Philosophy of Religion Research

Comparing Folks’ Understanding of the Problem of Evil with Philosophers’ Understanding Based on Experimental Philosophy Approach

Document Type : Original Research

Author

Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Experimental philosophy is a new approach in analytic philosophy emerging in the last decade. Experimental philosophy emphasizes the intuitions of ordinary people and compares them with philosophers' intuitions to understand and analyze philosophical problems. One important philosophical and theological issue that can be addressed with such an approach is the problem of evil. Since in the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is raised in two logical and evidential forms, the research questionnaires were designed to cover both accounts, although more emphasis was placed on the evidential problem of evil. The statistical population of this research was 100 people from different social groups who did not have special studies in philosophical and theological fields. The findings of this research show that the public's sympathy with the logical account of the problem of evil is more than their sympathy with the evidential one. However, the ratio between the answers and all the questions indicates a significant inconsistency in the folks' understanding of the problem of evil and its relationship with theism.

Keywords

باقری نوع‌پرست، زهیر. 1400. «بررسی مسئله شرّ در آثار ادبی». قابل دسترس در: http://www.salekenisti.com/
پترسون، مایکل، هاسکر، ویلیام، رایشنباخ، بروس، بازینجر، دیوید. 1389. عقل و اعتقاد دینی. ترجمه احمد نراقی و ابراهیم سلطانی. تهران: طرح نو.
De Cruz, Helen, and Johan De Smedt. 2015. “Naturalizing Natural Theology.” Religion, Brain & Behavior 6(4): 355-361.
Doris, John M., and Stephen P. Stich. 2004. “Ethics and psychology”. In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. Retrieved from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/ethics-and-psychology/v-1
Kelly, D., and Stich, Stephen P. 2008., “Two Theories about the Cognitive Architecture Underlying Morality”. In The Innate Mind, Vol. III, Foundations and the Future, edited by P. Carruthers, S. Stich & S. Laurence. Oxford University Press.
Knobe, Joshua and Shaun Nichols. 2017. “Experimental Philosophy”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/experimental-philosophy 
Knobe, Joshua, Tania Lombrozo, and Shaun Nichols (eds.). 2015. Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, Volume 1. Oxford University Press.
Machery, Edouard, and Elizabeth O'Neill, (eds.). 2014. Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy. Abingdon: Routledge.
Machery, Edouard, Stephen Stich, David Rose, Amita Chatterjee, Kaori Karasawa, Noel Struchiner, Smita Sirker, Naoki Usui, and Takaaki Hashimoto. 2015. “Gettier across Cultures”. Noûs 51(3): 1-20.
Machery, Edouard, Stephen Stich, David Rose, Mario Alai, Adriano Angelucci, Renatas Berniūnas, Emma E. Buchtel et al. 2017. “The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia”. Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 34(3): 517-541.
Michael Church, Ian, Rebecca Carlson, and Justin L. Barrett. 2020. “Evil Intuitions? The Problem of Evil, Experimental Philosophy, and the Need for Psychological Research.” Journal of psychology and theology 49(2): 126-141.
Nagel, Jennifer. 2012. “Intuitions and Experiments: A Defense of the Case Method in Epistemology”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85(3): 495-527.
Tooley, Michael. 2021. “The Problem of Evil”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/evil
Weinberg, Jonathan M., Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich. 2001. “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions”. Pp. 625-646, in epistemology, edited by E. Sosa and J. Kim. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Philosophy of Religion Research
Volume 21, Issue 1 - Serial Number 41
March 2023
Pages 167-185