Is Santa on the Naughty or Nice List?
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Krampus
12 min read
Linked in the article (11 min read)
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Problem of evil
16 min read
The article explicitly uses the philosophical problem of evil as a structural parallel to argue against Santa's existence, referencing Epicurus and William Rowe's famous fawn example. Understanding this classical theological argument deepens the reader's appreciation of the philosophical method being applied.
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Epicurus
14 min read
The article credits Epicurus as the originator of the problem of evil argument, but most readers won't know the broader context of his philosophy, his atomism, his ethics of pleasure, or why this argument was significant in ancient Greek thought.
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About the Author
Jimmy Alfonso Licon is a philosophy professor at Arizona State University working on ignorance, ethics, cooperation and God. Before that, he taught at University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Towson University. He loves classic rock and Western, movies, and combat sports. He lives with his wife, a prosecutor, at the foot of the Superstition Mountains.
Christmas is right around the corner. It is my favorite holiday season! So, it is fitting to consider the holiday from a philosophical perspective. One thing that always struck me about the Christmas holiday is how relatively little attention philosophers pay it considering how many people around the world celebrate the holiday. Here we focus on whether there are better and worse to doubt the existence (and perhaps moral character of) of Santa Claus. A chance to do philosophy and have some holiday fun!
Although it is obvious that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, the reasons often given for this disbeliefs are less sound than is often appreciated. Here we should explore a strong, but neglected argument against the existence of Santa that has various similarities to the problem of evil—if there is a loving, maximally powerful and knowledgeable God, there wouldn’t be so much apparently pointless suffering— that has long troubled theologians. As we shall see, this argument is a powerful reason to doubt the existence of Santa Claus that both lacks the vulnerabilities of the usual reasons, and can help us better understand how to think about the problem of evil.
Bad Arguments Against Santa
Let’s survey some of the usual reasons people have for doubt Santa’s existence.
First, some say that disproving the Santa belief is just a matter of visiting the North Pole and looking for him. There would be no Santa to be found. However, it could be that Santa’s workshop is disguised to avoid detection, even by the most sophisticated methods; after all, Santa is supposedly capable of doing all sorts of other extraordinary things. So, even if Santa resided there, he may not be easily detected.
Second, others say that it would be impossible
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