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Full Idea
Natural and moral evil is not just a problem for theists. …Anyone can wonder what, if anything, makes the universe a good one when it contains so much suffering.
Gist of Idea
Even non-theists can wonder what, if anything, makes the universe good
Source
Tom Cochrane (The Aesthetic Value of the World [2021], 0.1)
Book Ref
Cochrane,Tom: 'The Aesthetic Value of the World' [OUP 2021], p.1
A Reaction
I take Bernard Williams to be definitive on this topic. I would personally say that the universe as a whole has no value one way or the other. If you think it might be good, you should enquire after the source of your idea. What is the universe FOR?
Related Idea
Idea 2175 There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B]
| 24164 | Even non-theists can wonder what, if anything, makes the universe good [Cochrane] |
| 24165 | Pleasure has an intrinsic (independent) value, but that is not a final (for its own sake) value [Cochrane] |
| 24166 | Pleasure serves to maintain our relationship with its source [Cochrane] |
| 24167 | Love is a mutual reciprocation, not just a desire for something [Cochrane] |
| 24169 | We can treat value as a verb; we value something when we positively engage with it [Cochrane] |
| 24168 | Aesthetic value appreciates a thing objectively, as a good in its own right [Cochrane] |
| 24171 | Morality is not a final value; it concerns how we distribute the things we actually finally value [Cochrane] |
| 24173 | We can only understand form if we grasp the whole of which things are parts [Cochrane] |
| 24174 | Beauty is fittingness, of details uniting within a pattern [Cochrane] |
| 24175 | Accounts of sublimity differ over whether we learn something good about ourselves [Cochrane] |
| 24176 | A person's activities have value when they receive full attention [Cochrane] |