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 need some help in knowing where to put this, please.

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.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Hey Bluejay,I don't really see much to disagree with here but I think I might have spotted a non-sequitor: Why does individuality neccessitate free will?

quote:

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Any attempt to restrict the amount of conflict that is allowed results in a decrease in the number of potential benefactors that can be served, because it limits the spectrum of opinions, and thus, the range of individuality, that can exist.

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This does not make sense to me. Preventing a would-be mass murderer from striking would serve all those who would have been his victims, as well as all those who care for them or depend on them, while only restricting a single individual - the murderer.

I'm confused. Isn't the benefactor God, or whoever is giving the benevolence? The recipients would be, what, benefactees?

benefactor-> beneficiary

Ah, yes, I knew that. Still confused, though. Bluejay, did you mean to say "beneficiary" in some places you said "benefactor"?

Hi, Catholic Scientist. Individuality is free will.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Yes, I agree. (Although I would word it "original" purpose rather than "higher"... but that's off-topic).The existence of bad does not show that it is impossible for a God to exist. It doesn't show that it's even impossible for a benevolent God to exist. The only thing it shows is that it's impossible for an omnipotent God to exist who holds "absolute benevolence" as His highest priority.Perhaps God gave us free will, and that restricts Him from being omnipotently benevolent to everyone. Of course, if God was omnipotent, He should be able to find a way to have free will exist and not let intelligent beings harm other intelligent beings.Which gets us into your next point: I agree with this, but I don't think it extends as far you're implying.We can have free will, and individuality, and be restricted from "causing harm to others." This still leaves quite a spectrum between "very good", "kinda good" and "neutral" in which an infinite number of benevolent decisions can be made.This may or may not also restrict non-intelligent things from causing bad things to happen (natural disastors, low-level living beings like viruses or insects perhaps...)The arguement against this is that "restricting people from causing harm to others removes free will."But this is not true. Restricting people from causing harm to others only places limitations on free will, it does not remove it.And limitations to free will already exist. We simply accept them because we're used to them. Limitations like wanting to breathe under water, or having 6 arms, or being able to "sense" our surroundings without using our eyes. I can't do any of those things. I can will myself all I want.. but I am restricted because it is impossible in this reality. We still have an infinite number of decisions that don't harm people to make, and an infinite number of decisions that do harm other people to make. Because we have all these possibly different decisions... we still have free will.So, if we simply add another restriction it does not remove free will. Especially if we are still left with an infinite number of decisions that do not harm other people. There would be more that is "impossible to do in reality", but we would still have a lot of possibly different decisions to make. Therefore, we would still have free will.I must admit that what I'm suggesting places further-restrictions on our free will from our current state. But the arguement that free will as we currently experience it (with morally good and bad decisions allowed) is necessary "for free will to exist" is simply false.This then leads into the question: what does our current experience of free will say about God? And the answer is that it is impossible for God to be omnipotent and to hold absolute benevolence as His highest priority. That is, an omnipotent God would have found a way to keep free will (infinite number of morally good decisions) while adding the restriction of morally evil decisions onto the other restrictions that already exist upon our free will... if He wanted to keep benevolence to everyone as a priority.So, this means that:1. God cannot find a way to allow free will and be absolutely benevolent to everyone.
Conclusions:
-God is not "omnipotent". God may very well be super-powerful, and even "the most powerful being in existence," but He has limitations.
-God could very well still be absolutely benevolent, He just can't help us as much as He wants to2. God may be omnipotent, but not hold "absolute benevolence" as a high priority.
Conclusions:
-God could have made our universe differently, but didn't, because He values our current experience of free will above absolute benevolence for whatever reason
-God could very well still be as benevolent as possible while allowing us to have our current experience of free will, but that is not His highest priority3. God is a dick (being benevolent is not high on His priority list at all... perhaps not even on it)
Conclusions:
-God may be omnipotent or not
-None of us should want to honour God in any way, He doesn't deserve it4. God does not exist

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.

Why?Are you saying there couldn't be pre-determined individuality?

You touched on this a bit, but just to expand on it: not allowing us to "cause harm to others" is not just a problem of free will. Many of our decisions and actions (maybe all?) have ramificaions far beyond what we intended. I can have my son's best interest 100% at heart, and decide to take him on a nature walk where he's promptly squashed flat by a falling tree. Bad stuff happens, just by nature of the world we happen to live in. Restricting free will as you've described would probably improve our lives in general, but then again, maybe not.