Benevolence and Conflict

On the Deism thread, Dronester and Rahvin briefly discussed the topic of divine benevolence.Since it would probably lead off-topic there, I would like to open a thread to discuss it.I want to start with a couple of quotes from Dronester’s Message #67 and Message #122 in the Deism thread. It isn’t my intention to single out Dronester (the argument is very widespread), but it’s just convenient to use his quotes because of proximity. First, this is clearly a division fallacy. That humans are intelligent does not mean that human kidneys are also intelligent. Likewise, that the universe has a higher purpose does not mean that every facet of the universe also has a higher purpose." It's fully possible for the universe to simultaneously have a "higher purpose" and include lots of meaningless details.It’s also an appeal to emotion, which isn’t relevant to the topic of deism (although it is relevant here: see below for my argumentation).----- This causes some cognitive dissonance for me.The argument assumes that a higher purpose must be emotionally charged in order to serve the best interests of the beneficiary. Or, it at least assumes that the agent of the higher purpose (i.e. god) believes that this is the case.It also assumes that the best interest of the beneficiary is to be protected from things they consider to be bad.I have spent an inordinate amount of time at EvC discussing the concept of free will, but I think it is very applicable here.In order for benevolence to exist, a beneficiary must exist.
One can hardly be thought of as a beneficiary if one is not a distinct, independent individual.
Thus, benevolence requires individuality (free will).If benevolence is meant to serve multiple beneficiaries, then each intended beneficiary must be a distinct individual.
But, where there are multiple distinct individuals, there will inevitably be disagreements and, consequently, conflicts of interest.Any attempt to restrict the amount of conflict that is allowed results in a decrease in the number of potential beneficiaries that can be served, because it limits the spectrum of opinions, and thus, the range of individuality, that can exist.Thus, benevolence cannot exist unless conflicts also exist.The argument that the existence of "bad" makes God an asshole implies that our personal best interest would be better served if we did not have free will. But, how can this be?Edited by Bluejay, : "benefactors" to "beneficiaries"

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

I thought that was your job. Faith and Belief seems as good as anything to me.Thanks.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Catholic Scientist. Individuality is free will.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Paul. The principle behind your argument is admirable: do the greatest amount of good while doing the least amount of harm. Of course, once you establish this precedent, you must set some sort of qualifier on it; otherwise you quickly head for a very slippery slope.We would expect that a god would always have a better idea of what the greater good is than we do. So, god could always make better decisions than we could. So, if the goal is to maximize good and minimize bad, we would do well to let god choose everything for us.But, letting god make our decisions for our greater good renders us effectively non-existent. Instead, there would only be god playing with his Legos.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Aware Wolf.You're correct: I messed up my English.The corrections have been made.Thank you.

