Review Section of E&A: Book Reviews and Second Opinions, Slides of Philosophy

Download Review Section of E&A: Book Reviews and Second Opinions and more Slides Philosophy in PDF only on Docsity! 2 RevieW's ESA I/t: The Review Section of E&A consists of three parts. The first is made up of brief reviews of books and articles (and perhaps films etc.) which are concerned in some way with the rights and wrongs of human treatment of non-human animals. These reviews will be both critical and reportive--primarily reportive in the case of most scientific and historical material, and increasingly critical as the material is more argumentative and philosophical. The second part of this Section is entitled 'Second Opinions' and contains second (and usually dissenting) reviews of works reviewed in the first part in earlier numbers of E&A. After a review appears in E&A (and after the 'second opinion' if one appears Ivithin the-­ next two numbers) the Editor will invite the author of the original work to submit a brief rejoinder to the review(s). Rejoinders received will appear in the third part of the Review Section. Members of the SSEA who wish to submit reviews (first or second), or recommend works for review, should contact the Editor. Books JOHN HICK, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, (PRENTICE­ MALL, INC,) 1963,111 pp., $6.95. ! An issue of long standing in the philosophy of ! religion is the problem of evil. Philosophers ! recognize two kinds of evil, moral evil and nonmoral evil. "Boral evil" refers to the pain and suffering which results from the acts of persons. "Nonmoral evil" refers to the pain and suffering arising from natural causes such as storms, fires and earthquakes. The problem of evil consists in noting that, if God is perfectly loving, then he must wish to pre- vent evil. Furthermore, if he is all-powerful, then he must be able to prevent evil. Yet, evil exists. Therefore, God is either not perfectly loving or else he is not all-powerful. John Hick addresses himself to this issue in his book, The PhilosoEhy of Religion. His solu­ tion consists in argu~ng tnat moral evil is a result of man's free will. To demand that God not allow this kind of evil is equivalent to a demand that he not create persons. For a person, Hick tells us, is "a (relatively) free and self­ directing agent responsible for one's own deci­ sions." Moral evil flows from the misuse of this freedom. Nonmoral evil exists because of the operation of causal laws. If there were no nonmoral evil, God would have to continually