“People like me,” he said, “people who accept the Platonic view that the universe exists because it ought to exist, we aren’t saying that absolutely all ethical requirements are satisfied. We recognize that there are conflicts. If you’re going to have an orderly world that runs according to laws of nature—which is a very elegant and interesting way for a world to be—you can’t have bowls of rice suddenly appearing miraculously. Moreover, the fact that the child doesn’t have a bowl of rice may very well be the result of a misuse of human freedom, and you can’t have the goodness of a world where
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