Traditionally, some people have tried to explain the existence of evil in the world with different theodicies. The most popular of these is the free will excuse. These folks will say that a world with evil allows those living in it to freely choose between doing good and evil. It makes free will possible and they argue that a world with free will is better than a world without it even if the world without it is evil-free. But a world with free will entails that, sometimes, people will choose to do evil.
This is obviously a bad argument for several reasons. The most obvious is that many evils had nothing to do with peoples' willing them into existence; they are natural evils like floods and earthquakes and famine and pestilence. (Additionally, the argument assumes that we have free will which is not at all obvious to contemporary philosophers even though most would agree that we do, they would say that there are tremendous difficulties in explicating a coherent and plausible theory of free will)
But consider these other arguments:
Another reason why the free will card is a bad argument is because of the existence, possible or actual, of moral saints or sages. If these beings are possible (and perhaps the Buddha, Confucius and Jesus were actual historical examples), then God could have made everyone like them. So even if there were evil options like there is in this world, a moral saint or sage would not choose it. It is reasonable (and maybe even an a priori truth) that such a being has free will, like you and me. So why didn't god make everyone a moral saint or sage? It is, I think, reasonable to believe that a moral saint or sage is the way she is due to these and only these reasons: her environment and her innate endowments. So why didn't God give everyone the innate qualities these beings posses and the environment which produces and cultivates their moral rectitude and perfection? The Christian/Islamic apologist cannot answer, I doubt, coherently or persuasively on these issues.
Another argument is that one can have free will even when their choices are limited to only good options (perhaps, even if there is only one option(!) on a famous Frankfurtian compatibilist conception of freedom). Say you have the option of A. to eat cake, B. To eat pie, or C. to torture babies. By making it impossible to choose C, (either by making it unthinkable to everyone or by taking the means away to make torturing babies possible or by bilking such attempts to torture, etc) we will still have free choice to choose to eat cake or pie. No evil will be permitted if we choose either provided we like both, everyone gets enough of what they want, there are no bad consequences from having a little cake or pie, etc. So having free will is not to be confused with having the actual options to choose. God could have taken evil options away without robbing us of having free will. I am not free to violate the laws of gravitation, that doesn't mean I lack free will.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The Liar
I asked what lies are in two previous posts but the question of just what liars are is as interesting. I ask because I was reminded recently of an incident I had with a person who was proselytizing on the street. He asked me, out of the cold as I was walking by him, if I had ever lied. It was such a weird situation that it caught me off guard. Nonplussed, I said, "What do you mean?" He answered with a question: "What do you call someone who has lied?" Obviously, this was a rhetorical ploy to get people to say "Liar". This presumably would prompt him to then say that since lying is a sin, we are all sinners and need Jesus to save us, blah blah....(Looking back, I am proud I had the self-control to refrain from punching him in the mouth!)
Anyway, it was pretty clear to me that just because one has told a lie doesn't make one a liar. Do little white lies count? Never mind the problem with what is a lie as there clearly are vague cases. Even if we agree that someone has told a clear case lie, that wouldn't mean he is a liar. Say he lied when he was 4 years old and hasn't since. He has vowed not to and kept to his promise for 30 years after that. Clearly this is a reformed liar and it would be pretty crazy to call a reformed liar a 'liar' (kind of like calling someone that stopped abusing alcohol for 30 years an 'alcoholic'). Even if the person continues to lie, if only on occasion and in non serious circumstances (like almost all normal adults), we may have reasons not to call him a liar much like we may not want to call someone that has and may still do play football for fun with his buddies a 'football player' or someone that knows how to belt out a few tunes on his piano a 'pianist' or 'musician'.
But is there a definite point in degree and kind of the number, kinds, moral seriousness, of lies told by someone that would make him a liar? No, of course not.
It's also interesting that being called a 'liar' may be quite relational in the way my examples of 'football player' and 'pianist' is not. The person being lied to may have more recourse and even semantic justification to impute liar-hood onto the person that lied to him than someone else who has never met him. This underscores the moral aspect of liar-hood. It is a "thick concept" in the sense made famous by Bernard Williams.
