Predation, Pain, and Evil
Anti-hunting as Theodicy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3944726 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nathan Kowalsky (0009-0001-2210-4121, St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 489-510 |
| Publication date | 2017-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-4298 • E-ISSN: 2042-0587 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0008429817732032 |
| OpenAlex | W2769083568 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 43 |
The classical problem of natural evil holds that the suffering of sentient beings caused by natural processes is an evil for which a divinity is morally responsible. Theodicies either explain natural evil as a punitive imperfection in nature, which humans ought to avoid and/or purify, or as a constituent part of a greater good whereby the evil is redeemed. The environmental ethics literature has taken the latter route with respect to the secular problem of natural evil, arguing that local disvalues such as predation or pain are transmuted into systemic-level ecological goods. The anti-hunting literature takes the former route, arguing that humans should not participate in the predatory aspects of the natural order. The anti-predation literature, furthermore, argues that nature should be redeemed - so far as is technologically and economically possible - of its unsavoury predatory aspects. While all sides of the debate employ strategies analogous to those found in the philosophy of religion, the immanentizing function of secularism moves the target of ultimate moral evaluation away from the divine and onto the natural. Environmental ethics' teleological approach culminates with nature as a transcendent good, whereas anti-hunting and anti-predation critiques view nature in the here-and-now as riven with evil, requiring humans to distance themselves while decontaminating it
Divinity · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Natural (archaeology · Teleology · Theology · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · History · Philosophy · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics · Theology and Philosophy of Evil
Providence and the Problem of Evil
Iv.—evil and Omnipotence
The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis
Animals, Predators, the Right to Life, and the Duty to Save Lives
Bewildering Nussbaum
Valuing Predation in Rolston’s Environmental Ethics
Policing Nature
The Morality of Hunting
The Howl of the Predator
Environmental Ethics and the Case for Hunting
Can Nature be Evil
A Critical Analysis of Hunters’ Ethics
Philosophy Gone Wild
Naturalizing the Problem of Evil
An Environmentalist’s Lament on Predation
Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects
God and Inscrutable Evil
Science as Salvation
Hunting ≠ Predation
The humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering
Animal Liberation
The lion and the lamb
Overcoming Gnosticism
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |