A soul-making theodicy for animals?

Animal suffering seems to undermine several well-known traditional theistic responses to the problem(s) of evil, such as the appeal to the Fall of Humanity or to human free will. The soul-making theodicy is also inapplicable to non-human animals, if it should turn out that they do not have souls cap...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Halper, Phil (Autor) ; Williford, Kenneth (Autor)
Tipo de documento: Electrónico Artículo
Lenguaje:Inglés
Verificar disponibilidad: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Publicado: 2025
En: International journal for philosophy of religion
Año: 2025, Volumen: 97, Número: 1, Páginas: 45-60
Otras palabras clave:B Trent dougherty
B Theodicy
B problem of evil
B Skeptical theism
B Animal Suffering
B Soul-Making
Acceso en línea: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Descripción
Sumario:Animal suffering seems to undermine several well-known traditional theistic responses to the problem(s) of evil, such as the appeal to the Fall of Humanity or to human free will. The soul-making theodicy is also inapplicable to non-human animals, if it should turn out that they do not have souls capable of being improved by suffering. Recently, however, it has been suggested by Trent Dougherty that when the soul-making theodicy is combined with the Adams-Chisholm notion of the defeat of evil and other hypotheses regarding the animal afterlife, such a theodicy can overcome the challenge posed by animal suffering. We highlight problems for this strategy, showing that it ultimately keeps the fundamental reason for suffering obscure and requires the addition of several auxiliary hypotheses, thus offering no epistemic improvement over generic Skeptical Theism. We also consider the strategy in the light of a newer argument known as the Expanded Problem of Animal Suffering (EPAS), showing that this puts additional strain on Dougherty’s theodicy.
ISSN:1572-8684
Obras secundarias:Enthalten in: International journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s11153-024-09943-z