Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Clarence Darrow's Closing Argument in the Leopold-Loeb case
Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.
Punishment, freedom, and determinism
This post was prepared for my ethics course.
This section is devoted to two topics: One is freedom and determinism, and the other is criminal punishment. Although the issues seem to be very separate, I have put them together for a reason. One significant motivation for criminal punishment has been the issue of desert. That is pronounced like dessert, but it comes from the same root word as the word deserve. Now there are other reasons, perhaps, for criminal punishment (deterrence, protection of society, etc.), but some people think criminal punishment is first and foremost about giving people what they deserve.
On the other hand, we might ask why one person is virtuous and the other vicious? How did Mother Teresa end up the way she did, and how did Jeffrey Dahmer end up the way he did? Are they both simply the inevitable products of heredity, environment, or even (if you believe in God), God's predestination, or fore-ordination of all events before the foundation of the world (a belief held by Calvinists even today). Is it possible that if Jeffrey had had Teresa's heredity and environment, he (she?) would have been virtuous, and if Teresa had had Jeffrey's heredity and environment, she would have been a serial killer? This is the thesis of determinism, and some people have the inclination to withdraw claims of desert when they start thinking things through from a deterministic perspective. The line of thought leads us to think that the very idea of one person deserving one outcome, and another deserving another outcome, doesn't make sense. But this is a difficult conclusion to accept, it is the idea that in the last analysis, nothing is really anyone's fault, since their actions are the inevitable result of what came before.
There are a couple of ways of responding to this. The first approach, taken by philosophers such as Moritz Schlick and J. J. C. Smart, suggests that what moral responsiblity is all about it finding the right behavior to modify. They maintain that the very idea of deserving punishment is a barbaric notion we need to just get over.
The second approach is to say that looking all the way up the causal chain and seeing someone's actions as the result of past causes obscures the most important fact, and that is the fact that the person not only performed the act, but wanted to perform the act. It wasn't as if Jeffrey Dahmer wanted to be virtuous, but some alien power forced him to commit murder against his will. No, these crimes were willed actions, however inevitably they might have followed from past events.
The third option is the option of libertarian free will. When we act, we can do otherwise. Perhaps this kind of free will is a gift from God. Even the physical world, if we accept what modern physicists tell us, isn't strictly determined. So, perhaps, our actions aren't strictly determined either.
So, I would ask two questions: Can we talk about what people deserve? To do so, do we have to reject determinism? If we can deserve something good for doing something good, and deserve something bad for doing something bad, should that be the primary basis on which we determine how criminals should be punished? And does it provide a basis for the traditional doctrine of eternal hell?
This section is devoted to two topics: One is freedom and determinism, and the other is criminal punishment. Although the issues seem to be very separate, I have put them together for a reason. One significant motivation for criminal punishment has been the issue of desert. That is pronounced like dessert, but it comes from the same root word as the word deserve. Now there are other reasons, perhaps, for criminal punishment (deterrence, protection of society, etc.), but some people think criminal punishment is first and foremost about giving people what they deserve.
On the other hand, we might ask why one person is virtuous and the other vicious? How did Mother Teresa end up the way she did, and how did Jeffrey Dahmer end up the way he did? Are they both simply the inevitable products of heredity, environment, or even (if you believe in God), God's predestination, or fore-ordination of all events before the foundation of the world (a belief held by Calvinists even today). Is it possible that if Jeffrey had had Teresa's heredity and environment, he (she?) would have been virtuous, and if Teresa had had Jeffrey's heredity and environment, she would have been a serial killer? This is the thesis of determinism, and some people have the inclination to withdraw claims of desert when they start thinking things through from a deterministic perspective. The line of thought leads us to think that the very idea of one person deserving one outcome, and another deserving another outcome, doesn't make sense. But this is a difficult conclusion to accept, it is the idea that in the last analysis, nothing is really anyone's fault, since their actions are the inevitable result of what came before.
There are a couple of ways of responding to this. The first approach, taken by philosophers such as Moritz Schlick and J. J. C. Smart, suggests that what moral responsiblity is all about it finding the right behavior to modify. They maintain that the very idea of deserving punishment is a barbaric notion we need to just get over.
The second approach is to say that looking all the way up the causal chain and seeing someone's actions as the result of past causes obscures the most important fact, and that is the fact that the person not only performed the act, but wanted to perform the act. It wasn't as if Jeffrey Dahmer wanted to be virtuous, but some alien power forced him to commit murder against his will. No, these crimes were willed actions, however inevitably they might have followed from past events.
The third option is the option of libertarian free will. When we act, we can do otherwise. Perhaps this kind of free will is a gift from God. Even the physical world, if we accept what modern physicists tell us, isn't strictly determined. So, perhaps, our actions aren't strictly determined either.
So, I would ask two questions: Can we talk about what people deserve? To do so, do we have to reject determinism? If we can deserve something good for doing something good, and deserve something bad for doing something bad, should that be the primary basis on which we determine how criminals should be punished? And does it provide a basis for the traditional doctrine of eternal hell?
Monday, March 15, 2010
Balfour's Theism and Humanism is online
A book Lewis said was "too little read." My dissertation adviser Hugh Chandler first notice the close relationship between Lewis's AFR and Balfour's by reading a Moore essay criticizing Balfour.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
What should Roe have said?
If Roe v. Wade is a mistake, what is the mistake?
One argument is that Roe simply failed to recognize the fetus's right to life. But if that's the argument, then what it should have done is rule that fetuses are 14th Amendment persons.
Two competing conceptions of the career of a person exist: one views the life of the person as a series of events in the existence of a continuing biological object, and the other sees the life of a person as a series of mental events. (Somewhat paradoxically, it's the "physicalist" model that better supports the pro-life position). Neither of these models is provably true or provably false, so far as I can see.
It is perfectly coherent to place a moral value on something without placing the same level of moral value on it that we place on the life of a human person. That which, through natural processes, becomes a person, has value on that account.
People who are pro-choice, I think, are split between those who really believe that the life of the unborn has no value, and those who think it does have value, but not sufficient value to justify protection by criminal law.
However, the Roe justices couldn't figure the question of fetal personhood out, and I don't have any arguments sufficiently strong on that matter that ought to have persuaded them.
They also said that they did know that a woman had a right to privacy, and on that they had the precedent of the Griswold case. Conservative jurisprudence says Griswold went wrong in affirming a right to privacy, since it doesn't say p-r-i-v-a-c-y in the constitution. I'm skeptical of the anti-privacy argument, so even if I were thoroughly pro-life, I would have a problem with voting for politicians who would nominate justices who were going to overturn Roe via the anti-privacy arguments, since to my mind that would be to use a bad argument to reach a good end. There's nothing inconsistent about a pro-lifer rejecting the anti-privacy argument. It makes things less convenient for his position legally, but the considerations in the privacy debate are logically independent from the considerations in the abortion debate.
I take the deer hunter argument seriously here, and the problem is more acute for me than it would be for atheists, because I think I will eventually have to look into the eyes of Jesus and will then see which conception was right.
But what should Roe have said? Even if you accept the deer hunter argument for the sake of moral contexts, you are asking a court to set aside a right that it believes to clearly exist (a woman's right to privacy in reproductive matters), on the basis of a right (the right of the fetus to life), which is in doubt. The argument then, I suppose, would have to be that the right to life has a "trump card" status amongst our rights, such that we ought to protect it in cases of reasonable doubt even if it means denying a right that we can be sure of. But I don't know if there is anything in the constitution that would justify this kind of a move from a legal standpoint.
There also seems to me to be a severe moral cost in outlawing abortion and enforcing those laws. Government has to get really intrusive in order to prevent abortions, and has to intrude into areas which we are inclined to think of as private. Further, while in my father's day, a working class family could survive on one income, in today's economy this won't work.
There is also the fact that while lawmaking bodies are mostly male, the burden imposed by pregnancy, for obvious reasons, falls on women and not on men. I can't see in good conscience making this burden heavier than it now is without doing whatever we possibly could to ease the burden on women in other ways. Feminist concerns that outlawing abortion will push women in the direction of barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen are legitimate and would have to be addressed.
The other part of it is, I think we as a society have a resposibility to enhance the choice of life, whether or not we use the coercive powers of law to prevent abortion, but especially if we do outlaw abortion. That is one reason why I support health care reform. But I think there are a lot of things we could be doing which could make the choice of life the more appealing choice to more women, which are things that people who think abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, and people who think that abortion should be illegal and not occur at all, should be able to agree on.
We can't rely on the law to be our moral compass. Strict constructionists have to be open to the possibility that a moral outrage might exist, but the Constitution doesn't provide a way of addressing it.
In the area of marriage, for example, it's perfectly legal to commit adultery, leave your spouse and marry the person you were committing adultery with. It's also horribly immoral. But the law shouldn't be involved in preventing it. The law can only do so much, and I would have thought the people who have the most to say about limited government would realize that.
One argument is that Roe simply failed to recognize the fetus's right to life. But if that's the argument, then what it should have done is rule that fetuses are 14th Amendment persons.
Two competing conceptions of the career of a person exist: one views the life of the person as a series of events in the existence of a continuing biological object, and the other sees the life of a person as a series of mental events. (Somewhat paradoxically, it's the "physicalist" model that better supports the pro-life position). Neither of these models is provably true or provably false, so far as I can see.
It is perfectly coherent to place a moral value on something without placing the same level of moral value on it that we place on the life of a human person. That which, through natural processes, becomes a person, has value on that account.
People who are pro-choice, I think, are split between those who really believe that the life of the unborn has no value, and those who think it does have value, but not sufficient value to justify protection by criminal law.
However, the Roe justices couldn't figure the question of fetal personhood out, and I don't have any arguments sufficiently strong on that matter that ought to have persuaded them.
They also said that they did know that a woman had a right to privacy, and on that they had the precedent of the Griswold case. Conservative jurisprudence says Griswold went wrong in affirming a right to privacy, since it doesn't say p-r-i-v-a-c-y in the constitution. I'm skeptical of the anti-privacy argument, so even if I were thoroughly pro-life, I would have a problem with voting for politicians who would nominate justices who were going to overturn Roe via the anti-privacy arguments, since to my mind that would be to use a bad argument to reach a good end. There's nothing inconsistent about a pro-lifer rejecting the anti-privacy argument. It makes things less convenient for his position legally, but the considerations in the privacy debate are logically independent from the considerations in the abortion debate.
I take the deer hunter argument seriously here, and the problem is more acute for me than it would be for atheists, because I think I will eventually have to look into the eyes of Jesus and will then see which conception was right.
But what should Roe have said? Even if you accept the deer hunter argument for the sake of moral contexts, you are asking a court to set aside a right that it believes to clearly exist (a woman's right to privacy in reproductive matters), on the basis of a right (the right of the fetus to life), which is in doubt. The argument then, I suppose, would have to be that the right to life has a "trump card" status amongst our rights, such that we ought to protect it in cases of reasonable doubt even if it means denying a right that we can be sure of. But I don't know if there is anything in the constitution that would justify this kind of a move from a legal standpoint.
There also seems to me to be a severe moral cost in outlawing abortion and enforcing those laws. Government has to get really intrusive in order to prevent abortions, and has to intrude into areas which we are inclined to think of as private. Further, while in my father's day, a working class family could survive on one income, in today's economy this won't work.
There is also the fact that while lawmaking bodies are mostly male, the burden imposed by pregnancy, for obvious reasons, falls on women and not on men. I can't see in good conscience making this burden heavier than it now is without doing whatever we possibly could to ease the burden on women in other ways. Feminist concerns that outlawing abortion will push women in the direction of barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen are legitimate and would have to be addressed.
