Full Description
Atheists argue that animal pain, disease, suffering, and death cause a problem for theism because they believe that an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God would not use millions of years of animal suffering just to make a world suitable for humans. Animal suffering was not a concern for theism through the medieval period, but it has been increasingly discussed in philosophy of religion since modern times, and there is especially a large and growing amount of literature on this subject that has been published in the last few decades. This handbook serves as a guide for those interested in the literature on the problem by bringing together experts in the philosophy of religion, theology, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of animal minds. It not only presents major formulations of the problem of animal suffering and major theodicies, but it also discusses metaethical issues regarding animal suffering, the question of animal consciousness and self-awareness and their implications for animal suffering, and what implications available theodicies might have for animal ethics.
Contents
1 Introduction: The Problem of Animal Suffering in the Philosophy of Religion.- Part I Versions of the Problem of Animal Suffering.- 2 The Shattered Framework: Christian Theology and the Challenge of Animal Suffering.- 3 Evidential Arguments from Evil.- 4 A Humean Argument from Animal Welfare.- 5 Does God Care about What People Think about God? Revisiting the Problem of Natural Nonbelief.- 6 Animal Suffering and Antitheodicy.- 7 Dissonant Theodicy: Theodicy and Anti-Theodicy in Irresolvable Tension.- Part II Theodicies.- 8 Premodern Theological Interpretations of Creational Suffering.- 9 Evolution and the Goodness of God.- 10 The Darwinian Problem of Evil and Christian Theodicy.- 11 "Red in Tooth and Claw": Animal Suffering and the Corruption of Nature.- 12 Recent Work on the Neo-Cartesian Response to the Problem of Animal Suffering.- 13 Neo-Thomistic Theodicy.- 14 Soul-Making Theodicy.- 15 Islamic Theodicy.- 16 Judaism and the Suffering of Nonhuman Animals.- Part III The Axiological Status of Non-Human Animal Suffering.- 17 The Role of Emotional Suffering in the Animal Kingdom.- 18 Predatory Animals and Natural Evil.- 19 The Role of Parasitism in the Animal Kingdom.- Part IV Non-Human Animal Minds.- 20 Non-Human Animal Minds and the Problem of Animal Suffering.- 21 Descartes Was Right, about Insects.- 22 Self-Awareness and Personhood in Non-Human Animals.- 23 An Anti-Theological Argument from Suffering.- Part V Analyzing Theodicies.- 24 Theodicy, Anti-Theodicy, and Ethics: Some Considerations.- 25 Christian Evolutionary Theodicies Assessed.
