what is the difference between good and evil essay

Human Nature: Good vs Evil Essay

The world of today is a very delicate place where good and evil are constantly present creating choices and differentiating between individuals. The notion that there are no bad or evil people is true because in reality no one desires or plans to be evil there are only those who are lost in the search for good. Every person living on the planet is faced with a personal choice of how to attend to the matters at hand. The circumstances and the environment dictate a choice of an individual. Everybody is born inherently a good person but the imperfect and uneven surroundings create a difference between those with the ability to take on the hardships and stay true to themselves and those without a chance to support their good intentions.

The real issue at hand is that no one is able to control the time and place they grow up in. When a person is born they are influenced by their family, friends, and society.

An individual goes through stages of development in education, work, and life that shape the attitude and behavior.

If a person is born in a caring and loving family, which has the knowledge to educate the child, support him/her in their beginnings and provide a perspective that is based on kindness and respect then the individual will most likely become a kind and respectful person. The raising of a child is a very delicate matter and for a long time, it has been speculated what exactly makes a person the way they are. Psychologists have had a continuous argument if it is nature or nurture that makes up a human being and the common belief has emerged that both take part in the formation of an individual.

The fact that the world has not become fully evil proves the point that there are more good people than bad. This is a natural balance that is not controlled by humans but by the nature of existence of any life. For a very long time, there has been a Good Samaritan act that shows how a caring and kind person is not able to ignorantly pass by someone who needs help. Kindness is sometimes based on previous experiences where a particular person was helped and they have remembered that time and feel the need to return the favor. Unfortunately, there are often conditions in the world where a person has to grow up in a very limited and harsh environment. If from the very birth a person has to struggle and fight for their own survival they are almost forced to commit bad deeds. Very often an individual simply has no opportunity to let their good side and kindness emerge. Overall this is a very sensitive matter that is hard to support by any empirical evidence, which makes the true mechanism of creation of a person’s character almost untraceable.

Throughout history, there have been instances where people were faced with a crucial decision of what path to choose, either the path of evil, which sometimes delivers success faster and easier, or the path of goodness, which can be equally as fulfilling but very often requires a degree of patience, belief and strength. An argument of whether to choose kindness or the opposite is really nonexistent because there are numerous examples in history that demonstrate how good deeds are rewarded and return tenfold. Human civilization is considered to be a young and developing species that have much to learn yet but the idea that a positive and loving attitude brings more goodness and evil only creates evil is true and is widely supported by the knowing population.

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Ethics and Morality

The real meaning of 'good' and 'evil', how are saintly people different from 'evil' ones what does 'good' really mean.

Posted August 26, 2013 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

• Good means a lack of self-centeredness, while evil means an inability to empathize with others.
• Although those with a psychopathic personality appear to be unable to develop empathy, most people can cultivate it.
• One way to view goodness is that it expresses something fundamental about human nature, while evil represents an aberration from it.

It's a dangerous oversimplification to believe that some people are innately ‘good’ while others are innately ‘evil’ or ‘bad.’ This misleading concept underpins the justice system of many countries — ‘bad’ people commit crimes, and since they are intrinsically ‘bad’, they should be locked away so that they can’t harm us with their ‘evil’ behavior. This concept has also fuelled wars and conflicts throughout history, and even in the present day. It makes groups believe that they are fighting a just cause against an ‘evil’ enemy and that once the ‘evil’ people have been killed, peace and goodness will reign supreme.

Human nature is infinitely more complex than this, of course. In human beings, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are fluid. People can be a combination of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities. Some people who behave cruelly and brutally can be rehabilitated and eventually display ‘good’ qualities such as empathy and kindness. And rather than being intrinsic, most cruel or brutal behavior is due to environmental factors, such as an abusive childhood , or social learning from a family or peers.

The Meaning of Good and Evil

What do we really mean when we use these simplistic terms, ‘good’ and ‘evil’?

‘Good’ means a lack of self-centeredness. It means the ability to empathize with other people, feel compassion for them, and put their needs before your own. It means, if necessary, sacrificing your own well-being for the sake of others. It means benevolence, altruism and selflessness, and self-sacrifice towards a greater cause — all qualities which stem from a sense of empathy. It means being able to see beyond the superficial difference of race, gender , or nationality and relate to a common human essence beneath them.

All of the ‘saintly’ people in human history have these qualities in abundance. Think of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, risking their own safety and well-being for the goal of gaining equal rights and freedom for Indians and African Americans. These were human beings with an exceptional degree of empathy and compassion, which overrode any concern for their own ambitions or well-being.

‘Evil’ people are those who are unable to empathize with others. As a result, their own needs and desires are of paramount importance. They are selfish, self-absorbed, and narcissistic . In fact, other people only have value for them to the extent that they can help them satisfy their own desires or be exploited. This applies to dictators like Stalin and Hitler, and to serial killers and rapists. I would argue that their primary characteristic is an inability to empathize with others. They can’t sense other people’s emotions or suffering, can’t see the world from other people’s perspectives, and so have no sense of their rights. Other human beings are just objects to them, which is what makes their brutality and cruelty possible.

Good and Evil as Flexible

Most of us lie somewhere between the extremes of Gandhi and Hitler on the spectrum of human behavior. Sometimes we may behave badly, when egocentric impulses cause us to put our needs before the welfare of others. Sometimes we behave in a saintly fashion, when empathy and compassion impel us to put the needs of others before our own, resulting in altruism and kindness.

The real difference between this idea of ‘good and evil’ and the traditional concept is that empathy or a lack of empathy aren’t fixed. Although people with a psychopathic personality appear to be unable to develop empathy, for most of us, empathy — or goodness — is a quality that can be cultivated. This is recognized by Buddhism and most other spiritual traditions. As we practice meditation or mindfulness , and as we become less attached to materialism and status-seeking, we become more open and more connected, and so more selfless and altruistic .

The ‘fluidity’ of goodness is also recognized by the process of ‘restorative justice’, which is becoming more and more widely used within European justice systems. Rather than locking ‘bad’ people away — which is unfortunately so widely practiced by the US penal system — restorative justice gives offenders the opportunity to meet their victims, to see how their crimes have affected them, which often leads to a sense of empathy for their victims — which in turn frequently leads to rehabilitation.

This is an optimistic view of nature, but I would go even further. Because the goodness in human beings emerges when we are connected — when we spread out into empathy with one another — I believe that goodness expresses something fundamental about human nature, even if it might be sometimes difficult to see. ‘Evil’ is an aberration, a form of pathology, as the psychopathic personality shows, which only emerges when we are broken off into disconnected fragments.

Steve Taylor, Ph.D., is senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University. He is the author of several best-selling books, including The Leap and Spiritual Science.

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On the Genealogy of Morals

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Advanced Essay #4: What is Good and Evil?

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The Problem of Evil

The epistemic question posed by evil is whether the world contains undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable to believe in the existence of God.

This discussion is divided into eight sections. The first is concerned with some preliminary distinctions; the second, with the choice between deductive versions of the argument from evil, and evidential versions; the third, with alternative evidential formulations of the argument from evil; the fourth, with the distinction between three very different types of responses to the argument from evil: attempted total refutations, defenses, and theodicies. The fifth section then focuses upon attempted total refutations, while the sixth is concerned with defenses, and the seventh with some traditional theodicies. The possibility of more modest variants on defenses and theodicies, based on the idea of global properties, is then considered in section eight.

1.1 Relevant Concepts of God

1.2 incompatibility formulations versus inductive formulations, 1.3 abstract versus concrete formulations, 1.4 axiological versus deontological formulations, 2. the choice between incompatibility formulations and evidential formulations, 3.1 arguments, 3.2 direct inductive versions of the evidential argument from evil, 3.3 indirect inductive versions of the evidential argument from evil.

• 3.4 Bayesian-Style Probabilistic Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

3.5 Inductive Logic and the Evidential Argument from Evil

4. responses to the argument from evil: refutations, theodicies, and defenses, 5.1 human epistemological limitations, 5.2 the ‘no best of all possible worlds’ response, 5.3 the appeal to the ontological argument, 6.1 the appeal to positive evidence for the existence of god, 6.2 belief in the existence of god as non-inferentially justified, 6.3 induction based on partial success, 7.1 a soul-making theodicy, 7.2 free will, 7.3 the freedom to do great evil, 7.4 the need for natural laws, 7.5 religious theodicies, 8. more modest variants on defenses and theodicies, other internet resources, related entries, 1. some important distinctions.

The term “God” is used with a wide variety of different meanings. These tend to fall, however, into two main groups. On the one hand, there are metaphysical interpretations of the term: God is a prime mover, or a first cause, or a necessary being that has its necessity of itself, or the ground of being, or a being whose essence is identical with its existence. Or God is not one being among other beings—even a supremely great being—but, instead, being itself. Or God is an ultimate reality to which no concepts truly apply.

On the other hand, there are interpretations that connect the term “God” in a clear and relatively straightforward way with religious attitudes, such as those of worship, and with very important human desires, such as the desires that good will triumph, that justice be done, and that the world not be one where death marks the end of the individual’s existence.

What properties must something have if it is to be an appropriate object of worship, and if it is to provide reason for thinking that there is a reasonable chance that the fundamental human desires just mentioned will be fulfilled? A natural answer is that God must be a person who, at the very least, is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and morally very good. But if such a being exists, then it seems initially puzzling why various evils exist. For many of the very undesirable states of affairs that the world contains are such as could be eliminated, or prevented, by a being who was only moderately powerful, while, given that humans are aware of such evils, a being only as knowledgeable as humans would be aware of their existence. Finally, even a moderately good human being, given the power to do so, would eliminate those evils. Why, then, do such undesirable states of affairs exist, if there is a being who is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good?

What one has here, however, is not just a puzzle, since the question can, of course, be recast as an argument for the non-existence of God. Thus if, for simplicity, we focus on a conception of God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, one very concise way of formulating such an argument is as follows:

• If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
• If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
• If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
• If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
• Evil exists.
• If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
• Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

That this argument is valid is perhaps most easily seen by a reductio argument, in which one assumes that the conclusion—(7)—is false, and then shows that the denial of (7), along with premises (1) through (6), leads to a contradiction. Thus if, contrary to (7), God exists, it follows from (1) that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. This, together with (2), (3), and (4) then entails that God has the power to eliminate all evil, that God knows when evil exists, and that God has the desire to eliminate all evil. But when (5) is conjoined with the reductio assumption that God exists, it then follows via modus ponens from (6) that either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil. Thus we have a contradiction, and so premises (1) through (6) do validly imply (7).

Whether the argument is sound is, of course, a further question, for it may be that one or more of the premises is false. The point here, however, is simply that when one conceives of God as unlimited with respect to power, knowledge, and moral goodness, the existence of evil quickly gives rise to potentially serious arguments against the existence of God.

Is the situation different if one shifts to a deity who is not omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect? The answer depends on the details. Thus, if one considers a deity who is omniscient and morally perfect, but not omnipotent, then evil presumably would not pose a problem if such a deity were conceived of as too remote from Earth to prevent the evils we find here. But given a deity who falls considerably short of omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection, but who could intervene in our world to prevent many evils, and who knows of those evils, it would seem that an argument rather similar to the above could be formulated by focusing not on the mere existence of evil, but upon the existence of evils that such a deity could have prevented.

But what if God, rather than being characterized in terms of knowledge, power, and goodness, is defined in some more metaphysical way—for example, as the ground of being, or as being itself? The answer will depend on whether, having defined God in such purely metaphysical terms, one can go on to argue that such an entity will also possess at least very great power, knowledge, and moral goodness. If so, evil is once again a problem.

By contrast, if God is conceived of in a purely metaphysical way, and if no connection can be forged between the relevant metaphysical properties and the possession of significant power, knowledge, and goodness, then the problem of evil is irrelevant. But when that is the case, it would seem that God thereby ceases to be a being who is either an appropriate object of religious attitudes, or a ground for believing that fundamental human hopes are not in vain.

The argument from evil focuses upon the fact that the world appears to contain states of affairs that are bad, or undesirable, or that should have been prevented by any being that could have done so, and it asks how the existence of such states of affairs is to be squared with the existence of God. But the argument can be formulated in two very different ways. First, it can be formulated as a purely deductive argument that attempts to show that there are certain facts about the evil in the world that are logically incompatible with the existence of God. One especially ambitious form of this first sort of argument attempts to establish the very strong claim that it is logically impossible for it to be the case both that there is any evil at all, and that God exists. The argument set out in the preceding section is just such an argument.

Alternatively, rather than being formulated as a deductive argument for the very strong claim that it is logically impossible for both God and evil to exist, (or for God and certain types, or instances, or a certain amount of evil to exist), the argument from evil can instead be formulated as an evidential (or inductive/probabilistic) argument for the more modest claim that there are evils that actually exist in the world that make it unlikely—or perhaps very unlikely—that God exists.

The choice between incompatibility formulations and evidential formulations is discussed below, in section 2.

Any version of the argument from evil claims that there is some fact concerning the evil in the world such that the existence of God—understood as at least a very powerful, very knowledgeable, and morally very good person, and, ideally, as an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person—is either logically precluded, or rendered unlikely, by that fact. But versions of the argument often differ quite significantly with respect to what the relevant fact is. Sometimes, as in premise (5) in the argument set out above, the appeal is to the mere existence of any evil whatever. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is to the existence of a certain amount of evil. And sometimes it is to the existence of evils of a certain specified sort.

To formulate the argument from evil in terms of the mere existence of any evil at all is to abstract to the greatest extent possible from detailed information about the evils that are found in the world, and so one is assuming, in effect, that such information cannot be crucial for the argument. But is it clear that this is right? For might one not feel that while the world would be better off without the vast majority of evils, this is not so for absolutely all evils? Thus some would argue, for example, that the frustration that one experiences in trying to solve a difficult problem is outweighed by the satisfaction of arriving at a solution, and therefore that the world is a better place because it contains such evils. Alternatively, it has been argued that the world is a better place if people develop desirable traits of character—such as patience, and courage—by struggling against obstacles, including suffering. But if either of these things is the case, then the prevention of all evil might well make the world a worse place.

It seems possible, then, that there might be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, and this possibility provides a reason, accordingly, for questioning one of the premises in the argument set out earlier—namely, premise (4), where it is claimed that if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.

But there is also another reason why that claim is problematic, which arises out of a particular conception of free will—namely, a libertarian conception. According to this view of free will, and in contrast with what are known as compatibilist approaches, free will is incompatible with determinism, and so it is impossible even for an omnipotent being to make it the case that someone freely chooses to do what is right.

Many people claim, however, that the world is a better place if it contains individuals who possess libertarian free will, rather than individuals who are free only in a sense that is compatible with one’s actions being completely determined. If this claim can be made plausible, one can argue, first, that God would have a good reason for creating a world with individuals who possessed libertarian free will, but secondly, that if he did choose to create such a world, even he could not ensure that no one would ever choose to do something morally wrong. The good of libertarian free will requires, in short, the possibility of moral evil.

Neither of these lines of argument is immune from challenge. As regards the former, one can argue that the examples that are typically advanced of cases where some evil is logically necessary for a greater good that outweighs the evil are not really, upon close examination, convincing, while, as regards the latter, there is a serious problem of making sense of libertarian free will, for although there is no difficulty about the idea of actions that are not causally determined, libertarian free will requires more than the mere absence of determinism, and the difficulty arises when one attempts to say what that something more is.

But although these challenges are important, and may very well turn out to be right, it is fair to say, first, that it has not yet been established that there is no coherent conception of libertarian free will, and, secondly, that it is, at least, very doubtful that one can establish that there cannot be cases where some evil is logically necessary for a greater good that outweighs it without appealing to some substantive, and probably controversial, moral theory.

The upshot is that the idea that either the actuality of certain undesirable states of affairs, or at least the possibility, may be logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, is not without some initial plausibility, and if some such claim can be sustained, it will follow immediately that the mere existence of evil cannot be incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being.

How does this bear upon evidential formulations of the argument from evil? The answer would seem to be that if there can be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, then it is hard to see how the mere existence of evil—in the absence of further information—can provide much in the way of evidence against the existence of God.

What if one shifts to a slightly less abstract formulation of the argument from evil that is based upon the premise that the world contains a certain amount of evil, or upon the premise that the world contains at least some natural evil? Then one is including marginally more information. But one is still assuming, in effect, that most of the detailed information about the evils found in the world is completely irrelevant to the argument from evil, and a little reflection brings out how very implausible this assumption is. So, for example, consider a world that contains a billion units of natural evil. Is this a good starting point for an argument from evil? The answer is that, if either a deontological approach to ethics is correct, or a form of consequentialism that takes the distribution of goods and evils into account, rather than, say, simply the total amount of goods and evils, whether this fact is an impressive reason for questioning the existence of God surely depends on further details about the world. If those billion units are uniformly distributed over trillions of people whose lives are otherwise extremely satisfying and ecstatically happy, it is not easy to see a serious problem of evil. But if, on the other hand, the billion units of natural evil fell upon a single innocent person, and produced a life that was, throughout, one of extraordinarily intense pain, then surely there would be a very serious problem of evil.

Details concerning such things as how suffering and other evils are distributed over individuals, and the nature of those who undergo the evils, are, then, of crucial importance. Thus it is relevant, for example, that many innocent children suffer agonizing deaths. It is relevant that animals suffer, and that they did so before there were any persons to observe their suffering, and to feel sympathy for them. It is also relevant that, on the one hand, the suffering that people undergo apparently bears no relation to the moral quality of their lives, and, on the other, that it bears a very clear relation to the wealth and medical knowledge of the societies in which they live.

The prospects for a successful abstract version of the argument from evil would seem, therefore, rather problematic. It is conceivable, of course, that the correct moral principles entail that there cannot be any evils whose actuality or possibility makes for a better world. But to attempt to set out a version of the argument from evil that requires a defense of that thesis is certainly to swim upstream. A much more promising approach, surely, is to focus, instead, simply upon those evils that are thought, by the vast majority of people, to pose at least a prima facie problem for the rationality of belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.

Given that the preceding observations are rather obvious ones, one might have expected that discussions of the argument from evil would have centered mainly upon concrete formulations of the argument. Rather surprisingly, that has not been so. Indeed, some authors seem to focus almost exclusively upon very abstract versions of the argument.

One of the more striking illustrations of this phenomenon is provided by Alvin Plantinga’s discussions of the problem of evil. In God and Other Minds , in The Nature of Necessity , and in God, Freedom, and Evil , for example, Plantinga, starting out from an examination of John L. Mackie’s essay “Evil and Omnipotence” (1955), in which Mackie had defended an incompatibility version of the argument from evil, focuses mainly on the question of whether the existence of God is compatible with the existence of evil, although there are also short discussions of whether the existence of God is compatible with the existence of a given quantity of evil, and of whether the existence of a certain amount of evil renders the existence of God unlikely. (The latter topic is then the total focus of attention in his long article, “The Probabilistic Argument from Evil”.)

That Plantinga initially focused upon abstract formulations of the argument from evil was not, perhaps, surprising, given that a number of writers—including Mackie, H. J. McCloskey (1960), and H. D. Aiken (1957–58)—had defended incompatibility versions of the argument from evil, and it is natural to formulate such arguments in an abstract way, since although one may wish to distinguish, for example, between natural evils and moral evils, reference to concrete cases of evil would not seem to add anything. But once one shifts to probabilistic formulations of the argument from evil, the situation is very different: details about concrete cases of evil may be evidentially crucial.

The problem, then, is that Plantinga not only started out by focusing on very abstract versions of the argument from evil, but also maintained this focus throughout. The explanation of this may lie in the fact that Plantinga seems to have believed that if it can be shown that the existence of God is neither incompatible with, nor rendered improbable by, either (1) the mere existence of evil, or (2) the existence of a specified amount of evil, then no philosophical problem remains. People may find, of course, that they are still troubled by the existence of specific evils, but this, Plantinga seems to be believe, is a religious problem, and what is called for, he suggests, is not philosophical argument, but “pastoral care” (1974a, 63–4). [ 1 ]

Plantinga’s view here, however, is very implausible. For not only can the argument from evil be formulated in terms of specific evils, but that is the natural way to do so, given that it is only certain types of evils that are generally viewed as raising a serious problem with respect to the rationality of belief in God. To concentrate exclusively on abstract versions of the argument from evil is therefore to ignore the most plausible and challenging versions of the argument.

Consider, now, the following formulation of the argument from evil, which, in contrast to the abstract version of the argument from evil set out in section 1.1, focuses on quite concrete types of evil:

• There exist states of affairs in which animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, and that (a) are intrinsically bad or undesirable, and (b) are such that any omnipotent person has the power to prevent them without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good.
• For any state of affairs (that is actual), the existence of that state of affairs is not prevented by anyone.
• For any state of affairs, and any person, if the state of affairs is intrinsically bad, and the person has the power to prevent that state of affairs without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good, but does not do so, then that person is not both omniscient and morally perfect.

Therefore, from (1), (2), and (3):

• There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.
• If God exists, then he is an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.
• God does not exist.

As it stands, this argument is deductively valid. [ 2 ] (Here is a proof .) However it is likely to be challenged in various ways. In particular, one vulnerable point is the claim, made in the last part of statement (1), that an omnipotent and omniscient person could have prevented those states of affairs without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good, and when this is challenged, an inductive step will presumably be introduced, one that moves from what we know about the undesirable states of affairs in question to a conclusion about the overall value of those states of affairs, all things considered—including things that may well lie outside our ken.

But the above argument is subject to a very different sort of criticism, one that is connected with a feature of the above argument which seems to me important, but which is not often commented upon—the fact, namely, that the above argument is formulated in terms of axiological concepts, that is, in terms of the goodness or badness, the desirability or undesirability, of states of affairs. The criticism that arises from this feature centers on statement (3), which asserts that an omniscient and morally perfect being would prevent the existence of any states of affairs that are intrinsically bad or undesirable, and whose prevention he could achieve without either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good. For one can ask how this claim is to be justified. One answer that might be offered would be that some form of consequentialism is true—such as, for example, the view that an action that fails to maximize the balance of good states of affairs over bad states of affairs is morally wrong. But the difficulty then is that any such assumption is likely to be a deeply controversial assumption that many theists would certainly reject.

The problem, in short, is that any axiological formulation of the argument from evil, as it stands, is incomplete in a crucial respect, since it fails to make explicit how a failure to bring about good states of affairs, or a failure to prevent bad states of affairs, entails that one is acting in a morally wrong way. Moreover, the natural way of removing this incompleteness is by appealing to what are in fact controversial ethical claims, such as the claim that the right action is the one that maximizes expected value. The result, in turn, is that discussions may very well become sidetracked on issues that are, in fact, not really crucial—such as, for example, the question of whether God would be morally blameworthy if he failed to create the best world that he could.

The alternative to an axiological formulation is a deontological formulation. Here the idea is that rather than employing concepts that focus upon the value or disvalue of states of affairs, one instead uses concepts that focus upon the rightness and wrongness of actions, and upon the properties—rightmaking properties and wrongmaking properties—that determine whether an action is one that ought to be performed, or ought not to be performed, other things being equal. When the argument is thus formulated, there is no problematic bridge that needs to be introduced connecting the goodness and badness of states of affairs with the rightness and wrongness of actions.

How is the argument from evil best formulated? As an incompatibility argument, or as an evidential argument? In section 1.1, an incompatibility formulation of a very abstract sort was set out, which appealed to the mere fact that the world contains at least some evil. That formulation involved the following crucial premise:

The problem with that premise, as we saw, is that it can be argued that some evils are such that their actuality, or at least their possibility, is logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, in which case it is not true that a perfectly good being would want to eliminate such evils.

In section 1.4, a much more concrete version of an incompatibility argument was set out, which, rather than appealing to the mere existence of some evil or other, appealed to specific types of evil—in particular, situations where animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer. The thrust of the argument was then that, first of all, an omniscient and omnipotent person could have prevented the existence of such evils without thereby either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods, and, secondly, that any omniscient and morally perfect person will prevent the existence of such evils if that can be done without either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods.

The second of these claims avoids the objections that can be directed against the stronger claim that was involved in the argument set out in section 1.1—that is, the claim that if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. But the shift to the more modest claim requires that one move from the very modest claim that evil exists to the stronger claim that there are certain evils that an omniscient and omnipotent person could have prevented the existence of such evils without thereby either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods, and the question arises as to how that claim can be supported. In particular, can it be established by means of a purely deductive argument?

Consider, in particular, the relevant premise in the more concrete version of the argument from evil set out in section 1.4, namely:

How would one go about establishing via a purely deductive argument that a deer’s suffering a slow and painful death because of a forest fire, or a child’s undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, is not logically necessary either to achieve a greater good or to avoid a greater evil? If one had knowledge of the totality of morally relevant properties, then it might well be possible to show both that there are no greater evils that can be avoided only at the cost of the evil in question, and that there are no greater goods that are possible only given that evil. Do we have such knowledge? Some moral theorists would claim that we do, and that it is possible to set out a complete and correct moral theory. But this is certainly a highly controversial metaethical claim, and, as a consequence, the prospects for establishing a premise such as (1) via a deductive argument do not appear promising, at least given the present state of moral theory.

But if one cannot establish (1) via a deductive argument from one’s moral theory, cannot it be argued that that will lead to skepticism about whether one can know what human actions are morally right and morally wrong? This is a serious question, and it may well be that such knowledge is ruled out. But as will become clear when we consider evidential versions of the argument from evil, it may well be that one can have justified beliefs about the rightness and wrongness of actions.

