This is a question from a specimen Religious Education paper (GCSE level). I was helping my daughter revise for the exam, but this question caused us a few problems. If this was the conclusion to an argument, wouldn't at least one of the premises have to assume some inherent human characteristic to do evil? Can it be supported just by looking at historical evidence that we've always done evil? Does it ignore or inadvertently leave out 'Natural' evil? Is it just a crap question?

Just interested to see what people think.

Presumably, there were some readings or something that were associated with this problem. Did you read those before trying to help her prepare?

It seems to me that this question is a reflection and reading comprehension question, and that the task is simply to take a position and provide a support for those reasons, including a discussion of at least two (presumably different) points of view on the matter. And that should be a part of the reading that you should have read. Your questions can be addressed as part of the discussion of those points of view.

The ability to form an opinion and coherently discuss two different perspectives of an argument is a perfectly reasonable question to ask a student to answer. The question seems wholly appropriate assuming that the student has had some access to background reading.

I think your reading of this question is as bad as your reading of the question "What does a Christian do?" when you decided that the question was religious propaganda.

Given the context, it seems like a perfectly fine question (as in testing the writing and reasoning ability of high schoolers). That remains true even if one is of the opinion that all questions of this nature or more less word salad.

edit: oh shoot it's been a while since I've been on the forum...I might have just pulled an Aaron and responded to you when I'm on ignore. Let me know which is this case

Had planned to remove you from the ignore list if you responded actually, only put you on it as a way of ceasing hostilities. I'd prefer you not to be on it, unlike Aaron who will never be taken off it.

It seems like a crap question, but maybe it's just more complex than I realise. One way of finding out is to post it here. It's worth half the marks for the whole question.

yay! I don't even remember what the issue was

It isn't really about whether it is "complex" or not because of the judge of good question here is rather different from the judge of a good question at, say, a philosophy seminar. For the goal of the test, the objective should be whether it is rich enough and motivating enough that students will use it to write coherent thought out essays. There doesn't need to be a "right answer". It doesn't matter that "evil" and "Free will" aren't defined.

The way I would approach this with your daughter is that if she has some sort of feeling or direction she is motivated by, let her explore that and try to argue it. The way to help is that process of whether she is writing some argument about this question that is coherent. Like, even if I had the perfect answer to this question, I don't think you should tell your daughter it.

Pretty much what I did, just seeing if she understood what 'evil' and 'free will' are, mostly using what I've learned from posting here. This question was part of a larger question about the Problem of Evil. We just didn't get anywhere with it really and she was struggling to come up with an answer worth the number of marks awarded to it. Plus, I was curious to see what might come up in a conversation here about it.

Aside from the fact that I don't like telling my kids what to think and prefer to give them whatever ever info or arguments I'm aware of and try to encourage them to figure out what the right questions are so they can decide what to think, there's also the perspective that she's learning this stuff to be able to pass an exam on it and so she needs to figure out what they want to hear.

I think the negative traits of personality make evil exist.

If we assume free will as defined as the ability to chose between actions for individual agents, then evil could exist as individual judgment for set actions. This doesn't tell us that free will would exist, merely that it could. We can not use our world of reference as evidence, as we are unable to conclusively state that free will exists.

If we assume evil as defined as one axis of a universal (created or emerged) dichotomy, we have no way of conclusively stating that the existence of such a dichotomy is a necessary ingredient for (or of) free will. We can not use our world of reference as evidence, as we are unable to conclusively state that free will or such a dichotomy exists.

This would be the gist of my reply to such a question, but a proper answer would be more detailed and go into more detail on the philosophy surrounding free will and determinism.

The problem with asserting that free will doesn't exist conclusively is that assertion must be greater than reported experience to be true.

How is that a problem? I'm not sure we can distinguish between the phenomenal experience of libertarian and non-libertarian free-will.

In the context of a relationship with evil, just enough free will, partially true free will, is enough for the phenomena of choosing evil acts or choose to dwell on evil thoughts. Just enough free will to choose otherwise as well.

On the other note, assertion is weaker than experience as is the assertion of "I Am Free" is weaker than the direct experience the assertion represents. Similar to the relationship of a sound and it's echo, for analogy. Not a knock towards assertion, a discernment of it's limits relating with experience.