The other part of it is, I think we as a society have a resposibility to enhance the choice of life, whether or not we use the coercive powers of law to prevent abortion, but especially if we do outlaw abortion. That is one reason why I support health care reform. But I think there are a lot of things we could be doing which could make the choice of life the more appealing choice to more women, which are things that people who think abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, and people who think that abortion should be illegal and not occur at all, should be able to agree on.
We can't rely on the law to be our moral compass. Strict constructionists have to be open to the possibility that a moral outrage might exist, but the Constitution doesn't provide a way of addressing it.
In the area of marriage, for example, it's perfectly legal to commit adultery, leave your spouse and marry the person you were committing adultery with. It's also horribly immoral. But the law shouldn't be involved in preventing it. The law can only do so much, and I would have thought the people who have the most to say about limited government would realize that.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Would universal health care lower the abortion rate?
According to the Washington Post, the answer should be obvious.
"If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it's needed," Hume explained, "she's more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn't it obvious?"
Imagine two scenarios:
1) Universal health care is passed, but Roe is not reversed.
2) Roe is reversed, but universal health care is defeated.
Which scenario would reduce the abortion rate more? My money is on 1.
OK, OK, I know that is not all there is to the abortion issue. Prolifers might say that it is just as much about engendering the right attitudes toward fetal life as it is about reducing the number of abortions.
"If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it's needed," Hume explained, "she's more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn't it obvious?"
Imagine two scenarios:
1) Universal health care is passed, but Roe is not reversed.
2) Roe is reversed, but universal health care is defeated.
Which scenario would reduce the abortion rate more? My money is on 1.
OK, OK, I know that is not all there is to the abortion issue. Prolifers might say that it is just as much about engendering the right attitudes toward fetal life as it is about reducing the number of abortions.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
What do we do with philosophers from the past who say really insane things? Some problems with Kant
Or so it seems to people in the 21st Century. I don't think that great thinkers are supposed to avoid intellectual errors. Or rather, it is compatible with greatness to get at last some things horribly wrong.
Of course, the Kantian position that most people roll their eyes on is his views on lying, particularly in his response to Benjamin Constant. There you get a sense that, yes, he's got that wrong, but there is something to be gained by coming to terms with him neverthteless.
HT: Ed Babinski.
Of course, the Kantian position that most people roll their eyes on is his views on lying, particularly in his response to Benjamin Constant. There you get a sense that, yes, he's got that wrong, but there is something to be gained by coming to terms with him neverthteless.
HT: Ed Babinski.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Is corporate power more dangerous than governmental power?
Tom Stiles argues that it threatens our democracy. As Acton said, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I am more deeply concerned about the corrupting effect of power in the hands of large, multinational corporations than I am with the idea of too much government. Corporations potentially can buy and control government. It seems to me that they, and not government, are the Leviathans of our time.
Do conservatives see the problem? Do they think it isn't a problem? Why not?
When a company gets sufficiently big, the usual market pressures that might keep it from doing evil seem to me to become reduced.
Do conservatives see the problem? Do they think it isn't a problem? Why not?
When a company gets sufficiently big, the usual market pressures that might keep it from doing evil seem to me to become reduced.
Relativism, slavery, and human rights
I guess the big question for relativism is whether a culture or society's basic moral principles could be wrong or false. According to relativism this is impossible. Societies from the Egypt of the Pyramids to the antebellum South practiced the enslavement of other human beings. Were those societies making a moral mistake? Was there something they didn't realize about people and their rights that they should have?
Or, let's try this statement from our Declaration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
If liberty is impossible where there is enslavement, then if this sentence is true, then the practice of enslaving people is wrong (a point that, notoriously, was not put into practice by Jefferson himself, who was himself a slaveowner). The Declaration says that we have rights regardless of what society says. If relativism is true, the society giveth rights and society taketh rights away. There is nothing you can appeal to over and above society that says that we really have rights that our society is denying us.
If there are no objectively binding moral obligations, then there are no objectively binding human rights, because rights logically entail moral obligations on the part of people who are expected to respect those rights.
Or, let's try this statement from our Declaration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
If liberty is impossible where there is enslavement, then if this sentence is true, then the practice of enslaving people is wrong (a point that, notoriously, was not put into practice by Jefferson himself, who was himself a slaveowner). The Declaration says that we have rights regardless of what society says. If relativism is true, the society giveth rights and society taketh rights away. There is nothing you can appeal to over and above society that says that we really have rights that our society is denying us.
If there are no objectively binding moral obligations, then there are no objectively binding human rights, because rights logically entail moral obligations on the part of people who are expected to respect those rights.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Conservatism in Theory and Practice, or Belly Up to the Cafeteria
The complaint that I was expressing in the post about the Roberts Court was the deep suspicion that I have that while conservatives believe that they are voting in accordance with conservative principles, but the actual practice of conservative political leaders suggests that they subscribe to a "cafeteria conservatism" that will act on conservative principle when it suits the needs of big corporate interests to act on conservative principles, but will sell out those principles in an instant if corporate profits are endangered. Faced with the prospect of ObamaCare, the minions of the insurance companies fight tooth and nail against Socialism. But when Hank Paulson says that banks need a bailout, they take up the hammer and sickle and give Goldman Sachs what it wants.
It seems to be a notorious fact about Republican leaders that, although they believe in cutting taxes and cutting expenditures, they have a far easier time gettiing the tax cuts done than they have getting the expenditure cuts done.
I'm sure if liberals get to spend as much time in political power as conservatives have, we will see how the political process undercuts liberal principles.
It seems to be a notorious fact about Republican leaders that, although they believe in cutting taxes and cutting expenditures, they have a far easier time gettiing the tax cuts done than they have getting the expenditure cuts done.
I'm sure if liberals get to spend as much time in political power as conservatives have, we will see how the political process undercuts liberal principles.
Friday, March 05, 2010
The Roberts Court extends the rights of personhood to fetuses? No, corporations.
This was the Supreme Court that was supposed to tell us that fetuses were persons, or, at least, to permit states to decide that fetuses were persons. Instead, they decided that corporations were persons. Of course the very idea of incorporating involves your not being treated as a person in at least one important sense; LLC means limited liability corporation, which means that people can't go to jail for what the corporation does.
In the present political climate, conservative Republicans always get the part of their agenda done that benefits the big corporations. Fetuses don't make campaign contributions. Corporations do.
In the present political climate, conservative Republicans always get the part of their agenda done that benefits the big corporations. Fetuses don't make campaign contributions. Corporations do.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Democratic and Oligarchic Capitalism
The way I look at it, capitalism is at its best when it is democratic, when anybody can enter the field with a new idea or new product and be successful. If we are trying to change to non-traditional energy sources, then I would hope for a fresh field day for innovative entrepreneurs. That's when the pressures of competition actually will pressure even greedy bastards in business to do things that benefit the common good. Capitalism is at its weakest when it becomes oligarchic, when a few entrenched companies have taken over the field, and may in fact be in collusion. That is how I see the oil industry today. Of course, oligarchic capitalists will try to hold on to their position, and use government to preserve their postiion. . The banking industry, with the "too big to fail" companies, which prevailed upon a Republican-dominated government to do the most socialistic thing our government has ever done, would be another example of oligarchic capitalism. It's my hope that acknowledging global warming might give a shot in the arm to democratic, as opposed to oligarchic capitalism.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Global Warming: Fact or Fraud? Cui Bono?
These Groups Say The Danger Of Manmade Global Warming Is A . . .
FACT
U.S. Agency for International Development
United States Department of Agriculture
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
National Institute of Standards and Technology
United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Energy
National Institutes of Health
United States Department of State
United States Department of Transportation
U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
National Center for Atmospheric Research
National Aeronautics & Space Administration
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
International Arctic Science Committee
Arctic Council
African Academy of Sciences
Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias
Cameroon Academy of Sciences
Royal Society of Canada
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Académie des Sciences, France
Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina of Germany
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Accademia nazionale delle scienze of Italy
Indian National Science Academy
Science Council of Japan
Kenya National Academy of Sciences
Madagascar’s National Academy of Arts, Letters and Sciences
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academia Mexicana de Ciencias
Nigerian Academy of Sciences
Royal Society of New Zealand
Polish Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
l’Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
Academy of Science of South Africa
Sudan Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Tanzania Academy of Sciences
Turkish Academy of Sciences
Uganda National Academy of Sciences
The Royal Society of the United Kingdom
National Academy of Sciences, United States
Zambia Academy of Sciences
Zimbabwe Academy of Science
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
American Astronomical Society
American Chemical Society
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
American Medical Association
American Meteorological Society
American Physical Society
American Public Health Association
American Quaternary Association
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Society of Agronomy
American Society for Microbiology
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Botanical Society of America
Crop Science Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Federation of American Scientists
Geological Society of America
National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Society of American Foresters
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
Australian Coral Reef Society
Australian Medical Association
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Engineers Australia
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
Geological Society of Australia
British Antarctic Survey
Institute of Biology, UK
Royal Meteorological Society, UK
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
European Physical Society
European Science Foundation
International Association for Great Lakes Research
International Union for Quaternary Research
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
World Federation of Public Health Associations
World Health Organization
World Meteorological Organization
FRAUD:
American Petroleum Institute
US Chamber of Commerce
National Association of Manufacturers
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Industrial Minerals Association
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
Great Northern Project Development
Rosebud Mining
Massey Energy
Alpha Natural Resources
Southeastern Legal Foundation
Georgia Agribusiness Council
Georgia Motor Trucking Association
Corn Refiners Association
National Association of Home Builders
National Oilseed Processors Association
National Petrochemical and Refiners Association
Western States Petroleum Association
“FACT” organizations from Is There a Scientific Concensus on Global Warming?, SkepticalScience.com.
“FRAUD” organizations are petitioners v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.
HT: Hazel Rubenstein.
FACT
U.S. Agency for International Development
United States Department of Agriculture
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
National Institute of Standards and Technology
United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Energy
National Institutes of Health
United States Department of State
United States Department of Transportation
U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
National Center for Atmospheric Research
National Aeronautics & Space Administration
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
International Arctic Science Committee
Arctic Council
African Academy of Sciences
Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias
Cameroon Academy of Sciences
Royal Society of Canada
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Académie des Sciences, France
Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina of Germany
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Accademia nazionale delle scienze of Italy
Indian National Science Academy
Science Council of Japan
Kenya National Academy of Sciences
Madagascar’s National Academy of Arts, Letters and Sciences
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academia Mexicana de Ciencias
Nigerian Academy of Sciences
Royal Society of New Zealand
Polish Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
l’Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
Academy of Science of South Africa
Sudan Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Tanzania Academy of Sciences
Turkish Academy of Sciences
Uganda National Academy of Sciences
The Royal Society of the United Kingdom
National Academy of Sciences, United States
Zambia Academy of Sciences
Zimbabwe Academy of Science
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
American Astronomical Society
American Chemical Society
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
American Medical Association
American Meteorological Society
American Physical Society
American Public Health Association
American Quaternary Association
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Society of Agronomy
American Society for Microbiology
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Botanical Society of America
Crop Science Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Federation of American Scientists
Geological Society of America
National Association of Geoscience Teachers
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Society of American Foresters
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
Australian Coral Reef Society
Australian Medical Association
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Engineers Australia
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
Geological Society of Australia
British Antarctic Survey
Institute of Biology, UK
Royal Meteorological Society, UK
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
European Physical Society
European Science Foundation
International Association for Great Lakes Research
International Union for Quaternary Research
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
World Federation of Public Health Associations
World Health Organization
World Meteorological Organization
FRAUD:
American Petroleum Institute
US Chamber of Commerce
National Association of Manufacturers
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Industrial Minerals Association
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
Great Northern Project Development
Rosebud Mining
Massey Energy
Alpha Natural Resources
Southeastern Legal Foundation
Georgia Agribusiness Council
Georgia Motor Trucking Association
Corn Refiners Association
National Association of Home Builders
National Oilseed Processors Association
National Petrochemical and Refiners Association
Western States Petroleum Association
“FACT” organizations from Is There a Scientific Concensus on Global Warming?, SkepticalScience.com.
