Introduction to Philosophy

Achieve Test Prep: Philosophy

can at the same time will it to be a universal law of nature.” Kant believed that our ability to reason gives us the ability to clearly recognize the highest good a concept that integrates the balanced harmony of moral goodness and personal happiness. We have the absolute conviction that people who live virtuous, morally upright lives should be rewarded with happiness; whereas those who lead evil, immoral lives should endure misery and suffering but have seen that this balance harmony on Earth does not often exist. For Kant, our ability to reason demands that this seemingly unfair state of affairs be corrected and this can only occur in an afterlife in which virtue will be rewarded and evil punished. Such a future life of rational justice can only be created by a supreme being: God. Kant explains his view in more detail in Critique of Practical Reason , in which he states that because we are able to contemplate the highest good for humans in a clear and compelling way, we must assume the existence of those things that make such as highest good possible. Kant argues that the highest good entails the idea of people being happy in direct proportion to moral goodness and because a direct correlation between happiness and moral goodness does not occur in this life, reason demands that we assume that this correlation will occur in the next life and this means assuming the existence of God. The Problem of Evil The existence of evil in the world poses a serious threat to religion in general and to the concept of an all-loving, all-powerful God. There are two categories of evil in the world: • Natural evil: The human calamities that are a result of natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, disease, starvation, and other aspects of the natural order that end up destroying lives). • Moral evil: The pain and suffering and death inflicted by humans on humans through evil actions (murder, rape, physical abuse, theft, psychological torture, child abuse, and warfare). Thinkers who have tried to construct alternative metaphysical/theological frameworks that will reconcile the existence of God with the existence of evil in the universe have created a field of inquiry called theodicy. Theodicy means the justification of God’s goodness in the face of the fact of evil. Another definition is that it is a defense of the justice or goodness of God in the face of doubts or objections arising from the phenomena of evil in the world. There are many thinkers who believe that these efforts to rescue the existence of God from the threat posed by evil in the universe are destined to fail which is the stand that the philosopher J.L. Mackie takes in his writings Evil Shows That There Is No God . He states the problem with evil is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both invincible and wholly good. He believes there is an adequate solution that once the problem is stated clearly it can be solved stating there is a number of solutions to the problem of evil and some of these have been adopted. Some have said that evil is an illusion, while others believe that God is not invincible. Still, others have said that evil is a positive sense, but each gives an adequate solution to the problem of evil in the sense that if you accept it this problem does not arise for you, though you may have other problems to face. There are also fallacious solutions such as good cannot exist without evil or evil is necessary as a counterpart to good; evil is necessary as a means to good; and the universe is better with some evil in it than it could be if there was no evil. These fallacious solutions usually start from the assumption that the evil whose existence gives rise to the problem of evil is

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