We may consider Honest Bob a virtuous and honest man because he has never lied to us and we know him well. But let's say that 10 years ago, he was a very different person to which he has since mended his ways. He lied to his former friend, Louis, and screwed him over pretty bad (the details of which need not concern us). Louis hasn't seen Bob in a while because he refuses to meet him now and still feels hurt over being lied to like that. But Louis sees him by accident today again on the street. He calls Bob a "liar!" and walks away. It seems that Louis was justified in calling Bob that; not just justified in the sense he may be excused from saying something which may be hurtful, but in the sense he was saying something somewhat true. But we, those who know Bob qua "Honest Bob," would not be justified in the same ways to call him a 'liar'.
Anyway, it was pretty clear to me that just because one has told a lie doesn't make one a liar. Do little white lies count? Never mind the problem with what is a lie as there clearly are vague cases. Even if we agree that someone has told a clear case lie, that wouldn't mean he is a liar. Say he lied when he was 4 years old and hasn't since. He has vowed not to and kept to his promise for 30 years after that. Clearly this is a reformed liar and it would be pretty crazy to call a reformed liar a 'liar' (kind of like calling someone that stopped abusing alcohol for 30 years an 'alcoholic'). Even if the person continues to lie, if only on occasion and in non serious circumstances (like almost all normal adults), we may have reasons not to call him a liar much like we may not want to call someone that has and may still do play football for fun with his buddies a 'football player' or someone that knows how to belt out a few tunes on his piano a 'pianist' or 'musician'.
But is there a definite point in degree and kind of the number, kinds, moral seriousness, of lies told by someone that would make him a liar? No, of course not.
It's also interesting that being called a 'liar' may be quite relational in the way my examples of 'football player' and 'pianist' is not. The person being lied to may have more recourse and even semantic justification to impute liar-hood onto the person that lied to him than someone else who has never met him. This underscores the moral aspect of liar-hood. It is a "thick concept" in the sense made famous by Bernard Williams.
We may consider Honest Bob a virtuous and honest man because he has never lied to us and we know him well. But let's say that 10 years ago, he was a very different person to which he has since mended his ways. He lied to his former friend, Louis, and screwed him over pretty bad (the details of which need not concern us). Louis hasn't seen Bob in a while because he refuses to meet him now and still feels hurt over being lied to like that. But Louis sees him by accident today again on the street. He calls Bob a "liar!" and walks away. It seems that Louis was justified in calling Bob that; not just justified in the sense he may be excused from saying something which may be hurtful, but in the sense he was saying something somewhat true. But we, those who know Bob qua "Honest Bob," would not be justified in the same ways to call him a 'liar'.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Theodicy
A theodicy seeks to explain why there's evil in the world. It seems that it is impossible for the existence of both an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God and the existence of evil (of any degree). By evil I mean any kind of suffering or even pain. The traditional justifications of evil in a world with God has been the story of Original Sin in the Bible, the Free Will justifications seen in philosophical and theological debates, the justification from Ignorance and the argument of spiritual or character development. However, there seems to be one theodicy that is even more plausible, at least to me. What if God really is what he purportedly is but that a being of omnipotent and omnibenevolent nature would entail His hating and willing the suffering of evil beings. That making evil beings and making them suffer is an inherent good and moreover, an absolute good. Perhaps we are all evil beings designed by God to be evil and also doomed to suffer his (righteous) wrath. So God has created evil beings just so that punishing them, an inherent good, will be possible. This would also seem to show that God has a kind of poetic aesthetic i.e., making those who are evil suffer directly through the hands of other evil beings for much (but not all) of our suffering is through human created ills. Now this certainly is a vindictive God, but the question is Can He also be omnibenevolent too? If His vengeance is just, does that really mar his goodness?
One of the other obvious objections is that there are many of us that are not evil. Consider innocent children who are made to sometimes suffer horrendously. How could they possibly be evil? Maybe because they have the potential to act evil and it is only some instance of luck (constitutive or circumstantial)that prevents them from eventually committing great evils. It could be argued (though I don't know how plausibly) that their evilness is an inherent aspect of their being or essence (and indeed every person's being) for this possible actualization of great evil to be possible. Their potential or propensity for evil is manifested through traits they posses inherently.
But a further objection that is more plausible is that it seems that the degree of suffering is not commensurate with the evil potential. Some of us are more capable and more likely to commit great evils or greater evils than others and this could be because of some aspect of our innate essences. But it seems like the prima facie best of us are made to suffer the most in the world (perhaps precisely partly because they are better) more than most others. And those that are prima facie worse seems tend to suffer less and enjoy themselves more in this world (perhaps precisely partly because they are worse).