“FRAUD” organizations are petitioners v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.
HT: Hazel Rubenstein.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Materialist Strategies
Defenders of materialism usually use three types of arguments to criticize the family of arguments I presented earlier. They use Error replies if they think the item that the antimaterialist is setting up for explanation can be denied. They use Reconciliation objections if they suppose that the item in question can be fitted within a materialist ontology. Moreover, they also use Inadequacy objection to argue that whatever difficulties there may be in explaining the matter in materialist terms, it does not get us any better if we accept some mentalistic worldview such as theism. We can see this typology at work in responses to the argument from objective moral values. Materialist critics of the moral argument can argue that there is really no objective morality, they can say objective morality is compatible with materialism, or they can use arguments such as the Euthyphro dilemma to argue that whatever we cannot explain about morality in materialist terms cannot better be explained by appealing to nonmaterial entities such as God.
However, it is important to notice something about materialist philosophies. They not only believe that the world is material, they also perforce believe that the truth about that material world can be discovered, and is being discovered, by people in the sciences, and that, furthermore, there are philosophical arguments that ought to persuade people to eschew mentalistic worldviews in favor of materialistic ones. They do think that we can better discover the nature of the world by observation and experimentation than by reading tea leaves. Arguments from reason are arguments that appeal to necessary conditions of rational thought and inquiry. Thus, they have what on the face of things is an advantage over other arguments, in that they have a built-in defense against error theory responses. If there is no truth, they cannot say that materialism is true. If there are no beliefs, then they cannot say we ought to believe that materialism is true. If there is no mental causation, then they cannot say that our beliefs ought to be based on supporting evidence. If there are no logical laws, the we cannot say that the argument from evil is a good argument. If our rational faculties as a whole are unreliable, then we cannot argue that the religious beliefs are formed by irrational belief-producing mechanisms. Hence, arguments from reason have what I call a transcendental impact — that is, appeal to things that, if denied, undermine the most fundamental convictions of philosophical materialists.
"The Argument from Reason" in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, eds. (Wiley-Blackwell: 2009), p. 350.
However, it is important to notice something about materialist philosophies. They not only believe that the world is material, they also perforce believe that the truth about that material world can be discovered, and is being discovered, by people in the sciences, and that, furthermore, there are philosophical arguments that ought to persuade people to eschew mentalistic worldviews in favor of materialistic ones. They do think that we can better discover the nature of the world by observation and experimentation than by reading tea leaves. Arguments from reason are arguments that appeal to necessary conditions of rational thought and inquiry. Thus, they have what on the face of things is an advantage over other arguments, in that they have a built-in defense against error theory responses. If there is no truth, they cannot say that materialism is true. If there are no beliefs, then they cannot say we ought to believe that materialism is true. If there is no mental causation, then they cannot say that our beliefs ought to be based on supporting evidence. If there are no logical laws, the we cannot say that the argument from evil is a good argument. If our rational faculties as a whole are unreliable, then we cannot argue that the religious beliefs are formed by irrational belief-producing mechanisms. Hence, arguments from reason have what I call a transcendental impact — that is, appeal to things that, if denied, undermine the most fundamental convictions of philosophical materialists.
"The Argument from Reason" in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, eds. (Wiley-Blackwell: 2009), p. 350.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Reply to Beversluis on moral objectivity
With respect to Lewis’s moral argument, poses some questions about how Lewis structured the moral argument, but I think that we could consider his argument by using the structure provided by C. Stephen Evans:
1) Probably, unless there is a God, there cannot be objective moral obligations.
2) There are objectively binding moral obligations.
3) Therefore, probably, there is a God.
I realize that some of Lewis’s rhetoric suggests something stronger than the probabilistic argument I present here, but part of the responsibility of a philosopher succeeding Lewis is to develop and strengthen his arguments and to make reasonable conclusions as to what the arguments really do show.
An important part of Lewis’s defense of the moral argument is his argument for objective moral values. However, it is important to point out that Lewis had a considerable interest in defending moral objectivity per se. Hence, his book The Abolition of Man was a critique of subjectivist philosophy, particularly as it manifested itself in the underlying presuppositions of English textbooks. He criticized Lewis in the previous edition for comparing moral values, for the subjectivist, to a mere, private taste of his own, such as a liking for pancakes or a dislike for spam. In this edition he does admit that Bertrand Russell compared moral values to a taste for oysters, and maintained that there could be no debate concerning moral values. This we might call simple subjectivism. However there can be a more sophisticated type of subjectivism, and here he turns primarily to the philosophy of Hume to provide a foundation for the kind of subjectivist view that he finds unrefuted by Lewis’s arguments.
Indeed, if someone were to try to generate a moral system without appealing to anything which might embarrass a modern naturalist ontologically, such as Kantian synthetic a priori knowledge, Platonic forms, Aristotelian entelechies, or the Christian God, it’s hard to improve on Hume, at least as a place to start. The moral life, for Hume, rests on two pillars: social utility and sympathy. First, human beings have an interest in getting along peaceably with their fellows. Second, we all have sympathetic feelings toward others. Some feelings are private feelings of our own, such as when we call a certain person “my enemy.” If I have personal feelings of enmity toward someone, it may be simply that he and I are rivals for something that we cannot both have but which I desperately want. But if I call him vicious, Hume says that I am expecting other people to concur. So if I were to call, say, a serial killer vicious, I expect the sympathy of other persons toward his victims and their families to bring them to the same conclusion that I have drawn.
But I think there are some problems which attend Humean subjectivism which also attend other forms of subjectivism that say “Yes, moral judgments are subjective, but, they have characteristic X that puts them a cut above other subjective feelings. First, there is a social utility to much behavior that we call moral, but the social benefits of the moral life are rather contingent. If I have long ago committed a murder, and am living peacefully in another state, I can effectively ruin my social life by confessing the crime, and yet that is precisely what I ought to do. Slavery was pretty socially useful in undergirding virtually every society from the Egypt of the Pyramids to the antebellum South, but it is nevertheless a morally unacceptable practice.
At the same time, Humean sympathy seems to be one more emotion amongst many. Other people may find it agreeable to deal with people who have lots of sympathy in their emotional makeup, as opposed to, say, sadism, by why are these feelings thought to be superior to others. The following quote from Lewis on Instinct could also be used as a response to Hume’s attempt to ground morality on sympathy:
But why ought we to obey Instinct? Is there another instinct of a higher order directing us to do so, and a third of a still higher order directing us to obey it?—an infinite regress of instincts? This is presumably impossible, but nothing else will serve. From the statement about psychological fact 'I have an impulse to do so and so' we cannot by any ingenuity derive the practical principle 'I ought to obey this impulse'. Even if it were true that men had a spontaneous, unreflective impulse to sacrifice their own lives for the preservation of their fellows, it remains a quite separate question whether this is an impulse they should control or one they should indulge. For even the Innovator admits that many impulses (those which conflict with the preservation of the species) have to be controlled. And this admission surely introduces us to a yet more fundamental difficulty.
Hume appeals to the universality of sympathy as a basis for the moral life, but does sympathy alone possess this universality? Competitiveness, the desire to get ahead of the other guy, is, so far as I have been able to tell, pretty universal in the human frame as well. (Drive a few miles in rush hour traffic and ask yourself whether sympathy or competitiveness has a greater purchase on human nature). Our morality is supposed to step in and act as a referee when we are pulled by two opposing impulses. So I am driving down the road on the way to an important meeting, and I see an injured person lying in the road. I want to get to the meeting, because a promotion hangs on my being there, and I want to climb the ladder at my job. But the person in the road needs my help. Yes, my sympathy is on the side of stopping by the side of the road, but I also want that promotion. Why should I obey my sympathy as opposed to my desire to get ahead? I don’t think Hume’s theory, or any other subjectivist theory, provides a good answer.
1) Probably, unless there is a God, there cannot be objective moral obligations.
2) There are objectively binding moral obligations.
3) Therefore, probably, there is a God.
I realize that some of Lewis’s rhetoric suggests something stronger than the probabilistic argument I present here, but part of the responsibility of a philosopher succeeding Lewis is to develop and strengthen his arguments and to make reasonable conclusions as to what the arguments really do show.
An important part of Lewis’s defense of the moral argument is his argument for objective moral values. However, it is important to point out that Lewis had a considerable interest in defending moral objectivity per se. Hence, his book The Abolition of Man was a critique of subjectivist philosophy, particularly as it manifested itself in the underlying presuppositions of English textbooks. He criticized Lewis in the previous edition for comparing moral values, for the subjectivist, to a mere, private taste of his own, such as a liking for pancakes or a dislike for spam. In this edition he does admit that Bertrand Russell compared moral values to a taste for oysters, and maintained that there could be no debate concerning moral values. This we might call simple subjectivism. However there can be a more sophisticated type of subjectivism, and here he turns primarily to the philosophy of Hume to provide a foundation for the kind of subjectivist view that he finds unrefuted by Lewis’s arguments.
Indeed, if someone were to try to generate a moral system without appealing to anything which might embarrass a modern naturalist ontologically, such as Kantian synthetic a priori knowledge, Platonic forms, Aristotelian entelechies, or the Christian God, it’s hard to improve on Hume, at least as a place to start. The moral life, for Hume, rests on two pillars: social utility and sympathy. First, human beings have an interest in getting along peaceably with their fellows. Second, we all have sympathetic feelings toward others. Some feelings are private feelings of our own, such as when we call a certain person “my enemy.” If I have personal feelings of enmity toward someone, it may be simply that he and I are rivals for something that we cannot both have but which I desperately want. But if I call him vicious, Hume says that I am expecting other people to concur. So if I were to call, say, a serial killer vicious, I expect the sympathy of other persons toward his victims and their families to bring them to the same conclusion that I have drawn.
But I think there are some problems which attend Humean subjectivism which also attend other forms of subjectivism that say “Yes, moral judgments are subjective, but, they have characteristic X that puts them a cut above other subjective feelings. First, there is a social utility to much behavior that we call moral, but the social benefits of the moral life are rather contingent. If I have long ago committed a murder, and am living peacefully in another state, I can effectively ruin my social life by confessing the crime, and yet that is precisely what I ought to do. Slavery was pretty socially useful in undergirding virtually every society from the Egypt of the Pyramids to the antebellum South, but it is nevertheless a morally unacceptable practice.
At the same time, Humean sympathy seems to be one more emotion amongst many. Other people may find it agreeable to deal with people who have lots of sympathy in their emotional makeup, as opposed to, say, sadism, by why are these feelings thought to be superior to others. The following quote from Lewis on Instinct could also be used as a response to Hume’s attempt to ground morality on sympathy:
But why ought we to obey Instinct? Is there another instinct of a higher order directing us to do so, and a third of a still higher order directing us to obey it?—an infinite regress of instincts? This is presumably impossible, but nothing else will serve. From the statement about psychological fact 'I have an impulse to do so and so' we cannot by any ingenuity derive the practical principle 'I ought to obey this impulse'. Even if it were true that men had a spontaneous, unreflective impulse to sacrifice their own lives for the preservation of their fellows, it remains a quite separate question whether this is an impulse they should control or one they should indulge. For even the Innovator admits that many impulses (those which conflict with the preservation of the species) have to be controlled. And this admission surely introduces us to a yet more fundamental difficulty.