If a premise such as (1) cannot, at least at present, be established deductively, then the only possibility, it would seem, is to offer some sort of inductive argument in support of the relevant premise. But if this is right, then it is surely best to get that crucial inductive step out into the open, and thus to formulate the argument from evil not as a deductive argument for the very strong claim that it is logically impossible for both God and evil to exist, (or for God and certain types, or instances, of evil to exist), but as an evidential (inductive/probabilistic) argument for the more modest claim that there are evils that actually exist in the world that make it unlikely that God exists.

3. Inductive Versions of the Argument from Evil

If the argument from evil is given an evidential formulation, what form should that take? There appear to be four main possibilities that have been suggested in recent discussions. The first, which might be called the direct inductive approach, involves the idea that one can show that theism is unlikely to be true without comparing theism with any alternative hypothesis, other than the mere denial of theism. At the heart of this first approach, which was set out by William Rowe, is the idea that one sound type of inductive inference is what might be referred to as instantial generalization, where this is a matter of projecting a generalization that has been found to hold in all cases that have been so far examined to all cases whatever.

The second, which can be labeled the indirect inductive approach, argues instead that theism can be shown to be unlikely to be true by establishing that there is some alternative hypothesis—other than the mere negation of theism—that is logically incompatible with theism, and more probable than theism. This approach, which was originally used by David Hume in one of his arguments in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , and which has been set out and defended in a detailed way by Paul Draper, can be viewed as involving an inference to the best explanation, a type of inductive inference that was discovered by C. S. Pierce, and which is now very widely accepted.

The third approach, which has been advanced by William Rowe, involves what might be referred to as a Bayesian approach, and it differs from the first two approaches in that it does not involve either instantial generalization or inference to the best explanation, or, indeed, any sort of inductive inference. The idea, instead, is to start out from premises that are themselves substantive probabilistic claims, and then to show that it follows deductively from those premises, via axioms of probability theory, that it is unlikely that God exists.

The fourth and final approach, which has been set out by Michael Tooley, involves the idea of bringing a substantive theory of inductive logic, or logical probability, to bear upon the argument from evil, and then to argue that when this is done, one can derive a formula giving the probability that God does not exist relative to information about the number of apparent evils to be found in the world.

These four approaches will be set out and considered in the sections that follow.

3.2.1 A Concrete, Deontological, and Direct Inductive Formulation

The basic idea behind a direct inductive formulation of the argument from evil is that the argument involves a crucial inductive step that takes the form of an inductive projection or generalization in which one moves from a premise concerning the known moral properties of some state of affairs to a conclusion about the likely overall moral worth of that state of affairs, given all its moral properties, both known and unknown.

Such a direct inductive argument might, for example, take the following form:

• There are events in our world — such as an animal’s dying an agonizing death in a forest fire, and a child’s undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer — such that the actions of allowing those events, when one could prevent them, both (a) have very serious, known wrongmaking characteristics, and (b) have no rightmaking characteristics of which we are aware that are sufficient to balance out the known wrongmaking properties.

Therefore it is likely that:

• For any such action, the totality of the wrongmaking properties, both known and unknown , outweighs the totality of the rightmaking properties, both known and unknown .
• Any action whose wrongmaking properties outweigh its rightmaking properties is morally wrong.

Therefore, from (2) and (3) :

• Such actions are morally wrong.
• For any action whatever, an omnipotent and omniscient being is capable of not performing that action.

Therefore, from (4) and (5):

• If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then that being performs some morally wrong actions.
• A being that performs morally wrong actions is not morally perfect.

Therefore, from (6) and (7):

• If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, that being is not morally perfect.
• God is by definition an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.

Therefore, from (8) and (9):

When the argument from evil is formulated in this way, it involves five premises, set out at steps (1), (3), (5), (7) and (9). Statement (1) involves both empirical claims, and moral claims, but the empirical claims are surely true, and, setting aside the question of the existence of objective rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, the moral claims are surely also very plausible. The other four premises, set out at steps (3), (5), (7) and (9), are plausibly viewed as analytic truths.

As regards the logic of the argument, all of the steps in the argument, other than the inference from (1) to (2), are deductive, and are either clearly valid as they stand, or could be made so by trivial expansions of the argument at the relevant points. The upshot, accordingly, is that the above argument appears to stand or fall with the defensibility of the inductive inference from (1) to (2). The crucial questions, accordingly, are, first, exactly what the form of that inductive inference is, and, secondly, whether it is sound.

3.2.2 A Natural Account of the Logic of the Inductive Step

A familiar and very common sort of inductive inference involves moving from information to the effect that all observed things of a certain type have a certain property to the conclusion that absolutely all things of the type in question have the relevant property. Could the inductive step in the evidential argument from evil perhaps be of that form?

One philosopher who has suggested that this is the case is William Rowe, in his 1991 article, “Ruminations about Evil”. Let us consider, then, whether that view can be sustained.

In that article, Rowe formulates the premise of the crucial inference as follows:

(P) No good state of affairs that we know of is such that an omnipotent, omniscient being’s obtaining it would morally justify that being’s permitting E1 or E2. (1991, 72)

(Here “E1” refers to a case of a fawn who dies in lingering and terrible fashion as a result of a forest fire, and “E2” to the case of a young girl who is brutally raped, beaten, and murdered.)

Commenting on P, Rowe emphasizes that what proposition P says is not simply that we cannot see how various goods would justify an omnipotent, omniscient being’s permitting E1 or E2, but rather,

The good states of affairs I know of, when I reflect on them, meet one or both of the following conditions: either an omnipotent being could obtain them without having to permit either E1 or E2, or obtaining them wouldn’t morally justify that being in permitting E1 or E2. (1991, 72)

Rowe then goes on to say that:

… if this is so, I have reason to conclude that: (Q) No good state of affairs is such that an omnipotent, omniscient being’s obtaining it would morally justify that being’s permitting E1 or E2.

Rowe uses the letter ‘J’ “to stand for the property a good has just in case obtaining that good would justify an omnipotent, omniscient being in permitting E1 or E2” (1991, 73). When this is done, the above inference can be compactly represented as follows:

• (P) No good that we know of has J.

Therefore, probably:

• (Q) No good has J.

Rowe next refers to Plantinga’s criticism of this inference, and he argues that Plantinga’s criticism now amounts to the claim that

we are justified in inferring Q (No good has J) from P (No good we know of has J) only if we have a good reason to think that if there were a good that has J it would be a good that we are acquainted with and could see to have J. For the question can be raised: How can we have confidence in this inference unless we have a good reason to think that were a good to have J it would likely be a good within our ken? (1991, 73)

Rowe’s response is then as follows:

My answer is that we are justified in making this inference in the same way we are justified in making the many inferences we constantly make from the known to the unknown. All of us are constantly inferring from the \(A\)s we know of to the \(A\)s we don’t know of. If we observe many \(A\)s and note that all of them are \(B\)s we are justified in believing that the As we haven’t observed are also \(B\)s. Of course, these inferences may be defeated. We may find some independent reason to think that if an \(A\) were a \(B\) it would likely not be among the \(A\)s we have observed. But to claim that we cannot be justified in making such inferences unless we already know, or have good reason to believe, that were an \(A\) not to be a \(B\) it would likely be among the As we’ve observed is simply to encourage radical skepticism concerning inductive reasoning in general. (1991, 73)

Finally, Rowe points out that:

… in considering the inference from P to Q it is very important to distinguish two criticisms: One is entitled to infer Q from P only if she has a good reason to think that if some good had J it would be a good that she knows of. One is entitled to infer Q from P only if she has no reason to think that if some good had J it would likely not be a good that she knows of. Plantinga’s criticism is of type (A). For the reason given, it is not a cogent criticism. But a criticism of type (B) is entirely proper to advance against any inductive inference of the sort we are considering. (1991, 73–4)

In view of the last point, Rowe concludes that “one important route for the theist to explore is whether there is some reason to think that were a good to have J it either would not be a good within our ken or would be such that although we apprehend this good we are incapable of determining that it has J,” (1991, 74).

3.2.3 An Evaluation of this Account of the Inductive Step

First, Rowe is right that a criticism of type (A) does involve “radical skepticism of inductive reasoning in general”. But, secondly, having granted that point, how satisfactory is Rowe’s account of the reasoning involved? To answer that question, what one needs to notice is that Rowe’s claim that “if we observe many \(A\)s and note that all of them are \(B\)s we are justified in believing that the \(A\)s we haven’t observed are also \(B\)s” is somewhat ambiguous, since while the claim that “we are justified in believing that the \(A\)s we haven’t observed are also \(B\)s” might naturally be interpreted as saying

• We are justified in believing that all the \(A\)s that we haven’t observed are also \(B\)s

it is possible to construe it as making, instead, the following, much weaker claim

• We are justified in believing of each of the \(A\)s that we haven’t observed that that \(A\) is also a \(B\).

Let us consider, then, the relevance of this distinction. On the one hand, Rowe is certainly right that any criticism that claims that one is not justified in inferring (2) unless one has additional information to the effect that unobserved \(A\)s are not likely to differ from observed \(A\)s with respect to the possession of property \(B\) entails inductive skepticism. But, by contrast, it is not true that this is so if one rejects, instead, the inference to (1). For one might reject the latter inference on the ground that while, given any particular \(A\), it is likely that that \(A\) is a \(B\), it is not likely that all \(A\)s are \(B\)s. (Compare the situation with a very long conjunction: given any particular conjunct, it may be likely that that conjunct is true, while being very unlikely that every conjunct, and hence the conjunction as a whole, is true.)

This is important, moreover, because it is (1) that Rowe needs, since the conclusion that he is drawing does not concern simply the next morally relevant property that someone might consider: conclusion Q asserts, rather, that all further morally relevant properties will lack property J. Such a conclusion about all further cases is much stronger than a conclusion about the next case, and one might well think that in some circumstances a conclusion of the latter sort is justified, but that a conclusion of the former sort is not.

One way of supporting the latter claim is by introducing the idea of logical probability, where logical probability is a measure of the extent to which one proposition supports another (Carnap, 1962, 19–51, esp. 43–7), and then arguing (Tooley, 1977, 690–3, and 1987, 129–37) that when one is dealing with an accidental generalization , the probability that the regularity in question will obtain gets closer and closer to zero, without limit, as the number of potential instances gets larger and larger, and that this is so regardless of how large one’s evidence base is. Is it impossible, then, to justify universal generalizations? The answer is that if laws are more than mere regularities—and, in particular, if they are second-order relations between universals—then the obtaining of a law, and thus of the corresponding regularity, may have a very high probability upon even quite a small body of evidence. So universal generalizations can be justified, if they obtain in virtue of underlying, governing laws of nature.

The question then becomes whether Q expresses a law—or a consequence of a law. If—as seems plausible—it does not, then, although it is true that one in justified in holding, of any given, not yet observed morally relevant property, that it is unlikely to have property J, it may not be the case that it is probable that no goodmaking (or rightmaking) property has property J. It may , on the contrary, be probable that there is some morally relevant property that does have property J.

This objection could be overcome if one could argue that it is unlikely that there are many unknown goodmaking properties. For if the number is small, then the probability of Q may still be high even if Q does not express a law, or a consequence of a law. Moreover, I am inclined to think that it may well be possible to argue that it is unlikely that there are many unknown, morally relevant properties. But I also think that it is very likely that any attempt to establish this conclusion would involve some very controversial metaethical claims. As a consequence, I think that one is justified in concluding that such a line of argument is not especially promising.

In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , Hume contended that it was not possible to arrive at the conclusion that the world had a perfectly good cause—or a perfectly evil one—starting out simply from a world that consists of a mixture of good and bad states of affairs:

There may four hypotheses be framed concerning the first causes of the universe: that they are endowed with perfect goodness, that they are endowed with perfect malice, that they are opposite and have both goodness and malice, that they have neither goodness nor malice. Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles. And the uniformity and steadiness of general laws seems to oppose the third. The fourth, therefore, seems by far the most probable. (1779, Part XI, 212)

But if this is right, and the hypothesis that the first cause (or causes) of the universe is neither good nor evil is more probable than the hypothesis that the first cause is perfectly good, then the probability of the latter must be less than one half.

Hume advanced, then, an evidential argument from evil that has a distinctly different logical form from that involved in direct inductive arguments, for the idea is to point to some proposition that is logically incompatible with theism, and then to argue that, given facts about undesirable states of affairs to be found in the world, that hypothesis is more probable than theism, and, therefore, that theism is more likely to be false than to be true. [ 3 ] :

More than two centuries later, Paul Draper, inspired by Hume, set out and defended this type of indirect inductive argument in a very detailed way. In doing so, Draper focused upon two alternative hypotheses, the first of which he referred to as “the Hypothesis of Indifference,” and which was as follows (1989, 13) [ 4 ] :

• (HI) neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings on earth is the result of benevolent or malevolent actions performed by nonhuman persons.

Draper then focused upon three sets of propositions about occurrences of pleasure and pain, dealing, respectively, with (a) the experience of pleasure and pain, by moral agents, which is known to be biologically useful, (b) the experience of pleasure and pain, by sentient beings that are not moral agents, which is known to be biologically useful, and (c) the experience of pleasure and pain, by sentient beings, which is not known to be biologically useful, and Draper then argued that, where ‘O’ expresses the conjunction of all those propositions, and ‘T’ expresses the proposition that God exists, the probability that O is the case given HI is greater than the probability of O given T. It then follows, provided that the initial probability of T is no greater than that of HI, that T is more likely to be false than to be true.

To set out Draper’s argument in a little more detail, let us use ‘\(\Pr(P \mid Q)\) ’ to stand for either the logical probability, or, as Draper (1996, 27) himself does, the epistemic probability, that \(P\) is true, given that \(Q\) is true, and then use the following instance of what is known as Bayes’ Theorem

This instance of Bayes’ Theorem deals with the simple case where one has two hypotheses H and J that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, and where one is interested in \(\Pr(H \mid E)\), that is, the probability that H is true given evidence E. What this instance of Bayes’ Theorem does is provide one with a way of calculating that probability, provided that one knows, first of all, \(\Pr(H)\) and \(\Pr(J)\)—that is, the a priori logical probabilities of \(H\) and \(J\)—and also, second, \(\Pr(E \mid H)\) and \(\Pr(E \mid J)\)—that is, the logical probability of \(E\) given, respectively, only \(H\) and only \(J\). By substitution in (1), we have:

Similarly, by interchanging ‘HI’ and ‘T’, we also have:

If we then divide (2) by (3) we arrive at the following very useful equation:

So far, this is simply a matter of probability theory. But now Draper introduces two substantive claims. The first is that the a priori probability of the hypothesis of indifference is not less than the a priori probability of theism, so that we have

Draper’s second substantive claim is that the conjunction of propositions about pleasure and pain to which Draper refers, and which is represented by ‘\(O\)’ is more likely to be true if the hypothesis of indifference is true than if theism is true. So we have

But provided that \(\Pr(T)\) and \(\Pr(O \mid T)\) are not equal to zero—which is surely very reasonable—(5) and (6) can be rewritten as

It then follows, by multiplying (7) and (8), that

This, together with (4), then entails:

Finally, Draper assumes (as a substantive premise) that the hypothesis of indifference is logically incompatible with theism:

It then follows from (10) and (11) that

So we have the result that, given the facts about pleasure and pain summarized by ‘\(O\)’, theism is more likely to be false than to be true.

There are various points at which one might respond to this argument. First, it might be argued that the assumption that the hypothesis of indifference is logically incompatible with theism is not obviously true. For might it not be logically possible that there was an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being who created a neutral environment in which evolution could take place in a chancy way, and who afterwards did not intervene in any way? But, if so, then while \(T\) would be true, \(HI\) might also be true—as it would be if there were no other nonhuman persons. So, at the very least, it is not clear that \(HI\) entails \(\negt T\).

Secondly, it might also be argued that the substantive premise introduced at (5)—that is, \(\Pr(HI) \ge \Pr(T)\)— is open to question. Draper supports it by arguing that whereas the hypothesis of theism involves some ontological commitment, the Hypothesis of Indifference does not. But, on the other hand, the latter involves a completely universal generalization about the absence of any action upon the earth by any nonhuman persons, of either a benevolent or malevolent sort, and it is far from clear why the prior probability of this being so should be greater than the prior probability of theism.

Both of these objections can be avoided, however, by simply shifting from \(HI\) to a different alternative hypothesis that Draper also mentions, namely, “The Indifferent Deity Hypothesis”:

There exists an omnipotent and omniscient person who created the Universe and who has no intrinsic concern about the pain or pleasure of other beings. (1989, 26)

Thirdly, it can be objected that the argument does not really move far beyond two of its three crucial assumptions—the assumptions set out, namely, at steps (5) and (11), to the effect that \(\Pr(HI) \ge \Pr(T)\), and \(HI\) entails \(\negt T\). For given those assumptions, it follows immediately that \(\Pr(T) \le 0.5\), and so the rest of the argument merely moves from that conclusion to the conclusion that \(\Pr(T) \lt 0.5\).

One response to this objection is that the move from \(\Pr(T) \le 0.5\) to \(\Pr(T) \lt 0.5\) is not insignificant, since it is a move from a situation in which acceptance of theism may not be irrational to one where it is certainly is. Nevertheless, the objection does bring out an important point, namely, that the argument as it stands says nothing at all about how much below 0.5 the probability of theism is.

Fourthly, objections can be directed at the arguments that Draper offers in support of a third substantive premise—namely, that introduced at (6). Some of the objections directed against this premise are less than impressive—and some seem very implausible indeed, as in the case, for example, of Peter van Inwagen, who has to appeal to quite an extraordinary claim about the conditions that one must satisfy in order to claim that a world is logically possible:

One should start by describing in some detail the laws of nature that govern that world. (Physicists’ actual formulations of quantum field theories and the general theory of relativity provide the standard of required “detail.”) One should then go on to describe the boundary conditions under which those laws operate; the topology of the world’s space-time, its relativistic mass, the number of particle families, and so on. Then one should tell in convincing detail the story of cosmic evolution in that world: the story of the development of large objects like galaxies and of stars and of small objects like carbon atoms. Finally, one should tell the story of the evolution of life. (1991, 146)

Such objections tend to suggest that any flaws in Draper’s argument in support of the crucial premise are less than obvious. Nevertheless, given that the argument that Draper offers in support of the premise at (6) involves a number of detailed considerations, very careful scrutiny of those arguments would be needed before one could conclude that the premise is justified.

Finally, rather than attacking the argument itself, one might instead argue that, while it is sound, the conclusion is not really a significant one. For what matters is not whether there is some evidence relative to which it is unlikely that theism is true. What matters is whether theism is improbable relative to our total evidence. But, then, suppose that we introduce some different observations—\(O^*\)—such that it seems plausible that \(O^*\) is more likely to be the case if theism is true that if the Hypothesis of Indifference is true. For example, \(O^*\) might be some proposition about the occurrences of experiences that seem to be experiences of a loving deity. The question then is whether the appropriate revision of the first substantive premise is plausible. That is, do we have good reason for thinking that the following statement is true:

At the very least, it would seem that \((6^{\&})\) is much more problematic than \((6)\). But if that is right, then the above, Draper-style argument, even if all of its premises are true, is not as significant as it may initially appear, since if \((6^{\&})\) is not true, the conclusion that theism is more likely to be false than to be true can be undercut by introducing additional evidence of a pro-theist sort.

A Draper-style argument is one type of indirect inductive argument from evil. It is important to notice, however, that in formulating an indirect inductive argument from evil, one need not proceed along the route that Draper chooses. This is clear if one focuses upon Hume’s formulation, and then thinks in terms of the idea of an inference to the best explanation of the “mixed phenomena” that one finds. If one explains the fact that the world contains an impressive mixture of desirable and undesirable states of affairs by the hypothesis that the creator of the world was an omnipotent, omniscient, and indifferent deity, then nothing more needs to be added. By contrast, if one wants to explain the mixed state of the world by the hypothesis that the creator of the world was an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect deity, one needs to postulate the existence of additional, morally significant properties that lie beyond our ken, and ones, moreover, that are so distributed that the mixed appearance does not correspond to what is really the case. A theistic explanation is, accordingly, less simple than an indifferent deity explanation, and therefore, provided that one can argue that the a priori probability of the latter hypothesis is not less than that of the former, one can appeal to the greater simplicity of the latter in order to conclude that it has a higher posterior probability than the theistic hypothesis. It then follows, given that the two hypotheses are logically incompatible, that the probability of the theistic hypothesis must be less than one half.

3.4 William Rowe’s Bayesian-Style Probabilistic Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

We have just considered the Bayesian-style argument offered by Paul Draper. Let us now turn to another.

In his 1996 paper, “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look”, Rowe set aside the problem of attempting to find a satisfactory account of the inductive step involved in direct, inductive formulations of the argument from evil in favor of a very different, Bayesian formulation of the argument from evil. The latter argument has been vigorously criticized by Plantinga (1998), but Rowe (1998) has remained confident that the new argument is sound.

3.4.1 A Summary of Rowe’s Bayesian Argument

Rowe’s new argument can be summarized as follows. First, its formulation involves only three propositions, one of which is proposition \(k\), which expresses, roughly, the totality of our background knowledge, while the other two propositions are as follows:

• \((P)\) No good that we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting \(E_1\) and \(E_2\);
• \((G)\) There is an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being.

Secondly, the object of the argument as a whole is to start out from some probabilistic assumptions, and then to move deductively, using only axioms of probability theory, to the following two conclusions:

The first conclusion, then, is that the probability that God exists is lower given the combination of \(P\) together with our background knowledge than it is given our background knowledge alone. Thus \(P\) disconfirms \(G\) in the sense of lowering the probability of \(G\). The second conclusion is that \(P\) disconfirms \(G\) in a different sense—namely, it, together with our background knowledge, makes it more likely than not that \(G\) is false.

Thirdly, in order to establish the first conclusion, Rowe needs only the following three assumptions:

Fourthly, all three assumptions, interpreted as Rowe does, are surely eminently reasonable. As regards (1), it follows from the fact that for any two propositions \(q\) and \(r\), if \(q\) entails \(r\) then \(\Pr(r \mid q) = 1\), together with the fact that Rowe interprets \(P\) in such a way that \(\negt G\) entails \(P\), since he interprets \(P\) as saying that it is not the case that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being together with some known good that justifies that being in allowing \(E_1\) and \(E_2\).

As regards (2), it certainly seems plausible, assuming that the existence of God is not logically necessary, that there is at least some non-zero probability that God does not exist, given our background knowledge. But one can derive (2), provided that one is willing to accept the (not uncontroversial) principle that only necessarily false propositions have a probability equal to zero. (This principle is very plausible if one accepts the idea of infinitesimals. If one does not, one may hold that some contingent propositions have a probability equal to zero.) Given this assumption, the reasoning is then that \(\Pr(\negt G \mid k)\) can be equal to zero only if the conjunction \(\negt G \amp k\) is necessarily false, which can be case only if either \(G\) is a necessary truth, or else \(k\) entails \(G\), neither of which is the case.

Similarly, (3) also seems plausible, and here too one can derive (3) provided that one is willing to accept the principle that only necessarily false propositions have a probability equal to zero. Here the reasoning will be that \(\Pr (P\mid G \amp k)\) can be equal to one only if the conjunction \(\negt P \amp G \amp k\) is necessarily false, which can be case only if either \(\negt P\) is necessarily false, or the conjunction \(G \amp k\) entails \(P\), neither of which is the case.

Secondly, if the existence of God is neither a logically necessary truth nor entailed by our background knowledge, and if the existence of God together with our background knowledge does not logically entail that no good that we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting \(E_1\) and \(E_2\), then one can support (2) and (3) by appealing to the very plausible principle that the probability of \(r\) given \(q\) is equal to one if and only if \(q\) entails \(r\).

Finally, to establish the second conclusion—that is, that relative to our background knowledge together with proposition \(P\) it is more likely than not that God does not exist—Rowe needs only one additional assumption:

Given assumptions (1), (2), and (3), how does the argument for the first conclusion go? In outline, one first uses (1), (2), and (3) to prove that

It then follows very quickly that

Assumption (4) then allows one to conclude that

Here are the details.

The key starting point is with the following theorem of probability theory (Compare Draper, 1996, 268):

Substituting into (5) using assumption (1) then gives one:

Next, it is a truth of probability theory that

Using (7) to substitute into (6) one has

Subtracting \(\Pr(P \mid G \amp k)\) from each side of (8) then gives one:

But then in view of assumption (2) we have that \(\Pr(\negt G \mid k) \gt 0\), while in view of assumption (3) we have that \(\Pr(P \mid G \amp k) \lt 1\), and thus that \([1 - \Pr(P \mid G \amp k)] \gt 0\), so that it then follows from (9) that

The next stage involve showing that it follows from (11) that

This is done as follows.

First, it follows from the definition of conditional probability one has

Dividing both sides of (13) by \(\Pr(G \mid k) \times \Pr(P \mid k)\) then gives one:

It then follows from (15) together with (11) that

Finally, it then follows from (16) together with (4) that

3.4.2 The Flaw in the Argument

Given the plausibility of assumptions (1), (2), and (3), together with the impeccable logic, the prospects of faulting Rowe’s argument for his first conclusion may not seem at all promising. Nor does the situation seem significantly different in the case of Rowe’s second conclusion, since assumption (4) also seems very plausible, in view of the fact that the property of being an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being belongs to a family of properties, including the property of being an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly evil being, and the property of being an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly morally indifferent being, and, on the face of it, neither of the latter properties seems less likely to be instantiated in the actual world than the property of being an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being.

