(1) "There are other minds" is more plausibly a Moorean fact than "There are vast amounts of gratuitous evil." (i.e., it seems the former is more epistemically firm, justified, commensical, etc).
Add a Plantingian premise:
(2) The belief that "God loves me" is no epistemically worse than "There are other minds".
And we're home free:
(3) Therefore, "God loves me" is more plausibly a Moorean fact than "There are vast amounts of gratuitous evil."
If (3), then the belief that "God loves me" undermines or one's justification for the belief that "There are vast amounts of gratuitous evil," because the former has stronger epistemic warrant and the two are incompatible.
But why should one accept or even suspect that the belief that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being, creator of all other beings (or whatever you mean by 'God'), and that said being loves you (or a trivially equivalent belief), is no epistemically worse than the belief that there are other minds?
4 comments:
Does Rowe and/or Tooley argue that belief in gratuitous evil is properly basic, or an inductive inference?
Consider the following argument:
(1) "There are other minds" is more plausibly a Moorean fact than "There are vast amounts of gratuitous evil." (i.e., it seems the former is more epistemically firm, justified, commensical, etc).
Add a Plantingian premise:
(2) The belief that "God loves me" is no epistemically worse than "There are other minds".
And we're home free:
(3) Therefore, "God loves me" is more plausibly a Moorean fact than "There are vast amounts of gratuitous evil."
If (3), then the belief that "God loves me" undermines or one's justification for the belief that "There are vast amounts of gratuitous evil," because the former has stronger epistemic warrant and the two are incompatible.
But why should one accept or even suspect that the belief that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being, creator of all other beings (or whatever you mean by 'God'), and that said being loves you (or a trivially equivalent belief), is no epistemically worse than the belief that there are other minds?
Yeah, that's kind of a bald, novel point that hasn't been defended before... Maybe I could get a book contract with CUP on that.
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