Hume appeals to the universality of sympathy as a basis for the moral life, but does sympathy alone possess this universality? Competitiveness, the desire to get ahead of the other guy, is, so far as I have been able to tell, pretty universal in the human frame as well. (Drive a few miles in rush hour traffic and ask yourself whether sympathy or competitiveness has a greater purchase on human nature). Our morality is supposed to step in and act as a referee when we are pulled by two opposing impulses. So I am driving down the road on the way to an important meeting, and I see an injured person lying in the road. I want to get to the meeting, because a promotion hangs on my being there, and I want to climb the ladder at my job. But the person in the road needs my help. Yes, my sympathy is on the side of stopping by the side of the road, but I also want that promotion. Why should I obey my sympathy as opposed to my desire to get ahead? I don’t think Hume’s theory, or any other subjectivist theory, provides a good answer.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The position nobody takes
In the creation-evolution controversy, there are many positions available. One I never hear goes like this:
The Bible teaches that God created the world in six literal days, about 6000 years ago. Science teaches the theory of evolution. Scientists are using the scientific method as best they can, but for this, science is just wrong. The Bible is God's word, and therefore science is in error.
The closest I have ever seen to this has been Gosse's theory that God created the world with fossils already in the ground, to fool the scientists into believing that evolution is true.
"He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness." I Cor 3:19.
The Bible teaches that God created the world in six literal days, about 6000 years ago. Science teaches the theory of evolution. Scientists are using the scientific method as best they can, but for this, science is just wrong. The Bible is God's word, and therefore science is in error.
The closest I have ever seen to this has been Gosse's theory that God created the world with fossils already in the ground, to fool the scientists into believing that evolution is true.
"He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness." I Cor 3:19.
The end of faith? Not any time soon
Polling data suggests that even religiously unaffiliated younger people have a profound spiritual hunger. I think this supports the claim that C. S. Lewis's Argument from Desire is correct in supposing that our very nature hungers for something that only God can satisfy, and also the claim that there is something deeply unnatural about atheism.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Cheney says he was a big supporter of waterboarding
"When the President Does it, That Means That it is Not Illegal" - Richard Milhous Nixon.
Is Gummint the problem? Try Living Without It
Ronald Reagan said the scariest words in the English language were "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
Eli, from FireDogLake, thinks that the ideal of limited government sounds good, until someone actually tries to put it into practice.
Eli, from FireDogLake, thinks that the ideal of limited government sounds good, until someone actually tries to put it into practice.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
A Title I Considered for my book
I remember sending a e-mail to a friend of mine in which I said if I wrote a book, its title would either be "C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea" or "If the Watchmaker were Really Blind, Dawkins Wouldn't Know It." I'm glad I picked the first one, but I like the second one as well.
My essay from Contending with Christianity's Critics is online
At Google Books.
I think the sequence in which my argument is presented is important to the project.
I think the sequence in which my argument is presented is important to the project.
Would outlawing abortion deter abortion
A friend of mine once told me that he thought that if there were laws passed against abortion, they would never be obeyed and never be enforced. Forget about the back alley abortionists. The front door of the abortion clinics would be open, and law enforcement would be powerless to enforce the law.
Now if a law is unenforceable, perhaps we are morally obligated to have the law anyway. But it would be worthless as a deterrent.
Now if a law is unenforceable, perhaps we are morally obligated to have the law anyway. But it would be worthless as a deterrent.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Does Archaeology Support the Bible?
I knew about these types of arguments when I was a teenager, reading Halley's Bible Handbook. But some archaeologists are arguing quite the opposite.
You don't understand intelligent design!
That's the charge of this response by Jay Richards to Stephen Barr.
Columbus proved the earth was round, and other hogwash
Actually, people before Columbus believed the earth was round. There were two schools of thought. One said the earth was big, and if you sail west you will run out of food and provisions before you reach the Indes. The other, led by Columbus, said it was a lot smaller, and that you could reach the Indes in a reasonable length of time. Columbus was wrong about the size of the earth. But neither group expected there to be a whole different continent between here and the Indes. In fact, Columbus never figured it out. Hence the misnomer “Indians” which survives to this day.
Is Satan winning the numbers game?
You have a completely defeated being who, according to Christian theology, is nevertheless alive and well on planet earth and is doing all he can to ruin the eternal existences of as many people as possible, and is successfully seducing a lot of people into sin and damnation. That doesn't look, at least at this point, like total defeat to me. If the people who die having accepted Christ's atonement are saved, and people who die without having accepted Christ's atonement are lost, then it looks as if the devil is beating God in the numbers game.
How can this be?
Well, it's easy to see what the Calvinist answer is. But where do you go if you don't want to go there? At least you can see the argument from exclusivism to Calvinism.
How can this be?
Well, it's easy to see what the Calvinist answer is. But where do you go if you don't want to go there? At least you can see the argument from exclusivism to Calvinism.
Why the problem of evil is the most popular argument for atheism
Suppose we could, at no cost to ourselves, prevent the painful death of a deer in a forest fire. All things being equal, this is what we would be obligated to do. Now we might decide that we have to consider our own safety, or our own limited abilities, in determining whether to rush into a burning forest to save a deer. But, if we could save a deer by pressing a button on our computer, woudn't we do so? When we see some unfortunate thing happen, like the disaster in Haiti, we certainly are inclined to hold anyone accountable who could have prevented the tragedy at no cost and failed to act.
But what about God? God had the ability and the knowledge to prevent any catastrophe that happens. So if He knows about them in advance, he has the ability to prevent them (this is entailed by omnipotence and omniscience), the only conclusion, apparenlty, is that he doesn't want to prevent them.
Suppose we were to find out that a multi-billionaire, who has recently died, had a room where he could go with all the latest computer equipment, and he had the power to stop any of the world's great tragedies of the last 10 years. He could have pushed a button and spared us from 9/11, maybe by causing the hijackers to throw up in the bathroom instead of charging the cockpit with box cutters. He had the ability to send Hurricane Katrina back out into the Gulf of Mexico and away from the city of New Orleans. He had the power to spare Haiti from the earthquake, and the Asians from the 2004 tsunami. But he did nothing. Would we think well of this person? Yet, God is supposed to be perfectly good.
Now I don't buy this argument, surely, but it is important to see the force of it. It's the number one reason atheists will give you for why they are atheists.
But what about God? God had the ability and the knowledge to prevent any catastrophe that happens. So if He knows about them in advance, he has the ability to prevent them (this is entailed by omnipotence and omniscience), the only conclusion, apparenlty, is that he doesn't want to prevent them.
Suppose we were to find out that a multi-billionaire, who has recently died, had a room where he could go with all the latest computer equipment, and he had the power to stop any of the world's great tragedies of the last 10 years. He could have pushed a button and spared us from 9/11, maybe by causing the hijackers to throw up in the bathroom instead of charging the cockpit with box cutters. He had the ability to send Hurricane Katrina back out into the Gulf of Mexico and away from the city of New Orleans. He had the power to spare Haiti from the earthquake, and the Asians from the 2004 tsunami. But he did nothing. Would we think well of this person? Yet, God is supposed to be perfectly good.
Now I don't buy this argument, surely, but it is important to see the force of it. It's the number one reason atheists will give you for why they are atheists.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Frank Beckwith rebuts Thomson
Not the original Thomson article, but the new one that BDK linked to.
This is a redated post, which contains a version of what I have been calling the deer hunter argument.
This is a redated post, which contains a version of what I have been calling the deer hunter argument.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Some atheists offer to take care of raptured Christians' pets
For a fee, of course. HT: Steve Hays.
But do you get a full refund if the atheist converts to Christianity before the Rapture?
But do you get a full refund if the atheist converts to Christianity before the Rapture?
The best anti-abortion argument: the deer hunter argument
To me, at least, is the deer hunter argument is the strongest pro-life argument. It goes like this.
It is difficult, perhaps, to look at the fetus and answer the question of whether it should receive a right to life equivalent to that of an infant. However, some take this situation as a reason for outlawing abortion, because of what I call the “deer hunter argument.” The deer hunter argument says that if you are hunting deer and you are in doubt as to whether something is a deer or a person, you are morally obligated to assume it is a person and hold your fire. You can be criminally liable if you don’t. Similarly, if you are considering allowing a fetus to be aborted, but you are not sure whether it is a person or not, you should refrain from killing it, and you should be criminally liable if you do.
What is the best pro-choice response.
It is difficult, perhaps, to look at the fetus and answer the question of whether it should receive a right to life equivalent to that of an infant. However, some take this situation as a reason for outlawing abortion, because of what I call the “deer hunter argument.” The deer hunter argument says that if you are hunting deer and you are in doubt as to whether something is a deer or a person, you are morally obligated to assume it is a person and hold your fire. You can be criminally liable if you don’t. Similarly, if you are considering allowing a fetus to be aborted, but you are not sure whether it is a person or not, you should refrain from killing it, and you should be criminally liable if you do.
What is the best pro-choice response.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Utilitarianism, life, and death
A redated post.
An implication of utilitarianism that I have never heard discussed much is that pain turns out to be a fate worse than death, according to it. If the calculus attempts to determine what is right based on whether something produces the best balance of pleasure over pain, who is or is not dead seems not to count. Death is just a way of going to zero: no pain and no pleasure either. If you are a utilitarian and you know how to put people out of their misery painlessly, maybe a career as a serial killer is morally obligatory for you.
An implication of utilitarianism that I have never heard discussed much is that pain turns out to be a fate worse than death, according to it. If the calculus attempts to determine what is right based on whether something produces the best balance of pleasure over pain, who is or is not dead seems not to count. Death is just a way of going to zero: no pain and no pleasure either. If you are a utilitarian and you know how to put people out of their misery painlessly, maybe a career as a serial killer is morally obligatory for you.
Newman on moral and nonmoral goods
Newman thinks moral goods are far more significant.
The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.
The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Do determinists cheat more?
At least according to this study. HT: Tom Gilson.
I suppose a really good study would break it down between soft determinists and hard determinists. Maybe it's just the hard determinists that are skewing the curve.
I suppose a really good study would break it down between soft determinists and hard determinists. Maybe it's just the hard determinists that are skewing the curve.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Moral agreement and ethical debate
On abortion, doesn't the issue arise as a borderline case amongst people who agree on certain basic principles? I know that people who disagree on abortion seem miles apart, but think about it. They agree;
1) In cases where the child is already born, it should be a crime to kill the child if it is, say, an inconvenience (which children invariably are).
2) We should be concerned about the quality of life as well as about life itself.
The question is whether the case of a fetus is in any way relevantly different from the case of a born infant. No one questions the value of life or the value of the quality of life. They just disagree about whether the fetus is relevantly different from infants and toddlers. But there seem to be agreed-upon moral truths that both sides accept without question.
Sometimes we get so busy arguing about the ethics we disagree about, that we forget the huge number of moral judgments on which most all of us agree. But of course it would get boring in ethics class if we were to argue about, let's say, the ethics of serial murder.
1) In cases where the child is already born, it should be a crime to kill the child if it is, say, an inconvenience (which children invariably are).
2) We should be concerned about the quality of life as well as about life itself.
The question is whether the case of a fetus is in any way relevantly different from the case of a born infant. No one questions the value of life or the value of the quality of life. They just disagree about whether the fetus is relevantly different from infants and toddlers. But there seem to be agreed-upon moral truths that both sides accept without question.
Sometimes we get so busy arguing about the ethics we disagree about, that we forget the huge number of moral judgments on which most all of us agree. But of course it would get boring in ethics class if we were to argue about, let's say, the ethics of serial murder.
Mackie's Analysis of Operational Self-Refutation
For those of you sufficiently blessed to be able to use JSTOR.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Must a Punishment be Like the Crime in order to Fit the Crime?
I think this is a popular confusion. Retribution theory, as I understand it, requires that we deprive the criminal of happiness, as commensurably as we can reasonably make it, to the degree that the crime was wrong. It doesn't mean that the suffering the perpetrator is supposed to receive is to be similar in nature to that which he inflicted on his victim.