In fact, however, Rowe’s argument is unsound. The reason is connected with the point that while inductive arguments can fail, just as deductive arguments can, either because their logic is faulty, or their premises false, inductive arguments can also fail in a way that deductive arguments cannot, in that they may violate a principle—namely, the Total Evidence Requirement—which I shall be setting out below, and Rowe’s argument is defective in precisely that way.

A good way of approaching the objection that I have in mind is by considering the following, preliminary objection to Rowe’s argument for the conclusion that

The objection is based on upon the observation that Rowe’s argument involves, as we saw above, only the following four premises:

Notice now, first, that the proposition \(P\) enters only into the first and the third of these premises, and secondly, that the truth of both of these premises is easily secured. Thus, for the first premise to be true, all that is needed is that \(\negt G\) entails \(P\), while for the third premise to be true, all that is needed, according to most systems of inductive logic, is that \(P\) is not entailed by \(G \amp k\), since according to most systems of inductive logic, \(\Pr(P \mid G \amp k) \lt 1\) is only false if \(P\) is entailed by \(G \amp k\).

Consider, now, what happens if, for example, Rowe’s \(P\) is replaced by:

Either God does not exist, or there is a pen in my pocket.

Statements (1) and (3) will both be true given that replacement, while statements (2) and (4) are unaffected, and one will be able to derive the same conclusions as in Rowe’s Bayesian argument. But if this is so, then the theist can surely claim, it would seem, that the fact that Rowe’s ‘\(P\)’ refers to evil in the world turns out to play no crucial role in Rowe’s new argument!

This objection, however, is open to the following reply. The reason that I am justified in believing the proposition that either God does not exist or there is a pen in my pocket is that I am justified in believing that there is a pen in my pocket. The proposition that either God does not exist or there is a pen in my pocket therefore does not represent the total evidence that I have. But the argument in question cannot be set out in terms of the proposition that, we can suppose, does in this case represent one’s total evidence—namely, the proposition that there is a pen in my pocket—since that proposition is not entailed by \(\negt G\).

The conclusion, in short, is that the above parody of Rowe’s argument doesn’t work, since the parody violates the following requirement:

The Total Evidence Requirement : For any proposition that is not non-inferentially justified, the probability that one should assign to that proposition’s being true is the probability that the proposition has relative to one’s total evidence.

But this response to the above objection to the argument for the conclusion that

now makes it clear that there a decisive objection to the argument as a whole. For notice that if \(P\)—the statement that

No good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting \(E_1\) and \(E_2\)

—is interpreted in such a way that \(\negt G\) entails \(P\), it is then logically equivalent to the following disjunctive statement:

where \(P^*\) is the proposition that Rowe sets out in footnote 8 of his article, namely:

No good we know of would justify God, ( if he exists ) in permitting \(E_1\) and \(E_2\) (1996, 283)

Once this is noticed, it is clear that Rowe’s argument is open to precisely the same response as that used against the objection to the parody argument just considered, since the justification that one can offer for \(\negt G\) or \(P^*\) is in fact just a justification of the second disjunct—that is, \(P^*\). This means that in appealing to \(P\) (i.e., to \((\negt G)\) or \(P^*\)) one is not making use of one’s total evidence. So Rowe’s argument, if it is to be sound, must instead be formulated in terms of \(P^*\).

But while \(\negt G\) entails \(P\), it does not entail \(P^*\). So the result of replacing ‘ P ’ by ‘ P *’ in statement (1)—that is

—will not be true, and so an argument of the form that Rowe offers will not go through. Rowe’s Bayesian argument is, therefore, unsound.

In section 3.2.1, a concrete, deontological, and direct inductive formulation of the argument from evil was set out. All of the steps in that argument were deductive, except for the following crucial inference:

The question, accordingly, is whether this inductive step is correct.

Essentially, there are three ways in which one might attempt to defend this inference. One is by treating it as a case of instantial generalization. But as we saw in effect in section 3.2.3, when we considered a formulation of the evidential argument from evil advanced by William Rowe, it appears that the inductive step in the argument from evil cannot be defended by appealing to instantial generalization.

A second approach is to view that inductive step as a matter of inference to the best explanation, and this is a more promising possibility. That approach would lead to an argument of the general form advanced by David Hume and Paul Draper, considered in section.

There is, however, a third possibility, which is the focus of the present section. Underlying this approach are two general ideas: the first is that both induction via instantial generalization and inference to the best explanation (abduction, the method of hypothesis, hypothetico-deductive method) stand in need of justification; the second idea is that at the heart of such a justification will be the defense of an account of logical probability.

The fundamental idea, accordingly, is that the way to determine whether the inductive step that lies at the heart of the evidential argument from evil is sound is by bringing serious inductive logic—understood as a theory of logical probability—to bear upon the question.

What is the appropriate theory of logical probability? Tooley (2008 and 2012) employs a Carnapian theory in which the basic equiprobability assumption is formulated in terms of what are called ‘structure descriptions’, and the fundamental postulate is that all structure descriptions are equally likely. But if one holds, as Tooley (1977 and 1987) does, that governing laws are logically possible, then it is clear that the fundamental equiprobability assumption needs to be formulated in terms of governing laws of nature. At present, however, no detailed formulation of such an approach to logical probability is available.

3.5.1 An Illustration of the General Underlying Idea

To establish that the inductive step in the version of the evidential argument from evil set out above is sound requires a rather technical argument in inductive logic. But one can gain an intuitive understanding of the underlying idea in the following way. Suppose that there is a rightmaking property of which we have no knowledge. If an action of allowing a child to be brutally killed possessed that property, then it might not be wrong to allow that action, depending upon the weightiness of that unknown rightmaking property. But the existence of unknown rightmaking properties is no more likely, a priori, than of unknown wrongmaking properties. So let us suppose, then, for this illustration, that there are two morally significant properties of which we humans have no knowledge—a rightmaking property \(R\), and a wrongmaking property \(W\). Let us suppose, further, that these two properties are equally weighty, since, a priori, there is no reason for supposing that one is more significant than the other. Finally, let \(A\) be an action of knowingly allowing a child to be brutally killed, and let us suppose that the unknown morally significant rightmaking property \(R\) is weightier than the wrongmaking property of knowingly allowing a child to be brutally killed. One can then see that there are the following four possibilities:

• Action \(A\) has both unknown properties, \(R\) and \(W\). In this case, those two unknown properties cancel one another out, and action \(A\) will be morally wrong, all things considered.
• Action \(A\) has the unknown rightmaking property \(R\), but not the unknown wrongmaking property \(W\). In this case, action \(A\) may be morally permissible, all things considered, on the assumption that property \(R\) is sufficiently strong to outweigh the known wrongmaking property of allowing a child to be brutally killed.
• Action \(A\) has the unknown wrongmaking property \(W\), but not the unknown rightmaking property \(R\). In this case, action \(A\) is even more wrong, all things considered, than it initially appeared to be.
• Action \(A\) does not have either of the unknown, morally significant properties, \(R\) and \(W\). In this case action \(A\) is morally wrong to precisely the degree that it initially appeared to be.

The upshot is that in this simplified example, at least three of the four possibilities that we have considered are such that action \(A\) turns out to be morally wrong, all things considered.

The intuitive idea, then, is that if one has an action that, given only its known rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, is an action that it would be morally wrong to perform, then it is more likely than not it is also an action that it would be morally wrong to perform, given the totality of its morally significant properties, both known and unknown .

But what underlies this intuitive idea? The answer is a certain very fundamental and very plausible equiprobability principle, to the effect that if one has a family of mutually exclusive properties, and if \(P\) and \(Q\) are any two members of that family, then the a priori probability that something has property \(P\) is equal to the a priori probability that that thing has property \(Q\). For then given that principle, one can consider the family of second order properties that contains the second-order property of being a rightmaking property and the second-order property of being a wrongmaking property, and then the equiprobability principle in question entails that the a priori probability that a given property \(P\) has the second-order property of being a rightmaking property is equal to the a priori probability that property \(P\) has the second-order property of being a wrongmaking property. Similarly, if one considers instead the family of properties that contains, for example, the second-order property of being a rightmaking property of weight \(W\) and the second-order property of being a wrongmaking property of weight \(W\), the a priori probability that a given property \(P\) has the first of those second-order properties is equal to the a priori probability that property \(P\) has the second of those properties.

The upshot is that given an action that would be morally wrong if judged only by its known morally significant properties, every possibility of a combination of unknown rightmaking and wrongmaking properties that would make that action morally right all things considered would be precisely counterbalanced by a combination of unknown rightmaking and wrongmaking properties that would make that action morally even more wrong, all things considered. But, in addition, there can be combinations of unknown rightmaking and wrongmaking properties that would move an action in the direction of being morally right all things considered, but not sufficiently far to make it morally right all things considered. Finally, there is the possibility that the action has no unknown morally significant properties.

Consequently, if an action is one that it would be morally wrong to perform, if judged only by its known morally significant properties, then it is more likely than not that it is one that it is morally wrong to perform given the totality of its morally significant properties, both known and unknown.

Then, the probability that, judged in the light of all rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, known and unknown, it would not be morally wrong to allow the event in question must be less than \(\frac{1}{2}\).

The upshot is that the probabilistic inference that is involved in the move from statement (1) to statement (2) in the argument set out above in section 3.2.1 is inductively sound.

3.5.2 The Formal Result

How is the formal calculation carried out? The answer is somewhat complicated, and there are slightly different ways of doing it, as in (Tooley 2008 and 2012b), with the method used in the latter case being perhaps slightly more perspicuous, but with both methods generating the same result. The key in both cases, moreover, is to make assumptions that increase the probability that an action that is morally wrong as judged only by its known rightmaking and wrongmaking properties is morally right relative to the totality of its morally significant properties, both known and unknown. In the absence of those ‘probability-increasing’ assumptions, it is not at all clear how the calculation could be carried out.

In the case where one focuses only upon a single action whose known wrongmaking properties outweigh its known rightmaking properties, the result is as one would expect, namely, that the probability that the action in question is not morally wrong relative to the totality of its morally significant properties, both known and unknown, must be less than one half.

But what is the general result? Suppose, for example, that there are \(n\) events, each of which is such that, judged simply by known rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, it would be morally wrong to allow that event. What is the probability that none of those \(n\) events is such that it would be morally wrong to allow that event, judged in the light of all rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, both known and unknown?

The answer is arrived at by proving the following theorem dealing with the case where there are precisely \(k\) unknown morally significant properties:

If there are \(k\) unknown morally significant properties, then given \(n\) events, each of which is such that, judged simply by known rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, it would be morally wrong to allow that event, the probability that none of those events is such that it is morally wrong to allow that event, judged in the light of all rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, known and unknown , must be less than \[ \notag \left( \dfrac{k}{k+1} \right) \left( \dfrac{1}{n+1} \right) \,. \]

As one can see, this upper bound on the probability that it is not morally wrong to allow any of the \(n\) events increases as \(k\), the number of unknown morally significant properties, increases, and as \(k\) increases without limit, it will tend to the limit of \(\frac{1}{n+1}\).

One therefore has the following theorem:

Given \(k\) events, each of which is such that, judged simply by known rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, it would be morally wrong to allow that event, the probability that none of those events is such that it is morally wrong to allow that event, judged in the light of all rightmaking and wrongmaking properties, both known and unknown , must be less than \(\frac{1}{n+1}\).

3.5.3 The Argument from Evil: A Quantitative Result

This approach arguably has two advantages over alternative accounts of the inductive step that lies at the heart of the argument from evil. One is that in bringing in an equiprobability principle, one is approaching the issue at a more fundamental level than any approach that appeals either to instantial generalization or inference to the best explanation. The other is that this approach generates a result that enables one not just to conclude that it is more likely than not that God does not exist, but also to assign an upper bound to the probability that God exists.

The upper bound, moreover, is surely very low indeed, for of the billions of people and sentient non-persons who have existed, the proportion who have had the good fortune never to have suffered in ways such that the known wrongmaking properties of allowing such suffering outweighed the known rightmaking properties must be small. Accordingly, \(n\) must be extremely large, and thus the probability that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person must be very low indeed.

Given an evidential formulation of the evidential argument from evil, what sorts of responses are possible? A natural way of dividing up possible responses is into what may be referred to as total refutations, theodicies, and defenses. So let us begin by considering what is involved in these three different, general types of responses.

This threefold classification can be arrived at by the following line of thought. An advocate of the argument from evil is claiming, in the first place, that there are facts about the evils in the world that make it prima facie unreasonable to believe in the existence of God, and, in the second place, that the situation is not altered when those facts are conjoined with all the other things that one is justified in believing, both inferentially and non-inferentially, so that belief in the existence of God is also unreasonable relative to the total evidence available, together with all relevant basis states . In responding to the argument from evil, then, one might challenge either of these claims. That is to say, one might grant, at least for the sake of argument, that there are facts about evil that, other things being equal, render belief in God unreasonable, but then argue that when those considerations are embedded within one’s total epistemic situation, belief in the existence of God can be seen to be reasonable, all things considered. Alternatively, one might defend the more radical thesis that there are no facts about evil in the world that make it even prima facie unreasonable to believe in the existence of God.

If the latter thesis is correct, the argument from evil does not even get started. Such responses to the argument from evil are naturally classified, therefore, as attempted, total refutations of the argument.

The proposition that relevant facts about evil do not make it even prima facie unreasonable to believe in the existence of God probably strikes most philosophers, of course, as rather implausible. We shall see, however, that a number of philosophical theists have attempted to defend this type of response to the argument from evil.

The alternative course is to grant that there are facts about intrinsically undesirable states of the world that make it prima facie unreasonable to believe that God exists, but then to argue that belief in the existence of God is not unreasonable, all things considered. This response may take, however, two slightly different forms. One possibility is the offering of a complete theodicy . As I shall use that term, this involves the thesis that, for every actual evil found in the world, one can describe some state of affairs that it is reasonable to believe exists, and which is such that, if it exists, will provide an omnipotent and omniscient being with a morally sufficient reason for allowing the evil in question.

It should be noted here that the term “theodicy” is sometimes used in a stronger sense, according to which a person who offers a theodicy is attempting to show not only that such morally sufficient reasons exist, but that the reasons cited are in fact God’s reasons. Alvin Plantinga (1974a, 10; 1985a, 35) and Robert Adams (1985, 242) use the term in that way, but, as has been pointed out by a number of writers, including Richard Swinburne (1988, 298), and William Hasker (1988, 5), that is to saddle the theodicist with an unnecessarily ambitious program.

The other possibility is that of offering a defense. But what is a defense? In the context of abstract, incompatibility versions of the argument from evil, this term is generally used to refer to attempts to show that there is no logical incompatibility between the existence of evil and the existence of God. Such attempts involve setting out a story that entails the existence of both God and evil, and that is logically consistent. But as soon as one focuses upon evidential formulations of the argument from evil, a different interpretation is needed if the term is to remain a useful one, since the production of a logically consistent story that involves the existence of both God and evil will do nothing to show that evil does not render the existence of God unlikely, or even very unlikely.

So what more is required beyond a logically consistent story of a certain sort? One answer that is suggested by some discussions is that the story needs to be one that is true for all we know. Thus Peter van Inwagen, throughout his book The Problem of Evil , frequently claims that various propositions are “true for all we know,” and in the “Detailed Contents” section at the beginning of his book, he offers the following characterization of the idea of a defense:

The idea of a “defense” is introduced: that is, the idea of a story that contains both God and all the evils that actually exist, a story that is put forward not as true but as “true for all anyone knows”. (2006, xii)

It seems very unlikely, however, that its merely being the case that one does not know that the story is false can suffice, since it may very well be the case that, though one does not know that p is false, one does have very strong evidence that it is. But if one has strong evidence that a story is false, it is hard to see how the story on its own could possibly counter an evidential argument from evil.

It seems, accordingly, that some claim about the probability of the story’s being true is needed. One possibility, suggested by some discussions, is that one might claim that rather than the story’s being a remote possibility that has only a minuscule chance of being true, the story represents “a real possibility”, and so has a substantial chance of being true. Thus, while Peter van Inwagen usually talks about his stories’ being true for all anyone knows, he also introduces the distinction between remote possibilities, and real possibilities (2006, Lecture 4, esp. pp. 66–71).

It is also hard to see, however, how this can be sufficient either. Suppose, for example, that one tells a story about God and the Holocaust, which is such that if it were true, an omnipotent being would have been morally justified in not preventing the Holocaust. Suppose, further, that one claims that there is a twenty percent chance that the story is true. A twenty percent chance is certainly a real possibility, but how would that twenty percent chance undermine a version of the argument from evil whose conclusion was that the probability that an omnipotent being would be justified in allowing the Holocaust was very low?

Given the apparent failure of the previous two suggestions, a natural conclusion is that the story that is involved in a defense must be one that is likely to be true. But if this is right, how does a defense differ from a theodicy? The answer is that while a theodicy must specify reasons that would suffice to justify an omnipotent and omniscient being in allowing all of the evils found in the world, a defense need merely show that it is likely that there are reasons which would justify an omnipotent and omniscient being in not preventing the evils that one finds in the world, even if one does not know what those reasons are. A defense differs from a theodicy, then, in that a defense attempts to show only that some God-justifying reasons probably exist; it does not attempt to specify what they are.

There is, however, one final possibility that needs to be considered. This is the idea that what is needed in a defense is not a story that can be shown to be likely to be true, but, rather, a story that, for all we know, is not unlikely. The thought here is that, even if there is some probability that the story has relative to our evidential base, we may not be able to determine what that probability is, or even any reasonably delimited range in which that probability falls. If so, it cannot be shown that the story is likely to be true, but neither can it be shown that the story is unlikely to be true.

The question that immediately arises is whether a proposition that would undercut an inductive argument from evil if one knew it were true can undercut the argument if one is unable to assign any probability to the proposition’s being true, and if so, how. One thought might be that if one can assign no probability to a proposition, one should treat it as equally likely to be true as to be false. But propositions vary dramatically in logical form: some are such as might naturally be viewed as atomic, others are sweeping generalizations, others are complex conjunctions, and so on. If one treated any proposition to which one could not assign a probability as equally likely to be true as to be false, the result would be an incoherent assignment of probabilities. On the other hand, if one adopts this idea only in the case of atomic propositions, then given that stories that are advanced in defenses and theodicies are typically quite complex, those stories will wind up getting assigned low probabilities, and it is then unclear how they could undercut an inductive argument from evil.

5. Attempted Total Refutations

There are at least three main ways in which one might attempt to show that the argument from evil does not succeed in establishing that evil is even prima facie evidence against the existence of God, let alone that the existence of God is improbable relative to our total evidence. The first appeals to human epistemological limitations; the second, to the claim that there is no best of all possible worlds; and the third, to the ontological argument.

The most popular attempt at a total refutation of the argument from evil claims that, because of human cognitive limitations, there is no sound inductive argument that can enable one to move from the premise that there are states of affairs that, taking into account only what we know, it would be morally very wrong for an omnipotent and omniscient person to allow to exist, to the conclusion that there are states of affairs such that it is likely that, all things considered, it would be morally very wrong for an omnipotent and omniscient person to allow those states of affairs to exist.

The appeal to human cognitive limitations does raise a very important issue, and we have seen that one very natural account of the logical form of the inductive step in the case of a direct inductive argument is not satisfactory. But, as we have seen in sections 3.3 and 3.4, there are other accounts of the type of reasoning involved in the crucial inductive step in evidential forms of the argument from evil. First of all, the appeal to human cognitive limitations does not itself show that there is anything wrong either with the reasoning that Draper offers in support of the crucial premise in his indirect inductive version of the argument from evil, or with the inference to the best explanation type of reasoning employed in the updated version of Hume’s indirect inductive formulation of the argument from evil. Secondly, the appeal to human cognitive limitations provides no reason at all for rejecting the version of the argument from evil that appeals to fundamental equiprobability principles of inductive logic, principles that arguably must obtain if any sort of induction is ever justified.

Short of embracing compete inductive skepticism, then, it would seem that an appeal to human cognitive limitations cannot provide an answer to evidential versions of the argument from evil.

A second way of attempting to show that the argument from evil does not even get started is by appealing to the proposition that there is no best of all possible worlds. Here the basic idea is that if for every possible world, however good, there is a better one, then the fact that this world could be improved upon does not give one any reason for concluding that, if there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, that being cannot be morally perfect.

This response to the argument from evil has been around for quite a while. In recent years, however, it has been strongly advocated by George Schlesinger (1964, 1977), and, more recently, by Peter Forrest (1981)—though Forrest, curiously, describes the defense as one that has been “neglected”, and refers neither to Schlesinger’s well-known discussions, nor to the very strong objections that have been directed against this response to the argument from evil.

The natural response to this attempt to refute the argument from evil was set out very clearly some years ago by Nicholas La Para (1965) and Haig Khatchadourian (1966) among others, and it has been developed in an especially forceful and detailed way in an article by Keith Chrzan (1987). The basic thrust of this response is that the argument from evil, when properly formulated in a deontological fashion, does not turn upon the claim that this world could be improved upon, or upon the claim that it is not the best of all possible worlds: it turns instead upon the claim that there are good reasons for holding that the world contains evils, including instances of suffering, that it would be morally wrong, all things considered, for an omnipotent and omniscient being to allow. As a consequence, the proposition that there might be better and better worlds without limit is simply irrelevant to the argument from evil, properly formulated.

If one accepts a deontological approach to ethics, this response seems decisive. Many contemporary philosophers, however, are consequentialists, and so one needs to consider how the ‘no best of all possible worlds’ response looks if one adopts a consequentialist approach.

Initially, it might seem that by combining the ‘no best of all possible worlds’ response with consequentialism, one can construct a successful, total refutation. For assume that the following things are true:

• An action is, by definition, objectively morally right if and only if it is, among the actions that one could have performed, at least one of the actions that produces at least as much value as every alternative action;
• An action is objectively morally wrong if and only if it is not objectively morally right;
• One is morally blameworthy only if one performs some objectively wrong action when one could instead have performed an objectively right action;
• If one is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then for any action whatever, there is always some other action that produces greater value.

Then it follows that it is impossible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to perform a morally wrong action, and therefore that the failure of such a being to prevent various evils in this world cannot be morally wrong.

Consider an omnipotent and omniscient being that creates a world with zillions of innocent persons, all of whom endure extraordinarily intense suffering forever. If (1), (2), and (3) are right, then such a being does not do anything morally wrong. But this conclusion, surely, is unacceptable, and so if a given version of consequentialism entails this conclusion, then that form of consequentialism must be rejected.

Can consequentialism avoid this conclusion? Can it be formulated in such a way that it entails the conclusion that allowing very great, undeserved suffering is morally very different, and much more serious, than merely refraining from creating as many happy individuals as possible, or merely refraining from creating individuals who are not as ecstatically happy as they might be? If it cannot, then it would seem that the correct conclusion to draw is that consequentialism is unsound. On the other hand, if consequentialism can be so formulated that this distinction is captured, then an appeal to consequentialism, thus formulated in a sound way, will not enable one to avoid the crucial objection to the ‘no best of all possible worlds’ response to the argument from evil.

A final way in which one could attempt to show that facts about evil cannot constitute even prima facie evidence against the existence of God is by appealing to the ontological argument. Relatively few philosophers have held, of course, that the ontological argument is sound. But there have certainly been notable exceptions—such as Anselm and Descartes, and, in the last century, Charles Hartshorne (1962), Norman Malcolm (1960), and Alvin Plantinga (1974a, 1974b)

If the ontological argument were sound, it would provide a rather decisive refutation of the argument from evil. For in showing not merely that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being, but also that it is necessary that such a being exists, it would entail that the proposition that God does not exist must have probability zero on any body of evidence whatever.

The only question, accordingly, is whether the ontological argument is sound. The vast majority of present-day philosophers believe that it is not, and one way of arguing for that view is by appealing to strengthened Gaunilo-type objections—where the idea behind a strengthened Gaunilo-type objection is that, rather than merely paralleling the ontological argument, as Gaunilo did in responding to Anselm, in order to show that there is an overpopulation problem for reality in the form of perfect islands, perfect unicorns, and so on, one can instead construct versions that lead to mutually incompatible conclusions, such as the conclusion that there is a perfect solvent, together with the conclusion that there is a perfectly insoluble substance (Tooley, 1981). But if the logical form of the ontological argument is such that arguments of precisely the same form generate contradictions, then the ontological argument must be unsound.

A more satisfying response to the ontological argument would, of course, show not merely that the ontological argument is unsound, but also precisely why it is unsound. Such a response, however, requires a satisfactory account of the truth conditions of modal statements—something that lies outside the scope of this article

6. Attempted Defenses

In this section, we shall consider three attempts to show that it is reasonable to believe that every evil is such that an omnipotent and omniscient person would have a morally sufficient reason for not preventing its existence, even if one is not able to say, in every case, what that morally sufficient reason might be.

If a given, concrete formulation of the argument from evil appeals to cases of intrinsically undesirable states of affairs that give rise only to evidential considerations, rather than to an incompatibility conclusion, then, although the existence of God may be improbable relative to that evidence, it may not be improbable relative to one’s total evidence. Theists, however, have often contended that there are a variety of arguments that, even if they do not prove that God exists, provide positive evidence. May not this positive evidence outweigh, then, the negative evidence of apparently unjustified evils?

