Peterdjones comments on My Wild and Reckless Youth - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 August 2007 01:52AM

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Comment author: Epiphany 08 October 2012 08:40:04AM *  2 points [-]

The idea that evil is evidence that God gives us free will is contradicted by the existence of evil. I identified some potential unreasoned assumptions in this view:

  • Unreasoned Assumption #1: Evil people want to be evil.
  • Unreasoned Assumption #2: Evil people have the ability to change that they're evil.
  • Unreasoned Assumption #3: Evil people know they're being evil.

In my experience most people who do bad things do not know that they're being evil, don't want to be evil, or can't change the fact that they're doing evil things. However, if they were made evil and don't want to be, they are evil against their will - this is not in support of free will. If they're not able to change that they're evil, they don't have an alternative to evil, so they're not choosing evil of their own free will. If they don't know they're doing evil then they weren't even given the proper opportunity to choose whether or not to be evil, which is not a situation most people want, so they can't be said to be evil of their own free will.

I can't tell myself "Being evil is so much fun that God just wants us to be free to do it." That does not seem to be the case.

And even if that was the case, why the heck did God make it fun to be evil? Why would you ever call it free will to enjoy evil and wish you didn't and be unable to change it?

How many people who find evil things fun would, of their own free will, prefer it if they did not find those things fun?

Most of them, in my experience.

For the free will idea to be supported, it would require that everyone has all of the following:

  • Ability to change evil behavior.
  • Ability to see own evil.
  • Ability to stop enjoying evil.
Comment author: Peterdjones 08 October 2012 08:04:00PM *  1 point [-]

In my experience most people who do bad things do not know that they're being evil, don't want to be evil, or can't change the fact that they're doing evil things.

That isnt a straightforward piece of evidence. Many would describe evil as the deliberate commital of harm. By that definition, there's simply no such things an unwilling or unknowing evil.