This is often implied in "eye for an eye" arguments. I realize in the eye for an eye case, there is a similarity of crime and punishment. But I do not see this elevated to the level of principle, even in the Old Testament.
This is often implied in "eye for an eye" arguments. I realize in the eye for an eye case, there is a similarity of crime and punishment. But I do not see this elevated to the level of principle, even in the Old Testament.
Do Conservatives want a Meritocracy?
A redated post.
On one level, my political allegiances are somewhat more left than right, and in the present political situation I am inclined to vote for Democrats as opposed to Republicans. But I am not a real believer in the political spectrum: I think that interest-groups get a hold of the major political parties, rendering them capable of dumping their most fundamental principles if those interests are in danger. It is, for example, somewhat ironic that Michael Moore's movie about capitalism spends much of its time complaining about the massive bailout of the banks in mid-2008, a step that is one of the most socialistic things our government has ever done (in spite of the fact that it was spearheaded by Republicans). I read conservative thinkers and think they must surely have something fundamentally right, I see conservative politicians and remain convinced that whatever conservatism has right, these political leaders have no idea what it is.
I think a lot of issues strike me as only contingently liberal-conservative matters: I can easily imagine a world in which all the liberals are pro-life, (protecting the weak against the strong you know), I can imagine a world where the conservatives are the environmentalists, conservatives of another era would not have favored such things as the invasion of Iraq or the use of enhanced interrogation techniques (torture, for all you English speakers) against detainees.
One conception that seems popular is that conservatives, more than liberals, want to restore to the idea of merit a central place in our political thinking. Affirmative action, an idea popular amongst liberals and scorned by conservatives, takes advantages away from those who merit them, and gives them to those who lack such merit. But this piece suggests that meritocracy is a bad idea which conservatives ought to reject.
On one level, my political allegiances are somewhat more left than right, and in the present political situation I am inclined to vote for Democrats as opposed to Republicans. But I am not a real believer in the political spectrum: I think that interest-groups get a hold of the major political parties, rendering them capable of dumping their most fundamental principles if those interests are in danger. It is, for example, somewhat ironic that Michael Moore's movie about capitalism spends much of its time complaining about the massive bailout of the banks in mid-2008, a step that is one of the most socialistic things our government has ever done (in spite of the fact that it was spearheaded by Republicans). I read conservative thinkers and think they must surely have something fundamentally right, I see conservative politicians and remain convinced that whatever conservatism has right, these political leaders have no idea what it is.
I think a lot of issues strike me as only contingently liberal-conservative matters: I can easily imagine a world in which all the liberals are pro-life, (protecting the weak against the strong you know), I can imagine a world where the conservatives are the environmentalists, conservatives of another era would not have favored such things as the invasion of Iraq or the use of enhanced interrogation techniques (torture, for all you English speakers) against detainees.
One conception that seems popular is that conservatives, more than liberals, want to restore to the idea of merit a central place in our political thinking. Affirmative action, an idea popular amongst liberals and scorned by conservatives, takes advantages away from those who merit them, and gives them to those who lack such merit. But this piece suggests that meritocracy is a bad idea which conservatives ought to reject.
Monday, February 08, 2010
The Who Sell Out
I used to love the Who. But somehow anthems of adolescent rebelliousness ring a tad false coming from men in their sixties. Especially when their voices are shot, their drummer wasn't born when the original songs were written, and one of their signature lines is "I hope I die before I get old." Watching their "performance" at the Super Bowl halftime show, I actually was tempted to say "If only you had." So why did are they still up there? The explanation can only be found in the title of their third album.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Does Evolution Select for Truth?
Quine thought so. "Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic, but praiseworthy, tendency to die before reproducing their kind."
From a Logical Point of View
From a Logical Point of View
Response to philosophy frustration
This is a response to some frustrations which a student expressed to me, and which are, I think, typical of a lot of people who are introduced to the subject. If you've taught philosophy for any length of time, you know where this student is coming from.
I know that philosophy, by its nature, can be frustrating, and it requires somewhat different skills than what you might be accustomed to using in other classes. I make no apologies for that; the discipline of philosophy is what it is.
There is a common conception when students come to philosophy classes that everything falls into two general categories, fact and opinion. If it is a matter of fact, we can settle it by some broadly scientific method. If it is a matter of opinion, then different people have different opinions, and we are all entitled to our opinions. Philosophical questions are all matters of opinion, and therefore there is something absurd and perhaps even offensive about grading a philosophy paper.
I think this neat division of everything into two boxes, fact and opinion, which we learned all the way back to fourth grade at least, is a distortion of the truth. Just because we cannot settle a question to everyone's satisfaction through a well-defined method doesn't mean that there can't be better or worse reasons for believing what we do, or that we shouldn't be aware of the reasons for and against what we believe. Whether it is worthwhile to spend time working through one's world-view and putting a lot of reflection into that, or whether there are other, more adequate uses for a person's time is not something I can answer for someone else.
But people do have decisions to make that affect their lives. They have to decide whether to become actively involved in one of the world's major religions, and for Western religions, this invariably involves belief in the existence of God. They have to decide what they think is real. They have to decide what sources of knowledge they can rely on, and what sources they should call into question. They have to decide by what rules they decide what is right and wrong. And they have to decide whether they really think they have a free will, and also whether they are the persons who have an eternity to look forward to, or whether it all ends with the grave.
Even if you have decided all these questions in your own mind, others around you are making those decisions, and I take it you are in conversation with them.
As for grading philosophy papers, I do not grade papers in philosophy on the basis of whether I agree with the person's beliefs. Two things I look for are 1) How clearly you state your own position, and 2) The extent to which you carefully reflect on and articulate why you believe what you do as opposed to what others believe.
I wouldn't have ended up in the job that I have if I didn't think that philosophy was a valuable enterprise. I cannot make that judgment for other people. However, since we're in a philosophy class, we have to do the philosophy curriculum. After 23 years of teaching experience, I can tell you that you are not alone in your philosophy frustrations.
I know that philosophy, by its nature, can be frustrating, and it requires somewhat different skills than what you might be accustomed to using in other classes. I make no apologies for that; the discipline of philosophy is what it is.
There is a common conception when students come to philosophy classes that everything falls into two general categories, fact and opinion. If it is a matter of fact, we can settle it by some broadly scientific method. If it is a matter of opinion, then different people have different opinions, and we are all entitled to our opinions. Philosophical questions are all matters of opinion, and therefore there is something absurd and perhaps even offensive about grading a philosophy paper.
I think this neat division of everything into two boxes, fact and opinion, which we learned all the way back to fourth grade at least, is a distortion of the truth. Just because we cannot settle a question to everyone's satisfaction through a well-defined method doesn't mean that there can't be better or worse reasons for believing what we do, or that we shouldn't be aware of the reasons for and against what we believe. Whether it is worthwhile to spend time working through one's world-view and putting a lot of reflection into that, or whether there are other, more adequate uses for a person's time is not something I can answer for someone else.
But people do have decisions to make that affect their lives. They have to decide whether to become actively involved in one of the world's major religions, and for Western religions, this invariably involves belief in the existence of God. They have to decide what they think is real. They have to decide what sources of knowledge they can rely on, and what sources they should call into question. They have to decide by what rules they decide what is right and wrong. And they have to decide whether they really think they have a free will, and also whether they are the persons who have an eternity to look forward to, or whether it all ends with the grave.
Even if you have decided all these questions in your own mind, others around you are making those decisions, and I take it you are in conversation with them.
As for grading philosophy papers, I do not grade papers in philosophy on the basis of whether I agree with the person's beliefs. Two things I look for are 1) How clearly you state your own position, and 2) The extent to which you carefully reflect on and articulate why you believe what you do as opposed to what others believe.
I wouldn't have ended up in the job that I have if I didn't think that philosophy was a valuable enterprise. I cannot make that judgment for other people. However, since we're in a philosophy class, we have to do the philosophy curriculum. After 23 years of teaching experience, I can tell you that you are not alone in your philosophy frustrations.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Friday, February 05, 2010
The word-faith movement
So popular with TBN. I guess that is why I have never liked Christian television.
The logical conclusion of the animal rights argument?
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small
And streptococcus is the test
I love him best of all.
Philmore's parody of Coleridge
Should germs have rights?
All things both great and small
And streptococcus is the test
I love him best of all.
Philmore's parody of Coleridge
Should germs have rights?
Thursday, February 04, 2010
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Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Submission, Mutual Submission, and Final Decision-Making Power
I was listening to a religious radio station to a program on finances a few years back. The program said that people are, of course, commanded to tithe to the church. If you are a husband, and you want to tithe, you can and should make that decision for your family. However, if you are a wife, and you want to tithe but your husband doesn't, then you can try to change his mind, but it is his decision as to whether or not the family tithes or not.
Now, even if you believe in a hierarchy between men and women, is this sort of a conclusion required? Does "headship" translate to "final decision-making power?" These conclusions are typically drawn by Bible teachers, but I never see them actually drawn in the text of Scripture. And if, as Ephesians 5 clearly teaches, both husband and wife are enjoined to submit to one another, how is that even possible if the man always knows that if he holds out long enough, his wife is going to have to give in?
Now, even if you believe in a hierarchy between men and women, is this sort of a conclusion required? Does "headship" translate to "final decision-making power?" These conclusions are typically drawn by Bible teachers, but I never see them actually drawn in the text of Scripture. And if, as Ephesians 5 clearly teaches, both husband and wife are enjoined to submit to one another, how is that even possible if the man always knows that if he holds out long enough, his wife is going to have to give in?
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Moderate scarcity, and secular and religious bases for the moral life
There may be a certain modicum of decent behavior that we need to engage in in order to function socially. But sometimes people have a lot of money thrust into their hands, and so don't have to have the ordinary middle-class pressures. Or one can be very poor and desperate for money. If you are moderately privileged, you need morality to get along, but if you are really poor, you can't afford it, and if you are really rich, you don't need it.
Professional athletes and singing stars often find themselves with a lot of money, power, and acclaim that is beyond their maturity to deal with, and they often wreck their lives because of it. (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, etc.) Kurt Warner seems to want to use his position for the benefit of others, but he is motivated, quite obviously, by religion.
To sum up, certain situations give us a reason to be moral, but those reasons don't hold up if the situation changes. A belief in moral theism, on the other hand, provides a moral motivation that transcends the situations in which we find ourselves.
Professional athletes and singing stars often find themselves with a lot of money, power, and acclaim that is beyond their maturity to deal with, and they often wreck their lives because of it. (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, etc.) Kurt Warner seems to want to use his position for the benefit of others, but he is motivated, quite obviously, by religion.
To sum up, certain situations give us a reason to be moral, but those reasons don't hold up if the situation changes. A belief in moral theism, on the other hand, provides a moral motivation that transcends the situations in which we find ourselves.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Lydia McGrew on Animal Salvation
HT; Steve Hays. But if animals can be saved, can they also be lost? If you are a Calvinist, does animal reprobation become a possibility.
In The Problem of Pain, Lewis answered the question "Where would you put all the mosquitoes?" by pointing out that a heaven for mosquitoes and a hell for men could effectively be combined.
In The Problem of Pain, Lewis answered the question "Where would you put all the mosquitoes?" by pointing out that a heaven for mosquitoes and a hell for men could effectively be combined.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Jason Pratt on Horrid Red Things
Jason Pratt, of the Christian CADRE, explains Lewis's important point about literal and metaphorical language in the chapter of Miracles entitled Horrid Red Things. One of my favorite C. S. Lewis points.