Starting out from this line of thought, a number of philosophers have gone on to claim that in order to be justified in asserting that there are evils in the world that establish that it is unlikely that God exists, one would first have to examine all of the traditional arguments for the existence of God, and show that none of them is sound. Alvin Plantinga, for example, says that in order for the atheologian to show that the existence of God is improbable relative to one’s total evidence, “he would be obliged to consider all the sorts of reasons natural theologians have invoked in favor of theistic belief—the traditional cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments, for example.” (1979, 3) And in a similar vein, Bruce Reichenbach remarks:

With respect to the atheologian’s inductive argument from evil, the theist might reasonably contend that the atheologian’s exclusion of the theistic arguments or proofs for God’s existence advanced by the natural theologian has skewed the results. (1980, 224)

Now it is certainly true that if one is defending a version of the argument from evil that supports only a probabilistic conclusion, one needs to consider what sorts of positive reasons might be offered in support of the existence of God. But Plantinga and Reichenbach are advancing a rather stronger claim here, for they are saying that one needs to look at all of the traditional theistic arguments, such as the cosmological and the teleological. They are claiming, in short, that if one of those arguments turned out to be defensible, then it might well serve to undercut the argument from evil.

But this view seems mistaken. Consider the cosmological argument. In some versions, the conclusion is that there is an unmoved mover. In others, that there is a first cause. In others, that there is a necessary being, having its necessity of itself. None of these conclusions involves any claims about the moral character of the entity in question, let alone the claim that it is a morally perfect person. But in the absence of such a claim, how could such arguments, even if they turned out to be sound, serve to undercut the argument from evil?

The situation is not essentially different in the case of the argument from order, or in the case of the fine-tuning argument. For while those arguments, if they were sound, would provide grounds for drawing some tentative conclusion concerning the moral character of the designer or creator of the universe, the conclusion in question would not be one that could be used to overthrow the argument from evil. For given the mixture of good and evil that one finds in the world, the argument from order can hardly provide support even for the existence of a designer or creator who is very good, let alone one who is morally perfect. So it is very hard to see how any teleological argument, any more than any cosmological, could overturn the argument from evil.

A similar conclusion can be defended with respect to other arguments, such as those that appeal to purported miracles, or religious experiences. For while in the case of religious experiences it might be argued that personal contact with a being may provide additional evidence concerning the person’s character, it is clear that the primary evidence concerning a person’s character must consist of information concerning what the person does and does not do. So, contrary to the claim advanced by Robert Adams (1985, 245), even if there were veridical religious experiences, they would not provide one with a satisfactory defense against the argument from evil.

A good way of underlining the basic point here is by setting out an alternative formulation of the argument from evil in which it is granted, for the sake of argument, that there is an omnipotent and omniscient person. The result of doing this is that the conclusion at which one initially arrives is not that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person, but rather that, although there is an omnipotent and omniscient person, that person is not morally perfect, from which it then follows that that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.

When the argument from evil is reformulated in that way, it becomes clear that the vast majority of considerations that have been offered as reasons for believing in God can be of little assistance to the person who is trying to resist the argument from evil. For most of them provide, at best, very tenuous grounds for any conclusion concerning the moral character of any omnipotent and omniscient being who may happen to exist, and almost none of them provides any support for the hypothesis that there is an omnipotent and omniscient being who is also morally perfect.

The ontological argument is, of course, a notable exception, and, consequently, the advocate of the argument from evil certainly needs to be able to show that it is unsound. But almost all of the other standard arguments are simply not to the point.

What if, rather than holding that there is positive evidence that lends support to the existence of God, one holds instead that the belief that God exists is non-inferentially justified? The claim in question is an interesting one, and a thorough evaluation of it would involve consideration of some deep issues in epistemology. Fortunately, it does not seem to make any real difference in the present context whether or not the claim is true.

The reason emerges if one considers the epistemology of perception. Some philosophers hold that some beliefs about physical objects are non-inferentially justified, while others hold that this is never so, and that justified beliefs about physical states of affairs are always justified via an inference to the best explanation that starts out from beliefs about one’s experiences. But direct realists as much as indirect realists admit that there can be cases where a person would be justified in believing that a certain physical state of affairs obtained were it not for the fact that he has good evidence that he is hallucinating, or else subject to perceptual illusion. Moreover, given evidence of the relevant sort, it makes no difference whether direct realism is true, or indirect realism: the belief in question is undermined to precisely the same extent in either case.

The situation is the same in the case of religious experience. If, as was argued in the previous section, the primary evidence concerning a person’s character consists of what the person does or fails to do in various circumstances, and if, as a consequence, conclusions concerning the character of a deity based upon religious experience can be undercut by the argument from evil, then nothing is changed if one holds that the having of religious experiences, rather than providing one with evidence for the existence of God, makes it the case that one is non-inferentially justified in believing in the existence of God. The non-inferential justification is merely a prima facie justification, and one that is undercut by evidence bearing upon a person’s character that deals with what the person does and does not do.

Swinburne (1988, 297–8) argued in support of the conclusion that theism does need a theodicy. In doing so, however, he noted one minor qualification—namely, that if one could show, for a sufficiently impressive range of evils that initially seemed problematic, that it was likely that an omnipotent and omniscient person would be morally justified in not having prevented them, then one might very well be justified in believing that the same would be true of other evils, even if one could not specify, in those other cases, what the morally sufficient reason for allowing them might be.

What Swinburne says here is surely very reasonable, and I can see no objection in principle to a defense of this sort. The problem with it is that no theodicy that has ever been proposed has been successful in the relevant way—that is, there is no impressive range of undesirable states of affairs where people initially think that the wrongmaking properties of allowing such states of affairs to exist greatly outweigh any rightmaking properties associated with doing so, but where, confronted with some proposed theodicy, people come to believe that it would be morally permissible to allow such states of affairs to exist. Indeed, it is hard to find any such cases, let alone an impressive range.

7. Theodicies

What are the prospects for a complete, or nearly complete theodicy? Some philosophers, such as Swinburne, are optimistic, and believe that “the required theodicy can be provided” (1988, 311). Others, including many theists, are much less hopeful. Plantinga, for example remarks:

… we cannot see why our world, with all its ills, would be better than others we think we can imagine, or what , in any detail, is God’s reason for permitting a given specific and appalling evil. Not only can we not see this, we can’t think of any very good possibilities. And here I must say that most attempts to explain why God permits evil— theodicies , as we may call them—strike me as tepid, shallow and ultimately frivolous. (1985a, 35)

What types of theodicies that have been proposed? An exhaustive survey is not possible here, but among the most important are theodicies that appeal, first, to the value of acquiring desirable traits of character in the face of suffering; secondly, to the value of libertarian free will; thirdly, to the value of the freedom to inflict horrendous evils upon others; and fourthly, to the value of a world that is governed by natural laws.

One very important type of theodicy, championed especially by John Hick, involves the idea that the evils that the world contains can be seen to be justified if one views the world as designed by God to be an environment in which people, through their free choices, can undergo spiritual growth that will ultimately fit them for communion with God:

The value-judgement that is implicitly being invoked here is that one who has attained to goodness by meeting and eventually mastering temptation, and thus by rightly making responsibly choices in concrete situations, is good in a richer and more valuable sense than would be one created ab initio in a state either of innocence or of virtue. In the former case, which is that of the actual moral achievements of mankind, the individual’s goodness has within it the strength of temptations overcome, a stability based upon an accumulation of right choices, and a positive and responsible character that comes from the investment of costly personal effort. (1977, 255–6)

Hick’s basic suggestion, then, is that soul-making is a great good, that God would therefore be justified in designing a world with that purpose in mind, that our world is very well designed in that regard, and thus that, if one views evil as a problem, it is because one mistakenly thinks that the world ought, instead, to be a hedonistic paradise.

Is this theodicy satisfactory? There are a number of reasons for holding that it is not. First, what about the horrendous suffering that people undergo, either at the hands of others—as in the Holocaust—or because of terminal illnesses such as cancer? One writer—Eleonore Stump—has suggested that the terrible suffering that many people undergo at the ends of their lives, in cases where it cannot be alleviated, is to be viewed as suffering that has been ordained by God for the spiritual health of the individual in question (1993b, 349). But given that it does not seem to be true that terrible terminal illnesses more commonly fall upon those in bad spiritual health than upon those of good character, let alone that they fall only upon the former, this ‘spiritual chemotherapy’ view seems quite hopeless. More generally, there seems to be no reason at all why a world must contain horrendous suffering if it is to provide a good environment for the development of character in response to challenges and temptations.

Secondly, and is illustrated by the weakness of Hick’s own discussion (1977, 309–17), a soul-making theodicy provides no justification for the existence of any animal pain, let alone for a world where predation is not only present but a major feature of non-human animal life, and has been so for millions of years. The world could perfectly well have contained only human persons, or only human persons plus herbivores.

Thirdly, the soul-making theodicy also provides no account of the suffering that young, innocent children endure, either because of terrible diseases, or at the hands of adults. For here, as in the case of animals, there is no soul-making purpose that is served.

Finally, if one’s purpose were to create a world that would be a good place for soul-making, would our earth count as a job well done? It is very hard to see that it would. Some people die young, before they have had any chance at all to master temptations, to respond to challenges, and to develop morally. Others endure suffering so great that it is virtually impossible for them to develop those moral traits that involve relationships with others. Still others enjoy lives of ease and luxury where there is virtually nothing that challenges them to undergo moral growth.

A second important approach to theodicy involves the following ideas: first, that libertarian free will is of great value; secondly, that because it is part of the definition of libertarian free will that an action that is free in that sense cannot be caused by anything outside of the agent, not even God can cause a person to freely do what is right; and thirdly, that because of the great value of libertarian free will, it is better that God create a world in which agents possess libertarian free will, even though they may misuse it, and do what is wrong, than that God create a world where agents lack libertarian free will.

One problem with an appeal to libertarian free will is that no satisfactory account of the concept of libertarian free will is yet available. Thus, while the requirement that, in order to be free in the libertarian sense, an action not have any cause that lies outside the agent is unproblematic, this is obviously not a sufficient condition, since this condition would be satisfied if the behavior in question were caused by random events within the agent. So one needs to add that the agent is, in some sense, the cause of the action. But how is the causation in question to be understood? Present accounts of the metaphysics of causation typically treat causes as states of affairs. If, however, one adopts such an approach, then it seems that all that one has when an action is freely done, in the libertarian sense, is that there is some uncaused mental state of the agent that causally gives rise to the relevant behavior, and why freedom, thus understood, should be thought valuable, is far from clear.

The alternative is to shift from event-causation to what is referred to as ‘agent-causation’. But then the question is whether there is any satisfactory account of causation where causation is not a relation between states of affairs. Some philosophers, such as Timothy O’Connor (1995, 1996, 2000a, 2000b, and 2002) and Randolph Clarke (1993, 1996, and 2003) have claimed that such an account can be given, but their suggestions have not been widely accepted.

But even if the difficulty concerning the nature of libertarian free will is set aside, there are still very strong objections to the free-will approach. First, and most important, the fact that libertarian free will is valuable does not entail that one should never intervene in the exercise of libertarian free will. Indeed, very few people think that one should not intervene to prevent someone from committing rape or murder. On the contrary, almost everyone would hold that a failure to prevent heinously evil actions when one can do so would be seriously wrong.

Secondly, the proposition that libertarian free will is valuable does not entail that it is a good thing for people to have the power to inflict great harm upon others. So individuals could, for example, have libertarian free will, but not have the power to torture and murder others.

Thirdly, many evils are caused by natural processes, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and other weather conditions, and by a wide variety of diseases. Such evils certainly do not appear to result from morally wrong actions. If that is right, then an appeal to free will provides no answer to an argument from evil that focuses upon such evils.

Some writers, such as C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga, have suggested that such evils may ultimately be due to the immoral actions of supernatural beings (Lewis, 1957, 122–3; Plantinga, 1974a, 58). If that were so, then the first two objections mentioned above would apply: one would have many more cases where individuals were being given the power—much greater than the power that any human has—to inflict great harm on others, and then were being allowed by God to use that power to perform horrendously evil actions leading to enormous suffering and many deaths. In addition, however, it can plausibly be argued that, though it is possible that earthquakes, hurricanes, cancer, and the predation of animals are all caused by malevolent supernatural beings, the probability that this is so is extremely low.

The fact that agents could be free in a libertarian sense even if they did not have the power to inflict great harm upon others has led at least one philosopher—namely, Richard Swinburne—to argue that, while free will is valuable, precisely how valuable it is depends upon the range of actions open to one. Swinburne’s idea is that if the possible actions that are open to one vary enormously in moral worth, then libertarian free will is very valuable indeed, whereas if the variation in the moral status of what one can do is very limited, then libertarian free will adds much less to the world: one has what has been characterized as a ‘toy world’, where one has very little responsibility for the well-being of others.

This variant on the appeal to libertarian free will is also open to a number of objections. First, as with free will theodicies in general, this line of thought provides no justification for the existence of occurrences that not only appear, upon cursory inspection, to be natural evils, uncaused by any agents, but where, in addition, the very closest scientific examination supports the conclusion that there are no grounds for postulating anything beyond purely physical events as the causes of the occurrences in question.

Secondly, if what matters is simply the existence of alternative actions that differ greatly in moral value, this can be the case even in a world where one lacks the power to inflict great harm on others, since there can be actions that, rather than inflicting great suffering on others, would instead benefit others enormously, and which one could either perform or intentionally refrain from performing.

Thirdly, what exactly is the underlying line of thought here? In the case of human actions, Swinburne surely holds that one should prevent someone from doing something that would be morally horrendous, if one can do so. Is the idea, then, that while occasional prevention of such evils does not significantly reduce the extent of the moral responsibility of others, if one’s power were to increase, a point would be reached where one should sometimes refrain from preventing people from performing morally horrendous actions? But why should this be so? One answer might be that if one intervened too frequently, people would come to believe that they did not have the ability to perform such actions. But, in the first place, it is not clear why that would be undesirable. People could still, for example, be thoroughly evil, for they could still very much wish that they had the power to perform such terrible actions, and be disposed to perform such actions if they ever came to have the power. In the second place, prevention of deeply evil actions could take quite different forms. People could, for example, be given a conscience that led them, when they had decided to cause great injury to others, and were about to do so, to feel that what they were about to do was too terrible a thing, so that they would not carry through on the action. In such a world, people could surely still feel that they themselves were capable of performing heinously evil actions, and they would contemplate performing such actions, but in the end their sense of the great wrongness of the actions would triumph over their selfish reasons for wanting to perform the actions in question.

A final important theodicy involves the following ideas: first, it is important that events in the world take place in a regular way, since otherwise effective action would be impossible; secondly, events will exhibit regular patterns only if they are governed by natural laws; thirdly, if events are governed by natural laws, the operation of those laws will give rise to events that harm individuals; so, fourthly, God’s allowing natural evils is justified because the existence of natural evils is entailed by natural laws, and a world without natural laws would be a much worse world.

This type of theodicy is also exposed to serious objections. First of all, the occasional occurrence of miraculous intervention, including events that clearly appeared contrary to natural laws, would not render effective human action impossible, since humans would see that such miraculous occurrences were extremely rare.

Secondly, and relatedly, consider a world where the laws of physics, rather than being laws that admit of no exceptions, are instead probabilistic laws. Effective human action would still be possible in such a world, provided that the relevant probabilities were sufficiently high. But if so, then effective human action would be no less possible in a world with non-statistical laws where there were occasional miraculous interventions.

Thirdly, many of the greatest evils could have been prevented by miraculous interventions that would not have been detected. Consider, for example, interventions to prevent natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, or earthquakes, including the earthquake in China in 1556 that killed around 800,000 people, or tsunamis, such as the one in 2004 that hit 12 Asian countries, and killed over 200,000 people. Or consider the interventions that would be needed to prevent pandemics, such as the Black Death in the Middle Ages, which is estimated to have killed between 75 million and 200 million people, or the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed between 50 million and 100 million people. Similarly, consider great moral evils, such as the Holocaust. A small intervention by an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being could have allowed one of the many failed attempts to assassinate Hitler to succeed, or a small mental nudge could have resulted in Hitler’s realizing the error in his virulent anti-Semitism.

Fourthly, what natural evils a world contains depends not just on the laws, but also on the initial, or boundary conditions. Thus, for example, an omnipotent being could create ex nihilo a world which had the same laws of nature as our world, and which contained human beings, but which was devoid of non-human carnivores. Or the world could be such that there was unlimited room for populations to expand, and ample natural resources to support such populations.

Fifthly, many evils depend upon precisely what laws the world contains. An omnipotent being could, for example, easily create a world with the same laws of physics as our world, but with slightly different laws linking neurophysiological states with qualities of experiences, so that extremely intense pains either did not arise, or could be turned off by the sufferer when they served no purpose. Or additional physical laws of a rather specialized sort could be introduced that would either cause very harmful viruses to self-destruct, or prevent a virus such as the avian flu virus from evolving into an air-born form that has the capacity to kill hundreds of million people.

Finally, this theodicy provides no account of moral evil. If other theodicies could provide a justification for God’s allowing moral evil, then, of course, moral evil would not be a problem. But, as we have seen, no satisfactory justification appears to be available.

The four types of theodicies considered so far all appeal to beliefs and evaluative claims that the theodicist thinks should be acceptable, upon careful reflection, to anyone, including those who are not religious. But if one thinks that one’s religious beliefs are ones that it is reasonable to accept, what is wrong with a theodicy that appeals to some of one’s religious beliefs? Of course, if the religious beliefs to which one appeals, taken together, entail the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person, such a theodicy would be question-begging. But one can choose a subset that, even if it entails the existence of a very powerful and knowledgeable creator—or even an omnipotent and omniscient one—does not entail the existence of God.

There are many religions, and even within a given religion, very significant differences in the religious beliefs of people, and very different beliefs to which one might appeal, so there are many different religious theodicies that can be constructed. Here I shall focus only on one general type. I think, however, that it will illustrate the kinds of objections that arise.

The religious theodicy in question is as follows. First, human beings, rather than having arisen through a process of natural evolution, were brought into existence by the creator of the universe. He placed the first two human beings in a perfect world, free of suffering and death. Those human beings, however, freely chose to disobey a command of the creator, and the result was the Fall of mankind, which meant not only that the first two humans became subject to suffering and death, but that all of their descendants did so as well. The creator, however, lovingly engaged, several generations later, in a rescue operation, in which he, in the person of his son, became incarnated as a human being, and by undergoing a sacrificial death, made it possible for the creator to forgive every human who accepted this sacrifice, and who would then enjoy eternal beatitude living in the presence of the creator.

This type of religious theodicy has been advanced by a number of Christians, with a variant of it being found, for example, in Peter van Inwagen’s book, The Problem of Evil (2006, 85ff.). It is not, of course, a full theodicy, since it does not account for the suffering of non-human animals, at least before the Fall. So let us focus on it simply as offering an account of God’s justification for allowing human suffering. Thus viewed, how successful is it?

To be successful, a theodicy must appeal only to beliefs that it is reasonable to accept. Do the beliefs involved in the above story qualify? It would seem not. First of all, among the crucial beliefs is the belief that human beings, rather than coming into being via a natural process of evolution, were specially created. In setting out the story, I have not specified how that was done. Traditionally Christians believed, either that Adam and Eve were created ex nihilo , as the story of creation in Genesis 1 seems to say, or else, as the creation story in Genesis 2 says, that Adam was created out of the dust of the earth, and then Eve was formed, sometime later, out of one of Adam’s ribs.

There are very good reasons for rejecting both of these accounts, since the evidence that humans are descended from earlier primates is extremely strong indeed. Especially impressive is the evidence provided by DNA studies, described by Daniel J. Fairbanks his book Relics of Eden , and which includes such as things as the evidence that human chromosome number two resulted by fusion from two primate chromosomes, together with facts about (1) transposable elements, including retroelements, (2) pseudogenes, and (3) mitochondrial DNA.

In the light of such evidence, it is not surprising that many Christian philosophers have accepted the hypothesis of common descent, and have adopted some form of theistic evolution, in which the creator intervened at some point to transform some earlier primates into members of a new species, Homo sapiens. But while this version of special creation is an improvement, given the very close relations between human and chimpanzee DNA, and the fact that known mechanisms of chromosome rearrangement render the transition from some non-human species to Homo sapiens not at all improbable, the postulation of divine intervention at that particular point does not seem plausible.

It would be a different matter, of course, if humans had immaterial minds, but there is very strong empirical evidence against that view, including such things as the effects of a blow to the head and brain damage of different sorts, the effects of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, the decline of mental capacities with aging, the relations between the mental development of children and the growth of neural circuitry, the inheritance of personality traits, the different correlations in the case of identical twins versus fraternal twins with regard to such traits as intelligence, the effects of psychotropic drugs, such as Prozac, and so on (Tooley, 2012, 42–4).

Secondly, the story postulates not just a special creation, but also a special creation in which humans, initially, were not subject to suffering or death. Given, among other things, that that period was a very short one, one cannot offer positive historical evidence again the existence of such a short period that involved only two humans. But the belief is surely a remarkable one that can be viewed as likely only if it is supported by evidence. The evidence that can be offered, however, consists entirely of the creation story in Genesis, so that question is, how reliable is such evidence? To answer that question, one can see what other stories one finds in Genesis. One striking story is that of Noah—who apparently lived around 4500 years ago—according to which there was a worldwide flood that killed all animals on Earth, except for those that were on the ark. But there are excellent reasons for believing that such a story is very unlikely to be true, both in the light of the number of animal species that currently exist, and in the light of the evidence—attempts by authors such as Whitcomb and Morris in their book The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications (1966) to argue otherwise notwithstanding—that there has not been any world-wide flood in the past 5000 years.

In addition, those who view Genesis as a source of important truths do so because it is part of the Bible. So one can also ask about the reliability of the Bible when it testifies to remarkable events. In many cases, of course, there is no way of checking whether those remarkable events actually took place, but when there is, one finds that there is good reason to believe that the event in question did not take place. Thus, for example, there is the story of the sun’s standing still for about a day during Joshua’s battle at Jericho, the story of the slaughter of all of the Egyptian first-born children, and the story of the graves being opened and the dead walking around the city at the time of Jesus’s death (Matthew 27: 52–53). One would surely expect non-Biblical records of such events if they had really taken place, but there are none.

Finally, the religious theodicy that we are considering also involves a number of very problematic moral claims. First, we are asked to believe that there is nothing morally problematic about a morally good deity making it the case that if one of the first two humans disobeys some command, all of the many billions of descendants of that human will, as a consequence, be subject to suffering and death to which they would not otherwise be exposed. Secondly, we are also asked to believe that a morally good deity is unable to forgive people their misdeeds unless he becomes incarnate in the form of his son and suffers a sacrificial death. Thirdly, while, according to this story, those who accept the sacrifice made on their behalf have all their tears wiped away and enjoy eternal happiness in the presence of God, those who do not accept the sacrifice fare considerably less well, and suffer eternal torment in hell. So we are being asked to believe that such eternal punishment is not morally problematic.

In short, the religious theodicy that we have been considering in this section is very implausible, not only on scientific and historical grounds, but on moral grounds as well. The question, accordingly, is whether there is some religious theodicy that is not exposed to scientific, or historical, or moral objections.

In section 1.3, it was argued that concrete formulations of the argument from evil, which focus upon specific evils, or else upon narrowly defined types of evils, are superior to abstract formulations of the argument from evil, which start out from very general statements concerning evil—such as that there is evil in the world, or that there are natural evils, or that there is an enormous amount of evil, and so on. Consider, then, an evidential argument from evil that focuses upon Rowe’s famous case of Sue—a young girl who was brutally beaten, raped, and murdered. Confronted with such a case, it is natural to think that a satisfactory response will involve arguing that it is plausible that the terrible occurrence in question itself has some hidden property that makes it the case that allowing it to happen is not morally wrong all things considered.

But as Peter van Inwagen has argued—most recently in The Problem of Evil —there is a very different possibility, and one that he thinks is much more promising. The basic idea is as follows. First of all, one begins by focusing upon abstract formulations of the argument from evil, and one attempts to put forward a story that makes it plausible that the existence of, say, a great amount of horrendous suffering in the world, is actually desirable because there is some great good that outweighs that suffering, and that can only be achieved if that amount of suffering is present, or some greater evil that can only be avoided if that amount of suffering is present. (This story might either be a theodicy-style story that specifies the great good in question, or a defense-style story, which does not do so.) Secondly, if that story provides a satisfactory answer to an abstract version of the argument from evil that focuses upon the existence of horrendous suffering, one can then turn to concrete versions of the argument from evil, and there the idea will be that God had good reason to allow a certain amount of horrendous suffering, and the terrible case of Sue is simply one of the cases that he allowed. It is not that Sue’s suffering itself had some property that made its occurrence good all things considered. God could very well have prevented it, and had he done so, he would have eliminated an occurrence that was bad in itself, all things considered. But had he done so, he would have had to have allowed some other horrendous evil that, as things stand, he prevented, and the reason that he would have had to do that would be to ensure that the global property of there being a certain amount of horrendous evil in the world was instantiated—something that was necessary to achieve a greater good, or to avoid a greater evil.

In short, defenses and theodicies that are based upon this idea, rather than appealing to the idea that apparent evils are not evils in themselves, all things considered, once all local properties—all properties that those events themselves have—are taken into account, appeal, instead, to the idea that there are global properties whose instantiation is important, and that can only be instantiated if there are events that are evil in themselves.

Does this shift from local properties to global properties help? It would seem that it cannot. Consider against the case of Sue. An advocate of the evidential argument from evil claims that no matter how carefully one examines the case, and thinks about it, considering, as one does, all of the rightmaking and wrongmaking properties of which one has any knowledge, the conclusion is that the wrongmaking properties of allowing what happened to Sue clearly outweigh any rightmaking properties of allowing that event. The advocate of a global property approach then suggests the possibility that there is some global rightmaking property that involves the world’s having a certain amount of evil, or a certain amount of a certain kind of evil, and that if someone had intervened to prevent the rape and murder of Sue, this would have changed the world from one that did have the desired amount of evil, or evil of the type in question, to one that does not, and that when this property is taken into account, it turns out that it would have been wrong to prevent Sue’s being raped and murdered—unless one was going to allow some compensating evil elsewhere.