The reply could be that none of us really know how truly evil we are (have the capacity or propensity given the right conditions to commit) and that despite what it seems, everyone does really get their just deserts commensurate with their inherent but not obvious evilness.
One of the other obvious objections is that there are many of us that are not evil. Consider innocent children who are made to sometimes suffer horrendously. How could they possibly be evil? Maybe because they have the potential to act evil and it is only some instance of luck (constitutive or circumstantial)that prevents them from eventually committing great evils. It could be argued (though I don't know how plausibly) that their evilness is an inherent aspect of their being or essence (and indeed every person's being) for this possible actualization of great evil to be possible. Their potential or propensity for evil is manifested through traits they posses inherently.
But a further objection that is more plausible is that it seems that the degree of suffering is not commensurate with the evil potential. Some of us are more capable and more likely to commit great evils or greater evils than others and this could be because of some aspect of our innate essences. But it seems like the prima facie best of us are made to suffer the most in the world (perhaps precisely partly because they are better) more than most others. And those that are prima facie worse seems tend to suffer less and enjoy themselves more in this world (perhaps precisely partly because they are worse).
The reply could be that none of us really know how truly evil we are (have the capacity or propensity given the right conditions to commit) and that despite what it seems, everyone does really get their just deserts commensurate with their inherent but not obvious evilness.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
What's a lie? (redux)
There seems to be a constellation of things that are lie-like and people may or may not view them as lies. There seems to be three elements of a traditional lie: deception, saying something the sayer believes false, and an element that is viewed as worthy of condemnation. If a speech act has at minimum any two of these elements, there is a chance it may be construed a lie.
Consider this scenario where someone says something he doesn't believe for the sake of hurting someone else but he does so without trying to deceive the person (or anyone else). If Bob gets angry at his wife Jean and tells her "You're a fat!" out of spite, even though neither he nor Jean thinks of Jean as fat, then has he lied? He said something he doesn't believe true and his act may be generally considered condemnable but it's not deceptive. We can think of other examples with any two of the elements without the other. It seems that there may be many things that are lies but have only two, but any two combination, of the elements to be a lie while traditional lies have all three elements. Where to draw a line between those that have two elements that are lies and those that don't is contingent. I doubt there is anything that has just one of the elements that people will consider a lie but I could be wrong.
Consider this scenario where someone says something he doesn't believe for the sake of hurting someone else but he does so without trying to deceive the person (or anyone else). If Bob gets angry at his wife Jean and tells her "You're a fat!" out of spite, even though neither he nor Jean thinks of Jean as fat, then has he lied? He said something he doesn't believe true and his act may be generally considered condemnable but it's not deceptive. We can think of other examples with any two of the elements without the other. It seems that there may be many things that are lies but have only two, but any two combination, of the elements to be a lie while traditional lies have all three elements. Where to draw a line between those that have two elements that are lies and those that don't is contingent. I doubt there is anything that has just one of the elements that people will consider a lie but I could be wrong.
What's a lie?
It's not clear to many philosophers what a lie is. There are some definitions but all are problematic for one reason or another. The traditional philosophical definition defines a lie as something said which the sayer believes false with the intention of deceiving someone. There are problems where there are speech acts that don't seem to fall definitively in the lie category under any definition I've heard or thought up. Take "lies" involving the use of equivocations or implicatures as the most obvious examples. I don't know if these issues involving these speech acts will ever be resolved; that is I don't know if there is a fact of the matter about these speech acts that makes them lies or not. They may just lie (no pun intended) in some gray area.
However, philosophers have also debated whether or not bald-faced lies are really lies. Bald-face "lies" do not involve deception. Consider this scenario. A student who has been caught cheating is summoned to the dean's office at her college. It is the policy of this college that no matter how strong the evidence is for cheating, a student must explicitly admit to the act of cheating to be subject to disciplinary actions. The dean has conclusive proof that she cheated (perhaps he has security photos). Both she and the dean knows she has cheated. Moreover, she knows that he knows she cheated because he shows her the photos of her in the act. But she says that she didn't cheat so as to not be subject to those disciplinary actions. Has she lied to the dean?
