Yesterday, I heavily edited the “Best of all possible worlds” Wikipedia article. Writing this revision, which explained the argument in much more detail than it was before, made me think more about it.
Reason of the World
It seems that, regardless of what philosophy we adopt, we cannot know why it is that we live in this world, rather than any of the other possible ones.
If you believe in the so-called “multiverse” or “modal realism”, then all the possible worlds are somehow actual, but the reason why we are in this one is still said to be “random”. If you believe in Spinozism, then the actual world is somehow necessary to God’s nature, and there aren’t any other possible ones – but the reason why it is like this, rather than in some other imaginable way, is still obscure to us.
For Leibniz, this world was freely chosen by God, which is a traditional answer. But not content with leaving it to mystery as soon as that, Leibniz theorized about the reason for God’s choice – and of course, as he said, there is only one intelligible answer.
We choose things because we think they are the best. Even when we freely choose to make imperfect things, it is because we think that the state of affairs with that choice is better than the alternatives. When we choose without reason, or against reason, this is plainly caused by passion – that is, by some bodily influence on our mind. Which is still a kind of reason, though non-mental – it isn’t totally unexplainable – but besides that, such influences could not exist in God.
And how is it the best? Metaphysically, of course – the only possible ground of rational value judgments. But then he goes off the rails. While some pleasures may depend on pains, there is no conceivable way in which something’s metaphysical perfection may require something else’s metaphysical imperfection. We routinely derive perfection from imperfection – as when rational beings consume lower animals – but that is because, for physical reasons, we lack the power to derive it without it. There cannot be logical limitations, which are the kind required here. (See the Appendix to this blog post.)
Even supposing that Leibniz is right, he must appeal to mystery, anyway – he cannot, from his limited point of view of the world, know with certainty precisely how it is that the universal harmony of things requires all of the apparent evils that we experience. So, while some content is given to the reason why we live in this world – it is the best possible one, as it must be if it was created by God – we are still left without being able to know any details.
Which, of course, does not matter to his purpose, if his purpose was to vindicate God’s justice. If this is the best of all possible worlds, then the persons who complain about the evil in it are clearly shown to be irrational.
But it does matter speculatively, though, right? Why is the world not different? Isn’t it annoying to be in the dark, to be left with “it is a mystery” and “don’t worry about it”? Yet, this is all that any philosophy can give us, ultimately. “Necessity” and “randomness” are just as much waves of the hand as “the inscrutable will of God.”
New Theodicy
While I do not go as far as Leibniz regarding “purely extrinsic denominations”, it is nevertheless true that we would not be ourselves in a different possible world, since all the facts about us which determine who we are in particular are accidents which come from our history. If I had been born in the place of Leibniz, I wouldn’t be me – I would be Leibniz.
We do not know all of space and time. So, if we wish that God had made a more beautiful planet, we cannot actually know that he has not made such a planet – we just know that we do not live in it, and of course, we wouldn’t be ourselves if we did.
And since evil, properly speaking, is the absence of good, we know that our world is, at any rate, a good world, when rationally considered. It is better created than not.
Given these facts, there is no ground to complain about this world.
A better world may be possible, but the best world does not seem conceivable. As Thomas said, God could always make the world better. Which leaves me without any sufficient reason as to why this particular planet was created rather than left uncreated – but then, as detailed above, it seems that no philosophy at all can give us true understanding about that. Either way, this creation cannot be charged against God’s justice.
Appendix, added 2022-09-25
Since writing this blog post, I have noticed that, while logically speaking any kind of good may be compatible with any other, it seems that not all goods could be present under the current physical laws. Now, as Brandon C. Look put it, it seems clearly important to Leibniz that this world is “a world in which an infinity of minds perceive and reflect on the diversity of phenomena caused by a modest number of simple laws”. It may be that a more perfect world would require more, and more complex, physical laws, detracting from the perfection of the universe as Leibniz saw it. So, I must retract my earlier hesitancy about the incompossibility of goods.
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