Arguments from DesignArguments from Design

Philosophy of Religion 2008Lecture 4

The theistic response to natureThe theistic response to nature

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

(Psalm 8)

TodayToday

General features of design arguments Traditional arguments from design Arguments from regularity Fine tuning arguments Hume’s objections Suggestions for further reading.

Traditional argumentsTraditional arguments

Teleological argumentsParts work together to fulfil a purposeThe world displays the purpose of a creator

Top down arguments Arguments from analogy

‘like effects prove like causes’

Philo (in Hume’s Dialogues)Philo (in Hume’s Dialogues)

That the works of nature bear a great analogy to the productions of art is evident; and according to all the rules of good reasoning … But as there are also considerable differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference in the causes … to attribute a much higher degree of power and energy to the Supreme Cause than any we have ever observed in mankind. Here then, the existence of a DEITY is plainly ascertained by reason … if we are not contented with calling the first and supreme cause a GOD or DEITY, but desire to vary the expression, what can we call him but MIND or THOUGHT, to which he is justly supposed to bear a considerable resemblance? (DCNR Part XII)

KantKant

The design argument is ’most accordant with the common reason of mankind’ (CPR B651)

‘It would therefore not only be uncomforting, but utterly vain to attempt to diminish in any way the authority of this argument‘ (CPR B652).

Paley’s watch (Natural Theology 1802)Paley’s watch (Natural Theology 1802)

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever … But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground … I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? … when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive - what we could not discover in the stone - that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose.

Paley’s watchPaley’s watch… if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. … the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker-that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use.

Natural selectionNatural selection

Four features of the natural world: Competition for resources Organisms produce more offspring than can

survive There is variation among offspring Variations can be passed on …

Natural selectionNatural selection

Not entirely at chance …‘The only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way’ (Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker 1986)

Not a teleological processApparent design arises from purely mechanical processes

Theistic responsesTheistic responses Literalist creationism Evolution as the divine method – teleology by

mechanical means ‘Irreducible complexity’: …a single system composed of

several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced … by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor … that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.

(Behe, Darwn’s Black Box)

Arguments from regularityArguments from regularity

The orderliness of nature to which I draw attention here is its conformity to formula, to simple, formulable, scientific laws. The orderliness of the universe in this respect is a very striking fact about it. The universe might so naturally have been chaotic, but it is not – it is very orderly

(Swinburne, The Existence of God)

SwinburneSwinburne We cannot appeal to the regularity of natural

laws – this is what we are tryng to explain If no law-governed (‘scientific’) explanation is

possible, we must appeal to a personal (agent-based) explanation

God as that agent An agent requires no further explanation … though order might be said to be good in itself

Is regularity significant?Is regularity significant? Russell: ‘I should prefer to say that the universe

is just there’ But don’t some regularities (e.g. deep space

signals) seem to require explanation? The eternal mystery of the world is that it is

comprehensible … The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle

(Einstein in Collins, Copan and Meister p102)

Fine tuning argumentsFine tuning arguments If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by

as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form.

The cosmological constant – the constant that governs the expansion of the universe – has to be tuned to a tolerance of one part in 1023 for the conditions to be right for life.

The constants governing the strength of gravitational attraction and the force between charged particles must enable stars of a size that can bring about the formation of planets to support life.

Without stars of a suitable size, carbon atoms would not be produced, or would not have been stable – they would have been transformed into other elements.

Against fine tuning argumentsAgainst fine tuning arguments

Any combination of circumstances is equally likely …

But consider our case against all the other possibilities …

Our number just happened to come upBut isn’t the existence of intelligence worthy of note?

The multiverse hypothesis

Hume’s objectionsHume’s objections

1. ‘the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect’ (DCNR Part V) (we should not infer more than the evidence supports)

2. ‘I see no reason for ascribing perfection to the Deity’ (DCNR Part V). (The world contains ‘inexplicable difficulties’ and so cannot provide us with evidence for a perfect God)

3. ‘Why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?’ (DCNR Part V) (or an inferior God … or a relatively weak God)

Hume’s objectionsHume’s objections

4. ‘Why not become a perfect anthropomorphite?’ (DCNR Part V) (if God has human-like intelligence, why not other human-like features)

5. ‘… it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds’ (DCNR Part II) (We’ve never made a universe – how can we know anything about how they are made?)

Hume’s objectionsHume’s objections

6. ‘… it were therefore wise in us to limit all our enquiries to the present world’ (DCNR Part IV) (why shouldn’t explanation end with physical causes? Doesn’t God require explanation too?)

7. ‘Thus the universe goes on for many ages in continued succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last …’ (Part VIII) (The universe just happens to be in a ordered state at the moment)

Kant on design argumentsKant on design arguments

‘The utmost that the argument can prove is an architect of the world who is very much hampered by the adaptability of the material in which he works, not a creator of the world to whose idea everything is subject’ (CPR B655).

Responses for the theist?Responses for the theist?

Note the limits of any analogy What do design arguments suggest about God? Cumulative arguments, and Ockham’s Razor

(cutting both ways…)

ReadingReading Seminar readings: Collins and Bradley Robin Collins, ‘The teleological argument’ in

Copan and Meister Brian Davies Introduction Chapter 6 (2nd

edition) or Chapter 4 (3rd edition) David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural

Religion Richard Swinburne The Existence of God

Chapter 8

QuestionsQuestions Can you clearly distinguish the different versions

of a design argument? Which version of a design argument seems to

you the strongest? Does the fine-tuning argument point to anything

that requires explanation? Do any of Hume’s objections tell against recent

design arguments?