None of this says anything relevant about a difference in the phenomenal character of libertarian and compatiblist free will.

The thread is about free will and evil which are addressed. Partial free will is the qualifier used to describe the relationship with evil as was demonstrated.

Which counter assertions from those areas better frame the characterization offered?

In philosophy, "phenomena" refers to the character of our experience, how something appears to us rather than to how it really is. For instance, our experience of seeing the color yellow rather than the color blue has a different phenomenal character, that different colors (to non-colorblind people) have a different phenomenal quality to them.

So you said that the problem with claiming that free will doesn't exist is that the evidence for that claim is weaker than the evidence for free will that comes from our direct experience of the world (this was my understanding of your claim). My retort was that it wasn't clear to me that our direct experience of the world is able, on phenomenal grounds, to distinguish between libertarian and non-libertarian free will experiences (i.e. that non-libertarian free-will experiences are identical to libertarian free-will experiences).

My guess is that I read something into your original statement which wasn't there.

That's the way I see it.

One aspect: Imagine your home computer would have free will and do things sometimes on its own disrespecting your will. So either you have to follow your pc or your pc has to follow you. Otherwise there will be war, meaning there will be evil. And the stronger wins.

Second aspect: Imagine a robot without knowledge of white and black. From 99 white figures and 1 black figure it has always to chose the white one. Sooner or later it will chose black or evil. This is: "The Delphic oracle, which proclaimed that Socrates was the wisest of men because he knows that he knows nothing." Even from the perspective of an egoist as long as one doesn't know the infinite future the probability that one does good to oneself is very very close to 0. For example: Your will says eat but whoever eats dies.
There exists actually only one real argument against god:
Thomas Edison:
“Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions."
Mr. Edison, thinking you know makes you dumb, this no scientist or philosopher did ever understand.
The answer is: There is no 11th commandment you shall eat.

Whatever she writes about free-will, she should ensure that compatibilism is talked about in the sense that ALL compatibilists are in denial of the implications of causal determinism. Indeed, it is understandable that they're in denial about its implications, since its first required for them to be in denial of their own subjective experience of free-will. Denial breeds denial.

Might be good to demonstrate she's well-read.

Or not.

This is a very interesting question, and one that i've thought about frequently, particularly when i've hit upon a nice strain.

It would be useful for the question to specify which type of free will we're talking about.

I've tried to believe in free will, just like i've tried to believe in God, but i tend to think we're composed of genetic factors, environmental factors, and randomness. I don't see a place where free will or God exists. Having said that, i think that "evil" is just a word for "things aren't going the way i want them to". Is it evil for the wolf to eat the bunny? Or for the cat to 'torture' the mouse? They aren't generally considered evil because they lack free will. I honestly think that humans are the same. Just animals who do what we think is best for us at the moment.

Of course this position does nothing for finding a solution to world peace and hunger. That's the depressing part and why i rapidly shift my thought process to pretty colors.

Wished my heart would change
longing only for the good

Wow, so you actually believe that evil doesn't exist?

I think that evil is whatever we label it to be. Society needs certain mores and norms, and going too far against those norms is labeled "evil" so that we put a stop to that behavior. I do not believe in a universal "evil" that goes by the religious definition of "disobeying God", because i don't believe in God. Or if there is a God, he didn't give us free will, so it's irrelevant.

I'm not saying that i'm right, because as a fallible human, i am most assuredly not right, but it's the best i can come up with given the info we have access to.

If the leaders of our government and the leaders of our religions suddenly change their morals for whatever reason and say that any sort if homicide is now a totally acceptable act, do you think that would now not be evil?

No, it will always be inherently evil regardless of "social norms".

So would it be fair to say that you don't believe that something can be objectively evil?

You can't suddenly change or dictate social norms. They developed through evolution, as necessary for the well being of our race. Homicide goes against the survival of the civilization that we created. It was the norm in the early days of manhood and it didn't work, so society found ways to reduce it via arrests and imprisonment.

Animals kill whatever they want and no one calls them evil. We are animals.

Objectively, from what perspective? An outside force? It's always subjective since humans are the ones writing the laws.

Or are you suggesting that there's a God who decides?