But what exactly is the global wrongmaking property in question? Does one know, or even have any reason at all for believing, that bringing it about that the amount of evil of kind \(K\) is less than some specific amount \(T\) is a wrongmaking property of actions? The answer, surely, is that no one has knowledge of any such wrongmaking property. Moreover, anyone who claimed to have such knowledge would also have to claim also to know that if an omnipotent and omniscient being had prevented the rape and murder of Sue, without also allowing some other, compensating evil action, that would have caused the amount of evil of type \(K\) to dip below level \(T\).

One need not, of course, advance a principle involving some specific value of \(T\). One could, instead, make the existential claim that there is some level \(T\) such that, first, it is a wrongmaking property of an action to cause the amount of evil of type \(K\) to dip below level \(T\), and, second, that if an omnipotent and omniscient being had intervened to prevent the rape and murder of Sue, that would, in the absence of some compensating action, have caused the amount of evil of type \(K\) to dip below level \(T\). But surely no one knows, or even has any reason for believing, that this is the case.

The situation as regards an appeal to global properties is, in short, as follows. An advocate of the argument from evil points to various events, such as the rape and murder of Sue, and claims that no matter how carefully one considers the case, one’s conclusion is that the known wrongmaking properties of not preventing that occurrence outweigh any rightmaking properties that not preventing the occurrence is known to have had. In response, the possibility of a relevant, morally significant global property is introduced. But this is a mere possibility, since there is no relevant morally significant global property of which one has knowledge, let alone which one has good reason to believe is present in the case in question. So the possibility of a relevant global property is simply that: a mere possibility, and as such it gets dealt with in the way that all unknown morally significant properties, both rightmaking and wrongmaking, and both local and global, are dealt with in, for example, the logical probability version of the evidential argument from evil set out above in section 3.5.

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• ––– (1996). “Some Major Strands of Theodicy?” in Howard-Snyder (ed.), The Evidential Argument from Evil , Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, 30–48.
• Tomberlin, James E., and Peter van Inwagen (eds.) (1985). Alvin Plantinga , Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
• ––– (ed.) (1991). Philosophical Perspectives 5: Philosophy of Religion , Atascadero, California: Ridgeview Publishing).
• Tooley, Michael (1977). “The Nature of Laws,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 7: 667–98.
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• ––– and Alvin Plantinga (2008). Knowledge of God (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)
• ––– (2011). “Hume and the Problem of Evil,” in Philosophy of Religion: The Key Thinkers , edited by Jeffrey J. Jordan, London and New York, Continuum, 159–86.
• ––– (2012a). “Plantinga’s New Argument against Materialism,” Philosophia Christi , 14(1): 29–48.
• ––– (2012b). “Inductive Logic and the Probability that God Exists: Farewell to Skeptical Theism,” in Probability in the Philosophy of Religion , edited by Jake Chandler and Victoria S. Harrison (Oxford, Oxford University Press) 144–64.
• van Inwagen, Peter (1991). “The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence,” in Philosophical Perspectives , 5: 135–165.
• ––– (2006). The Problem of Evil , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Whitcomb. John C. and Henry M. Morris (1966). The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications , (Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.
• Wykstra, Stephen J. (1984). “The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of ‘Appearance’,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion , 16: 73–93.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Essays, and Reviews of Books, on the Problem of Evil , selected by Jeffrey Lowder (Past President, Internet Infidels, Inc.).
• “ The Evidential Argument from Evil ”, a paper by Nicholas Tattersall, 1998.
• “ Evil and Omnipotence ”, John L. Mackie, in Mind , n.s. 64 (254) (April 1955): 200–212.
• “ Natural Selection and the Problem of Evil ”, by Paul Draper (Florida International University).
• “ Review of Andrea Weisberger’s Suffering Belief: Evil and the Anglo-American Defence of Theism (1999) ”, by Graham Oppy (Monash University).

[Please contact the author with further suggestions.]

abduction | Bayes’ Theorem | ethics: deontological | God: and other ultimates | Hume, David: on religion | incompatibilism: (nondeterministic) theories of free will | incompatibilism: arguments for | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: on the problem of evil | ontological arguments | probability, interpretations of | providence, divine

Acknowledgments

In revising this piece, I took into account some helpful suggestions and critical comments that I received from other philosophers. I very much appreciate such feedback.

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Home Essay Examples Philosophy Good and Evil

Good Versus Evil In Literature

• Category Philosophy
• Subcategory Philosophical Concept
• Topic Good and Evil

The conflict between good and evil is a common theme explored in literature. Two works of literature that reflect this binary between good and evil are Doctor Faustus, written by Christopher Marlowe, and Macbeth, written by Shakespeare. Every day, a person is faced with the decision to choose between the two, whether or not there seems to be a solution to either decision. These stories represent characters that make the decision to hunch to a lower level in order to suppress their ideas of what they want in relation to religion. In these two works of Doctor Faustus and Macbeth, the characters are faced with what it is like to be entirely consumed by one’s evil and the internal fight to choose between being a good humane individual or one that is abominable and inhumane.

The two literary works of Macbeth and Doctor Faustus were produced in the Elizabethan Era of the Renaissance. In this era, the leading religions were ones consistent with Christianity-based backgrounds (Hunter). These two works of literature incorporate the beliefs of Christianity and the Supernatural in order to support the underlying theme of deception versus reality (Nosworthy). Macbeth and Doctor Faustus both integrate this deception by incorporating the tragedy of one sinning and how it affects whether a person goes to heaven or hell (Nosworthy). In Marlowe’s writing, the main character, Faustus begins to question and deny his beloved religion in exchange to “gain deity” (Marlowe). Whereas in Shakespeare’s writing, the main character Macbeth is presented as a religious man whose religion is seen to play a key role in his destiny (Shakespeare). Though both of these two works of literature have incorporated religion into them, the difference between the character’s religious views are made apparent.

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In Christopher Marlowe’s drama Doctor Faustus, Faustus is presented with two contradicting perceptions of good and evil (Marlowe). These being that God is located in Heaven on the good side and Lucifer in Hell on the other. This internal conflict that Faustus feels between good and evil is stemmed from his divided consciousness (Marlowe). Faustus is visited by good angels along with bad ones to serve him with his conflicting thoughts between his allegiance to familiarity and his craving for dominance. These angels most openly depict the characteristics of good against evil when the angel of goodness reminds Faustus to “think of heaven and heavenly things” whereas the evil angel encourages him to “think of honor and wealth” (Marlowe). These visits from the angels encouraged Faustus to question his whole religious and scientific fate. According to Sullivan’s work, the topic of Faustus’s inner conflict in regards to his religion and how the evil consumes him to sell his soul causes him to be damned to hell (Sullivan). Though Faustus was faced with many opportunities to repent his sins and turn back to his beloved God, Faustus continuously was faced with overbearing temptation to choose evil over good.

In Shakespeare’s drama Macbeth, the main character Macbeth is an ambitious man who lets that ambition get the best of him (Shakespeare). This well-known drama is one that illustrates the evil and corrupt aspects of human nature, yet the drama also compares these evils to the power of good (LaBlanc). The main source of evil throughout this story is the witches along with Macbeth’s wife, Lady Macbeth (Callaghan). The witches and Lady Macbeth use Macbeth’s human weaknesses and religion to play mind games with him and encourage him to do such things against his morals (Shakespeare). Macbeth is a man of religion and believes it is his religious fate to become Thane of Cawdor, but what he does to receive this title is quite the opposite. To achieve his “fate” of being Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth believes he must overthrow King Duncan by murdering him because that is what Lady Macbeth and the witches told him to do (Callaghan). LaBlanc perceives the appeal of Lady Macbeth being able to convince Macbeth to do such ungodly acts to fit in with her “strange amalgam of unrepentant evil, repressed ambition, diabolical sexuality, and maddening guilt” type of personality (LaBlanc). Though the negative influence that the witches and Lady Macbeth have over Macbeth is strong and overpowering, these negativities do have a sense of good in them because they give Macbeth courage and confidence.

These two works of literature, Macbeth and Doctor Faustus, somewhat mimic each other when it comes to the main character being overcome by evil due to the power of persuasion (Nosworthy). The power of one being persuaded to do something unthinkable in order to obtain a lifelong dream is exactly what happens in both of these literary works. Doctor Faustus and Macbeth are blinded by their own ambition, which causes them to become extreme in their thoughts and behaviors (Nosworthy). In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Faustus is easily persuaded into choosing a life of sin by the evil angel, Mesastopholes, in order to acquire fame and dominance (Marlowe). The power of persuasion can be seen in almost the exact manner in Shakespeare’s Macbeth when Macbeth is told everything he has longed to hear for so long from his wife and the witches (Callaghan). These negative energies exhibited in both of the dramas cause for the characters to question their religion and their overall beliefs. In the end of both of these two literary works, the evil that had now consumed the characters leads to their own damnation (Nosworthy).

Though in the end, the characters of both of these works of literature are entirely consumed by evil, do not forget that the characters had the chance to overcome and ignore these devilish tendencies (Nosworthy). The characters could have chosen to remain content with their current lives rather than letting ambition cloud their judgments. In Doctor Faustus, Faustus continuously contemplated turning to his God in a time in need claiming he had been “deprived of those joys” due to turning his back on his religion (Marlowe). With this being said, Faustus really had every opportunity to repent from his mistaken sins until the very end, yet he chose to fall for Mesastopholes claims that heaven is “ not half so fair as thou” (Marlowe). The same issue of evil overcoming one is viewed in Macbeth as well. Macbeth had every opportunity to stop allowing for his ambition to cloud his judgment and end his killing streak, yet he chose to continue until his life was the one being taken (Shakespeare). Each of these characters had a choice to choose between being a person of evil or goodness, yet they let the persuasion of evil cloud the choice of choosing to be good (Nosworthy).

The belief that there is a strong battle between the choice of good and evil within Macbeth and Doctor Faustus is undeniable. Faustus chose to waste his time suffering because he could not resolve the choice of choosing to long for power and the devotion he had for his knowledge (Sullivan). Faustus chose to be selfishly ambitious causing himself to be the reason for his own damnation (Sullivan). Macbeth and his wife fell victims to the consequences of having an evil soul (Callaghan). Macbeth started out with good intentions, but he fell a victim to his wife’s darkness that is associated with her evils (Callaghan). Many people are faced with a choice between good and evil daily. What a person chooses when faced with the choice between good and evil shows their true character. Though everyone can fall into the temptation of evil at times, it is what one does in response to that choice that shows their true colors. In the literary works of Macbeth and Doctor Faustus, the characters encounter what it is like to be truly evil and how ambition clouded their judgment of choosing to be a good human being rather than being abominable and inhumane.

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The Universal Theme of Good Vs. Evil in Literature

This essay about the theme of good versus evil in literature explores its enduring presence from ancient myths to modern novels. It delves into how this motif serves as a moral backdrop and a commentary on the human condition, examining its portrayal in works like “Paradise Lost,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and the “Harry Potter” series. These diverse examples illustrate how literature addresses fundamental questions of morality, justice, and human nature, encouraging readers to reflect on their own ethical choices. The theme’s universal appeal lies in its ability to engage readers with essential ethical inquiries and its portrayal of the human capacity for both darkness and light.

How it works

The theme of good versus evil is one of the most enduring and universal motifs in literature, transcending cultural and temporal boundaries to appear in narratives from ancient myths to modern novels. This theme serves not only as a moral backdrop for narrative conflict but also as a profound commentary on the human condition and the moral dilemmas we face.

In literature, the conflict between good and evil can be portrayed in stark black and white or with complex shades of gray that challenge the reader’s perceptions and beliefs.

This theme’s universality likely stems from its deep roots in human nature and societal norms, reflecting the continual struggle within individuals and societies to define, understand, and act upon their moral convictions.

One classic example of this theme is found in the epic struggle depicted in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Here, the grand battle between Satan and God over the fate of humanity’s souls explores profound questions of obedience, freedom, and the nature of sin. Milton’s Satan is not just a simple embodiment of evil; he is a complex character driven by rebellion and a quest for freedom, challenging the binary definition of good versus evil and introducing a nuanced perspective on rebellion and conformity.

Moving forward in time, the theme is also central in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” where the fight against racial injustice in the American South is depicted through the eyes of Scout, a young girl. In this novel, the battle lines between good and evil are drawn not between mythical forces but within the community, influenced by racism, ignorance, and fear. Atticus Finch, the moral hero of the novel, stands as a beacon of goodness, advocating for justice and integrity in the face of widespread societal evil.

In contemporary literature, J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series showcases the theme of good versus evil through the protagonist’s ongoing battle against the dark wizard Voldemort. This series highlights the importance of choice and intention in defining good and evil. Characters like Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy illustrate that individuals can embody both good and evil aspects, and their ultimate alignment is determined by their choices and actions rather than a predetermined nature.

These literary works, though varied in setting and style, all utilize the good versus evil theme to ask essential questions about morality, justice, and human nature. They explore how individuals and communities define what is “good” and “evil” based on their values and experiences, and how these definitions influence their actions. Moreover, this theme often carries a hopeful message about the human capacity for goodness and the possibility of redemption and change.

Furthermore, the appeal of this theme lies in its ability to engage readers with fundamental ethical questions and encourage them to reflect on their moral choices. Whether through epic battles between cosmic forces, the social injustices of a segregated society, or the internal conflicts of young wizards, the struggle between good and evil remains a powerful lens through which to examine the world.

In conclusion, the universal theme of good versus evil in literature not only provides a framework for narrative conflict but also serves as a mirror reflecting our deepest fears and highest aspirations. It compels us to confront the complexity of our nature and the moral choices we face, making it one of the most potent and enduring themes in literature.

Remember, this essay is a starting point for inspiration and further research. For more personalized assistance and to ensure your essay meets all academic standards, consider reaching out to professionals at [EduBirdie](https://edubirdie.com/?utm_source=chatgpt&utm_medium=answer&utm_campaign=essayhelper).

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What determines an action as good or bad/evil?

Mahnoor Imran

That is one of the questions I have found myself wondering at times when not much in life made sense. What is good or bad? Why do such divisions tend to exist? And most importantly, who the hell gets to decide? After taking into consideration, the answers from not only the people around me, but also those halfway across the world, I find myself a few steps closer to the truth.

The philosophy of good and bad is an antagonistic duality that we can see through more clearly by realizing that emptiness, in the sense of identifying good and bad as two conflicting principles but not a reality, and draining the opposition between them, is part of the process of accomplishing oneness between the two.

The dictionary definition of good varies from “to be desired or approved of” to “that which is morally right; righteousness” or “benefit or advantage to someone or something.” At the end, it comes down to one thing. Good, in this context, is anything that is morally admirable and thus the opposite, which is evil, would be morally condemnatory.

Determining if something is good or bad is a decision, a verdict. And these decisions help us not only in decision-making, but they also shape us into the type of humans we grow up as.

It’s undeniable that there are standards for “good” and “bad” both, however these standards are not fixed. There is no such determinant which makes figuring this out easier. These standards vary in dissimilar circumstances for different people from diverse backgrounds. If my teacher was to tell me I scored well this time in my math exam, she might just be comparing it to my last score, however a more stable benchmark would be the notions she has of my potential. Looking at this, we can say that part of deciding whether something is good or bad is comparison.

However, it is important for us to consider another aspect. Social construction. Aren’t good and evil just human ideas? And morality is simply a way to encourage some actions and discourage others. What we consider moral or immoral is socially determined based on our societal values, with reference to others and perhaps what they have said/done.

Though these explanations are logical and make a lot of sense, it is necessary we look into those situations where these moral laws don’t abide. For instance, we all know killing is bad. But what if it is killing one to save another. How do you choose? And this might be a very far-fetched example, but equally tough decisions do play a role in our lives. Decisions like these make it hard for us to live a life where we only do good. We cannot avoid the wicked, for the universe was to lose its balance if we could prevent ourselves from turning to the bad.

Being someone who has always been interested in psychology brings us to my most paradoxical concept of them all. Attribution, ever heard of it? The dictionary defines it by saying “the action of regarding something as being caused by a person or thing.”

Referring to the actor-observer difference, we over emphasize personal factors. Which means that when we evaluate an action as virtuous or corrupt, we do judge others more for being a bad person when they do a terrible thing however, are we the same when it comes to ourselves? No. it is not possible as it is our human nature to sustain our “personal goodness” by blaming either the situation, or others when we do something wrong. But the better part of me wants to believe that it is only so because we know ourselves better than we know others, thus we understand why our behavior differs.

Ultimately, there is no good or evil. There are actions, their consequences, and the society’s perception. If our actions are for the benefit of others, then they are good. However, if they are harmful to any, they’re bad.

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Good Vs Evil Essay: What Do You Choose?

You even cannot imagine how important role in our life plays exactly the understanding of such meanings like good and evil. Our parents teach us from the childhood how to make the difference between these meanings and show us, that some our actions are good and other our actions are bad and we need to avoid making such mistakes in the future.

Good and evil in our life

All people want to know what is good and what is bad in our life, but very often we do not have a lot of knowledge or opportunities to find out the truth in some situations. Because of it, sometimes we have a lot of problems, because we cannot accept the reality in the correct way.

The people have the basic number of needed instincts and these instincts help us to understand what exactly we wish. Also, they help us to understand what is good and what is bad for us. If you follow your instincts, you will have less psychological problems and your life will be happy. If you wish to order the good versus evil essay, you can do it on our site and you will get your paper in the shortest time.

Do not hear other people

There are a lot of people in our world and they are different. Some people can find the life difficult, because they have a lot of problems. The reason of this problem is exactly the fact, that they just copy other people and they do not have their own understanding what is good and what is evil. If someone shows them the right way, they will understand, that they followed the wrong ideals and made a lot of mistakes. It is needed to think a lot and to have the priorities in this life, because it is very difficult to live if you do now know what exactly you wish to reach in this life.

For example, some people have a lot of quarrels in their family, but the woman is afraid of divorce, because she thinks, that it is very bad. But is it better if her children have a lot of stress because of these quarrels and she does not love her husband? It will be the best choice to solve this problem, but she is afraid of doing this step, because she is sure, that her family will discuss her. Because of it, this situation will be forever and the consequences can be very sad. Yes, there is no need to divorce if it is your first quarrel, but if it is the constant issue, there is the need to think about the situation a lot.

Ask experienced people

Sometimes, people can understand the situation in the different way. For example, if some people are sure, that something is very bad, other people can say about it, that it is good. If you have some difficult situations and you are confused and do not know what is good and what is bad and what decision you need to make, ask any experienced people about the help . There is no matter if it is your family, friends or relatives. They will support you and will help in different situations, because the possible solutions of the problem can be before you, but if you so concentrated on the problem, you can even do not see it.

How to make the difference?

If you wish to make the difference between good and evil, you just need to analyze all your actions and words. But first of all you need to start with your thoughts. Exactly the thoughts, because in the future they will become the words and the words will become the actions. You should also think about the consequences of your actions on your life and on the life of other people. But also, there is no need to help people or do something good for them if you were not asked about it, because something, that is good for you can be not very good for other person. If you think about it, you will avoid a lot of problems in the future.

Do not listen to all people

It is needed to ask about advices if you cannot make the difference between good and evil, but you should not ask any person about it. You can ask your relatives or your friends, but you should be sure, that they will give you the correct response, because you will have a lot of problems if you make the mistake. You should not listen to people, which have a lot of problems and did not reach anything, but they would like to teach you how it is needed to live. Such people will not help you, they can even create the situation when you will have a lot of difficulties and problems.

Can you remember, how many times you did something, that you thought was very good, but you were not satisfied with the results? But why were you so confident to think, that you know what is good and what is bad in this situation?

Do not make any change

Sometimes, there are the situations, where the meanings of the good and the evil are too close. The best choice is not to do any actions and the problem will be self-resolved. You just need to wait some time and everything will be ok. Yes, sure, you can say that you need to do something, but the best advice is to think a lot, before doing some actions, because it is possible to create a lot of new problems for yourself, which you will not be able to solve.

You will have less problems and your life will become better if you just understand what exactly is the good and the evil for you. If you know that these actions are good and those actions are bad, then you will be able to make the right choice. The detailed information about how to make the right choice between good and evil can be ordered here and you will get a lot of advices which will help you to change your life.

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USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 1 of 70 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT TIKTOK INC., and BYTEDANCE LTD., V. ) Petitioners, No. 24-1113 MERRICK B. GARLAND, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States, (Page 1 of Total) Respondent. PETITION FOR REVIEW OF CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS ACT

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 2 of 70 2. That law 1. Congress has taken the unprecedented step of expressly singling out and banning TikTok: a vibrant online forum for protected speech and expression used by 170 million Americans to create, share, and view videos over the Internet. For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide. the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (the "Act") is unconstitutional. Banning Tik Tok is so obviously unconstitutional, in fact, that even the Act's sponsors recognized that reality, and therefore have tried mightily to depict the law not as a ban at all, but merely a regulation of TikTok's ownership. According to its sponsors, the Act responds to TikTok's ultimate ownership by ByteDance Ltd., a company with Chinese subsidiaries whose employees support various Byte Dance businesses, including TikTok. They claim that the Act is not a ban because it offers Byte Dance a choice: divest TikTok's U.S. business or be shut down.1 ― - 1 References to "TikTok Inc." are to the specific U.S. corporate entity that is a Petitioner in this lawsuit and publishes the TikTok platform in the 1 (Page 2 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 3 of 70 3. But in reality, there is no choice. The "qualified divestiture" demanded by the Act to allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally. And certainly not on the 270-day timeline required by the Act. Petitioners have repeatedly explained this to the U.S. government, and sponsors of the Act were aware that divestment is not possible. There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere. 4. Of course, even if a "qualified divestiture" were feasible, the Act would still be an extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of power. If upheld, it would allow the government to decide that a company may no longer own and publish the innovative and unique speech United States. References to "TikTok" are to the online platform, which includes both the Tik Tok mobile application and web browser experience. References to “ByteDance Ltd." are to the specific Cayman Islands- incorporated holding company that is identified in the Act and is a Petitioner in this lawsuit. References to "ByteDance" are to the ByteDance group, inclusive of ByteDance Ltd. and relevant operating subsidiaries. TikTok Inc. and ByteDance. Ltd. are together referred to as "Petitioners." (Page 3 of Total) 21

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 4 of 70 platform it created. If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First. Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down. And for Tik Tok, any such divestiture would disconnect Americans from the rest of the global community on a platform devoted to shared content an outcome fundamentally at odds with the Constitution's commitment to both free speech and individual liberty. 5. There are good reasons why Congress has never before enacted a law like this. Consistent with the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression, the United States has long championed a free and open Internet - and the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that speech "conveyed over the Internet” fully qualifies for “the First Amendment's protections." 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570, 587 (2023). And consistent with the fundamental principles of fairness and equal treatment rooted in the Bill of Attainder Clause and the Fifth Amendment, Congress has never before crafted a two-tiered speech regime with one set of rules for one named platform, and another set of rules for everyone else. (Page 4 of Total) 3

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 5 of 70 6. In dramatic contrast with past enactments that sought to regulate constitutionally protected activity, Congress enacted these extreme measures without a single legislative finding. The Act does not articulate any threat posed by Tik Tok nor explain why TikTok should be excluded from evaluation under the standards Congress concurrently imposed on every other platform. Even the statements by individual Members of Congress and a congressional committee report merely indicate concern about the hypothetical possibility that TikTok could be misused in the future, without citing specific evidence - even though the platform has operated prominently in the United States since it was first launched in 2017. Those speculative concerns fall far short of what is required when First Amendment rights are at stake. 7. Nor is there any indication that Congress considered any number of less restrictive alternatives, such as those that Petitioners developed with the Executive Branch after government agencies began evaluating the security of U.S. user data and the risk of foreign government influence over the platform's content as far back as 2019. While such concerns were never substantiated, Petitioners nevertheless (Page 5 of Total) 4

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 6 of 70 worked with the government for four years on a voluntary basis to develop a framework to address the government's concerns. 8. As part of this engagement, Petitioners have voluntarily invested more than $2 billion to build a system of technological and governance protections sometimes referred to as "Project Texas" - to help safeguard U.S. user data and the integrity of the U.S. TikTok platform against foreign government influence. Petitioners have also made extraordinary, additional commitments in a 90-page draft National Security Agreement developed through negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States ("CFIUS”), including agreeing to a “shut-down option” that would give the government the authority to suspend TikTok in the United States if Petitioners violate certain obligations under the agreement. 9. Congress tossed this tailored agreement aside, in favor of the politically expedient and punitive approach of targeting for disfavor one publisher and speaker (TikTok Inc.), one speech forum (TikTok), and that forum's ultimate owner (ByteDance Ltd.). Through the Act's two-tiered. structure, Congress consciously eschewed responsible industry-wide. regulation and betrayed its punitive and discriminatory purpose. 5 (Page 6 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 7 of 70 Congress provided every other company however serious a threat to - national security it might pose - paths to avoiding a ban, excluding only Tik Tok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd. Indeed, for any other company's application to be banned, Congress mandated notice and a "public report" describing "the specific national security" concern, accompanied by supporting classified evidence. For Petitioners only, however, there is no statement of reasons and no supporting evidence, with any discussion of the justifications for a ban occurring only behind closed doors. 10. Congress must abide by the dictates of the Constitution even when it claims to be protecting against national security risks: “against [those] dangers ... as against others, the principle of the right to free speech is always the same." Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 628 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting). Congress failed to do so here, and the Act should be enjoined. 11. Jurisdictional Statement Pursuant to Sections 3(a) and 3(b) of the Act, H.R. 815, div. H, 118th Cong., Pub. L. No. 118-50 (April 24, 2024), this Court has original (Page 7 of Total) 6