Apparently, everyday people will say a definitive 'yes' as was determined in a study by an "experimental philosopher". This suggests that a true definition of lying that draw boundaries inclusive of bald-faced lies (e.i., without the deception criterion) will be the far more accurate definition. One of the authors (Don Fallis) favors his own definition which the study suggests is the one that best fits the responses from the study subjects among several rival definitions including the traditional philosophical definition (originally from Bernard Williams, I believe).
However, I am not so sure about that. I'm agnostic between the traditional definition and Fallis's. There is a possibility that people who classify bald-face lies do so not because they think of them in the same way as more straightforward lies but because they have some alternate notion of "lying" which they realize at some level are misnomers.
Take this example. If asked, most people will probably say that a killer whale (Orcinus orca) is a whale. But the term "killer whale" is a misnomer as these creatures (orcas) are not really whales at all (they are dolphins or members of the family Delphinidae).
Now if one were to show people a picture of different kinds of dolphins (something most people presumably don't think of as whales), next to a picture of different kinds of whales, say humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus)and right whales (Balaena australis), and show them a picture of a killer whale and let them "classify" where best the orca belongs, I think we'd get an interesting and more nuanced picture, one that is more accurate of people's concept of marine animals (cetaceans in this case). I think more people will cluster the killer whale with the dolphins than the (true) whales.
Just because people may think that killer whales are whales does not mean that they will have a non nuanced conception of whale-hood and may have even conflicting concepts of whales. They may use "whale" differently for different purposes fully but implicitly acknowledging salient differences. Likewise, I suggest may be the case with lies.
I say a better way to test people's implicit, intuitive understandings of the definition of lying and whether or not bald-faced lies are really lies in the same sense as straightforward lies is to set up a similar thing.
Have at one end, descriptions of scenarios where there clearly are lies (straightforward lies which involves deception) while at the other end, have scenarios describing intentional speech acts that the teller believes false but without the intent to deceive and are uncontroversially not lies (such as instances of sarcasm, telling of jokes, or instances of acting or mimicking). The later are clearly not lies and most people in the study above have attested to that fact. Then ask people where bald-faced lies best fit in that conceptual space. I think you'd get a much more conflicting picture with roughly equal numbers of people choosing one end and others picking the other end and many choosing somewhere inbetween. This may show that bald-faced lies are in some gray area much like equivocations and implicatures rather than clear instances of lies.
However, philosophers have also debated whether or not bald-faced lies are really lies. Bald-face "lies" do not involve deception. Consider this scenario. A student who has been caught cheating is summoned to the dean's office at her college. It is the policy of this college that no matter how strong the evidence is for cheating, a student must explicitly admit to the act of cheating to be subject to disciplinary actions. The dean has conclusive proof that she cheated (perhaps he has security photos). Both she and the dean knows she has cheated. Moreover, she knows that he knows she cheated because he shows her the photos of her in the act. But she says that she didn't cheat so as to not be subject to those disciplinary actions. Has she lied to the dean?
Apparently, everyday people will say a definitive 'yes' as was determined in a study by an "experimental philosopher". This suggests that a true definition of lying that draw boundaries inclusive of bald-faced lies (e.i., without the deception criterion) will be the far more accurate definition. One of the authors (Don Fallis) favors his own definition which the study suggests is the one that best fits the responses from the study subjects among several rival definitions including the traditional philosophical definition (originally from Bernard Williams, I believe).
However, I am not so sure about that. I'm agnostic between the traditional definition and Fallis's. There is a possibility that people who classify bald-face lies do so not because they think of them in the same way as more straightforward lies but because they have some alternate notion of "lying" which they realize at some level are misnomers.
Take this example. If asked, most people will probably say that a killer whale (Orcinus orca) is a whale. But the term "killer whale" is a misnomer as these creatures (orcas) are not really whales at all (they are dolphins or members of the family Delphinidae).
Now if one were to show people a picture of different kinds of dolphins (something most people presumably don't think of as whales), next to a picture of different kinds of whales, say humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus)and right whales (Balaena australis), and show them a picture of a killer whale and let them "classify" where best the orca belongs, I think we'd get an interesting and more nuanced picture, one that is more accurate of people's concept of marine animals (cetaceans in this case). I think more people will cluster the killer whale with the dolphins than the (true) whales.
Just because people may think that killer whales are whales does not mean that they will have a non nuanced conception of whale-hood and may have even conflicting concepts of whales. They may use "whale" differently for different purposes fully but implicitly acknowledging salient differences. Likewise, I suggest may be the case with lies.
