ARGUMENTS AGAINST MONOTHEISM 153disappearance of species. Connected with the second consideration is the fact
that the history of the natural world is very far from presenting a picture of
neatness and efficiency. These are two rather different sorts of issue, divisible
along the lines of what we might call the disappearing species problem and the
animal suffering problem.^41 Either could arise without the other, and it seems
fairly clear that a solution to the one need not be any solution at all regarding
the other. In any case, the animal suffering issue has already been addressed. It
is a particularly thorny issue for theodicy, but it does not follow that it is
somehow equally difficult regarding the problem of evil, which is the concern
here. The comments that follow focus on the matter of disappearing species
and the connected matter of inefficiency.
Inefficiency
Inefficiency issues hardly arise concerning an omnicompetent being. It is false
that:
(N) Necessarily, if a being B can achieve end E by means of causing
process Q1 or by causing process Q2, where Q1 is simpler* than Q2,
then it is a defect in B if B elects to achieve E by causing Q2.^42
Perhaps one can refine (N) by way of reference to scarcity of material, energy,
time, or the like – but then an omnicompetent being won’t be working under
any variety of inherent scarcity. One might think of (N) as somehow defining,
or following from, rationality, but artistic profusion is not inherently less
rational than mathematical elegance. Presumably there is no rational need that
the rhinoceros be among the inhabitants of our earth, but a rhinoceros is a
fascinating creature. It is no less so if an efficiency expert would have removed
him from the list of things to be produced. Whatever force remains to the
inefficiency issue concerns the total disappearance of species.
It was argued above that our having no clear idea as to how to explain
Bambi’s suffering (or animal suffering in general) is no evidence whatever that
such suffering is gratuitous. An exactly analogous argument holds regarding
the disappearance of species, if that is an evil. There is no need to develop that
argument here, since it is obvious how it would go. Other matters deserve
fuller attention.
The disappearance of species
Let’s say that some item X has purely extrinsic value if and only if X has worth
for the sake of what it contributes to Y, and no other value whatever. Of course