anthropodicy

[T]he next two [devices or arguments] urge that these distresses are the prices paid for certain compensating advantages to the animals, notably existence. I have some difficulty believing that they are seriously intended, for they would, without alteration, justify the vilest imaginable human slavery and oppression. Nor is it generally true nowadays—though once it was—that those who offer such anthropodicies are much impressed by them in their original form, as theodicy.