I say a better way to test people's implicit, intuitive understandings of the definition of lying and whether or not bald-faced lies are really lies in the same sense as straightforward lies is to set up a similar thing.
Have at one end, descriptions of scenarios where there clearly are lies (straightforward lies which involves deception) while at the other end, have scenarios describing intentional speech acts that the teller believes false but without the intent to deceive and are uncontroversially not lies (such as instances of sarcasm, telling of jokes, or instances of acting or mimicking). The later are clearly not lies and most people in the study above have attested to that fact. Then ask people where bald-faced lies best fit in that conceptual space. I think you'd get a much more conflicting picture with roughly equal numbers of people choosing one end and others picking the other end and many choosing somewhere inbetween. This may show that bald-faced lies are in some gray area much like equivocations and implicatures rather than clear instances of lies.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Interesting debate between philosophers of biological science
There's an interesting debate going on in the comments section of a critique of Fodor's and Piatelli-Palmarini's new book on evolution and natural selection. It takes place among some other philosophers of science, some of whom are defending Fodor's Piatelli-Palmarini's work and other criticizing it.
Part of the debate touches on old debates between those who think that evolution is primarily driven by filters like genetic drift, and chemical and physical laws and those evolutionary theorists who posit that natural selection is the primary filter. This has been fiercely debated for over 40 years and there is no consensus yet.
I think philosophers have a lot to contribute here because I think ultimately it will be largely settled on conceptual reconfigurations and clarification. Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini seem to also levy much more broadly philosophical skeptical criticisms at natural selection which doesn't seem to be successful as the article and some of the posters in the comments section point out.
Part of the debate touches on old debates between those who think that evolution is primarily driven by filters like genetic drift, and chemical and physical laws and those evolutionary theorists who posit that natural selection is the primary filter. This has been fiercely debated for over 40 years and there is no consensus yet.
I think philosophers have a lot to contribute here because I think ultimately it will be largely settled on conceptual reconfigurations and clarification. Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini seem to also levy much more broadly philosophical skeptical criticisms at natural selection which doesn't seem to be successful as the article and some of the posters in the comments section point out.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Marilyn McCord Adams on god and rational optimism
In this podcast, McCord Adams claims that it is a necessary condition to be a "rational optimist" to believe in god. The first time I heard this podcats, I couldn't help but be impressed with this line of argument as it does have its appeal to me despite the fact that I thought it very much wrong. I was impressed by its originality and its odd perspective on things. I couldn't at first put my finger on specifically what was wrong with it but now I know. It's wrong for several possible reasons. Since I've never read her books or papers, I have to go on what she said in the podcats but it seems to me to be a wholly fallacious argument due to an equivocation on the word "optimism" or because it makes the fatalistic fallacy.
First of all, her argument doesn't purport to argue for the existence of God based on ontological or cosmological or even, strictly speaking, ethical considerations like most traditional theistic arguments (it's a "practical" argument much like Kant's). It seems that her argument is aimed at a charge of irrationality of holding both that one can be optimistic and atheist. So it's only directed at optimistic atheists and will not work against those who are pessimist about the chances for future human goodness and the reduction of evils. She says that it's inconsistent to both be rational and optimistic given the history of horrendous evils in the world. This history is supposed to count as evidence of the future state of things. She claims it's a necessary condition to believe in god if we are rationally optimistic because history has shown that things won't likely turn that much better in terms of evils committed. It will take a supernatural will to right all the wrongs and truly make a better world. That's what I take her argument to consists in. So if it is necessary to believe in god to be rationally optimistic in this world, optimistic atheists must abandon either their optimism or their atheism or else concede that their non belief in god is irrational! Since atheists aren't likely to abandon their optimism, to avoid charges of irrationality, they must bite the bullet and adopt a belief in god to justify that optimism.
My first response to her argument for God's existence is for "existential" reasons. She seems to equivocate on "optimism." I understand optimism to be either an affective attitude (or feeling) for a positive outcome or it could be a belief in the likelihood of that positive outcome. So she seems to argue that a rational and realistic atheist is forced to concede that since humans have not improved that much in our basic bad treatment of each other (which is a huge and largely unsubstantiated assumption), we must adopt a negative belief based on our history that we will not be able to improve and that our affective state of positive feelings about improvement and redemption of evils should follow our "pessimist" but wholly justified belief.