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 8 of 70 and exclusive jurisdiction over this challenge to the constitutionality of the Act. 2 A. 12. Background and Nature of Proceedings TikTok Is a Speech Platform Used by 170 Million Americans. Tik Tok is an online video entertainment platform designed to provide a creative and entertaining forum for users to express themselves and make connections with others over the Internet. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok every month, to learn about and share information on a range of topics from entertainment, to religion, to - politics. Content creators use the TikTok platform to express their opinions, discuss their political views, support their preferred political candidates, and speak out on today's many pressing issues, all to a global audience of more than 1 billion users. Many creators also use the 2 A copy of the Act is attached to this Petition as Exhibit A. Because this Petition does not involve a challenge to any agency action, it is not governed by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15(a). Petitioners intend to file a separate motion regarding the procedures governing this original proceeding. Petitioners summarize the pertinent facts and claims below to facilitate this Court's review consistent with the practice of a case-initiating pleading in a court of original jurisdiction, but reserve their rights to present additional facts and arguments in due course. 7 (Page 8 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 9 of 70 platform to post product reviews, business reviews, and travel information and reviews. 13. In the United States, the TikTok platform is provided by Tik Tok Inc., a California-incorporated company that has its principal place of business in Culver City, California and offices in New York, San Jose, Chicago, and Miami, among other locations. TikTok Inc. has thousands of employees in the United States. Like many platforms owned by companies that operate globally, the global TikTok platform is supported not only by those employees, but also by employees of other ByteDance subsidiaries around the globe, including in Singapore, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, Australia, and China. Many of the global TikTok platform's functions are spread across different corporate entities and countries, and the global TikTok business is led by a leadership team based in Singapore and the United States. Like other U.S. companies, TikTok Inc. is governed by U.S. law. 14. Tik Tok Inc.'s ultimate parent company is ByteDance Ltd., a Cayman Islands-incorporated equity holding company. Byte Dance was founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneurs. Over time, the company sought funding to fuel growth, as is common in the technology sector, 8 (Page 9 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 10 of 70 which resulted in the issuance of additional equity and the dilution of existing shares. Today, approximately 58 percent of ByteDance Ltd. is owned by global institutional investors (such as BlackRock, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group), 21 percent is owned by the company's founder (a Chinese national who lives in Singapore), and 21 percent is owned by employees including approximately 7,000 Americans. 15. ByteDance launched TikTok in May 2017 in over 150 countries, including the United States.³ Since its launch, TikTok has become one of the world's most popular applications, with over 1 billion users worldwide. As of January 2024, more than 170 million Americans use TikTok on a monthly basis. 16. Users primarily view content on TikTok through its "For You" page, which presents a collection of videos curated by TikTok's proprietary recommendation engine. The recommendation engine customizes each user's content feed based on how the user interacts with 3 Tik Tok was later relaunched in August 2018 following a transaction involving the company Musical.ly. See generally Petition for Review, Tik Tok Inc. v. CFIUS, No. 20-1444 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 10, 2020). 9 (Page 10 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 11 of 70 the content that the user watches. TikTok's popularity is based in large part on the effectiveness of the recommendation engine. The source code for TikTok's recommendation engine was originally developed by ByteDance engineers based in China, and the engine is customized for operations in TikTok's various global markets, including in the United States. TikTok is not offered in mainland China. 17. Aside from TikTok, ByteDance has developed and operates more than a dozen other online platforms and software applications for use in U.S. and international markets, including for content-sharing, video and music editing, e-commerce, gaming, and enterprise productivity. B. 18. The Government Previously Made Unlawful Attempts to Ban TikTok. Petitioners' efforts to address the U.S. government's asserted concerns regarding the TikTok platform date back to 2019. At that time, Petitioners began engaging with CFIUS, which had initiated a review of ByteDance Ltd.'s 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly, another Internet-based video-sharing platform. (Page 11 of Total) 10

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 12 of 70 19. Petitioners were in the early stages of engaging with CFIUS on a voluntary basis to address the government's concerns, when on August 6, 2020, President Trump abruptly issued an executive order purporting to ban TikTok under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act ("IEEPA”), 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701-08. See 85 Fed. Reg. 48,637 (the "Ban Order"). Two separate district courts preliminarily enjoined the Ban Order, concluding (among other things) that it exceeded the President's IEEPA authority. TikTok Inc. v. Trump, 490 F. Supp. 3d 73, 83 (D.D.C. 2020); TikTok Inc. v. Trump, 507 F. Supp. 3d 92, 112 (D.D.C. 2020); Marland v. Trump, 498 F. Supp. 3d 624, 641 (E.D. Pa. 2020). 20. Specifically, as these courts correctly recognized, the President's IEEPA authority "to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat" to the nation “does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly ... [any] personal communication” or the importation or exportation “of any information or informational materials.” 50 U.S.C. § 1702(b)(1), (3). These restrictions on the President's IEEPA authority-which Congress expanded through multiple amendments to the statute were designed “to prevent the statute from running afoul of the First Amendment.” United States v. 11 (Page 12 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 13 of 70 Amirnazmi, 645 F.3d 564, 585 (3d Cir. 2011) (quotation marks omitted); see also Kalantari v. NITV, Inc., 352 F.3d 1202, 1205 (9th Cir. 2003) (IEEPA's limitations necessary “to prevent the executive branch from restricting the international flow of materials protected by the First. Amendment"); Marland, 498 F. Supp. 3d at 629 (same). 21. Looking to the foundational First Amendment principles codified in IEEPA's text and legislative history, these courts concluded that President Trump's efforts to ban TikTok violated the statute and raised "serious" constitutional questions (which were unnecessary to decide under the doctrine of constitutional avoidance). Tik Tok Inc., 507 F. Supp. 3d at 112 n.6; TikTok Inc., 490 F. Supp. 3d at 83 n.3. The courts granted the government's motions to voluntarily dismiss its appeals after President Biden withdrew the Ban Order. See Tik Tok Inc. v. Biden, No. 20-5302, 2021 WL 3713550 (D.C. Cir. July 20, 2021); Tik Tok Inc. v. Biden, No. 20-5381, 2021 WL 3082803 (D.C. Cir. July 14, 2021); Marland v. Trump, No. 20-3322, 2021 WL 5346749 (3d Cir. July 14, 2021). 22. Separately, acting on a CFIUS referral, President Trump on August 14, 2020 issued an order under Section 721 of the Defense Production Act, 50 U.S.C. § 4565, purporting to direct ByteDance to 12 (Page 13 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 14 of 70 divest from TikTok's U.S. business and U.S. user data. 85 Fed. Reg. 51,297 (the "Divestment Order"). On November 10, 2020, Petitioners petitioned this Court for review of the Divestment Order and underlying CFIUS actions, arguing, among other things, that the government lacked jurisdiction under the statute. See Petition for Review, TikTok Inc. v. CFIUS, No. 20-1444 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 10, 2020). That petition was held in abeyance in February 2021 on the parties' joint motion to allow the parties to negotiate a resolution. The government has filed status reports every 60 days since then, most recently on April 22, 2024. Those status reports have consistently reported that “[t]he parties continue to be involved in ongoing negotiations” and “[a] beyance continues to be appropriate.” See, e.g., Status Report, Tik Tok Inc. v. CFIUS, No. 20-1444 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 22, 2024). 23. Between January 2021 and August 2022, Petitioners and CFIUS engaged in an intensive, fact-based process to develop a National Security Agreement that would resolve the U.S. government's concerns about whether Chinese authorities might be able to access U.S. user data or manipulate content on TikTok, as well as resolve the pending CFIUS During that time, Petitioners and government officials dispute. 13 (Page 14 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 15 of 70 communicated regularly, often several times a week - including several - in-person meetings about the government's concerns and potential solutions. The result was an approximately 90-page draft National Security Agreement with detailed annexes embodying a comprehensive solution addressing the government's national security concerns. Notably, the draft National Security Agreement provided that all protected U.S. user data (as defined in the agreement) would be stored in the cloud environment of a U.S.-government-approved partner, Oracle Corporation, which would also review and vet the TikTok source code. 24. From Petitioners' perspective, all indications were that they were nearing a final agreement. After August 2022, however, CFIUS without explanation stopped engaging with Petitioners in meaningful discussions about the National Security Agreement. Petitioners repeatedly asked why discussions had ended and how they might be restarted, but they did not receive a substantive response. In March 2023, without providing any justification for why the draft National Security Agreement was inadequate, CFIUS insisted that Byte Dance would be required to divest the U.S. TikTok business. (Page 15 of Total) 14

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 16 of 70 25. Since March 2023, Petitioners have explained to CFIUS, in multiple written communications and in-person meetings, that a divestiture of the U.S. TikTok business from the rest of the integrated global Tik Tok platform and business of the sort now required by the Act is not feasible. CFIUS has never articulated any basis for disagreeing with that assessment, offering instead only a conclusory assertion that the reason ByteDance was not divesting was because it was simply unwilling to do so. The Act nonetheless incorporates precisely such an infeasible divestiture standard. C. 26. A Divestiture that Severs TikTok's U.S. Operations From the Rest of the Globally Integrated TikTok Business Is Not Commercially, Technologically, or Legally Feasible. The Act purports to allow Petitioners to avoid a ban by executing a "qualified divestiture." Sec. 2(c). But that alternative is illusory because, as Petitioners have repeatedly explained to CFIUS, the divestiture of the TikTok U.S. business and its severance from the globally integrated platform of which it is an integral part is not commercially, technologically, or legally feasible. (Page 16 of Total) 15

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 17 of 70 - 27. First, a standalone U.S. TikTok platform would not be commercially viable. TikTok and its competitors are globally integrated platforms where content created in one country is available to users in other countries. Indeed, a substantial part of TikTok's appeal is the richness of the international content available on the platform from global sporting events like the Olympics to international K-pop stars from South Korea, as well as videos created by U.S. creators and enjoyed by audiences worldwide. A divestment of the U.S. TikTok platform, without any operational relationship with the remainder of the global platform, would preclude the interoperability necessary to make international content seamlessly available in the U.S. market and vice versa. As a result, the U.S. TikTok platform would become an “island” where Americans would have an experience detached from the rest of the global platform and its over 1 billion users. Such a limited pool of content, in turn, would dramatically undermine the value and viability of the U.S. TikTok business.4 4 The contemplated qualified divestiture would also undercut the important role currently played by American voices in the global conversation ongoing on TikTok. 16 (Page 17 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 18 of 70 28. Second, precipitously moving all TikTok source code development from ByteDance to a new Tik Tok owner would be impossible as a technological matter. The platform consists of millions of lines of software code that have been painstakingly developed by thousands of engineers over multiple years. Although much of this code is basic infrastructure for running the global TikTok platform and has nothing at all to do with TikTok's recommendation algorithm, the statute requires that all of this code be wrested from Petitioners, so that there is no “operational relationship" between ByteDance and the new U.S. platform. Specifically, to comply with the law's divestiture requirement, that code base would have to be moved to a large, alternative team of engineers a team that does not exist and would have no understanding of the complex code necessary to run the platform. It would take years for an entirely new set of engineers to gain sufficient familiarity with the source code to perform the ongoing, necessary maintenance and development activities for the platform. Moreover, to keep the platform functioning, these engineers would need access to ByteDance software tools, which the Act prohibits. Such a fundamental rearchitecting is not - (Page 18 of Total) 17

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 19 of 70 remotely feasible on anything approaching the 270-day timeframe contemplated by the Act. 29. Third, the Chinese government has made clear that it would not permit a divestment of the recommendation engine that is a key to the success of TikTok in the United States. Like the United States,5 China regulates the export of certain technologies originating there. China's export control rules cover “information processing technologies” such as "personal interactive data algorithms.”6 China's official news agency has reported that under these rules, any sale of recommendation algorithms developed by engineers employed by ByteDance subsidiaries in China, including for TikTok, would require a government license. 5 For example, the U.S. Department of Commerce has issued restrictions on the export to China of advanced chips that can be used to train artificial intelligence models. E.g., Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing Items; Supercomputer and Semiconductor End Use; Updates and Corrections, 88 Fed. Reg. 73458 (Oct. 25, 2023) (to be codified at 15 C.F.R. § 732.2 et seq.). 6 See Karen M. Sutter, Cong. Rsch. Serv., IN11524, China Issues New Export Control Law and Related Policies 2 (2020). 7 Paul Mozur, Raymond Zhong & David McCabe, Tik Tok Deal Is Complicated by New Rules From China Over Tech Exports, N.Y. Times (Aug. 29, 2020), https://perma.cc/L6RB-CTT9. 18 (Page 19 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 20 of 70 China also enacted an additional export control law that "gives the Chinese government new policy tools and justifications to deny and impose terms on foreign commercial transactions."8 China adopted these enhanced export control restrictions between August and October 2020, shortly after President Trump's August 6, 2020 and August 14, 2020 executive orders targeting TikTok. By doing so, the Chinese government clearly signaled that it would assert its export control powers with respect to any attempt to sever TikTok's operations from ByteDance, and that any severance would leave TikTok without access to the recommendation engine that has created a unique style and community that cannot be replicated on any other platform today. D. 30. The Act Bans TikTok and Other Byte Dance Applications. On April 24, 2024, the President signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. 31. The Act prohibits, on pain of draconian penalties, “online mobile application store[s]" and "internet hosting services" from servicing "foreign adversary controlled application[s]" within the United States. 8 Sutter, supra n.6. 19 (Page 20 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 21 of 70 See Sec. 2(a), 2(d)(1)(A). This includes the "distribution, maintenance, or updating" of a covered application through an online marketplace. Sec. 2(a)(1). 32. Section 2(g) (3) creates two classes of "foreign adversary controlled applications" covered by the Act. 33. The first class singles out only one corporate group: "Byte Dance[] Ltd.,” “TikTok,” their “subsidiar[ies] or successor[s]" that are "controlled by a foreign adversary," or any entity "owned or controlled" by the aforementioned.9 The Act deems any application. operated by these entities a “foreign adversary controlled application," without any finding about why any particular application much less - - every application operated by these entities should be so designated. See Sec. 2(g)(3)(A). 9 “TikTok” is a platform, not a legal entity. Petitioners assume that Congress intended this provision to be a reference to TikTok Inc., and further reserve their rights to amend this Petition to include additional Tik Tok entities to the extent the government takes the position that other entities are covered by this reference. In any event, TikTok Inc. is covered as an entity “owned or controlled" by ByteDance Ltd. 20 (Page 21 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 22 of 70 34. The second class creates a discretionary process by which the President can designate other companies whose applications will also effectively be banned. Under these provisions, the President may designate an application as a "foreign adversary controlled application" if several qualifications are met: a. Covered Company. The website or application is operated directly or indirectly by a "covered company" - i.e., a company that operates a website or application that permits users to share content and has at least 1 million monthly active users. See Sec. 2(g)(2)(A). b. Controlled by a Foreign Adversary. The "covered company" operating the website or application must also be "controlled by a foreign adversary," meaning it is "headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws" of a "foreign adversary country," which currently includes China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran. Sec. 2(g)(1)(A), (g)(4); see also 10 U.S.C. § 4872(d)(2). A company may also be "controlled by a foreign adversary" if persons domiciled in any of the 21 (Page 22 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 23 of 70 (Page 23 of Total) specified countries (i.e., China, Iran, Russia, or North Korea) directly or indirectly own at least 20 percent of the company. Sec. 2(g)(1)(B). c. Not Exempt under Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). But Congress specifically exempted from the term “covered company" any "entity that operates" a website or application "whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." An entity that operates a single website or application of this nature thus cannot be a “covered company,” even if it is "controlled by a foreign adversary," poses a significant national security risk, and separately operates an application whose primary purpose is anything other than allowing users to post reviews. Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). d. Presidential Determination, Notice and Report, and Judicial Review. Finally, the President must determine that such a company presents “a significant threat to the national security of the United States." Sec. 2(g)(3)(B)(ii). Before making such a determination, the President must 22

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 24 of 70 issue public notice proposing the determination and then provide a public report to Congress describing "the specific national security concern involved," supplemented by a classified annex, and also explain "what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture." Id. These presidential determinations are then subject to judicial review. Sec. 3(a). 35. Section 2(c) exempts a "foreign adversary controlled application[]" from the Act's prohibitions if the company that operates the application executes a “qualified divestiture." Sec. 2(c). The President must determine that such divestiture would (1) "result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary," and (2) “preclude[] the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship" between the application's U.S. operations and any formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary, including "any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content. recommendation algorithm." Sec. 2(c), (g) (6). As noted above, the Act's broad definition of "controlled by a foreign adversary" includes, among other things, any entity organized under the laws of a "foreign adversary 23 (Page 24 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 25 of 70 country," or any entity in which a foreign person domiciled in a foreign adversary country holds at least a 20 percent ownership stake. Sec. 2(g)(1), (3)(B)(i), (4). 36. The prohibition on providing Internet hosting and mobile application store services to TikTok and other ByteDance applications. takes effect 270 days after enactment. Sec. 2(a)(2)(A). The President may extend this deadline, but only for 90 days maximum, and only if the President certifies to Congress that a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified, evidence of significant progress toward executing that qualified divestiture has been produced, and the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of the qualified divestiture are in place. 37. "Before the date on which [this] prohibition" takes effect, Petitioners are required to provide, upon request by any U.S. user of any of their applications, “all the available data related to the account of such user with respect to such application." Sec. 2(b).10 10 Because Section 2(b)'s data portability requirement applies "[b]efore" the prohibition under Section 2(a) takes effect, it cannot be "given effect" without Section 2(a) for purposes of Section 2(e)(1) of the Act, which provides that "[i]f any provision of this section or the application of this 24 (Page 25 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 26 of 70 38. Because the Act lacks any legislative findings or a statement of purpose, Petitioners and the more than 170 million American monthly users of TikTok are left to scrutinize statements from individual Members of Congress and other sources to try to discern any purported justification for this extraordinary intrusion on free speech rights. Based on these sources, it appears at least some Members of Congress sought to address "two threats" that could emerge from foreign ownership of communications platforms. 11 39. First, they may have sought to protect U.S. users' “data security."12 According to the House Committee Report for an earlier version of the Act, mobile applications, including those that are not section to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect the other provisions or applications of this section that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application." Because Section 2(a) violates the Constitution for the reasons set forth herein, Section 2(b) is accordingly "not operative in the absence of the unconstitutional provision.” Barr v. Am. Ass'n of Pol. Consultants, Inc., 140 S. Ct. 2335, 2352 n.9 (2020). 11 Jane Coaston, What the Tik Tok Bill Is Really About, According to a Leading Republican, N.Y. Times (Apr. 1, 2024), https://perma.cc/BL32- 786X (quoting the Act's original sponsor, Rep. Mike Gallagher). 12 Id. (Page 26 of Total) 25

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 27 of 70 controlled by foreign adversaries, can “collect vast amounts of data on Americans."13 The House Committee Report expressed a concern that such data could be used by a foreign adversary to "conduct espionage campaigns," such as by tracking specific individuals. 14 40. Second, others in Congress appear to have been motivated by a "greater concern": an alleged "propaganda threat." 15 One proponent of the Act stated that communications applications could be used to "push misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda on the American public."16 Another supporter claimed in the House Select Committee press release accompanying the bill's introduction that “[TikTok] is ... poisoning the minds of our youth every day on a massive scale."17 13 H.R. Comm. on Energy & Com., Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, H.R. Rep. No. 118-417 at 2 (2024) (hereinafter the "House Committee Report"). 14 Id. 15 Coaston, supra n.11 (quoting Rep. Gallagher). 16 House Committee Report at 2. 17 Press Release, U.S. House Select Comm. on Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party, Gallagher, Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Legislation to Protect Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications, Including TikTok (Mar. 5, 2024), https://perma.cc/KC5T-6AX3. (Page 27 of Total) 26

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 28 of 70 E. Congress Disregarded Alternatives to Banning TikTok, Such as the National Security Measures Petitioners Negotiated with the Executive Branch. 41. Petitioners have demonstrated a commitment to addressing both of those concerns without the need to resort to the drastic, unconstitutional step of shuttering one of the most widely used forums for speech in the United States. The 90-page draft National Security Agreement that Petitioners developed with Petitioners developed with CFIUS would, if implemented, provide U.S. TikTok users with protections more robust than those employed by any other widely used online platform in the industry. 42. The draft National Security Agreement contains several means of ensuring data security without banning TikTok. All protected U.S. user data (as defined in the National Security Agreement) would be safeguarded in the United States under a special corporate structure: TikTok U.S. Data Security (a new subsidiary of Tik Tok Inc.). A special board, with Security Directors whose appointment would be subject to the U.S. government's approval, would oversee TikTok U.S. Data Security, and in turn exclude ByteDance and all of its other subsidiaries and affiliates from such responsibilities. Further separation between the 27 (Page 28 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 29 of 70 U.S. TikTok business and Byte Dance subsidiaries and affiliates, including TikTok in the rest of the world, would be achieved by appointing a U.S.-government-approved Security Director to the board of Tik Tok Inc. Protected U.S. user data would be stored in the cloud environment of a U.S.-government-approved partner, Oracle Corporation, with access to such data managed by TikTok U.S. Data Security. 43. The draft Agreement would also protect against the concern about content manipulation and propaganda. Multiple layers of protection address concerns related to content available on the TikTok platform, including ensuring that all content moderation - both human and algorithmic ➖ would be subject to third-party verification and monitoring. The concern about content manipulation would also be addressed by securing all software code through Oracle Corporation, a U.S. trusted technology provider. The Tik Tok U.S. platform and application would be deployed through the Oracle cloud infrastructure and subject to source code review and vetting by Oracle with another U.S.-government-approved third party responsible for conducting security inspections. As part of this process, Oracle and third parties 28 (Page 29 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 30 of 70 approved by CFIUS would conduct independent inspections of the Tik Tok recommendation engine. 44. The draft Agreement also includes strict penalties for noncompliance, including a "shut-down option," giving the government the authority to suspend TikTok in the United States in response to specified acts of noncompliance. The Agreement also provides significant monetary penalties and other remedies for noncompliance. 45. Although the government has apparently abandoned the draft National Security Agreement, Petitioners have not. TikTok Inc. has begun the process of voluntarily implementing the National Security Agreement's provisions to the extent it can do so without the U.S. government's cooperation, including by incorporating and staffing the TikTok U.S. Data Security entity, and by partnering with Oracle Corporation on the migration of the U.S. platform and protected U.S. user data to Oracle's cloud environment. 46. To date, Petitioners have spent more than $2 billion to implement these measures and resolve the very concerns publicly expressed by congressional supporters of the Act all without the overbroad and unconstitutional method of an outright ban. 29 (Page 30 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 31 of 70 Grounds On Which Relief Is Sought Petitioners seek review of the constitutionality of the Act on grounds that include, without limitation, the following. Ground 1: Violation of the First Amendment 47. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech." U.S. Const., amend. I. 48. By banning all online platforms and software applications offered by "TikTok" and all ByteDance subsidiaries, Congress has made a law curtailing massive amounts of protected speech. Unlike broadcast television and radio stations, which require government licenses to operate because they use the public airwaves, the government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, dictate the ownership of newspapers, websites, online platforms, and other privately created. speech forums. 49. Indeed, in the past, Congress has recognized the importance of protecting First Amendment rights, even when regulating in the interest of national security. For example, Congress repeatedly amended IEEPA which grants the President broad authority to address national 30 (Page 31 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 32 of 70 emergencies that pose "unusual and extraordinary threat[s]" to the country to expand protections for constitutionally protected materials. 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701-02. Accordingly, under IEEPA, the President does not have the authority to even indirectly regulate "personal communication" or the importation or exportation "of any information or informational materials,” id. § 1702(b)(1), (3) limitations that are necessary "to prevent the statute from running afoul of the First Amendment," Amirnazmi, 645 F.3d at 585. Yet Congress has attempted to sidestep these statutory protections aimed at protecting Americans' constitutional rights, preferring instead to simply enact a new statute that tries to avoid the constitutional limitations on the government's existing statutory Those statutory protections were evidently seen as an impediment to Congress's goal of banning TikTok, so the Act dispensed authority. with them. 50. The Act's alternative to a ban a so-called “qualified - - divestiture" is illusory to the point of being no alternative at all. As explained above, divesting TikTok Inc.'s U.S. business and completely severing it from the globally integrated platform of which it is a part is not commercially, technologically, or legally feasible. 31 (Page 32 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 33 of 70 51. The Act will therefore have the effect of shutting down TikTok in the United States, a popular forum for free speech and expression used by over 170 million Americans each month. And the Act will do so based not on any proof of a compelling interest, but on speculative and analytically flawed concerns about data security and content manipulation concerns that, even if grounded in fact, could be - addressed through far less restrictive and more narrowly tailored means. 52. Petitioners' protected speech rights. The Act burdens Tik Tok Inc.'s First Amendment rights in addition to the free speech - rights of millions of people throughout the United States in two ways. - 53. First, Petitioner TikTok Inc. has a First Amendment interest in its editorial and publishing activities on TikTok. See Hurley v. Irish- Am. Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Grp. of Bos., 515 U.S. 557, 570 (1995). TikTok “is more than a passive receptacle or conduit for news, comment, and advertising" of others; TikTok Inc.'s "choice of material" to recommend or forbid “constitute[s] the exercise of editorial control and judgment" that is protected by the First Amendment. Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241, 258 (1974); see also Alario v. Knudsen, (Page 33 of Total) 32