Hi, Catholic Scientist. Can you give me an example of pre-determined individuality?Like, a unique paint job on your Porsche?Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. You’ve been trying to define free will in terms of its outcomes for a while now.
But, since free will is actually a mechanism, an outcome-based definition is invalid.You don’t refer to a device as a lever because of its ability to lift things: lots of devices lift things. Rather, you refer to a device as a lever if it utilizes an arrangement of a fulcrum, a load and a force.Likewise, you don’t refer to an event as free-willed because you got what you wanted out of it. Rather, you refer to an event as free-willed if you initiated it without a prior stimulus.Since the mechanism of free will inherently operates only in the present, what happens in the future is not part of the process. So, not being able to breathe underwater, and not being able to grow six arms are not limitations to or violations of free will.However, the ability to aim a gun and pull the trigger is included in free will. Thus, god’s interference in this process would be an entirely different affair from your inability to have six arms.However, perhaps god could simply prevent people from succeeding in their attempts to murder people. But, that’s a topic for another discussion: I’m only interested in the tradeoffs between free will and benevolence.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Onifre. I don't doubt that the external conditions would influence my actions.But, I don't agree that the external conditions would cause my actions.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Catholic Scientist. I was hoping for something a little more formulaic or metaphorical.As it stands, I still don't see why you think individuality exists in this situation.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Catholic Scientist.I’m sorry: I’ve been dismissing your posts with trite, low-quality posts so I could spend more time digesting Stile's long posts. I suddenly realized that I was leading you in completely the wrong direction. I apologize.Let me start over from the beginning: I intended "individuality" here to refer to free will from the beginning.Consider a ten-year-old boy playing with his Lego pirates. In his game, the boy determines that the Lego pirate captain really wants to find the buried treasure. Does the Lego pirate actually benefit from finding the treasure? If so, what benefit, exactly, does the pirate captain gain? Or, is it just the boy who benefits from the hours of entertainment?If god pre-determines what I consider to be a benefit, then I am no more than a Lego pirate, and the only real benefit gained in the scenario is whatever god wanted to get out of it.So, in order for my benefits to be real, they must be benefits that I choose. Otherwise, they are just god's benefits cleverly disguised to seem like my benefits.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. How are moral restrictions similar to physical restrictions?What is the evil that would be removed in your scenario? No matter what set of choices is removed from us under the title of evil, as long as any possibilities remain within our capability, we will still consider some of them evil.Evil is a subjective quality.
Physical possibility is not.You cannot remove a subjective quality and say that it is the same thing as removing an objective quality.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. Again, you are defining free will in terms of outcomes.What action or ability of yours could god not restrict in the name of saving a child’s life?
If god is allowed to prevent any action that may lead to a child’s death, he is allowed to prevent any action, isn’t he?So, how does free will remain in this no-child-murder scenario?Also, don’t lose sight of my original argument: without free will, there is nobody to benefit from god’s actions except god himself. Thus, god must allow free will (and thus, conflict and other bad things), or he cannot be benevolent.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. Will you at least agree that there are an infinite number of actions that could lead to an innocent child's death?For instance, can't drinking alcohol lead to a child's death?
Can't pushing a playground swing lead to a child's death?
Can't turning the steering wheel of a car lead to a child's death?
Can't making enchiladas lead to a child's death?
Can't painting a fence lead to a child's death?
Can’t spreading a blanket lead to a child’s death?These are the kinds of things that god would have to be able to restrict in order to prevent the death of innocent children.If god is able to prevent these things in the cases where a child dies from them, what mechanism prevents god from doing it in other cases?Without such a mechanism, we’re all slaves to god’s morality. There is no such thing as partial autonomy.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Stile. It has everything to do with your point. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I don't know what you're saying. All you have done so far is ignore the argument I'm making in favor of repeating the one you made in your last post.You haven't shown that the ability to override free will for the sake of a child's life is any different from the ability to override free will for the sake of any other cause. Your argument has just been an attempt to remove something "bad" on the assumption that there is no tradeoff.----- I could go into a whole discussion about how free will inevitably leads to evolution, and evolution leads to viruses, but this would only derail the point of my thread.My topic is explicitly about conflicts. While I would personally include evolutionary arms races as conflicts, I prefer to focus on human conflicts because I don't want to get distracted by an argument over whether or not viruses and bacteria have free will.I could also go on about how allowing more babies to survive could also be considered non-benevolent because it would create more conflicts with animals and plants, who are being run from their homes to make room for all of these babies, but I don't want to have to defend all my radical green beliefs on top of everything else, so let's restrict the thread to discussing human conflicts.-----Let me try this again another way.My argument on this thread included the observation that there is very little widespread agreement on what constitutes "good" and what constitutes "bad." This is the fundamental cause of conflict, and the inevitable side effect of having multiple, independent entities.If god were to impose any standard of "good" or "bad" upon us, thereby removing our independence, he would override our free will and make us little more than Lego pirates in his play room.I then reasoned that, since the owner is the only beneficiary of the services rendered to a toy, a universe wherein god determines beforehand what his creations believe cannot be made for the benefit of his creations.Thus, I concluded that conflict is an unavoidable side effect of free will. And, any attempt to control the "bad" effects of conflict would be plagued with more conflict over what constitutes "bad," and would only be resolved by the loss of free will.You have decided to attack my idea by imposing an absolute definition of "good" and showing how god's enforcement of this absolute standard would not violate free will.In your scenario, how does god deal with those who disagree that killing babies is evil (they do exist: remember Sparta)? Wouldn't this benevolent intervention on his part still lead to conflicts?Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Hi, Otto. What the hell?Your first sentence is in line with my argument.Your second sentence shows that you haven't actually read my argument.God lets/makes these things happen because they are an unavoidable consequence of free will, not for "reasons beyond our ken."But, god must allow free will if he is to be benevolent, because there can be no benevolence without a beneficiary, and there can be no beneficiaries without independence. And, conflict is an unavoidable side effect of independence.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.