G. E. Moore Shift's Argument
G.E. Moore Shift
In his “The Evidential Argument From Evil”, Rowe suggests “God” does not exist through the justification that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God would not allow any—or certain kinds of—evil or suffering to occur. This contends that some known fact about evil is evidence against the existence of God, and thus atheism. However, by employing the G.E. Moore Shift, a theist can flip Rowe’s argument on its metaphorical head and prove that God does in fact exist. This allows the reversed argument presented by the theist to be just as valid as Rowe’s, thus causing the argument for atheism to fail. Even so, I believe that the shift is not the most reasonable response one can use, and in this paper will provide a …show more content…
The premises are factual in this argument; god should be able to prevent any suffering from occurring, and there is suffering in the world. Since both are true, we have rational grounds for believing the premises, which in turn provides us with rational grounds for believing the conclusion, so the argument is valid. But do we have rational grounds for believing the premises?
We know the second premise is rational, as theists and atheists alike accept this premise; god would prevent the incidence of intense suffering unless a greater good is only permitted via that suffering. If a theist wanted to argue against the inductive argument for atheism, then the theist must attack the first premise of the argument. There are three ways to go about this. The first way is arguing that the premise is defective in some way; however, there is a problem: this this can only be accomplished either by arguing that the reasons supporting premise one are in themselves insufficient to justify accepting it, or by arguing that there are other things we know which, conjoined with these reasons, do not justify us in accepting it. But since the argument is valid and premise two is likely to be accepted by the theist, this commits the theist to the view that premise one is actually false, not just that we lack a good reason to accept it. The next option a theist has to combat the first premise
In his “The Evidential Argument From Evil”, Rowe suggests “God” does not exist through the justification that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God would not allow any—or certain kinds of—evil or suffering to occur. This contends that some known fact about evil is evidence against the existence of God, and thus atheism. However, by employing the G.E. Moore Shift, a theist can flip Rowe’s argument on its metaphorical head and prove that God does in fact exist. This allows the reversed argument presented by the theist to be just as valid as Rowe’s, thus causing the argument for atheism to fail. Even so, I believe that the shift is not the most reasonable response one can use, and in this paper will provide a …show more content…
The premises are factual in this argument; god should be able to prevent any suffering from occurring, and there is suffering in the world. Since both are true, we have rational grounds for believing the premises, which in turn provides us with rational grounds for believing the conclusion, so the argument is valid. But do we have rational grounds for believing the premises?
We know the second premise is rational, as theists and atheists alike accept this premise; god would prevent the incidence of intense suffering unless a greater good is only permitted via that suffering. If a theist wanted to argue against the inductive argument for atheism, then the theist must attack the first premise of the argument. There are three ways to go about this. The first way is arguing that the premise is defective in some way; however, there is a problem: this this can only be accomplished either by arguing that the reasons supporting premise one are in themselves insufficient to justify accepting it, or by arguing that there are other things we know which, conjoined with these reasons, do not justify us in accepting it. But since the argument is valid and premise two is likely to be accepted by the theist, this commits the theist to the view that premise one is actually false, not just that we lack a good reason to accept it. The next option a theist has to combat the first premise