The Problem of Evil: Metaethics and the Privation Theory of Evil

Abstract

It is a common place in contemporary philosophy of religion to distinguish between logical and inductive formulations of the problem of evil. However, there is also a metaethical (or “axiological") formulation of the problem. The article considers the so-called privation theory of evil, one of the most ancient responses to the argument from evil. First, I consider the metaethical formulation of the problem. Secondly, I consider the privation theory of evil as it is presented in the writings of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. I show that the concept of “order" (ordo) is one of the main elements of their treatments of the privatio boni theory, and it is complemented by the common Western theological idea of two types of evil - sin (peccatum) and punishment for sin (poena peccati) in the case of Augustine, and evil of punishment (malum poenae) and evil of guilt (malum culpae) in the case of Aquinas. In the third part I turn to the metaethical presuppositions of the privatio boni theory. I argue that in moral ontology, this theory is most compatible with moral realism; in moral epistemology, it goes with cognitivism and epistemological foundationalism; and in moral psychology, it works with one of the versions of motivational internalism.