My major concern here would be that consent, in order to function as an acceptable ethical basis for inflicting (or failing to prevent) some serious harm, must be contingent on the *continued* approval of a consenting party who is ability to suspend or revoke that consent at any time. This is obviously true when it comes to something like sex: If Frank consents to Betty performing some sex act, but later decides he isn't enjoying it and asks her to stop, it's generally acknowledged that Betty needs to stop, and that she wouldn't be justified in continuing just because Frank previously consented to the idea of it beforehand. And this is even more obviously true if Frank doesn't even remember consenting in the first place! Similarly, I imagine most people who are experiencing tremendous suffering don't *right now* consent to God refusing to intervene, and would in fact desperately want him to. So you'd have to think that God not only got every human being's consent to experience serious suffering unaided, but that he also got every human being's consent to do so with no ability to later change their mind - no cosmic safe word, so to speak. But the problem is that most people would say that's just fundamentally immoral, and that you *have* to build in the option of revoking consent for it to be acceptable in the first place. Personally, when I consider someone being tortured or otherwise horribly abused and crying out for God to save them, the idea that God would be in heaven saying "Sorry buddy, you signed the contract!" does strike me as extremely immoral.
Also, I'm curious about what exactly the fate is of those preexisting souls who don't consent to this. Do they get to go to the special wimp universe where God *does* intervene? Or is the only option nonexistence? Because if it's the latter option, then I think you do get some complicated ethical concerns around power dynamics, obligations, etc. God could create a third option for those who want to exist without the possibility of extreme suffering, but he doesn't, so they're forced to make a generally unwanted decision between nonexistence or possible extreme suffering. Most people would agree that arbitrarily constructing a major decision to deviate from the actual desires of another much, much less powerful person and then forcing them to choose between the two suboptimal choices is the sort of thing that makes true consent difficult, right?
1. I think the first objection is the best sort of objection to my view, and I'm writing about it at the moment for my undergrad diss. The structure of my reply will be something along the lines of the following: the relevant set-up - at least on views on which God is merely allowing harm to befall people - will be a case where we can consent (with as much knowledge as needed, including knowledge of how we will react to the relevant evils [e.g., by begging God to stop]) to God allowing evils to befall us. With that in mind, consider the following case. (It might be metaphysically impossible, but not in a way that should undermine the intuition IMO.) Imagine a prison documentarian who wants to film an interaction with a dangerous criminal. On the way to the prison, she tells her cameraman that if the criminal attacks her and starts to brutally assault her, she doesn't want him to intervene, even if she (in a fit of weakness) goes back on herself and starts begging the cameraman to step in - she's highly committed to her craft, values this documentary above all her other projects (at least at the time she issued consent), is unwavering, and is of sound mind and judgement. As it happens, she knows a trusty time-traveller who tells her that, in fact, she will go back on herself and start begging the cameraman to step in. Nonetheless, being in a more reflective position now to the one she'll be in as she's being attacked, she issues this command to her cameraman. Suppose, finally, that the authentic documentary will have really good consequences, better ones than if the cameraman intervened. In that sort of case, my claim will be that the cameraman doesn't have to step in when the documentarian starts to beg. I realise some might not share this intuition, so I want to workshop the argument until I feel like I have something more convincing than a single case.
2. Not sure what will happen to those who don't consent (if there ever are such people. Perhaps, in a superior epistemic position, we will just see the greater goods that'll result from our participation and decide to participate.) Whatever it is, though, it won't be something that undermines valid consent in the sort of way you mention.
Yeah, I definitely thought about a case like that - I don't know if you've ever seen Young Frankenstein, but one of the funniest jokes in the entire movie is built around exactly this premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZdUO3fizDg
I still think there are issues, though. The first is that even if you accept this logic, it would obviously decrease the prior probability of the entire theodicy, since you'd have to assert not only that preexisting persons consent to the risk of suffering but that they so passionately consent as to also affirm a further intention-thwarting clause on top of it. And also yes, the basic intuition about the permissibility of the cameraman's actions here is shaky for me anyway, *especially* if we were to also make it so the documentarian was not aware of her goals or her agreement with the cameraman at the time. But the bigger issue, imo, is that there seem to be many examples where there *isn't* an identifiable good that refusing to honor the later demand for intervention obtains. You can imagine someone who has just been arrested by some despotic regime and knows with absolute certainty that they'll be tortured for a few days and then killed. If they cry out for God to save them, or even just to end their lives a few days early, then it seems like apart from any consent concerns they'd be making the right choice to not see that life out to its "natural" end. So it certainly seems like in those cases, God would have no reason to keep the intention-thwarting clause in place, but of course that exact thing has happened to countless people over history.
I read an interesting article once about how school aged boys never think about what girl’s internal world is like, but girls spend an enormous amount of time wondering what its like to be a boy. I guess here humans are the girls.
