The secular problem of evil

John Kekes

pp. 349-363

in: Nimrod Bar Am, Stefano Gattei (eds), Encouraging openness, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

It is an honor and a pleasure to join in the celebration of Agassi's 90th birthday. He is a philosopher who in the work of a lifetime has continued in the long, noble, and always unpopular tradition in which philosophers question the shibboleths of their age. Reading and conversing with him is a bracing experience that is never boring and always challenging. He goes to the core of whatever problem he discusses, articulates the assumptions on which it rests, considers the alternatives to them, and ever so innocently inquires why we should accept one of these assumptions rather than contrary ones. May he long continue his subversive work. I offer the discussion of evil that follows in the same spirit.