Now for the sake of argument, I won't deny that humans have not bettered themselves in regard to the evils we commit.
I also would say that for the most part our attitudes whether positive or negative on life should follow our (rational) beliefs. In other words, normatively, we should have affective states concordant or at least not at tensions with our beliefs. If I know that house cats are safe, tend to be nice, and make good pets, I should not fear them or have negative attitudes (or affective states towards them) regarding potential for harming me. If I know that the president is a mean, nasty and untrustworthy person, I should not still have warm gooey feelings of inspiration regarding his character traits. That much is clear.
But on occasion, we should not have belief concordant affective states associated with our beliefs (or the affective aspect of "aliefs") and in fact we should have discordant affective states.
Consider if your wife or husband had cancer and all the best doctors based on the latest scientific findings on the current state of his/her condition said he/she had little chance of recovery and will die soon. So even though we should, in some sense, have a pessimistic outlook on the chances of survival of our spouse, we should adopt a more roseate affective state towards their full recovery. We should have positive feelings towards their chances of recovery even though we believe (and it is possible that they will rationally believe too) that their chances are slim. We should have these positive feelings towards full recovery despite the justified beliefs. In fact, we wouldn't be good spouses, friends, family members, etc if we didn't adopt these feelings in just these kinds of circumstances.
Consider the concept of hope. I can hope that you, my best friend, will win the lottery the next time you buy a ticket despite the fact that I know you will have little chances of winning and I can be fully wanting you winning it. There's nothing irrational about this. In some sense, that's being optimistic about you winning the lottery. So the concept of hope involves a lot of these optimistic feelings (attitudes or affective states)without there even being a necessity built into the concept for an optimistic belief. Indeed, we hope for things all the time for ourselves and our loved ones without believing they are likely to befall us. We also sometimes hope that the wicked will get their just deserts even on occasions when we believe that there's little chances of it happening. Reality is simply irrelevant to this kind of attitude. The expression of the positive "optimistic" attitudes in hoping for the best is a gesture of good will and required for our being good human beings.
Even when there is no chance of a positive outcome, we may still have good reason to be hopeful. Consider the doctor protagonists in Camus' The Plague. He can work like he does and presumably have the same optimistic attitudes (despite his actual beliefs) as he does as if his situation had not been that dire without being irrational. We may have "existential" reasons to adopt such feelings despite knowing there is no chance of a positive outcome not because we know it will make a difference in the outcome but because we are doing what's required to be worthy of that positive outcome.
So I would argue that an atheist can be rationally optimistic because we can hope for much better even if we believe there's little chances of that happening. I'll call this kind of optimistic atheist the "hopeful atheist". So this shows that McCord Adams is wrong on the necessity part of her claim but maybe she is right that most or many atheists should revise their beliefs on god because most atheists optimism is based not on this kind of reality irrelevant attitude from hope but based on not being able to come to terms with reality? That is, if they fully embraced rational beliefs about reality, they would come to see that their attitudes had been wrong. I'll call these atheists "blinders atheists". Then her argument would only be aimed at these blinders atheists and would be ineffective against hopeful atheists. This then is a much more plausible albeit far less strong a claim (again, assuming that her claim that history shows there is no improvement in the perpetration of evils).
I think that McCord Adams also makes a fatalistic fallacy because we can argue that even though it's unlikely that there will be much less evil in the future, for that possibility to happen, it will be much more likely if we adopt a more optimistic attitude. So that will gives us rational reasons to adopt it because it will raise our chances to improve the world even if that improvement will not make it probable that it will.
First of all, her argument doesn't purport to argue for the existence of God based on ontological or cosmological or even, strictly speaking, ethical considerations like most traditional theistic arguments (it's a "practical" argument much like Kant's). It seems that her argument is aimed at a charge of irrationality of holding both that one can be optimistic and atheist. So it's only directed at optimistic atheists and will not work against those who are pessimist about the chances for future human goodness and the reduction of evils. She says that it's inconsistent to both be rational and optimistic given the history of horrendous evils in the world. This history is supposed to count as evidence of the future state of things. She claims it's a necessary condition to believe in god if we are rationally optimistic because history has shown that things won't likely turn that much better in terms of evils committed. It will take a supernatural will to right all the wrongs and truly make a better world. That's what I take her argument to consists in. So if it is necessary to believe in god to be rationally optimistic in this world, optimistic atheists must abandon either their optimism or their atheism or else concede that their non belief in god is irrational! Since atheists aren't likely to abandon their optimism, to avoid charges of irrationality, they must bite the bullet and adopt a belief in god to justify that optimism.
