Phenomenology and gratuitous evil
Many philosophers are convinced that there are evils in the world of such a nature that they make it probable that God does not exist. These are called “gratuitous evils.” An evil is gratuitous to the extent that it has no possible justification. A gratuitous evil is one that is not necessary, whether in principle or else in its actual quantity, for the realization or preservation of any particular good.
How can the conviction be justified that some evils are probably gratuitous? The answer is rather simple. If after long and repeated consideration of the matter the evil in question appears to have no conceivable justification, then it is probably gratuitous. And because an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God would not permit gratuitous evils, it is therefore to that extent probable that God so defined does not exist.
Now, what does phenomenology have to do with this issue? What can a phenomenological approach to the question of the gratuity of some evils bring to the table in this discussion? Most generally, I think that phenomenology reveals something of the essentially perspectival nature of appearance. This in turn undermines the confidence one can have in the judgment that some particular evil is gratuitous.
In the naivety which characterizes the so-called “natural attitude,” one simply takes for granted that what appears to one in experience is the thing itself, simply considered. If a chair appears to me, then what appears to me is the chair, plain and simple. And if someone were to ask me something about the chair, I would answer simply: It is purple. But a more careful consideration of the givens of consciousness reveals that the story is significantly more complicated than that. What appears is not simply the chair, but the chair as occupying a certain position in a certain space. Moreover, the chair does not appear by itself, but in concert with a host of other objects in the same space, such as the table, the floor, the walls, and so on. But in addition to the chair and everything else which appears to me “from the outside,” so to speak, my body also appears to me in a certain sense. My body makes a contribution to the appearance. For example, the chair appears slightly blurry to me because of my eyes. And beyond the contribution that my body makes to the appearance, there is also the contribution that my mind makes given my own knowledge of the world and habits of interpretation. The chair appears to me in a certain way as a familiar and ordinary object precisely because I know what a chair is and how to recognize one. The chair would not appear that way to someone who had never seen a chair before. All these reflections go to show that what appears to us in consciousness is not first and foremost the individual object, but rather everything — all of being, ourselves included— and all at once. Once we manage to see things from this vantage point, we have acceded to what is called the “phenomenological” or “transcendental” attitude. And from this point of view, it would be more accurate to say of the chair, not that it is purple tout court, but rather that it appears purple to me, given all the conditions in which this appearance takes place.
What is the significance of this point? It is not that the judgment made about the chair from within the natural attitude is false. It is not false to say that the chair is purple. It is simply not the whole story. I am presenting as an objective fact what is really a fact about the way a thing appears to me in certain conditions. Once I accede to the phenomenological attitude, I am able better to appreciate the contingency and particularity of this appearance. This further means that it is possible that the chair would appear otherwise under different conditions—for example, to a person who had worse eyesight than me, or to a person who does not know what a chair is, and so on.
Suppose now that we turn our attention to the question of the gratuity of some evil. From within the natural attitude, one simply looks at the thing and question and, being unable to think of why it might have happened, forms the judgment: It is gratuitous. But a properly rigorous and phenomenological approach to the matter would inspire a different formulation of the issue. It would be more accurate to say that the evil in question appears gratuitous to one, given all the conditions in which this appearance takes place.
This raises an all-important question: supposing that God exists, would He therefore also see this evil as gratuitous? Would an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good agent see this same evil as gratuitous?
Phenomenologically speaking, because every appearance is an appearance of an object to a subject from a certain perspective, the only way that we can answer this question is to try to assume the position and perspective of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good subject relative to this evil qua object. We would have to assume the position of God and see this evil in connection with everything else that has happened and will happen in the world. Only from that vantage point can we see whether or not the evil is gratuitous, i.e. whether or not it is actually justified by anything else that happened or will happen in time. But it is also obvious that we cannot do this at all. We cannot assume the position of seeing this evil in connection with everything else in history with which it might bear some connection. That much is obvious. But neither can we assume the position of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good agent. That is because we are none of those things. Furthermore, we do not even know how close we are to having any of those qualities. We cannot—at least not without an obviously extreme bias—suppose ourselves to be “close enough” to ideal power, knowledge, and goodness to make a judgment about how God would see things.
Because every appearance is a perspectival appearance of an object to a subject, the apparent gratuity of evil is really a gratuity apparent to us. It is another question whether God Himself would find this evil gratuitous. Phenomenologically speaking, it seems we are unable to form a reliable judgment about this matter, and that for two reasons. First, we cannot assume the appropriate distance to the object in order to see its connection with everything else that has happened or will happen in history. Second, we do not know how this evil thing would appear to a subject who is perfect in power, knowledge, and goodness, since we are none of those things and do not even know how far we are from them.
Phenomenologically speaking, then, it would seem that we cannot confidently make the judgment that any evil is gratuitous.