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 34 of 70 - F. Supp. 3d, 2023 WL 8270811, at *6 (D. Mont. Nov. 30, 2023) (recognizing Tik Tok Inc.'s First Amendment editorial rights). 54. As the government itself has acknowledged, “[w]hen [social media] platforms decide which third-party content to present and how to present it, they engage in expressive activity protected by the First Amendment because they are creating expressive compilations of speech." Br. for United States as Amicus Curiae at 12-13, Moody v. NetChoice LLC, No. 22-277 (U.S.), 2023 WL 8600432; see also id. at 18- 19, 25-26. 55. Second, Tik Tok Inc. is among the speakers whose expression the Act prohibits. TikTok Inc. uses the TikTok platform to create and share its own content about issues and current events, including, for example, its support for small businesses, Earth Day, and literacy and education. 18 When TikTok Inc. does so, it is engaging in core speech protected by the First Amendment. See Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 18 Tik Tok (@tiktok), TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTL9QsTYs/ (last visited May 6, 2024); TikTok (@tiktok), TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTL9QbSHv/ (last visited May 6, 2024); TikTok (@tiktok), TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTL9QXE7R/ (last visited May 6, 2024). (Page 34 of Total) 33

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 35 of 70 U.S. 552, 570 (2011); NetChoice, LLC v. Att'y Gen., Fla., 34 F.4th 1196, 1210 (11th Cir. 2022), cert. granted, 144 S. Ct. 478 (2023). The Act precludes TikTok Inc. from expressing itself over that platform. 56. Even if the U.S. TikTok platform could be divested, which it cannot for the reasons explained above, TikTok Inc.'s protected speech rights would still be burdened. Because the Act appears to conclusively determine that any application operated by "TikTok" - a term that — Congress presumably meant to include Tik Tok Inc. is a foreign adversary controlled application, Sec. 2(g)(3)(A), the President appears to lack the power to determine that a TikTok Inc.-owned application is "no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary" and has no “operational relationship" with “formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary," Sec. 2(g)(6)(A) & (B). The Act therefore appears to conclusively eliminate TikTok Inc.'s ability to speak through its editorial and publishing activities and through its own. account on the TikTok platform. 57. For similar reasons, the Act burdens the First Amendment rights of other ByteDance subsidiaries to reach their U.S. user audiences, (Page 35 of Total) 34

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 36 of 70 since those companies are likewise prohibited from speaking and engaging in editorial activities on other ByteDance applications. 58. The Act is subject to strict scrutiny. The Act's restrictions on Petitioners' First Amendment rights are subject to strict scrutiny for three independent reasons. 59. First, the Act represents a content- and viewpoint-based restriction on protected speech. The Act discriminates on a content basis because it exempts platforms "whose primary purpose" is to host specific types of content: "product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.” Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). The Act thus “distinguish[es] favored speech" - i.e., speech concerning travel information and business reviews "from disfavored speech" ―i.e., all other types of - speech, including particularly valuable speech like religious and political content. Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 643 (1994). 60. The Act also discriminates on a viewpoint basis because it appears to have been enacted at least in part because of concerns over the viewpoints expressed in videos posted on TikTok by users of the platform. For example, the House Committee Report asserted, without supporting evidence, that Tik Tok "can be used by [foreign adversaries] to 35 (Page 36 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 37 of 70 push misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda on the American public" 19 a concern that in any event could be raised about any platform for user-generated content. See infra ¶¶82, 87. Similarly, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-sponsored the Act, expressed the unsubstantiated concern that “the platform continued to show dramatic differences in content relative to other social media platforms."20 61. Second, the Act discriminates between types of speakers. As explained above, TikTok Inc. is a protected First Amendment speaker with respect to the TikTok platform. The Act facially discriminates between Tik Tok Inc. and other speakers depending on the "primary purpose” of the platforms they operate. Any application offered by Petitioners is automatically deemed a “foreign adversary controlled application,” without any exclusions or exceptions. Sec. 2(g)(3)(A). By contrast, any other company's application can be deemed a "foreign adversary controlled application” only if the company does not operate a 19 House Committee Report at 2. 20 Sapna Maheshwari, David McCabe & Annie Karni, House Passes Bill to Force Tik Tok Sale From Chinese Owner or Ban the App, N.Y. Times (Mar. 13, 2024), https://perma.cc/Z7UE-WYH6. (Page 37 of Total) 36

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 38 of 70 website or application "whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). The Act thus favors speakers that do offer such websites or applications over speakers that do not. 62. Moreover, the Act singles out TikTok Inc. and other subsidiaries of ByteDance for unique disfavor in other ways. Whereas other companies with ownership in a country deemed a "foreign adversary" become subject to the Act's restrictions only upon a presidential determination that the company poses "a significant threat to the national security of the United States,” Sec. 2(g)(3)(B), ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries are automatically subject to the Act's draconian restrictions by fiat, Sec. 2(g)(3)(A). The standard and process that the Act specifies for every other company likely fall short of what is required. by the First Amendment and other applicable constitutional protections, but TikTok Inc. and ByteDance have been singled out for a dramatically different, even more clearly unconstitutional regime with no public notice, no process for a presidential determination that there is a significant national security threat, no justification of that determination by a public report and submission of classified evidence to Congress, and 37 - (Page 38 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 39 of 70 no judicial review for statutory and constitutional sufficiency based on the reasons set forth in the presidential determination. The Act also draws a speaker-based distinction insofar as it specifically names Byte Dance Ltd. and TikTok, and also exempts applications with fewer than 1 million monthly users (except if those applications are operated by ByteDance Ltd. or TikTok). Sec. 2(g)(2)(A)(ii), (3)(A). 63. A statutory restriction targeting specific classes of speakers is subject to strict scrutiny. See United States v. Playboy Ent. Grp., Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 812 (2000) ("Laws designed or intended to suppress or restrict the expression of certain speakers contradict basic First Amendment principles."). And that is especially true when, as here, the Act singles out Petitioners by name for uniquely disfavored treatment and congressional statements indicate that the Act targets Petitioners in part because of concerns about the content on TikTok. Because the Act "target[s]" both "speakers and their messages for disfavored treatment,” strict scrutiny review is required. Sorrell, 564 U.S. at 565; see also Turner, 512 U.S. at 658-60. 64. Third, the Act is subject to strict scrutiny as an unlawful prior restraint. The Supreme Court has "consistently" recognized in a "long 38 (Page 39 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 40 of 70 line" of cases that government actions that “deny use of a forum in advance of actual expression" or forbid “the use of public places [for plaintiffs] to say what they wanted to say" are prior restraints. Se. Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 552-53 (1975). “[P]rior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least. tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights." Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 559 (1976). The Act suppresses speech in advance of its actual expression by prohibiting all U.S. TikTok users including Petitioner Tik Tok Inc. - from communicating on the platform. See Backpage.com, LLC v. Dart, 807 F.3d 229 (7th Cir. 2015) (defendant's conduct restricting the operator of classified advertising website was a prior restraint); Org. for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415, 418–19 (1971) (ban on distributing leaflets a prior restraint); U.S. WeChat Users All. v. Trump, 488 F. Supp. 3d 912, 926 (N.D. Cal. 2020) (ban on communications application a prior restraint). The same is true of other Byte Dance subsidiaries and their platforms. Such restrictions “bear[] a heavy presumption against [their] constitutional validity." Se. Promotions, 420 U.S. at 558. (Page 40 of Total) 39

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 41 of 70 65. The Act fails strict scrutiny because it does not further a compelling interest. Strict scrutiny “requires the Government to prove that the restriction [1] furthers a compelling interest and [2] is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest." Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 171 (2015) (numerical alterations added). "If a less restrictive alternative would serve the Government's purpose, the legislature must use that alternative." Playboy, 529 U.S. at 813. The Act fails on both counts. 66. The Act does not further a compelling interest. To be sure, national security is a compelling interest, but the government must show that the Act furthers that interest. To do so, the government "must do more than simply posit the existence of the disease sought to be cured." Turner, 512 U.S. at 664 (plurality op.). Rather, it “must demonstrate that the recited harms are real, not merely conjectural, and that the regulation will in fact alleviate these harms in a direct and material way." Id. 67. Congress itself has offered nothing to suggest that the TikTok platform poses the types of risks to data security or the spread of foreign propaganda that could conceivably justify the Act. The Act is devoid of 40 (Page 41 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 42 of 70 any legislative findings, much less a demonstration of specific harms that Tik Tok supposedly poses in either respect, even though the platform was first launched in 2017. 68. The statements of congressional committees and individual Members of Congress during the hasty, closed-door legislative process preceding the Act's enactment confirm that there is at most speculation, not "evidence,” as the First Amendment requires. Instead of setting out evidence that TikTok is actually compromising Americans' data security by sharing it with the Chinese government or spreading pro-China propaganda, the House Committee Report for an earlier version of the Act relies repeatedly on speculation that Tik Tok could do those things. See, e.g., House Committee Report at 6 (TikTok could “potentially [be] allowing the CCP 'to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors") (emphasis added) (quoting Exec. Order 13,942, 85 Fed. Reg. 48637, 48637 (Aug. 6, 2020)); id. at 8 (discussing "the possibility that the [CCP] could use [TikTok] to control data collection on millions of users") (emphasis added); id. ("Tik Tok has sophisticated capabilities that create the risk that [it] can ……. suppre[ss] statements and news that the PRC deems negative") (emphasis added). Speculative risk of harm is simply 41 (Page 42 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 43 of 70 not enough when First Amendment values are at stake. These risks are even more speculative given the other ways that the Chinese government could advance these asserted interests using a variety of intelligence tools and commercial methods. See infra 85–87. 69. The conjectural nature of these concerns are further underscored by President Biden's decision to continue to maintain a Tik Tok account for his presidential campaign even after signing the Act into law. 21 Congressional supporters of the Act have also maintained campaign accounts on TikTok. 22 This continued use of TikTok by President Biden and Members of Congress undermines the claim that the platform poses an actual threat to Americans. 70. Further, even if the government could show that TikTok or another ByteDance-owned application "push[es] misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda on the American public," House 21 Monica Alba, Sahil Kapur & Scott Wong, Biden Campaign Plans to Keep Using Tik Tok Through the Election, NBC News (Apr. 24, 2024), https://perma.cc/QPQ5-RVAD. 22 Tom Norton, These US Lawmakers Voted for Tik Tok Ban But Use It Themselves, Newsweek (Apr. 17, 2024), https://perma.cc/AQ5F-N8XQ. At least one Member created a TikTok account after the Act was enacted. See https://perma.cc/L3GT-7529. (Page 43 of Total) 42

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 44 of 70 Committee Report at 2, the government would still lack a compelling interest in preventing Americans from hearing disfavored speech. generated by TikTok users and shared on the platform just because the government considers it to be foreign "propaganda." See Lamont v. Postmaster Gen. of U.S., 381 U.S. 301, 305 (1965). 71. The Act also offers no support for the idea that other applications operated by subsidiaries of ByteDance Ltd. pose national security risks. Indeed, the legislative record contains no meaningful discussion of any ByteDance-owned application other than TikTok― let alone evidence “proving” that those other applications pose such risks. Reed, 576 U.S. at 171. 72. - The Act also provides neither support nor explanation for subjecting Petitioners to statutory disqualification by legislative fiat while providing every other platform, and users of other platforms, with a process that includes a statutory standard for disqualification, notice, a reasoned decision supported by evidence, and judicial review based on those specified reasons. Only Petitioners are subjected to a regime that has no notice and no reasoned decision supported by evidence - opening the door to, among other things, post-hoc arguments that may not have 43 (Page 44 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 45 of 70 been the basis for the government action. The Supreme Court recently explained that the requirement of a "reasoned explanation" is "meant to ensure that [the government] offer[s] genuine justifications for important decisions, reasons that can be scrutinized by courts and the interested public. Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise." Dep't of Com. v. New York, 139 S. Ct. 2551, 2576 (2019). Depriving Petitioners of those protections imposes a dramatically heavier burden on the free speech rights of Petitioners and TikTok users that is wholly unjustified and certainly not supported by a compelling interest. The Act also fails strict scrutiny because it is not narrowly tailored. "Even where questions of allegedly urgent national security. . . are concerned," the government must show that "the evil that would result from the [restricted speech] is both great and certain and cannot be mitigated by less intrusive measures.” CBS, Inc. v. Davis, 510 U.S. 1315, 1317 (1994). To satisfy narrow tailoring, the Act must represent the least restrictive means to further the government's asserted data security and propaganda interests, Sable Commc'ns of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989), and be neither over- nor under- 73. (Page 45 of Total) 44

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 46 of 70 inclusive, Ark. Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 232 (1987). The Act fails in each of these respects. 74. The Act opts for a wholesale prohibition on Petitioners offering online applications in lieu of a multitude of less restrictive measures it could have taken instead. As discussed above, Petitioners have been involved in negotiations with CFIUS since 2019 over a package of measures that would resolve the government's concerns about data security and purported propaganda related to TikTok. The terms of that negotiated package are far less restrictive than an outright ban. The negotiations have resulted in the draft National Security Agreement, which Tik Tok Inc. is already in the process of voluntarily implementing to the extent it can do so without government action. That initiative includes a multi-billion-dollar effort to create a new TikTok U.S. subsidiary devoted to protecting U.S. user data and have U.S.-based Oracle Corporation store protected U.S. TikTok user data in the United States, run the TikTok recommendation system for U.S. users, and inspect TikTok's source code for security vulnerabilities. 75. If executed by the government, the National Security Agreement would also give CFIUS a "shut-down option" to suspend 45 (Page 46 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 47 of 70 Tik Tok in the United States in response to specified acts of noncompliance. The government has never meaningfully explained why the National Security Agreement (a far less restrictive alternative to an outright, total ban) is insufficient to address its stated concerns about data security and propaganda. 76. Even if the government's dissatisfaction with the draft. National Security Agreement were valid (despite the government never explaining why the agreement that the government itself negotiated is unsatisfactory), the CFIUS process in in which Petitioners have participated in good faith is geared toward finding any number of other less restrictive alternatives to an outright, total ban. The CFIUS member agencies could return to working with Petitioners to craft a solution that is tailored to meet the government's concerns and that is commercially, technologically, and legally feasible. Yet the government has not explained why the CFIUS process is not a viable alternative. 77. There are also a wide range of other less restrictive measures that Congress could have enacted. While many of these measures are themselves unjustified as applied to Petitioners, they nevertheless. illustrate that the Act does not select the least restrictive means to 46 (Page 47 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 48 of 70 further the national security goals that appear to have motivated it. For example, Congress could have addressed some members' stated concern about Tik Tok allegedly "track[ing] the locations of Federal employees and contractors" 23 by expanding the existing ban on government-owned devices to cover personal devices of federal employees and contractors. Or Congress could have enacted legislation to regulate TikTok's access to measures the Department of certain features on users' devices Homeland Security identified in 2020 as potential mitigations to "reduce the national security risks associated with" TikTok.24 78. Of course, Congress could also have decided not to single out a single speech platform (TikTok) and company (ByteDance Ltd.), and instead pursued any number of industry-wide regulations aimed at addressing the industry-wide issues of data security and content integrity. Congress could have enacted a data protection law governing transfers of Americans' sensitive data to foreign countries, similar to the 23 House Committee Report at 6. 24 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Note, Appendix B: Department of Homeland Security Tik Tok and WeChat Risk Assessment 4 (Sept. 2, 2020). 47 (Page 48 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 49 of 70 strategy President Biden is currently pursuing through executive - the order. 25 Indeed, Congress did enact such a data-transfer law similarly named "Protecting Americans' Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024" as the very next division of the legislation that contains the Act. Yet it chose to prohibit only “data broker[s]” from “mak[ing] available personally identifiable sensitive data of a United States. individual to any foreign adversary country or ... any entity that is controlled by a foreign adversary." H.R. 815, div. I, § 2(a), 118th Cong., Pub. L. No. 118-50 (Apr. 24, 2024). 79. There are also models for industry-wide regulation that Congress could have followed from other jurisdictions. For example, the European Union's Digital Services Act requires certain platforms to make disclosures about their content-moderation policies and to provide regulators and researchers with access to their data so those researchers can assess if the platforms are systemically promoting or suppressing 25 See Exec. Order 14, 117, 89 Fed. Reg. 15421 (Mar. 1, 2024). 48 (Page 49 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 50 of 70 content with particular viewpoints. 26 Congress pursued none of these alternatives. 80. Congress did not even provide Petitioners with the process and fact-finding protections that the Act extends to all other companies -protections which themselves likely fall short of what the Constitution mandates. Other companies receive prior notice, followed by a presidential determination of (and public report on) the national security threat posed by the targeted application, and the submission to Congress. of classified evidence supporting that determination, Sec. 2(g)(3)(B), which then is subject to judicial review based on the actual reasons for the decision, not post hoc rationalizations. 81. Because Congress failed to try any of these less restrictive measures, or at a minimum to explain why these alternatives would not address the government's apparent concerns, the Act is not narrowly tailored. 82. The Act independently fails strict scrutiny because it is both under- and over-inclusive. The Act is under-inclusive because it 26 EU Reg. 2022/2065 arts. 15, 40(4), 42(2). 49 (Page 50 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 51 of 70 ignores the many ways in which other companies. - both foreign and domestic can pose the same risks to data security and promotion of misinformation supposedly posed by Petitioners. The government "cannot claim" that banning some types of foreign owned applications is "necessary" to prevent espionage and propaganda “while at the same time" allowing other types of platforms and applications that may "create the same problem.” Reed, 576 U.S. at 172. Put differently, the Act's “[u]nderinclusiveness raises serious doubts about whether the government is in fact pursuing the interest it invokes, rather than disfavoring a particular speaker or viewpoint.” Brown v. Ent. Merchants Ass'n, 564 U.S. 786, 802 (2011). 83. Most glaringly, the Act applies only to Petitioners and certain other platforms that allow users to generate and view "text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content.” Sec. 2(g)(2)(A). The Act's coverage is thus triggered not by whether an application. collects users' data, but whether it shows them “content." Accordingly, there is no necessary relationship between the Act's scope and Congress's apparent concern with risks to Americans' data security, which could (Page 51 of Total) 50

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 52 of 70 equally be posed by personal finance, navigation, fitness, or many other types of applications. 84. The Act also singles out Petitioners by exempting all other companies that operate any website or application "whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). But the Act does not explain why such applications, when (i) “foreign adversary controlled” under the Act's broad definition; and (ii) determined by the President to be a significant national security threat, could not likewise be used to collect data from Americans such as Americans' location information - or to spread misinformation. Nor does the Act explain why an entire company presents no threat simply because it operates a single website or application the “primary purpose” of which is posting “product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). The Act's differential treatment of this favored category of websites and applications also disregards the fact that there is voluminous content on Tik Tok containing product reviews, business reviews, and travel information and reviews. Yet TikTok and all ByteDance applications are ineligible for this exclusion. 51 (Page 52 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 53 of 70 85. More broadly, the Act ignores the reality that much of the data collected by Tik Tok is no different in kind from the data routinely collected by other applications and sources in today's online world, including by American companies like Google, Snap, and Meta. The Act also ignores that foreign countries, including China, can obtain such information on Americans in other ways such as through open-source research and hacking operations. 86. Likewise, the House Committee Report on an earlier version of the Act speculates that allowing source code development in China "potentially exposes U.S. users to malicious code, backdoor vulnerabilities, surreptitious surveillance, and other problematic activities tied to source code development."27 But those supposed risks arise for each of the many American companies that employ individuals in China to develop code. The Act, however, does not seek to regulate, much less prohibit, all online applications offered by companies that have offices in China or that otherwise employ Chinese nationals as software developers. 28 27 House Committee Report at 5. 28 See, e.g., Karen Freifeld & Jonathan Stempel, Former Google Engineer 52 (Page 53 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 54 of 70 87. Nor does the Act seek to cut off numerous other ways that Americans could be exposed to foreign propaganda. For instance, the Act leaves foreign nationals (and even adversarial governments themselves) free to operate cable television networks in the United States, spread propaganda through accounts on other online platforms that enable the sharing of user-generated content, or distribute copies of state-run newspapers physically or over the Internet (including by software applications) in the United States. 29 Indicted for Stealing AI Secrets to Aid Chinese Companies, Reuters (Mar. 6, 2024), https://perma.cc/6LYE-64J6. 29 The U.S. government has recognized that foreign government. propaganda is an industry-wide challenge for online platforms. See, e.g., Nat'l Intel. Council, Declassified Intelligence Community Assessment, Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections (Mar. 10, 2021), https://perma.cc/VD3Y-VXSB. YouTube, for example, added disclaimers to certain channels that were reportedly being used to spread disinformation on behalf of the Russian government. Paresh Dave & Christopher Bing, Russian Disinformation on YouTube Draws Ads, Lacks Warning Labels - Researchers, Reuters (June 7, 2019), https://perma.cc/2BEJ-VKGW. Like others in the industry, TikTok publishes transparency reports on attempts by users to use the platform for government propaganda purposes. See TikTok, Countering Influence Operations (last visited May 6, 2024), https://perma.cc/AB39-S8FJ. 53 (Page 54 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 55 of 70 88. The Act is also over-inclusive because it applies to other Byte Dance Ltd.-owned applications that Congress has not shown and could not possibly prove pose the risks the Act apparently seeks to address. - 89. At a minimum, the Act fails intermediate scrutiny. Even if strict scrutiny did not apply, the Act would still fail intermediate scrutiny as a time, place, and manner restriction: the Act prohibits speech activity on TikTok at all times, in all places, and in all manners anywhere across the United States. To pass intermediate scrutiny, a law must be "narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.” McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U.S. 464, 486 (2014). This means that it must not "burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government's legitimate interests," Turner, 512 U.S. at 661-62, and "leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information," Clark v. Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 293 (1984). 90. For many of the same reasons the Act cannot satisfy strict scrutiny, it also cannot satisfy intermediate scrutiny: (Page 55 of Total) 54

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 56 of 70 91. As discussed supra ¶¶67-69, the government has failed to establish that its apparent data security and propaganda concerns with Tik Tok are non-speculative. And as discussed supra ¶¶ 73-81, the Act. burdens substantially more speech than necessary because there are many less restrictive alternatives Congress could have adopted to address any legitimate concerns. The Act also fails intermediate scrutiny because it “effectively prevents” TikTok Inc. “from reaching [its] intended audience" and thus "fails to leave open ample alternative means of communication." Edwards v. City of Coeur d'Alene, 262 F.3d 856, 866 (9th Cir. 2001). 92. Regardless of the level of scrutiny, the Act violates the First Amendment for two additional reasons. 93. The Act forecloses an entire medium of expression. First, by banning TikTok in the United States, the Act "foreclose[s] an entire medium of expression." City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 56 (1994). A "long line of Supreme Court cases indicates that such laws are almost never reasonable." Anderson v. City of Hermosa Beach, 621 F.3d 1051, 1064-65 (9th Cir. 2010). (Page 56 of Total) 55