Lewis uses the example of a little girl who thinks that poison, in any given substance, is "horrid red things". She really believes that if she separated the poison out of 'poisonous' solids and liquids, the poison would really look like horrid red things. But an adult who attempted to refute her claim that lye is poisonous by correcting her false belief about what 'poison' looks like, would still be in for a nasty shock if he drank it! Indeed, with a little investigation he might have discovered that she did not believe lye poisonous because it contained horrid red things (which she knows she cannot see in the lye), but because her mother (who may have sufficiently accurate reasons for saying so) has told her the lye is poisonous and she trusts her mother. She thinks the red things are in the lye, not because she can see them, but because she already believes the lye is poisonous; therefore it must (as far as she is concerned) have those horrid red things in it somewhere. Her imagery turns out to be, upon fair examination, ultimately of little importance to the issue at hand: whether lye really is poisonous. If she was corrected about the nature of poison, it would probably not (nor should not) affect her belief about the toxicity of lye. She would know more, but she would not necessarily be refuted in her core belief.
Lewis uses the example of a little girl who thinks that poison, in any given substance, is "horrid red things". She really believes that if she separated the poison out of 'poisonous' solids and liquids, the poison would really look like horrid red things. But an adult who attempted to refute her claim that lye is poisonous by correcting her false belief about what 'poison' looks like, would still be in for a nasty shock if he drank it! Indeed, with a little investigation he might have discovered that she did not believe lye poisonous because it contained horrid red things (which she knows she cannot see in the lye), but because her mother (who may have sufficiently accurate reasons for saying so) has told her the lye is poisonous and she trusts her mother. She thinks the red things are in the lye, not because she can see them, but because she already believes the lye is poisonous; therefore it must (as far as she is concerned) have those horrid red things in it somewhere. Her imagery turns out to be, upon fair examination, ultimately of little importance to the issue at hand: whether lye really is poisonous. If she was corrected about the nature of poison, it would probably not (nor should not) affect her belief about the toxicity of lye. She would know more, but she would not necessarily be refuted in her core belief.
Is the Oscillating Universe Model Dead in the Water?
From this Wikipedia entry, it looks like it is still alive and kicking.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Religiosity amongst scientists
My interest in the link in the previous post had to do with the fact that the numbers that were cited in the apologetics website were very different from the ones provided in this piece by Sam Harris, where he says 93% of people in the NAS were unbelievers. I did note the apologetical bias of that link, and was hoping to get a little more detail on the full story.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Response to a student on the use of the term "faith"
Whenever someone brings up the word faith in this class, I am going to ask them what they mean by it. Some people mean by faith simply confidence, some mean confidence without immediate perceptual evidence (faith as opposed to "sight"), some people mean faith without proof, by which I take it they mean, I take it, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, and some see faith as belief absent any rational support, and perhaps even holding on to a belief in the teeth of a mountain of counter-evidence.
If you say that atheists like Freud and Dawkins are really religious because they have faith of some kind, the whole issue of how you define faith hits you in the nose.
If you say that atheists like Freud and Dawkins are really religious because they have faith of some kind, the whole issue of how you define faith hits you in the nose.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Leaving the (quiverfull) fold and losing her faith
HT: Ed Babinski. This quiverfull movement strikes me as a cult.
The Chesteronian basis of Lewis's argument from reason
Jim Slagle, at Agent Intellect, wrote his master's thesis on the Argument from Reason for the University of Louvain, and in the process convinced me to change my mind about one aspect of the argument. At first I thought that Anscombe had shown that Lewis was misusing the term "irrational", in the first edition of Miracles, in speaking of physical causes, but in fact Lewis was using a different, but perfectly acceptable sense of the word "irrational." Lewis in fact distinguishes the two senses of the word "irrational in The Abolition of Man." Lewis did adopt the irrational-non-rational distinction when he revised the third chapter of Miracles, but, strictly speaking, he need not have done so.
In this post, he presents what he considers to be Chesterton's version of the AFR.
In this post, he presents what he considers to be Chesterton's version of the AFR.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Here is Lewis's The Abolition of Man
Perhaps this will shed light on my discussion of "fact and opinion." I suspect intellectual rat poison is being given to our children when they are taught these little "fact and opinion" exercises starting as early as the fourth grade.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven
This motivation seems to underlie Christopher Hitchens' anti-religious crusade. Of course, if his arguments were good, his motivation wouldn't matter.
Adam Barkman's new book on Lewis and Philosophy
This is the opening chapter of a 600 page book on philosophy and Lewis that focuses largely on his historical development. Often in reading Lewis I have noticed a difference between the philosophical climate of his own time and our time. This book is very helpful to understanding that difference.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Are Christians more Likely to Go to Prison?
This has been contended, but, according to Metacrock, not without considerable fudging of the data.
A favorite C. S. Lewis quote of mine
""The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first - wanting to be the centre - wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake...what Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they 'could be like Gods' - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come...the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.""
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
An economist argues for the irrationality of religious belief
His argument has overtones very similar to Loftus's Outsider Test for Faith. Religious believers, he charges:
· accept their religious beliefs with little or no evidence
· accept religious beliefs that are contrary to the evidence
· accept religious beliefs without studying competing views
· are certain about religious beliefs that are dubious at best, and
· accept their religious beliefs not because they are intellectually compelling, but because they are emotionally comforting.
· accept their religious beliefs with little or no evidence
· accept religious beliefs that are contrary to the evidence
· accept religious beliefs without studying competing views
· are certain about religious beliefs that are dubious at best, and
· accept their religious beliefs not because they are intellectually compelling, but because they are emotionally comforting.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Who made God?
I think the classical answer to this is to say that there are two types of things that exist: things that might or might not exist, and things that have to exist. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it,
It is commonly accepted that there are two sorts of existent entities: those that exist but could have failed to exist, and those that could not have failed to exist. Entities of the first sort are contingent beings; entities of the second sort are necessary beings.
According to the Christian tradition, God is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. His existence is not contingent on any outside forces. If it were contingent, then those forces would have power over Him, and he would not be omnipotent. Hence, it is supposed that God's existence is necessary and not contingent. If something has to exist, then it is part of the very definition of God's nature that he was not created and could not be created.
Consider cosmological arguments for the existence of God for a moment. One type of cosmological argument for God is called a kalam cosmological argument. A kalam cosmological argument follows this format.
1. Whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
In other words, according to the principle used in premise 1, before we know whether we need to ask for a cause of something, we need to discover whether or not, ex hypothesi, it began to exist. If it didn't have a temporal beginning, then a cause may not be needed. This argument is based on the claim that, either through mathematical arguments, or as the upshot of discoveries in astrophysics, we have good reason to suppose that the universe had a temporal beginning (the Big Bang maybe?)
Another cosmological argument for God, found in Aquinas's Third Way, goes like this:
1. Whatever exists contingently must have a cause of its existence.
2. The (physical) universe, and everything in it, exists contingently. It might or might not exist.
Therefore, the universe must have a cause that is independent of the physical universe.
Now, I am not here contending that these are good arguments. However, they are ways of arguing for the existence of God that have been popular amongst philosophers. What I am saying is that these arguments for the existence of God present us with a conception of God that does not need a cause. In fact, if something were to cause God to exist, the God would not be a necessary being, and hence, wouldn't be God.
For this reason, I don't think that the question "Who made God" is the stunning refutation of theism that some people think that it is.
It is commonly accepted that there are two sorts of existent entities: those that exist but could have failed to exist, and those that could not have failed to exist. Entities of the first sort are contingent beings; entities of the second sort are necessary beings.
According to the Christian tradition, God is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. His existence is not contingent on any outside forces. If it were contingent, then those forces would have power over Him, and he would not be omnipotent. Hence, it is supposed that God's existence is necessary and not contingent. If something has to exist, then it is part of the very definition of God's nature that he was not created and could not be created.
Consider cosmological arguments for the existence of God for a moment. One type of cosmological argument for God is called a kalam cosmological argument. A kalam cosmological argument follows this format.
1. Whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
In other words, according to the principle used in premise 1, before we know whether we need to ask for a cause of something, we need to discover whether or not, ex hypothesi, it began to exist. If it didn't have a temporal beginning, then a cause may not be needed. This argument is based on the claim that, either through mathematical arguments, or as the upshot of discoveries in astrophysics, we have good reason to suppose that the universe had a temporal beginning (the Big Bang maybe?)
Another cosmological argument for God, found in Aquinas's Third Way, goes like this:
1. Whatever exists contingently must have a cause of its existence.
2. The (physical) universe, and everything in it, exists contingently. It might or might not exist.
Therefore, the universe must have a cause that is independent of the physical universe.
Now, I am not here contending that these are good arguments. However, they are ways of arguing for the existence of God that have been popular amongst philosophers. What I am saying is that these arguments for the existence of God present us with a conception of God that does not need a cause. In fact, if something were to cause God to exist, the God would not be a necessary being, and hence, wouldn't be God.
For this reason, I don't think that the question "Who made God" is the stunning refutation of theism that some people think that it is.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Infidels ponder the question of why there are intelligent theists
On this thread here. It's an important question. What sense do we make of the fact that people who apparently have not only intelligence but intellectual integrity believe the opposite of what we do.
Of course, you can avoid this problem by just denying one of the above.
Of course, you can avoid this problem by just denying one of the above.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Were the early "fundamentalists" creationists? Babinski on the history of evangelical responses to evolution
We are inclined to identify fundamentalism with opposition to evolution in all its guises, but as this article by Ed Babinski suggests, evangelicals and even the authors of "The Fundamentals" have not always been anti-evolutionists.
Even when the twelve-volume paperback series, The Fundamentals, was published between 1910 and 1915 (an interdenominational work that launched this century's "fundamentalist" movement), it contained cautiously pro-evolution stances of conservative Christian theologians like George Frederick Wright, James Orr, and R. A. Torrey. It was only in the eighth collection of Fundamentals papers that this cautious advocacy of evolution was matched by two decisively and aggressively anti-Darwin statements, one by someone who remained anonymous and another by the relatively unknown Henry Beach, both of whom lacked the theological and scientific standing of the senior evangelicals already mentioned.
Even when the twelve-volume paperback series, The Fundamentals, was published between 1910 and 1915 (an interdenominational work that launched this century's "fundamentalist" movement), it contained cautiously pro-evolution stances of conservative Christian theologians like George Frederick Wright, James Orr, and R. A. Torrey. It was only in the eighth collection of Fundamentals papers that this cautious advocacy of evolution was matched by two decisively and aggressively anti-Darwin statements, one by someone who remained anonymous and another by the relatively unknown Henry Beach, both of whom lacked the theological and scientific standing of the senior evangelicals already mentioned.
Did the Devil Make the Astronomers Do It?
One source of difficulty with YEC (Young earth creationism) is the fact that, even without evolution, there is a problem with astronomy. I haven't heard anyone arguing that we should teach alternative doctrines of astronomy in public schools, but if "the heavens and the earth" were created in six literal days, and the age of not only the earth but the universe can be counted up through the genealogies, you get not just an earth but a universe that is approximately 6000 years old. What this means is that anything that is further out in space than 6000 years should not be visible, because the light from those stars would have to travel more than 6000 light years to get here, which would break the intergalactic speed limit. Nevertheless, we do see stars millions of light years away, according to astronomy.
I am linking to a site from Answers in Creation, which raises this issue for YEC.
Is modern astronomy an attack on the God of the Bible? Why are conservative Christians upset by evolution, but never upset by simple astronomy? Why do Christians sometimes think the Devil made Darwin do it, but they never worry about whether the Devil made the astronomers do it. Yet astronomy strikes me as being as big a problem for lead-footed literalism as evolution.
I am linking to a site from Answers in Creation, which raises this issue for YEC.
