The Problem of Evil
I've been reading Robert Solomon's The Joy of Philosophy for the past two weeks. In this book, he discusses a multitude of topics, ranging from the too-analytic nature of contemporary philosophy to rationality and the emotions. I've entered the chapter in which he discuss tragedy. Naturally, the problem of evil comes up. To me, he has an interesting take on the so-called "problem", yet a practical one. I like it.
Contrary to the way it is usually framed, I want to suggest that the Problem of Evil has little to do with belief in the existence of God or in an afterlife. Camus was an atheist, and yet it was the Problem of Evil, the presence of human suffering, that violated his innate sense of justice and fairness, that evoked his dramatic concept of "the Absurd." Nietzsche was also an atheist ("by instinct," he tells us in Ecce Homo), but it is neither God nor Heaven as such that draws his heaviest fire. It is rather the cheap and petty use of theology to deny or rationalize suffering rather than face up to it and, like the ancient Greeks he adored, make something of it--if not something beautiful, then at least something meaningful. To challenge the Problem of Evil, we must, rather, remind ourselves of the contingency of our good fortune and how unreasonable we are to deny the inevitability of misfortune and the finitude of our lives. As Bernard Williams writes, "There is a problem of evil only for those who expect the world to be good." We thus call into question those abuses of God and the idea of an afterlife that block our deepest emotional responses by assuring us, against all evidence, that our suffering is well worthwhile.
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Comments
So Solomon's critical of the analytic tradition? Typical existentialist. ;P
I would be interested in what he has to say about that. I have my own criticisms but realize that there are two meanings to analytic philosophy: one has to do with topics/issues, the other to do with style.
To me, Solomon is criticizing the style of analytic philosophy. For Solomon, philosophy has become "thin" and narrow, only concerned with the examination of arguments and the production of counterarguments: "But how sad, then, that as a 'discipline' it has narrowed itself to a set of conceptual skills, declared war on richness and variety in favor of a 'thin' and all but exclusive preference for argument and logical analysis, and dismissed Hegel's "speculative" imagination and his all-embracing conception of experience."
From the title of his book, The Joy of Philosophy, I get the feeling that he sees philosophy as somewhat of a depressing discipline. Students are trained to rip apart or destroy arguments, ideas, and concepts and philosophers dramatize their discipline into this suffering, almost savior-esque mission. The joy of philosophize has been lost.
I think his main argument is that current philosophy is based on a high level of abstraction, not experience. To him, current philosophy, and the way it is taught, has little much to say about how we should live our lives, etc, which is what continental philosophy (namely the existentialists) provide us with.
Heh, it's funny though. One's writing style probably has less to do with what school of thought you are a part of and more to do with what language you speak. It has been said that English writers want their audience to understand exactly what they are saying and thus aim for clarity/precision/exactness. French writers also care for their audience but are also concerned with having some literary flair to their writings. Germans, on the other hand, couldn't care less whether anyone understands them or not.
That probably explains why I can enjoy someone like Solomon. There just needs to be more English speaking existentialists. Take post-modernism for example. I can't understand a word of what someone like like Foucault or Derrida is saying. But the moment those similar ideas started flourishing in American philosophers like Rorty and Putnam, I loved it.
That's my defense of analytic philosophy. I can't do without that sort of clarity and exactness that it strives for. But maybe that's just my problem. I think Rorty sums up my thoughts, "I think that analytic philosophy can keep its highly professional methods, the insistence on detail and mechanics, and just drop its transcendental project [essentially its search for objective truth]. I'm not out to criticize analytic philosophy as a style. It's a good style. I think the years of superprofessionalism were beneficial."
But you're probably right. Analytic philosophers have tended to ignore questions about how we ought to live...questions about the good life. I'm not exactly sure why that is. It may be because that's not something they find that one can write very clearly about.