[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 30, 2011. It was republished here on November 9, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]
According to Ted Poston, the problem of evil includes more than just the familiar categories of moral evil and natural evil. It also includes social evil, which he defines as any pain or suffering brought about by game-theoretic interactions of many individuals. Social evils cannot be reduced to natural or moral evil. Moreover, traditional defenses for natural and moral evil fail against the problem of social evil.