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 57 of 70 94. The Act is constitutionally overbroad. Second, the Act is facially overbroad. A law is "overbroad if a substantial number of its. applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep." United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 473 (2010) (citation omitted). Here, for example, the government has never contended that all or even most of the content on TikTok (or any other Byte Dance-owned application) represents misinformation, or propaganda. Yet the Act shuts down all speech on ByteDance-owned applications at all times, in all places, and in all manners. That is textbook overbreadth. See, e.g., Bd. of Airport Comm'rs v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569, 574–75 (1987). disinformation, Ground 2: Unconstitutional Bill of Attainder 95. The Act is an unconstitutional bill of attainder. Article I of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any bill of attainder. U.S. Const. art. I § 9, cl. 3 ("No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."). A bill of attainder is "legislative punishment, of any form or severity, of specifically designated persons or groups." United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 447 (1965). The protection against bills of attainder is “an implementation of 56 (Page 57 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 58 of 70 the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply trial by legislature." Id. at 442. - 97. By singling out Petitioners for legislative punishment, the Act is an unconstitutional bill of attainder. 98. The Act inflicts "pains and penalties" that historically have been associated with bills of attainder. See Nixon v. Adm'r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 474 (1977). Historically, common "pains and penalties" included "punitive confiscation of property by the sovereign” and “a legislative enactment barring designated individuals or groups from participation in specified employments or vocations," among others. Id. As described above, the Act confiscates Petitioners' U.S. businesses by forcing ByteDance to shutter them within 270 days or sell on terms that are not commercially, technologically, or legally feasible. See supra ¶¶26-29. For the same reason, the Act bars Petitioners from operating in their chosen line of business. 99. "[V]iewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed" on Petitioners, the Act's treatment of Petitioners cannot "reasonably ... be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes." Nixon, 433 U.S. at 475–76. The Act transforms Petitioners into a “vilified 57 (Page 58 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 59 of 70 class" by explicitly prohibiting their current and future operations in the United States, without qualification or limitation, but does not extend the same treatment to other similarly situated companies. Foretich v. United States, 351 F.3d 1198, 1224 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 100. Moreover, in light of the less restrictive alternatives discussed above, there is no justification for automatically barring Petitioners' current and future operations in the United States (or those of its subsidiaries or successors) in perpetuity without providing them a meaningful opportunity to take corrective action. See Kaspersky Lab, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 909 F.3d 446, 456 (D.C. Cir. 2018). Indeed, the Act imposes this punishment uniquely on Petitioners without the process, and presidential determination of a significant national security threat, that Congress has afforded to everyone else. Expressly singling out Petitioners for these punitive burdens while at the same time adopting a statutory standard and decision-making process applicable to every other entity makes clear that Petitioners are subjected to a prohibited legislatively imposed punishment. 101. Moreover, while Petitioners can avoid the Act's prohibitions only via a wholesale divestment, all other companies 58 even those with (Page 59 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 60 of 70 Chinese ownership and determined by the President to present a "significant threat" to U.S. national security ― can avoid prohibition simply by operating a website or an application "whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." Sec. 2(g)(2)(b). 102. Indeed, any other "adversary-controlled" company that operates an application exactly like TikTok, but also operates a website the primary purpose of which is to post product reviews, is left untouched, leaving a ready path for any company but those affiliated with Petitioners to circumvent the Act's prohibitions altogether. For all practical purposes, then, the Act applies to just one corporate group is a "Tik Tok bill," as congressional leaders have described it.30 - it 103. For all of these reasons, the Act constitutes an unconstitutional bill of attainder. 30 Rachel Dobkin, Mike Johnson's Letter Sparks New Flood of Republican Backlash, Newsweek (Apr. 17, 2024), https://perma.cc/Z5HD-7UVU (quoting letter from Speaker Johnson referencing the “TikTok_bill”); Senator Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader, to Colleagues (Apr. 5, 2024), https://perma.cc/J7Q4-9PGJ (referencing “TikTok legislation”). 59 (Page 60 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 61 of 70 Ground 3: Violation of Equal Protection 104. The Act also violates Petitioners' rights under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause because it singles Petitioners out for adverse treatment without any reason for doing so. 105. First, the Act deems any application offered by Petitioners to be a “foreign adversary controlled application" without notice or a presidential determination. Sec. 2(g)(3)(A). By contrast, applications offered by other companies "controlled by a foreign adversary" are deemed to be "foreign adversary controlled applications" only after notice. and a presidential determination that those companies present "significant threat[s]" to U.S. national security, a determination that must be supported by evidence submitted to Congress. Sec. 2(g)(2)(B); see supra 34(d). 106. That distinction imposes a dramatically heavier burden on Petitioners' free speech rights without any justification. The Act precludes the government from burdening the speech rights of any speakers other than Petitioners unless and until the President issues a public report on the specific national security concerns animating the 60 (Page 61 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 62 of 70 President's decision, provides support for that decision, and describes the assets requiring divestiture. Those protections ensure that the President must, at the very least, provide a detailed national security justification for his or her actions before burdening other speakers' speech a justification that then will provide the basis for judicial review. The Act imposes none of those requirements as a precondition for burdening Petitioners' speech it levies that burden by unexplained legislative fiat. — 107. Second, the Act denies Petitioners the exemption available to any other company that is purportedly “controlled by a foreign adversary." As noted, any application Petitioners offer is ipso facto deemed a "foreign adversary controlled application." By contrast, other companies "controlled by a foreign adversary" are exempt from the Act's definition of a "covered company," and thus from the Act's requirements, so long as they offer at least one application with the "primary purpose" of “allow[ing] users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." Sec. 2(g)(2)(B). 108. There is no conceivable reason for treating Petitioners differently than all other similarly situated companies. Even if Congress 61 (Page 62 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 63 of 70 had valid interests in protecting U.S. users' data and controlling what content may be disseminated through global platforms that would be advanced through the Act, there is no reason why those concerns would support a ban on Petitioners' platforms without corresponding bans on other platforms. Nor is there any rational reason why Congress would ban Petitioners' platforms while allowing any other company "controlled by a foreign adversary" - regardless of the national security threat posed by that company to sidestep the Act's reach by simply offering an - application that “allows users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews," but changing nothing else about the company's operations, ownership structure, or other applications. 109. By treating Petitioners differently from others similarly situated, the Act denies Petitioners the equal protection of the law. Ground 4: Unconstitutional Taking 110. The Act effects an unlawful taking of private property without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. 111. The Takings Clause provides that “private property” shall not be "taken for public use, without just compensation." U.S. Const. amend. V, cl. 5. The Act does just that by shutting down ByteDance's 62 (Page 63 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 64 of 70 U.S. businesses or, to the extent any qualified divestiture alternative is even feasible (it is not), compelling ByteDance to sell those businesses. under fire-sale circumstances that guarantee inadequate compensation. 112. Petitioners have substantial property interests in, and associated with, their and their affiliates' U.S. operations. These include not only ByteDance Ltd.'s interest in TikTok Inc. and other U.S. businesses, but also the platforms and applications themselves. See Kimball Laundry Co. v. United States, 338 U.S. 1, 11–13 (1949) (Takings Clause also protects losses to going-concern value of business). 113. If the Act's prohibitions take effect, they will deprive Petitioners of property protected by the Takings Clause. Absent a qualified divestiture, the Act will shutter Petitioners' businesses in the United States. And even if a qualified divestiture were feasible (it is not), any sale could be, at best, completed only at an enormous discount to the U.S. businesses' current market value, given the forced sale conditions. See BFP v. Resol. Tr. Corp., 511 U.S. 531, 537 (1994) (“[M]arket value, as it is commonly understood, has no applicability in the forced-sale context; indeed, it is the very antithesis of forced-sale value."). (Page 64 of Total) 63

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 65 of 70 114. Because the Act compels ByteDance "to relinquish specific, identifiable property" or forfeit "all economically beneficial uses," the Act effects a per se taking. Horne v. Dep't of Agric., 576 U.S. 350, 364-65 (2015); Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1019 (1992). 115. Alternatively, the Act inflicts a regulatory taking. Even when a law does not compel the physical invasion of property or deprive the property of all economically viable use, it still effects a taking "if [it] goes too far." Penn. Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415 (1922). In determining when a law "goes too far," courts have typically looked to "several factors" identified in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 124 (1978), namely, (a) “[t]he economic impact of the regulation”; (b) “the extent to which the regulation has interfered with reasonable investment-backed expectations"; and (c) "the character of the governmental action." The Act inflicts a regulatory taking under each of these three factors. 116. The Act does not compensate Petitioners (let alone provide just compensation) for the dispossession of their U.S. businesses. See United States v. Miller, 317 U.S. 369, 373 (1943). Prospective injunctive (Page 65 of Total) 64

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 66 of 70 relief is accordingly warranted. See, e.g., Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 585 (1952). Requested Relief relief: Petitioners respectfully request that this Court grant the following A. Issue a declaratory judgment that the Act violates the U.S. Constitution; B. Issue an order enjoining the Attorney General from enforcing the Act; C. Enter judgment in favor of Petitioners; and D. Grant any further relief that may be appropriate. (Page 66 of Total) 65

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 67 of 70 DATED: May 7, 2024 Andrew J. Pincus Avi M. Kupfer MAYER BROWN LLP 1999 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 Telephone: 202-263-3220 Email: [email protected] [email protected] Respectfully submitted, /s/ Alexander A. Berengaut Alexander A. Berengaut David M. Zionts Megan A. Crowley COVINGTON & BURLING LLP One CityCenter 850 Tenth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Telephone: (202) 662-6000 Email: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] John E. Hall Anders Linderot COVINGTON & BURLING LLP The New York Times Building 620 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10018 Telephone: (212) 841-1000 Email: [email protected] [email protected] Counsel for Petitioners (Page 67 of Total) 66

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 68 of 70 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT TIKTOK INC., and BYTEDANCE LTD., V. ) Petitioners, No. 24-1113 MERRICK B. GARLAND, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States, Respondent. CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT Petitioners state as follows: ByteDance Ltd. is a privately held corporation incorporated in the Cayman Islands. ByteDance Ltd. subsidiaries provide a suite of more than a dozen products and services that allow people to connect with, create, and consume content on the Internet. ByteDance Ltd. has no (Page 68 of Total) 1

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 69 of 70 parent company, and no publicly traded company owns 10% or more of Byte Dance Ltd.'s stock. Tik Tok Inc. is a California-incorporated company that provides the TikTok platform in the United States. TikTok Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of TikTok LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of TikTok Ltd. TikTok Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of ByteDance Ltd. TikTok Inc. has no other parent company, and no publicly held corporation owns 10% or more of its stock. (Page 69 of Total) 2 /s/Alexander A. Berengaut Alexander A. Berengaut Counsel for Petitioners

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 70 of 70 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that on this 7th day of May, I caused copies of the foregoing Petition for Review and Corporate Disclosure Statement to be served upon the following recipients. By certified mail, postage prepaid: Merrick B. Garland Attorney General of the United States U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530 By hand delivery: Matthew M. Graves United States Attorney 601 D Street, NW Washington, DC 20579 /s/ Alexander A. Berengaut Alexander A. Berengaut Counsel for Petitioners (Page 70 of Total)

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 1 of 7 (Page 71 of Total) EXHIBIT A

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 2 of 7 (Page 72 of Total) H. R. 815-61 Fusion Development Strategy programs of the People's Republic of China, including the following: (1) A brief summary of each such identified field and its relevance to the military power and national security of the People's Republic of China. (2) The implications for the national security of the United States as a result of the leadership or dominance by the People's Republic of China in each such identified field and associated supply chains. (3) The identification of at least 10 entities domiciled in, controlled by, or directed by the People's Republic of China (including any subsidiaries of such entity), involved in each such identified field, and an assessment of, with respect to each such entity, the following: (A) Whether the entity has procured components from any known United States suppliers. (B) Whether any United States technology imported by the entity is controlled under United States regulations. (C) Whether United States capital is invested in the entity, either through known direct investment or passive investment flows. (D) Whether the entity has any connection to the Peo- ple's Liberation Army, the Military-Civil Fusion program of the People's Republic of China, or any other state-spon- sored initiatives of the People's Republic of China to sup- port the development of national champions. (c) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES DEFINED.-In this section, the term "appropriate congressional committees" means- (1) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Rep- resentatives; (2) the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives; (3) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate; and (4) the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate. DIVISION H-PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARY CON- TROLLED APPLICATIONS ACT SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE. This division may be cited as the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act”. SEC. 2. PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN APPLICATIONS. ADVERSARY CONTROLLED (a) IN GENERAL.— (1) PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.-It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following:

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 3 of 7 (Page 73 of Total) H. R. 815-62 (A) Providing services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign adversary controlled application (including any source code of such application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application store) through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain, or update such application. (B) Providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary controlled application for users within the land or maritime borders of the United States. (2) APPLICABILITY.-Subject to paragraph (3), this sub- section shall apply― (A) in the case of an application that satisfies the definition of a foreign adversary controlled application pursuant to subsection (g)(3)(A), beginning on the date that is 270 days after the date of the enactment of this division; and (B) in the case of an application that satisfies the definition of a foreign adversary controlled application pursuant to subsection (g)(3)(B), beginning on the date that is 270 days after the date of the relevant determination of the President under such subsection. (3) EXTENSION. With respect to a foreign adversary con- trolled application, the President may grant a 1-time extension of not more than 90 days with respect to the date on which this subsection would otherwise apply to such application pursuant to paragraph (2), if the President certifies to Congress that- (A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application; (B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and (C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agree- ments to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension. (b) DATA AND INFORMATION PORTABILITY TO ALTERNATIVE APPLICATIONS.-Before the date on which a prohibition under sub- section (a) applies to a foreign adversary controlled application, the entity that owns or controls such application shall provide, upon request by a user of such application within the land or maritime borders of United States, to such user all the available data related to the account of such user with respect to such application. Such data shall be provided in a machine readable format and shall include any data maintained by such application with respect to the account of such user, including content (including posts, photos, and videos) and all other account information. (c) EXEMPTIONS.— (1) EXEMPTIONS FOR QUALIFIED DIVESTITURES.-Subsection (a)— (A) does not apply to a foreign adversary controlled application with respect to which a qualified divestiture is executed before the date on which a prohibition under subsection (a) would begin to apply to such application; and

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 4 of 7 (Page 74 of Total) H. R. 815-63 (B) shall cease to apply in the case of a foreign adversary controlled application with respect to which a qualified divestiture is executed after the date on which a prohibition under subsection (a) applies to such applica- tion. (2) EXEMPTIONS FOR CERTAIN NECESSARY SERVICES.-Sub- sections (a) and (b) do not apply to services provided with respect to a foreign adversary controlled application that are necessary for an entity to attain compliance with such sub- sections. (d) ENFORCEMENT.— (1) CIVIL PENALTIES.― (A) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION VIO- LATIONS. An entity that violates subsection (a) shall be subject to pay a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed the amount that results from multiplying $5,000 by the number of users within the land or maritime borders of the United States determined to have accessed, maintained, or updated a foreign adversary controlled application as a result of such violation. (B) DATA AND INFORMATION VIOLATIONS.-An entity that violates subsection (b) shall be subject to pay a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed the amount that results from multiplying $500 by the number of users within the land or maritime borders of the United States affected by such violation. (2) ACTIONS BY ATTORNEY GENERAL.-The Attorney Gen- eral- (A) shall conduct investigations related to potential violations of subsection (a) or (b), and, if such an investiga- tion results in a determination that a violation has occurred, the Attorney General shall pursue enforcement under paragraph (1); and (B) may bring an action in an appropriate district court of the United States for appropriate relief, including civil penalties under paragraph (1) or declaratory and injunctive relief. (e) SEVERABILITY.― (1) IN GENERAL.-If any provision of this section or the application of this section to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect the other provisions or applications of this section that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application. (2) SUBSEQUENT DETERMINATIONS.-If the application of any provision of this section is held invalid with respect to a foreign adversary controlled application that satisfies the definition of such term pursuant to subsection (g)(3)(A), such invalidity shall not affect or preclude the application of the same provision of this section to such foreign adversary con- trolled application by means of a subsequent determination pursuant to subsection (g)(3)(B). (f) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.-Nothing in this division may be construed― (1) to authorize the Attorney General to pursue enforce- ment, under this section, other than enforcement of subsection (a) or (b);

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 5 of 7 (Page 75 of Total) H. R. 815-64 (2) to authorize the Attorney General to pursue enforce- ment, under this section, against an individual user of a foreign adversary controlled application; or (3) except as expressly provided herein, to alter or affect any other authority provided by or established under another provision of Federal law. (g) DEFINITIONS.-In this section: (1) CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN ADVERSARY.-The term "con- trolled by a foreign adversary" means, with respect to a covered company or other entity, that such company or other entity is- (A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign adversary country; (B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of foreign persons described in subpara- graph (A) directly or indirectly own at least a 20 percent stake; or (C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity described in subparagraph (A) or (B). (2) COVERED COMPANY.— (A) IN GENERAL.—The term "covered company" means an entity that operates, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), a website, desktop application, mobile application, or aug- mented or immersive technology application that— (i) permits a user to create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real- time communications, or similar content; (ii) has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users with respect to at least 2 of the 3 months preceding the date on which a relevant determination of the President is made pursuant to paragraph (3)(B); (iii) enables 1 or more users to generate or dis- tribute content that can be viewed by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application; and (iv) enables 1 or more users to view content gen- erated by other users of the website, desktop applica- tion, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application. (B) EXCLUSION.—The term “covered company” does not include an entity that operates a website, desktop applica- tion, mobile application, or augmented or immersive tech- nology application whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews. a (3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.―The term "foreign adversary controlled application" means website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by— (A) any of (i) ByteDance, Ltd.;

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 6 of 7 (Page 76 of Total) (ii) TikTok; H. R. 815-65 (iii) a subsidiary of or a successor to an entity identified in clause (i) or (ii) that is controlled by a foreign adversary; or (iv) an entity owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by an entity identified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii); or (B) a covered company that- (i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and (ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States following the issuance of (I) a public notice proposing such determina- tion; and (II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be divested to execute a qualified divestiture. (4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.-The term “foreign adversary country" means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code. (5) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE.―The term "internet hosting service" means a service through which storage and computing resources are provided to an individual or organiza- tion for the accommodation and maintenance of 1 or more websites or online services, and which may include file hosting, domain name server hosting, cloud hosting, and virtual private server hosting. (6) QUALIFIED DIVESTITURE.—The term "qualified divesti- ture" means a divestiture or similar transaction that- (A) the President determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant foreign adversary controlled application no longer being controlled by a for- eign adversary; and (B) the President determines, through an interagency process, precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between the United States operations of the relevant foreign adversary controlled application and any formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary, including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing. (7) SOURCE CODE.-The term "source code" means the com- bination of text and other characters comprising the content, both viewable and nonviewable, of a software application, including any publishing language, programming language, pro- tocol, or functional content, as well as any successor languages or protocols. (8) UNITED STATES.-The term "United States" includes the territories of the United States. SEC. 3. JUDICIAL REVIEW. (a) RIGHT OF ACTION.-A petition for review challenging this division or any action, finding, or determination under this division

USCA Case #24-1113 Document #2053212 Filed: 05/07/2024 Page 7 of 7 (Page 77 of Total) H. R. 815-66 may be filed only in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (b) EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION.-The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any challenge to this division or any action, finding, or determination under this division. (c) STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.-A challenge may only be brought― (1) in the case of a challenge to this division, not later than 165 days after the date of the enactment of this division; and (2) in the case of a challenge to any action, finding, or determination under this division, not later than 90 days after the date of such action, finding, or determination. DIVISION I-PROTECTING AMERICANS' DATA FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARIES ACT OF 2024 SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE. This division may be cited as the "Protecting Americans' Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024". SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON TRANSFER OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE SENSITIVE DATA OF UNITED STATES INDIVIDUALS TO FOR- EIGN ADVERSARIES. (a) PROHIBITION.-It shall be unlawful for a data broker to sell, license, rent, trade, transfer, release, disclose, provide access to, or otherwise make available personally identifiable sensitive data of a United States individual to- (1) any foreign adversary country; or (2) any entity that is controlled by a foreign adversary. (b) ENFORCEMENT BY FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION.― (1) UNFAIR OR DECEPTIVE ACTS OR PRACTICES.-A violation of this section shall be treated as a violation of a rule defining an unfair or a deceptive act or practice under section 18(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B)). (2) POWERS OF COMMISSION.― (A) IN GENERAL.-The Commission shall enforce this section in the same manner, by the same means, and with the same jurisdiction, powers, and duties as though all applicable terms and provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.Č. 41 et seq.) were incorporated into and made a part of this section. (B) PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES.-Any person who vio- lates this section shall be subject to the penalties and entitled to the privileges and immunities provided in the Federal Trade Commission Act. (3) AUTHORITY PRESERVED.-Nothing in this section may be construed to limit the authority of the Commission under any other provision of law. (c) DEFINITIONS.-In this section: (1) COMMISSION.-The term "Commission" means the Fed- eral Trade Commission.

Home — Essay Samples — Religion — Problem of Evil — Augustine’s Definition of Evil: Physical & Moral Evil

Augustine’s Definition of Evil: Physical & Moral Evil

• Categories: Augustine Problem of Evil

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Published: May 24, 2022

Words: 1628 | Pages: 4 | 9 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, different kinds of evil, physical evil, whether god foreknows everything or free-choice.

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'Lord of the Rings': How Are Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White Different?

Your guide to the evolution of the Grey Pilgrim.

The Big Picture

• In Lord of the Rings , Gandalf the Grey was an angelic spirit sent to Middle-earth to contest the influence of Sauron and played a crucial role in the downfall of Sauron.
• Gandalf's transformation into Gandalf the White was not just a change in his wardrobe, but also a significant increase in his power and abilities.
• Despite his transformation, Gandalf remained true to his task of guiding the Fellowship and ensuring the destruction of the Ring to save Middle-earth.

With his long gray robes, wide-brimmed pointed hat, and immense magical power, Gandalf the Grey is the archetypal wizard of modern fantasy. Sent to the shores of Middle-earth to contest the influence of Sauron — which is possibly shown in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — he was tireless in his task, and the only one of the five wizards assigned it to hold true until the end, according to J.R.R. Tolkien himself. As the Grey Pilgrim, Gandalf helped to seed the downfall of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings and even in The Hobbit through strategy and counsel, but along the way, he was slain. He was then sent back, transformed into Gandalf the White . This Gandalf was more directly involved in the final conflict of The Lord of the Rings . Yet it is as the Grey that Gandalf is best known, and Ian McKellen and Peter Jackson both preferred the first incarnation of the character. A casual fan may wonder why Tolkien wrote in a change of wardrobe at all. Wonder no more.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

A meek Hobbit from the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron.

Who Is Gandalf in 'The Lord of the Rings'?

Gandalf, like all the five wizards of Middle-earth, was a Maia, an angelic spirit of the same order as Sauron . It was the persistence of Sauron’s power into the Third Age that made the Valar, a higher order of spirits analogous to archangels, wish to send emissaries to aid and inspire the Free Peoples of Arda (Earth) who resisted evil. The emissaries would be Maia, clothed in the bodies of Men advanced in age but possessed of great physical and mental ability . So embodied, they would lose a great deal of their spiritual power; they were not meant to exercise force nor to coerce anyone to act. They would be subject to weariness, hunger, injury, and the risk of death. Possessed of free will, they could also be tempted away from their task.

In Unfinished Tales , a collection of essays and story fragments Tolkien left behind, it was the Maia Olórin who became incarnated as Gandalf. He was proposed for the task by Manwë, wisest of the Valar, though Olórin initially begged not to be sent. He wasn’t up to the task, he insisted, and he feared Sauron. But in Manwë’s eyes, that was all the more reason Olórin should go. Thus ordered, he arrived at the shores of the Grey Havens as the third of the Istari (wizards) in the Third Age , appearing the smallest and most aged of them. Yet Círdan the shipwright, who greeted Olórin upon his arrival, perceived him as the greatest of the Istari and gave him the Elven Ring of Fire to aid him in his labors. But the ring, and the power he still possessed, were kept veiled in weathered gray robes.

Gandalf the Grey Helped Guide the Hobbits and the Fellowship

While Saruman the White settled in Orthanc, Radagast the Brown in Rhosgobel, and the two Blue Wizards journeyed beyond reach into the East, Gandalf the Grey (as the Men of Middle-earth named him) wandered throughout the West, where the Elves and the descendants of Númenor opposed to Sauron were strongest. He became a good friend to the Elves and to hobbits , while with Men he could be warm and irascible by turns. If Lady Galadriel of Lorien had her way, Gandalf would have been the head of the White Council formed to unite the West against Sauron. But Gandalf refused the position in favor of independence. He could move the Council at need, as when they put forth their power to drive the Necromancer — Sauron in disguise — from the fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, a business which took him away from the dwarves’ quest in The Hobbit . That quest was one he had helped to organize as a means to take Smaug away as a potential ally for Sauron. All this holds true in Tolkien’s books and Jackson’s films, though the timeline and details differ markedly .

All this, Gandalf did when known as Gandalf the Grey for his ashen robes. The chief of the Istari remained Saruman the White, who also headed the White Council. But Saruman fell to the temptations of pride and impatience , and became both a faithless servant and doomed imitator of Sauron. With the Blue Wizards lost in the East and Radagast nowhere to be found, Gandalf was the only one of the Istari to guide the Fellowship in their quest to destroy the Ring . When the Fellowship was faced with a Balrog, a corrupted Maia of shadow and flame, Gandalf gave his own life to destroy it.

The Animated ‘Lord of the Rings’ Does Frodo Better Than Peter Jackson’s Trilogy

Gandalf returned from death as gandalf the white.

Being an incarnated spirit, “death” for Gandalf had a different meaning than if any of the hobbits or Men of the Fellowship had fallen. Yet even by those standards, Gandalf’s fate was unusual. Instead of returning to Valinor, the Undying Lands of the West, his spirit was taken “out of thought and time,” only to be reclothed in mortal form and sent back to see his task completed. The Lord of the Rings , The Silmarillion , and Tolkien’s private letters imply that this was an act of divine intervention — that the Valar would have been bound by the laws of space and time, but Eru Ilúvatar (God) personally intervened at that moment to change the fate of Middle-earth . Thus reincarnated, Gandalf was delivered to Lothlórien, where he received his white robes. The films push the physical differences further by having the white wardrobe as pristine as the gray one was weathered and dirty, by giving Gandalf the White more managed hair, and by making him unable to handle his pipe weed after his return.

But it was more than a wardrobe and a smoke tolerance that changed. When Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli mistake Gandalf for Saruman in The Two Towers , he tells them: “Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.” While still tasked to advise and counsel rather than apply force, Gandalf as the White had more power to “reveal” his true strength . He freed King Théoden from evil influence, broke Saruman’s staff and expelled him from the White Council, and repelled the Ringwraiths with his unveiled power. The fall of Denethor to despair left Gandalf to command the defenses of Minas Tirith. And when the time came for the final battle with Sauron before the gates of Mordor, Aragorn and the other lords of the West named Gandalf their leader (a detail not carried over into the films). All the while, his memories and personality remained, though the extremes were more pronounced; Merry describes him in The Two Towers as “kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before.” Unfinished Tales presents the contrast between Gandalf and Sauron at this point as “the fire that kindles, and succors in wanhope and distress” against “the fire that devours and wastes.”

The Battle of the Black Gate was meant as a distraction from the true plan, one Gandalf oversaw when still Gandalf the Grey: Frodo’s quest to destroy the Ring. His greater power in white did not allow Gandalf to know that Frodo and Sam were in any position to carry out their mission, and he could not use even the full measure of his strength to ensure their success; to attempt such would have betrayed his own appointed role. But Gandalf the White, through actions direct and circuitous, did succeed in placing the greatest forces of Men in opposition to Sauron where they could best help see the Ring destroyed, beyond what he could achieve as Gandalf the Grey. And he was still clad in white when he departed the shores of Middle-earth. “I was the enemy of Sauron,” he tells Aragorn in The Return of the King , “and my work is finished.”

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