A further argument why God might permit natural evils to be suffered by men is the argument from higher-order goods, the argument that various evils are logically necessary conditions for the occurrence of actions of certain especially good kinds. Thus for a man to bear his suffering cheerfully there has to be suffering for him to bear. Within limits a sufferer can choose whether to react to his suffering with cheerfulness or with self-pity. There have to be acts which irritate for another to show tolerance of them. Likewise it is often said, acts of forgiveness, courage, self-sacrifice, compassion, overcoming temptation, etc., can only be performed if there are evils of various kinds. Here, however, we must be careful. One might reasonably claim that all that is necessary for some of these good acts (or acts as good as these) to be performed is belief in the existence of certain evils, not their actual existence. You can show compassion towards someone who appears to be suffering, but is not really; you can forgive someone who only appeared to insult you, but did not really. But if the world is to be populated with imaginary evils of the kind needed to enable creatures to perform acts of the above specially good kinds, it would have to be a world in which creatures are generally and systematically deceived about the feelings of their fellows—in which the behaviour of creatures generally and unavoidably belies their feelings and intentions. But, it is plausible to suppose, it would be a morally wrong act of a creator to create such a deceptive world. In that case, given a creator, then, without an immoral act on his part, for acts of courage, compassion, etc., to be acts open to men to perform, there have to be various evils. Evils give men the opportunity to perform those acts which show men at their best. A world without evils would be a world in which men could show no forgiveness, no compassion, no self-sacrifice. And men without that opportunity are deprived of the opportunity to show themselves at their noblest. For this reason God might well allow some of his creatures to suffer in various ways, since this suffering provides the opportunity for especially noble acts. Objectors have rightly argued that the evincing of such virtues could not be the sole goods—there would be no point in my laying down my life for you unless you could enjoy your life subsequently by indulging the more primitive pleasures of eating, drinking, and doing philosophy. Nevertheless, in a world with much opportunity for enjoyment it is right that agents should have also the opportunity to show extreme nobility. A related argument is that it is good that men should have experience of a full range of possible experiences. A world in which we did not know (except in the most formal way) of the logical possibilities of pain and disease, of rejection of lovers, of the desolation of orphans, etc., would be a world in which we would know little of the logical possibilities. 'It is good for me that I have been in trouble' sang the Psalmist, and he was right. A man looking back over his life may well be grateful for at any rate some of the pain which he has suffered and the emotional crises which have been his, not just because of the future benefits (e.g. in the way of coping with new troubles) which they bring in an imperfect world, but because of his exposure to and contact with the harsh possible realities. Why do we value watching a tragedy? Because we are glad of the small dose of emotional crisis, which second-hand participation gives us. If a parent had a drug which he could give to a child, which could ensure that the child would never feel pain, or desolation, or desertion, or maiming, in which he would never know the hard realities, he might for this reason alone well hesitate to give it. Of course once again such limited experience is to be valued, but there would be something wrong if most of most men's lives consisted in having such experiences. They do not, although most of some men's lives do; and this remains a difficulty for this defence, a reason why it needs to be backed up by other defences. I have now outlined in this chapter a number of reasons why God might wish to bring about the more puzzling natural evils. I outlined in the last chapter reasons why God might wish to bring about moral evils and some of the less puzzling natural evils. The general defence has been in terms of the possible or actual greater good for which those evils provide the opportunity. If this general line of approach is accepted, there remain two crucial problems. First, in the scheme of things outlined necessarily some agents suffer harm for the benefit of other agents; they do not choose to suffer this harm, but it is imposed upon them. Does a God have the right to impose on one such harm for the benefit of another? Secondly, it may be felt that although these defences explain much of the evil in the world, there is more in kind and quantity than a God would have reason to bring about.
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