My first response to her argument for God's existence is for "existential" reasons. She seems to equivocate on "optimism." I understand optimism to be either an affective attitude (or feeling) for a positive outcome or it could be a belief in the likelihood of that positive outcome. So she seems to argue that a rational and realistic atheist is forced to concede that since humans have not improved that much in our basic bad treatment of each other (which is a huge and largely unsubstantiated assumption), we must adopt a negative belief based on our history that we will not be able to improve and that our affective state of positive feelings about improvement and redemption of evils should follow our "pessimist" but wholly justified belief.
Now for the sake of argument, I won't deny that humans have not bettered themselves in regard to the evils we commit.
I also would say that for the most part our attitudes whether positive or negative on life should follow our (rational) beliefs. In other words, normatively, we should have affective states concordant or at least not at tensions with our beliefs. If I know that house cats are safe, tend to be nice, and make good pets, I should not fear them or have negative attitudes (or affective states towards them) regarding potential for harming me. If I know that the president is a mean, nasty and untrustworthy person, I should not still have warm gooey feelings of inspiration regarding his character traits. That much is clear.
But on occasion, we should not have belief concordant affective states associated with our beliefs (or the affective aspect of "aliefs") and in fact we should have discordant affective states.
Consider if your wife or husband had cancer and all the best doctors based on the latest scientific findings on the current state of his/her condition said he/she had little chance of recovery and will die soon. So even though we should, in some sense, have a pessimistic outlook on the chances of survival of our spouse, we should adopt a more roseate affective state towards their full recovery. We should have positive feelings towards their chances of recovery even though we believe (and it is possible that they will rationally believe too) that their chances are slim. We should have these positive feelings towards full recovery despite the justified beliefs. In fact, we wouldn't be good spouses, friends, family members, etc if we didn't adopt these feelings in just these kinds of circumstances.
Consider the concept of hope. I can hope that you, my best friend, will win the lottery the next time you buy a ticket despite the fact that I know you will have little chances of winning and I can be fully wanting you winning it. There's nothing irrational about this. In some sense, that's being optimistic about you winning the lottery. So the concept of hope involves a lot of these optimistic feelings (attitudes or affective states)without there even being a necessity built into the concept for an optimistic belief. Indeed, we hope for things all the time for ourselves and our loved ones without believing they are likely to befall us. We also sometimes hope that the wicked will get their just deserts even on occasions when we believe that there's little chances of it happening. Reality is simply irrelevant to this kind of attitude. The expression of the positive "optimistic" attitudes in hoping for the best is a gesture of good will and required for our being good human beings.
Even when there is no chance of a positive outcome, we may still have good reason to be hopeful. Consider the doctor protagonists in Camus' The Plague. He can work like he does and presumably have the same optimistic attitudes (despite his actual beliefs) as he does as if his situation had not been that dire without being irrational. We may have "existential" reasons to adopt such feelings despite knowing there is no chance of a positive outcome not because we know it will make a difference in the outcome but because we are doing what's required to be worthy of that positive outcome.
So I would argue that an atheist can be rationally optimistic because we can hope for much better even if we believe there's little chances of that happening. I'll call this kind of optimistic atheist the "hopeful atheist". So this shows that McCord Adams is wrong on the necessity part of her claim but maybe she is right that most or many atheists should revise their beliefs on god because most atheists optimism is based not on this kind of reality irrelevant attitude from hope but based on not being able to come to terms with reality? That is, if they fully embraced rational beliefs about reality, they would come to see that their attitudes had been wrong. I'll call these atheists "blinders atheists". Then her argument would only be aimed at these blinders atheists and would be ineffective against hopeful atheists. This then is a much more plausible albeit far less strong a claim (again, assuming that her claim that history shows there is no improvement in the perpetration of evils).
I think that McCord Adams also makes a fatalistic fallacy because we can argue that even though it's unlikely that there will be much less evil in the future, for that possibility to happen, it will be much more likely if we adopt a more optimistic attitude. So that will gives us rational reasons to adopt it because it will raise our chances to improve the world even if that improvement will not make it probable that it will.
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