Don't forget that the implied premise, (the Agnostic Defense) is that we are intrinsically incapable of judging the ultimate value of any individual instance of suffering.
Okay.
So we have no way of knowing whether acting compassionately will increase or decrease actualised goodness. Assumptions about whether individual actions increase or decrease good cannot be part of the logic.
Honestly, I'm not sure I follow you here. Would you agree that if responding compassionately to does not materially affect the suffering, then it can only increase actualized goodness?
At any rate, at least some theists believe that responding compassionately (in a conventional sense of those terms) is a divine imperative, that the truth of this is known by revelation, and that it would not be so if responding compassionately would
decrease actualized goodness. This premise could be true or false.
If the only thing we know about a situation is that a benevolent, omnipotent God has arranged that this suffering is specifically and individually necessary to some greater good then of course the only moral action would be to stand back and let that good eventuate.
Yet who is going to use that premise (that a benevolent, omnipotent God has arranged that this suffering is specifically and individually necessary to some greater good) in isolation?
Just as in a hospital we see a patient suffering but know him to be in the active care of an ethical and competent doctor, the good of the patient would not be helped by our acting compassionately and attempting to ease the suffering of the patient. Our inept intervention could lead to calamity.
The
health of the patient might not be helped, but can you state with assurance that actualized goodness would be decreased?
The moral action in either case is to do nothing, unless specifically asked.
A daresay that our Christian friends will assert that they have been specifically asked by God to respond compassionately to any instance of suffering brought to their attention.
No doubt - in fact that is already stipulated in my premise.
But we are considering whether it is logically possible that Mr. B's suffering would provoke a different moral response than Mr A's.
When I alluded to a different moral outcome, I meant to encompass the possibility of a different moral response in the beholder.
The problem is that if you are attempting to show that it is logically possible that an individual instance of suffering can be individually and specifically necessary to the moral response, then you must limit your argument to the moral response and not the overall goodness brought about by the suffering.
Again, I'm not sure I can assent to this condition. I'm not even sure I understand what you're getting at. (And when I said it
was logically possible, I meant only to say that no proof of its impossibility has yet been adduced here or is apparent to my mind.)
Perhaps that graph could be plotted but Mr Y could not plot that graph (again, from the theist premise).
I realize that. It's not necessary to my point that Mr. Y be able to plot it. The fact that it could theoretically be plotted suffices to cast doubt on the notion that a given instance or amount of suffering
cannot be specifically necessary to a given moral outcome (and in particular, maximized goodness).
The overall goodness of the result cannot be part of Mr Y's moral response and it cannot be part of the logic of the argument.
The logic of which argument? The argument from evil?
So let us suppose that Mr. A produces one specific moral response in Mr. Y and Mr. B another - for whatever reason. The difference between those responses depends, not on Mr A, or Mr B, but on Mr Y.
In a manner of speaking; yet the specific outcome depends on the conjunction of Mr. Y and the other person, doesn't it?
If Mr Y treats Mr A one way does that change the fact that he would have treated Mr B another way?
If Mr Y treats Mr B one way does that change the fact that he would have treated Mr A another?
I'm not sure what the relevance is, here. And those would appear to be counterfactuals of freedom, not facts.
In other words it is illogical that one instance of suffering can be individually and specifically necessary to the moral response to it.
I guess I'm still working through your argument. This conclusion seems incorrect to me, or at least undemonstrated.