Is modern astronomy an attack on the God of the Bible? Why are conservative Christians upset by evolution, but never upset by simple astronomy? Why do Christians sometimes think the Devil made Darwin do it, but they never worry about whether the Devil made the astronomers do it. Yet astronomy strikes me as being as big a problem for lead-footed literalism as evolution.
Warfield on Evolution
Apparently this Calvinist theologian and defender of inerrancy rejected what would now be regarded as young earth creationism.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
In the beginning God separated the heavens and the earth?
A Dutch scholar thinks this is the true translation of Genesis 1:1, and that it will devastate traditional believers. This blogger says hold your horses.
The flying spaghetti monster
Even though I'm not a Pastafarian, and I don't buy
the points made by appealing to it, I still think this picture is cool.
The Argument from Truth: Gordon Clark style
A redated post.
In the late Ronald Nash's Life's Ultimate Questions, he presents an argument from truth for the existence of God which he claims to derive from Augustine but was put into a numbered-premise format by Gordon Clark.
1. Truth exists.
2. Truth is immutable (unchangeable).
3. Truth is eternal.
4. Truth is mental (pertaining to mind or minds).
5. Truth is superior to the human mind.
So 6. Truth is God.
Note that this collection of premises can be formulated into a valid argument (using the modus ponens pattern) as follows:
1. If 1-5 is true, then God exists.
2. 1-5 is true.
So 3. God exists.
This seems to be a different argument from truth from the argument from truth that I developed in CSLDI. Is this a legitimate way of defending theism?
In the late Ronald Nash's Life's Ultimate Questions, he presents an argument from truth for the existence of God which he claims to derive from Augustine but was put into a numbered-premise format by Gordon Clark.
1. Truth exists.
2. Truth is immutable (unchangeable).
3. Truth is eternal.
4. Truth is mental (pertaining to mind or minds).
5. Truth is superior to the human mind.
So 6. Truth is God.
Note that this collection of premises can be formulated into a valid argument (using the modus ponens pattern) as follows:
1. If 1-5 is true, then God exists.
2. 1-5 is true.
So 3. God exists.
This seems to be a different argument from truth from the argument from truth that I developed in CSLDI. Is this a legitimate way of defending theism?
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A Wikipedia List of American Philosophers
It is interesting to see who is, and is not, on this list. I'm not on it, Bill Hasker (!!!) isn't, but some other interesting people are.
A 1992 paper of mine on eliminativism
This is what I published in 1992 on eliminative materialism. I don't know who of you can actually access the article, but I thought I would link to it anyway. It also contains a detailed analysis of the question-begging fallacy.
The First Chapter of my Book
In response to the Malaysian student, who said she read the beginning of the paper, "Taking C. S. Lewis Seriously," the entire paper can be found at the link, which is the first chapter of my book C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea.
History repeats itself
I had hoped that the fact that New Orleans Saints had failed to come with their A game in five straight games (before their three losses they had two near-losses to non-playoff teams, one of whom was the Washington Redskins), that the Cardinals would be able to knock them off. I wonder if once New Orleans was assured of home field advantage throughout the playoffs, they put a lot of their playbook under lock and key for the playoffs. In any event, the Cardinals' A-game was MIA in the Superdome.
However, history does not side with teams who win close, high-scoring playoff games in the previous round. I am old enough to have been a San Diego Chargers fan in the late 70s and early 80s, (the Cardinals had yet to come to Arizona) and witnessed the nerve-wracking Charger victory over the Miami Dolphins. However, the Chargers' season came to a screeching halt in the Freezer Bowl in Cincinnati the following week, losing 27-7 to the Bengals. I link to an account of that game on the title.
Congratulations to the Who Dat Nation. At this time the Vikings lead the Cowboys, which suggests to me that Brett Favre and company are going to have to rehearse the silent count for the NFC championship game, because they are going into the loudest stadium in the NFL.
However, history does not side with teams who win close, high-scoring playoff games in the previous round. I am old enough to have been a San Diego Chargers fan in the late 70s and early 80s, (the Cardinals had yet to come to Arizona) and witnessed the nerve-wracking Charger victory over the Miami Dolphins. However, the Chargers' season came to a screeching halt in the Freezer Bowl in Cincinnati the following week, losing 27-7 to the Bengals. I link to an account of that game on the title.
Congratulations to the Who Dat Nation. At this time the Vikings lead the Cowboys, which suggests to me that Brett Favre and company are going to have to rehearse the silent count for the NFC championship game, because they are going into the loudest stadium in the NFL.
Does the Cosmological Argument commit the Fallacy of Composition?
Bertrand Russell thought so.
R: I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother -- that's a different logical sphere.
R: I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother -- that's a different logical sphere.
Friday, January 15, 2010
A quote from Dorothy Sayers
"In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die."
---Dorothy Sayers
---Dorothy Sayers
Thursday, January 14, 2010
An outline on faith and reason
Faith and Reason
Should Religion be Rational?
Hume’s “fideism”
In his famous essay on miracles, after presented a famous argument against rational belief in the miraculous, wrote:
"... the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.“
In other words, you real Christians have nothing to worry about with my argument. You believe on faith, not on reason anyway, so no big deal. It’s just phony Christians who pretend that their religious beliefs are rational.
Hume was certainly not a Christian, but he maybe said this to keep Christians from getting too mad at him.
Paul, Tertullian, Pascal
Paul: “See that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit.” Col. 2:8
Tertullian: What has Athens (the home of philosophy) to do with Jerusalem (the place where Christianity was founded)? Implied answer: nothing.
Pascal: “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.”
Jimmy Swaggart: Man can’t use his mind to know the truth. If he uses his mind, he just comes up with something stupid like the theory of evolution.
C. S. Lewis on Rational Religion
He wants a child’s heart but a grown-up’s head. . . . The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not. . . . It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a second-rate brain. He has room for people with little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have. . . . God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. (Mere Christianity pp. 77-78).
Lewis of Faith
I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it. That is not the point at which Faith comes in...Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. . . . That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods “where they get off,” you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. (Mere Christianity, p. 140).
Three Views on Faith and Reason
View I: Strong Rationalism:
View II: Fideism
View III: Critical Rationalism
Strong Rationalism
Definition: In order for a religious view to be properly and rationally accepted it must be possible to prove that the position is true.
Definition of “prove” in this context means “show that a belief is true in a way that should be convincing to every reasonable person.”
W. K. Clifford: It is wrong, always and everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything for insufficient evidence.
http://www.anthonyflood.com/ethicsofbelief.htm
Why such a high standard?
Our beliefs have moral consequences. If a shipowner succumbs to wishful thinking and allows a ship to sail that isn’t seaworthy, the ship goes down and many people die.
If you don’t have time to submit your beliefs to scrutiny, you don’t have time to believe.
God and the Burden of Proof
One way of posing this question is trying to determine of one side or the other in the debate about religion has the burden of proof.
Suppose we can’t figure out, one way or another, whether or not God exists. What belief should we adopt? Should we have faith and become believers, should we just stay agnostics, or should we believe that God does not exist. Many people have said that the burden of proof lies with the person who holds the affirmative position, in this case, the belief that God exists. In the absence of proof one way or the other, the only rational position is atheism, the claim that God does not exist.
McInerney and Parsons on the Burden of Proof
This is McInerney’s essay
And this is Parsons’ reply
Does Theism Pass the Strong Rationalist’s test?
Clifford, pretty clearly, thought it did not. Neither did Bertrand Russell, who, when asked what he would say to God if God were to ask him why he did not believe, said “ I would tell God “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.”
John Locke (1632-1704) and Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) thought that theism passes the test. As does contemporary philosopher Richard Swinburne.
Difficulties for strong rationalism
The Nature of Faith. Doesn’t faith involve some element of risk, a “stepping out beyond” what one is initially comfortable with?
Are there any arguments in support of any religious world-view that satisfy this requirement?
Not Everyone Is Convinced
That isn’t automatically a problem. Perhaps the evidence is out there, but some people are blinded by wishful thinking, or by the love of sin, and culpably fail to recognize the truth.
We would expect a gradual move toward consensus with respect to arguments. What we find is that as discussion proceeds on these arguments, there is a greater tendency to admit that these arguments need not persuade everyone.
Concerning Worldviews
It might be argued that religious world-views are based on pure faith, but a world-view based on science, sometimes known as scientific naturalism (the world-view preferred by most atheists) stands on firm rational foundation.
“But science as a total worldview—the idea that science can tell us everything there is to know about what reality consists of, enjoys no such overwhelming support. This worldview, (often termed scientific naturalism) is just one theory amongst others and is no more capable of being “proved to all reasonable people” than are religious belief systems. To claim that the strong support enjoyed by, say, the periodic table of the elements transfers to scientific naturalism as a worldview is highly confused if not deliberately misleading.
So can we select a world-view based on Strong Rationalist Criteria
The textbook authors think this will not be possible.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Relativism and the possibility of tolerance
Tolerance has to do with how we treat people who either behave in ways we don't approve of, or believe things we disagree with. If there are no disapprovals, and no disagreements, tolerance is impossible. Therefore relativism does not promote tolerance, it makes tolerance logically impossible. If relativism is true, there's nothing to tolerate.
Does String Theory Support Belief in Life After Death?
Dinesh D'Souza thinks so. I'm a tad skeptical myself.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
A response to Mike on the Argument from Desire
I am wondering what your response is to the Bayesian calculation that I gave would be.
H1) Humans are constructed by God is such a way that they can be fulfilled only in relationship to God.
H2) It is not the case that humans are constructed by God in such a way that they can be fulfilled only in relationship to God. This can be true if atheism is true, or if God doesn't care,
D= the existence of "heavenly" desires
Now, notice I don't need the claim that these desires couldn't arise through evolution. In fact, as I did the calcuations, it's 70% likely that these desire would arise through evolution, and the calculation still works!
Now doesn't it seem to you that D is more likely given H1 than H2?
H1) Humans are constructed by God is such a way that they can be fulfilled only in relationship to God.
H2) It is not the case that humans are constructed by God in such a way that they can be fulfilled only in relationship to God. This can be true if atheism is true, or if God doesn't care,
D= the existence of "heavenly" desires
Now, notice I don't need the claim that these desires couldn't arise through evolution. In fact, as I did the calcuations, it's 70% likely that these desire would arise through evolution, and the calculation still works!
Now doesn't it seem to you that D is more likely given H1 than H2?
Reply to Beversluis on the Argument from Desire
There are three central arguments for the existence of God that Beversluis considers: the argument from desire, the argument from morality, and the argument from reason. The argument from desire has been formulated by Peter Kreeft as follows:
1) Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.
2) But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.
3) Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.
4) This something is what people call "God" and "life with God forever."
Beversluis makes four points in response to this line of argument. First, are we really talking about a well-defined desire? When it comes to our ordinary desires, we know what they are desires for. According to an analysis of “X desires that Y” X must desire Y under a description. That is, X must have some description of Y in mind. So can it be described as a desire for God at all, indeed can it be described as a desire at all? Second, even if there is such a desire, do we have good reason to suppose, apart from the bald assertions of argument defenders, that this desire is widespread or even close to universal? Third, if there is such a desire, is the desire a natural desire? Beversluis says that the desire is ethnocentric, not shared cross-culturally, but rather confined to Western culture. Finally, he maintains that we have no reason to suppose, even if the desire were widespread or even universal, that it has an object that satisfies it.
In response, it seems to me that the defender of the argument from desire does have some things to say. First, the argument’s defender can begin by hypothesizing about what we should expect to find if humans were created for fellowship with God, but that fellowship was broken. If that were the case, then we might expect to find that we are often not satisfied even when our earthly desires are satisfied. We would expect not to feel at home in the material world in which we find ourselves. As Lewis once asked,
”If you are really a product of a material universe, how is it that you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?”
