

In this scenario, God doesn't tell you what to do, He simply tells you what will happen in one particular case.

Ortzi said...

"If so, why should we prevent sufferings?"

I would've thought this wasn't a problem with Natural Law & moral epistemology. We are not omniscient, so the best we can do is act by reasoning about individual situations.

Taking the drugs away from the user (whos killing himself in the process) would cause great suffering, but through reasoning we can conclude we're morally obligated to do so.

When our children are entering adulthood, we might have to let them go through suffering in order to give them the chance to grow & become more independent. It would be immoral to become the overbearing parent who takes away their opportunity for actualization.


Ab objector might say "well, if omniscience is better, why would God not guide you every time?"
So we don't want to be the over-bearing parent, but we want God to be? ....

Since studying more & leaving my antitheism and nihilism, I've been (constantly) confused with theodicy. It seems like a completely non-existent issue to me. Perhaps it has a lot to do with growing up in a country with a lot of constant suffering, hardship & death, where theodicy is not even discussed despite the very high % of religious people. They would call this a "first world problem", after giving you strange & confused looks.


Maybe one day I will understand it better, but it is most definitely not due to lack of suffering, abuse & evil.

Ortzi said...

Suffering keeps me grounded. I am a much, much better when I have some degree of it in my life. Theodicy might be a complicated thought experiment, but I'm yet to find a justification for the "issue" to even deserve a dedicated word/name. Hence, never using it as a beating bat against theists & religion.

Alexander R Pruss said...

Walter:

That's a good question. I am inclined to think that if God canceled the implicature that he didn't want Alice stopped (normally, if you point out that something has good consequences, you're implicating you want it to happen), we should still stop Alice. But I am not as confident as I was when I wrote the post.

Steve:

Perhaps one can make this move: We should prevent sufferings unless we are nearly certain that they would be of moral benefit. I.e., just a high likelihood isn't good enough, if it doesn't reach near certainty. But we are never in a position to be nearly certain of this.

Paul Symington said...

"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."

I like that story best. Perhaps this type of thing is why more people have more moral difficulty with pushing the fat man onto the tracks to stop the trolley (and killing him) than they do in merely switching the track to kill one instead of many track dawdlers.