378 NOTES29 Strictly, this is not accurate. Suppose that having fortitude is a good, that one can have
this virtue only if one has borne pain well, and hence that it is logically impossible that
one have the virtue without there having been pains, and that pains are evils. Still, it is
not necessary that there have been the particular pains that there were; other pains
presumably would have done as well. So the obtaining of the actually endured pains was
not, strictly speaking, logically necessary for fortitude to obtain. They were merely
some among various possible pains that would so serve; in such circumstances we might
say that the actual pains were disjunctively necessary for fortitude – it was necessary
that they, or something similar (i.e., other pains) obtain. Similar considerations apply
generally to cases of evils being necessary for goods. It does matter here whether the
existence of fortitude in John does provide sufficient point for there being pains which
John bears; the point here is simply to be clear about the sense in which it can be true that
Evil E’s obtaining is a logically necessary condition of good G obtaining. A relevant
complication is this: might John’s bearing pains have a point if they provide the
opportunity for John to develop fortitude, even if he does not do so? Might a relevant
point-giving good be simply John’s having the opportunity to develop fortitude, whether
he does so or not? Obviously, a similar question will arise in the case of other evils and
goods.
30 One might propose here something like (P) If there is an omnicompetent God then it
is immensely probable – or at least more probable than .5 – that there will be no
pointless evils. But why anyone should think (P) true without thinking (P) true is
unclear, and in any case if (P) is true, it is necessarily true, and if (P) is not a necessary
truth the prospects for (P) being a necessary truth look bleak.
31 Due to Peter Van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
32 The suggestion here follows an interesting discussion by Peter Van Inwagen.
33 Surviving no doubt would require restrictions on randomness in the sense that there
would need to be events that were not randomness cases; one could also stipulate that in
a chancey world it was random which events were random – i.e., second-order randomness
was present as well as first-order.
34 See note 29.
35 If one insists that anything having to do with personal maturity – flourishing as a
person – is part of morality, I have no objections; I will then make my point using some
such terminology as morality of common grace and morality of special grace.
36 Or have good reason to believe, or the like.
37 Or, again, we have good reason to believe that there are, or it is likely that there are, or
it is unreasonable not to grant that there are, or the like.
38 Or have good reason to believe, or the like.
39 See previous note.
40 For example, I take the following to be a necessary truth: For any ennumerative class K
of things, if K has any purely intrinsic worth, its members distributively have intrinsic
worth (I mean by an ennumerative class one that is defined by its extension). Further, I
take natural species to be ennurmerative classes.
41 It is hard to see why the amount of animal suffering makes any evidential difference.
Psychologically, perhaps, some might find it easier to believe that God has a good reason
for allowing (say) one-hundredth of the animal suffering God has allowed, but not for
allowing the actual amount. But that is purely psychological; a sentiment, perhaps, but
not a reason. The same holds concerning the number of disappearing species. Presumably
if it is wrong of God to allow species to disappear, then it is worse of God to allow many
to disappear than to allow a few to disappear. The basic questions remain whether the
disappearance of a species is an inherently bad thing, and if so whether God could have
a morally sufficient reason for allowing this sort of inherently bad thing.