We could have the sorts of desires that only God could satisfy if God exists, and be designed to have those desires, even if we often fail to recognize our desires as desires that can be satisfied only by God. Is the desire universal? As Beversluis indicates, this would be very difficult to prove. Is it widespread? Well, it is certainly pervasive in literature. Corbin Scott Carnell says that it “may be said to represent just as much a basic theme in literature as love.” Is it ethnocentric? Hindus tell people who are concerned with sex, wealth, power, and even family relations that these are acceptable goals, but that they are not ultimately satisfying. They seem convinced that sooner or later people will turn from these pursuits to the pursuit of moksha, or release. Are their powers of psychological observation faulty?
In 1992 the Forbes magazine commemorated its seventy-fifth anniversary by inviting eleven distinguished writers and scholars to contribute articles addressing the question “Why are we so unhappy?” But why ask that question if ordinary human satisfactions did not leave us with a dissatisfaction, or if it were clear just what material satisfactions would make us all happy?
Yet I am inclined to suppose that Beversluis may be right in supposing that what Lewis is talking about when he talks about Heavenly Desire is not something that would emerge from an analysis of “X desires that Y.” That is, I don’t think, at least from the perspective, let’s say, the teenage atheist Lewis, it makes sense to say “C. S. Lewis desires fellowship with God.” But we can look at the young Lewis’s desires another way. If we think that there is a design plan for C. S. Lewis, it may be that he has been designed in such a way that his desires can only be satisfied through communion with God and that God has created him so that he can be satisfied only in this way. Someone, it seems to me, can have a desire for God from the standpoint of their design plan, even if they do not themselves recognize the desire as a desire for God.
Pascal once wrote:
All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions … Yet for very many years no one without faith has ever reached the goal at which everyone is continually aiming. All men complain: princes, subjects, nobles, commoners, old, young, strong, weak, learned, ignorant, healthy, sick, in every country, at every time, of all ages, and all conditions. A test which has gone on so long, without pause or change, really ought to convince us that we are incapable of attaining the good by ourselves. … This [craving, man] tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since the infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.
Now in order to meet Beversluis’s challenge we have to have a fairly broad conception how this desire might be manifested in persons. Adam Barkman points out that Lewis uses several concepts to talk about the desire in question: Platonic Eros, Romanticism, the numinous, Sehnsucht, Joy, and hope. If we assume from the beginning that something like the Christian God exists, then we can explain a range of human phenomena in terms of the fact that we are made for fellowship with God, and are bound to have a sense that something is missing unless we are in fellowship with God.
But if we are talking about an argument for God, then, of course, we can’t assume that God exists. A naturalistic atheist would no doubt explain these facts of human experience in terms of Darwinian psychology. Is it possible that we have desires that could only be satisfied by God, but there is no God? Lewis once used the statement that “nature does nothing in vain” to support his claim that these desires must be satisfiable. But isn’t that, as Beversluis suggests, a question-begging assumption? Doesn’t it presume that nature is under the control of a conscious agent who makes sure nothing is done in vain? After all, nature has given us appendixes, which these days serve no purpose but to give doctors something to remove (and charge us for).
Yet even on Darwinian assumptions there is usually some reason why we have certain characteristics. Our heart is in the right place, because it wouldn’t help up to survive if it were in the wrong place. Human beings with desires that don’t seem in any way to promote survival, as these “heavenly” desires do, does seem a little surprising in a naturalistic universe. I have suggested, following Thomas V. Morris, that the argument be developed as a confirmation-theoretic argument. If you have two hypotheses, A, and B, and you have a phenomenon C which is experienced, A is confirmed relative to B if C is more likely to exist if A that it is to exist if B. If A is theism and B is atheism, it seems to me that these desires are very likely given theism, but not especially likely given atheism. They could arise in an atheist universe, but we wouldn’t expect it. So, on the face of things, it looks as if the argument from desire confirms theism.
There is a great deal more to be said on this issue, both pro and con, as the linked discussion indicates. But I think I have said enough to have shown that Beversluis’s criticisms do not constitute a final refutation of the Argument from Desire.
1) Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.
2) But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.
3) Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.
4) This something is what people call "God" and "life with God forever."
Beversluis makes four points in response to this line of argument. First, are we really talking about a well-defined desire? When it comes to our ordinary desires, we know what they are desires for. According to an analysis of “X desires that Y” X must desire Y under a description. That is, X must have some description of Y in mind. So can it be described as a desire for God at all, indeed can it be described as a desire at all? Second, even if there is such a desire, do we have good reason to suppose, apart from the bald assertions of argument defenders, that this desire is widespread or even close to universal? Third, if there is such a desire, is the desire a natural desire? Beversluis says that the desire is ethnocentric, not shared cross-culturally, but rather confined to Western culture. Finally, he maintains that we have no reason to suppose, even if the desire were widespread or even universal, that it has an object that satisfies it.
In response, it seems to me that the defender of the argument from desire does have some things to say. First, the argument’s defender can begin by hypothesizing about what we should expect to find if humans were created for fellowship with God, but that fellowship was broken. If that were the case, then we might expect to find that we are often not satisfied even when our earthly desires are satisfied. We would expect not to feel at home in the material world in which we find ourselves. As Lewis once asked,
”If you are really a product of a material universe, how is it that you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures?”
We could have the sorts of desires that only God could satisfy if God exists, and be designed to have those desires, even if we often fail to recognize our desires as desires that can be satisfied only by God. Is the desire universal? As Beversluis indicates, this would be very difficult to prove. Is it widespread? Well, it is certainly pervasive in literature. Corbin Scott Carnell says that it “may be said to represent just as much a basic theme in literature as love.” Is it ethnocentric? Hindus tell people who are concerned with sex, wealth, power, and even family relations that these are acceptable goals, but that they are not ultimately satisfying. They seem convinced that sooner or later people will turn from these pursuits to the pursuit of moksha, or release. Are their powers of psychological observation faulty?
In 1992 the Forbes magazine commemorated its seventy-fifth anniversary by inviting eleven distinguished writers and scholars to contribute articles addressing the question “Why are we so unhappy?” But why ask that question if ordinary human satisfactions did not leave us with a dissatisfaction, or if it were clear just what material satisfactions would make us all happy?
Yet I am inclined to suppose that Beversluis may be right in supposing that what Lewis is talking about when he talks about Heavenly Desire is not something that would emerge from an analysis of “X desires that Y.” That is, I don’t think, at least from the perspective, let’s say, the teenage atheist Lewis, it makes sense to say “C. S. Lewis desires fellowship with God.” But we can look at the young Lewis’s desires another way. If we think that there is a design plan for C. S. Lewis, it may be that he has been designed in such a way that his desires can only be satisfied through communion with God and that God has created him so that he can be satisfied only in this way. Someone, it seems to me, can have a desire for God from the standpoint of their design plan, even if they do not themselves recognize the desire as a desire for God.
Pascal once wrote:
All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions … Yet for very many years no one without faith has ever reached the goal at which everyone is continually aiming. All men complain: princes, subjects, nobles, commoners, old, young, strong, weak, learned, ignorant, healthy, sick, in every country, at every time, of all ages, and all conditions. A test which has gone on so long, without pause or change, really ought to convince us that we are incapable of attaining the good by ourselves. … This [craving, man] tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since the infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.
Now in order to meet Beversluis’s challenge we have to have a fairly broad conception how this desire might be manifested in persons. Adam Barkman points out that Lewis uses several concepts to talk about the desire in question: Platonic Eros, Romanticism, the numinous, Sehnsucht, Joy, and hope. If we assume from the beginning that something like the Christian God exists, then we can explain a range of human phenomena in terms of the fact that we are made for fellowship with God, and are bound to have a sense that something is missing unless we are in fellowship with God.
But if we are talking about an argument for God, then, of course, we can’t assume that God exists. A naturalistic atheist would no doubt explain these facts of human experience in terms of Darwinian psychology. Is it possible that we have desires that could only be satisfied by God, but there is no God? Lewis once used the statement that “nature does nothing in vain” to support his claim that these desires must be satisfiable. But isn’t that, as Beversluis suggests, a question-begging assumption? Doesn’t it presume that nature is under the control of a conscious agent who makes sure nothing is done in vain? After all, nature has given us appendixes, which these days serve no purpose but to give doctors something to remove (and charge us for).
Yet even on Darwinian assumptions there is usually some reason why we have certain characteristics. Our heart is in the right place, because it wouldn’t help up to survive if it were in the wrong place. Human beings with desires that don’t seem in any way to promote survival, as these “heavenly” desires do, does seem a little surprising in a naturalistic universe. I have suggested, following Thomas V. Morris, that the argument be developed as a confirmation-theoretic argument. If you have two hypotheses, A, and B, and you have a phenomenon C which is experienced, A is confirmed relative to B if C is more likely to exist if A that it is to exist if B. If A is theism and B is atheism, it seems to me that these desires are very likely given theism, but not especially likely given atheism. They could arise in an atheist universe, but we wouldn’t expect it. So, on the face of things, it looks as if the argument from desire confirms theism.
There is a great deal more to be said on this issue, both pro and con, as the linked discussion indicates. But I think I have said enough to have shown that Beversluis’s criticisms do not constitute a final refutation of the Argument from Desire.
Monday, January 04, 2010
C. S. Lewis on the Joy of Reading what you Don't Agree With
HT: Joshua Blanchard. From C. S. Lewis's The Empty Universe.
It has also given me that bracing and satifying experience which, in certain books of theory, seems to be partially independent of our final agreement or disagreement. It is an experience most easily disengaged by remembering what has happened to us whenever we turned from the inferior exponents of a system, even a system we reject, to its great doctors. I have had it on turning from common “Existentialists” to M. Sartre himself, from Calvinists to the Institutio, from “Transcendentalists” to Emerson, from books about “Renaissance Platonism” to Ficino. One may still disagree (I disagree heartily with all the authors I have just named) but one now sees for the first time why anyone ever did agree. One has breathed a new air, become free of a new country. It may be a country you cannot live in, but you now know why the natives love it. You will henceforward see all systems a little differently because you have been inside that one. From this point of view philosophies have some of the same qualities as works of art. I am not referring at all to the literary art with which they may or may not be expressed. It is the ipseitas, the peculiar unity of effect produced by a special balancing and patterning of thought and classes of thoughts: a delight very like that which would be given by Hesse’s Glasperlenspiel (in the book of that name) if it could really exist. I owe a new experience of that kind to Mr. Harding.
It has also given me that bracing and satifying experience which, in certain books of theory, seems to be partially independent of our final agreement or disagreement. It is an experience most easily disengaged by remembering what has happened to us whenever we turned from the inferior exponents of a system, even a system we reject, to its great doctors. I have had it on turning from common “Existentialists” to M. Sartre himself, from Calvinists to the Institutio, from “Transcendentalists” to Emerson, from books about “Renaissance Platonism” to Ficino. One may still disagree (I disagree heartily with all the authors I have just named) but one now sees for the first time why anyone ever did agree. One has breathed a new air, become free of a new country. It may be a country you cannot live in, but you now know why the natives love it. You will henceforward see all systems a little differently because you have been inside that one. From this point of view philosophies have some of the same qualities as works of art. I am not referring at all to the literary art with which they may or may not be expressed. It is the ipseitas, the peculiar unity of effect produced by a special balancing and patterning of thought and classes of thoughts: a delight very like that which would be given by Hesse’s Glasperlenspiel (in the book of that name) if it could really exist. I owe a new experience of that kind to Mr. Harding.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
William Lane Craig on Middle Knowledge and the Inspiration of Scripture
How can God make us free, and yet guarantee the inerrancy of Scritpure? (Or Papal Infallibility, for that matter). William Lane Craig thinks that Middle Knowledge will help.
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