Philosophers and (in today's episode) suffering

[Russ Abbott]

I subscribe to the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. (Free by email.) That means that most days I get one or often two reviews of philosophical books. I subscribe because I find the issues fascinating -- even though I also often find them not really worth the time I spend on them. Today's two reviews are of M. V. Dougherty, Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas and Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering.

I'm typically less interested in historical philosophy. I don't really care much about medieval moral dilemmas. The second book sounded more interesting. It is described by the reviewer as follows.

The goal of the book is to solve the evidential problem of suffering (or, to be more precise, the evidential problem of mentally fully functional adult human suffering). ...

In Stump's opinion, all that is required for such a solution is a successful defense. A defense, as she understands it, is an attempt to describe anepistemically possible world exhibiting the same pattern of suffering that we find in the actual world in spite of the fact that an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God exists. 

And, if you are interested, here is Stump's defense.  

(1) God loves me and so desires to be united in love with me. (2) Such union is impossible even for God in my current psychically fragmented condition. To make union possible, I need to be internally integrated around the good and (3) to achieve such integration, I need to undergo a process of justification and sanctification. Unfortunately, (4) the best means available to God to promote that process is to cause or allow me to suffer. So ironically, God's love for me ultimately leads to God's desiring (in his consequent will) that I suffer. Stump has much to say about each of these steps. 

I'm probably one of the least religious people in the world. But I know a number of sincerely religious people and am always interested in how they think. This, of course, is an example. Not only that, it is an example of how philosophers of religion think and how they spend their time when doing professional work.

Why am I posting this? Mainly as a continuation of the discussion of what philosophers do. What do I think about it? Well, I find that I see a lot of it as a waste of time and effort. Intelligent people are spending their time on issues that (in my opinion) don't need their attention.  On the other hand, lots of people spend their time on things that I find not particularly worthwhile. 

What I admire about philosophers, though, is that almost universally they are intellectually honest. They don't demagogue; they don't (intentionally) try to fool their readers with logically fallacious arguments. They are almost always open to hearing the other side of whatever they write about. In fact, much philosophical writing is an explicit attempt to raise opposing issues in advance and then respond to them seriously. 

For the most part I think this is true of most--although certainly not all--academics. (Although read Paul Krugman about the intellectual dishonesty of certain academic economists.) But philosophy as a discipline must for its own self-preservation have a commitment to intellectual honesty, no matter what subject matter is under discussion. If anything philosophy is the discipline of intellectual honesty and for that reason deserves respect.

 

-- Russ Abbott
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  Professor, Computer Science
  California State University, Los Angeles

  Google voice: 747-999-5105
  blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
  vita:  http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
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