My major concern here would be that consent, in order to function as an acceptable ethical basis for inflicting (or failing to prevent) some serious harm, must be contingent on the *continued* approval of a consenting party who is ability to suspend or revoke that consent at any time. This is obviously true when it comes to something like sex: If Frank consents to Betty performing some sex act, but later decides he isn't enjoying it and asks her to stop, it's generally acknowledged that Betty needs to stop, and that she wouldn't be justified in continuing just because Frank previously consented to the idea of it beforehand. And this is even more obviously true if Frank doesn't even remember consenting in the first place! Similarly, I imagine most people who are experiencing tremendous suffering don't *right now* consent to God refusing to intervene, and would in fact desperately want him to. So you'd have to think that God not only got every human being's consent to experience serious suffering unaided, but that he also got every human being's consent to do so with no ability to later change their mind - no cosmic safe word, so to speak. But the problem is that most people would say that's just fundamentally immoral, and that you *have* to build in the option of revoking consent for it to be acceptable in the first place. Personally, when I consider someone being tortured or otherwise horribly abused and crying out for God to save them, the idea that God would be in heaven saying "Sorry buddy, you signed the contract!" does strike me as extremely immoral.
Also, I'm curious about what exactly the fate is of those preexisting souls who don't consent to this. Do they get to go to the special wimp universe where God *does* intervene? Or is the only option nonexistence? Because if it's the latter option, then I think you do get some complicated ethical concerns around power dynamics, obligations, etc. God could create a third option for those who want to exist without the possibility of extreme suffering, but he doesn't, so they're forced to make a generally unwanted decision between nonexistence or possible extreme suffering. Most people would agree that arbitrarily constructing a major decision to deviate from the actual desires of another much, much less powerful person and then forcing them to choose between the two suboptimal choices is the sort of thing that makes true consent difficult, right?
1. I think the first objection is the best sort of objection to my view, and I'm writing about it at the moment for my undergrad diss. The structure of my reply will be something along the lines of the following: the relevant set-up - at least on views on which God is merely allowing harm to befall people - will be a case where we can consent (with as much knowledge as needed, including knowledge of how we will react to the relevant evils [e.g., by begging God to stop]) to God allowing evils to befall us. With that in mind, consider the following case. (It might be metaphysically impossible, but not in a way that should undermine the intuition IMO.) Imagine a prison documentarian who wants to film an interaction with a dangerous criminal. On the way to the prison, she tells her cameraman that if the criminal attacks her and starts to brutally assault her, she doesn't want him to intervene, even if she (in a fit of weakness) goes back on herself and starts begging the cameraman to step in - she's highly committed to her craft, values this documentary above all her other projects (at least at the time she issued consent), is unwavering, and is of sound mind and judgement. As it happens, she knows a trusty time-traveller who tells her that, in fact, she will go back on herself and start begging the cameraman to step in. Nonetheless, being in a more reflective position now to the one she'll be in as she's being attacked, she issues this command to her cameraman. Suppose, finally, that the authentic documentary will have really good consequences, better ones than if the cameraman intervened. In that sort of case, my claim will be that the cameraman doesn't have to step in when the documentarian starts to beg. I realise some might not share this intuition, so I want to workshop the argument until I feel like I have something more convincing than a single case.
2. Not sure what will happen to those who don't consent (if there ever are such people. Perhaps, in a superior epistemic position, we will just see the greater goods that'll result from our participation and decide to participate.) Whatever it is, though, it won't be something that undermines valid consent in the sort of way you mention.
Yeah, I definitely thought about a case like that - I don't know if you've ever seen Young Frankenstein, but one of the funniest jokes in the entire movie is built around exactly this premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZdUO3fizDg
I still think there are issues, though. The first is that even if you accept this logic, it would obviously decrease the prior probability of the entire theodicy, since you'd have to assert not only that preexisting persons consent to the risk of suffering but that they so passionately consent as to also affirm a further intention-thwarting clause on top of it. And also yes, the basic intuition about the permissibility of the cameraman's actions here is shaky for me anyway, *especially* if we were to also make it so the documentarian was not aware of her goals or her agreement with the cameraman at the time. But the bigger issue, imo, is that there seem to be many examples where there *isn't* an identifiable good that refusing to honor the later demand for intervention obtains. You can imagine someone who has just been arrested by some despotic regime and knows with absolute certainty that they'll be tortured for a few days and then killed. If they cry out for God to save them, or even just to end their lives a few days early, then it seems like apart from any consent concerns they'd be making the right choice to not see that life out to its "natural" end. So it certainly seems like in those cases, God would have no reason to keep the intention-thwarting clause in place, but of course that exact thing has happened to countless people over history.
The link for Mooney's article it's not working 😢.
I read an interesting article once about how school aged boys never think about what girl’s internal world is like, but girls spend an enormous amount of time wondering what its like to be a boy. I guess here humans are the girls.
A lot of weird grammar in this one, and a straight up incomplete thought at the end of section 1. Kinda sloppy ngl
Apologies — posted this in a rush. Corrected