John Stuart Mill
There are two distinct problems of evil: the problem of moral evil and the problem of natural evil. Many believe that the problem of moral evil, evil resulting from the free choices of rational agents, can be solved by the free-will defence. The problem of natural evil, though, is untouched by the free-will defence.
John Stuart Mill’s statement of the problem of evil concentrates on natural evil. Nature, he complains, commits daily those crimes that only the worst of human beings commit. Ultimately, it kills us all.
“In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature’s everyday performances. Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human laws, nature does once to every being that lives, and in a large proportion of cases after protracted tortures such as only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow creatures.”
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