The free-will defence: evil and the moral valueof free will

One version of the free-will argument relies on the claim that,other things being equal, a world in which free beings exist is morally preferableto a world in which free beings do not exist (the ‘value thesis’). I argue that thisversion of the free-will argument cannot support a theodicy that should alleviatethe doubts about God’s existence to which the problems of evil give rise.In particular, I argue that the value thesis has no foundation in common intuitionsabout morality. Without some sort of intuitive support, the value thesis lacks theresources to serve as the foundation for a theodicy that addresses the powerfulintuition, which affects believers and non-believers alike, that a perfect God wouldnot allow so much evil