Foundations of morality

At a very young age, children are able to tell the difference between social conventions (e.g. raising your hand in class) and moral norms (e.g. do not kill people). One major difference between the two is that social conventions are only binding in certain contexts or settings whereas moral norms are taken to be binding across all contexts and settings. At least some moral norms are thought by some to be instinctual or self-evident, whereas all social conventions are learned. A final, yet controversial, distinction is that moral norms have a basis in fact, whereas social conventions are invented for practical purposes. Over time, we humans believe to have made moral progress, and will continue to make discoveries as to what kinds of actions are morally right or wrong. Just like there are facts about mathematics that were unknown to mathematicians of the past, there are probably facts about morality that we have not yet discovered. As stated previously, the comparison of morality to mathematics is a controversial one. Those who make such comparisons usually adopt a view called moral realism. 

Moral norms	Social conventions
Universally binding	Not universally binding
Instinctual or Self-evident	Learned and not self-evident
Factual basis	Invented

Moral realism is the view that states that there are facts of the matter as to whether a particular action is right or wrong, regardless of the context, culture, or time period. Moral realists typically believe that slavery was morally acceptable in the United States during the 17^th century, but that the practice was still morally wrong at the time. Moral realists think the answers to moral questions—like mathematical questions (e.g. 2+2=4)—are timeless, and that people of past generations who got the answers wrong were either ignorant of some relevant facts or incompetent at doing their moral calculations.

A competing view, moral relativism, states that there are just facts about what is wrong in a given context, culture, or historical time period. To contrast, the moral realist will say things like “harming animals without any justification is wrong”, whereas the moral relativist will say things like “harming animals without any justification is wrong in western cultures, but morally acceptable amongst the Hopi Indians.” On moral relativism, facts about morality have to be relativized to a certain culture, time period or even an individual. 

Lastly, moral anti-realism denies the existence of moral facts. The anti-realist might believe that moral claims are invented by humans to preserve the peace or that they are the product of our emotional reactions and evolutionary history. The anti-realist would deny many of the distinctions between moral norms and social conventions and argue that moral norms are just a sub-class of social conventions. Now moral anti-realists do not deny that moral talk is useless or irrational. Rather, most accept that moral talk is indispensable, or an incredibly useful fiction. Furthermore, being a moral antirealist does not prohibit one from endorsing normative theories such as utilitarianism or social contract theory. Anti-realism is meta-ethical view, one that just makes claims about what moral language amounts to.

Moral realism is perhaps the common sense view. Most major religions imply a kind of moral realism by having God as the foundation of moral facts. For instance, one might believe that something is right or wrong because God—the moral authority—commanded it. A common challenge raised to the moral realist is the existence of moral diversity. People of different cultural, religious, and philosophical backgrounds often disagree about what is right and wrong. If so many people disagree about what is right and wrong, how can there be a fact of the matter? Furthermore, how can moral disagreements be resolved? Moral realists typically respond by saying that moral diversity exists because moral questions are hard to answer. Moral disagreements should in principle be resolvable, but it might take extensive debate and discussion to understand why such disagreements exist. Take for instance meat eating. 

Say that Tom believes that factory farm meat eating is wrong and Sally believes that it is morally acceptable. What could be the source of their disagreement? One possibility is that Sally and Tom disagree about other matters of fact. For instance, Sally might believe that animals don’t feel pain or experience emotions while Tom believes animals can experience pain and suffering in a way similar to human beings. If this were the case, the moral realist would have an easy way to settle the moral disagreement. The right answer to the moral question (i.e. Is eating meat morally acceptable?) hinges on whether animals can experience pain and suffering. 

Regardless of what one thinks about the ontological status of moral claims (i.e. whether they're factual or not), there are other unrelated kinds of views one may hold about how to determine what is right and wrong. Philosophers develop theories to try and make sense of how we arrive at answers to moral questions. In a later post, I will discuss the area of moral philosophy that deals with such theories about morality known as normative ethics. 

Next week, I will discuss the evolution of biological organisms, the theory of natural selection and the many misconceptions about both. I will also assess the atheist philosopher Jerry Fodor’s critique of the theory. Fodor argues that natural selection cannot be true because it involves a contradiction. I will try and explain where I think Fodor goes wrong. 

Metaphysics and the mind/body problem

If you have browsed through the shelves of popular book stores such as Barnes and Noble, you may have come across a section labeled metaphysics. Within this section, there are books about witches, UFOs, ghosts, and crystal healing. Within the academic study of philosophy, metaphysics deals with very different kinds of topics. In this post, I will explain what philosophers mean by ‘metaphysics’ and compare it to the science of physics. I will also argue that theories in physics—as well as the other sciences—make metaphysical assumptions. 

Metaphysics deals with questions about the nature of reality. Here are some of them:

Ø  Why is there something rather than nothing? 

Ø  What is the relation between minds and brains? Are minds and brains one and the same? Can minds exist without brains or are they dependent upon them?

Ø  Are future events just as real as the present or the past events? 

Ø  Do numbers exist?

Ø  What is the world ultimately like? Does science give us a complete and accurate description of what there is, or is there much more to reality that what we can observe? 

 The word ‘metaphysics’ goes back to the time of Aristotle, translating roughly to beyond or after physics. While I have not heard the discipline of metaphysics characterized like this before, I think that it can also be understood as a prequel to physics. Before engaging in theories about the physical world, you will likely need to have some views about the nature of reality. Reality is what the world is really like, whereas science tells us about the observable physical world. One may ask what the difference is between the observable world and reality. Aren’t they the same thing? Plato often made a distinction between appearance and reality. Large buildings may look very small when we are far away, but they in fact aren’t. Science gives us better tools for examining the world and its contents, but those appearances may be deceiving as well. The world may be very unlike how our current (and future) scientific theories describe it to be, and it is possible that we may not be able to know what the world is really like. Putting such skeptical worries aside, it is still intelligible to say that there are (deeper) facts of the matter. There is a way that the world is, and metaphysics is a discipline that actively tries to figure out the details.

 Rene Descartes in his book ‘Meditations’ tried to establish a firm foundation for science by reflecting upon the metaphysical views one may think it presupposes. For instance, science presupposes that there exists a physical world (made up of discrete objects) that is external to the minds of human beings. Descartes tried to defend such views by appealing to the existence of God, whereas philosophers such as George Berkeley tried to deny them, maintaining that everything that exists is mental in nature. On Berkeley’s view, there simply are no objects ‘out there’ in the world, it’s all in our (and God’s) mind. Likewise, philosophers such as Spinoza deny that the world is made up of discrete objects. On Spinoza’s view, there is only one thing in the world—the universe itself. The universe is comprised of many (possibly infinite) parts, and passes through various stages (or as Spinoza called them ‘modes’), but it is ultimately one highly complex object. The views of Berkeley and Spinoza may sound very outlandish, but it a matter of ongoing scholarly debate as to where exactly they go wrong (if they do at all). With respect to 1) whether the world is physical or mental, and 2) whether the world is one or many objects, science can carry on undisturbed. The truth or falsity of such metaphysical theories can be thought of as running parallel to scientific theories. Scientists may sometimes rightfully ignore metaphysical issues, but there are instances where science runs deep into metaphysical waters. 

Two of our best scientific theories (i.e. quantum mechanics and general relativity) run into problems of interpretation. By problems of interpretation, I mean that the experimental data is compatible with a multitude of metaphysical hypotheses (11 to be exact). To give just two examples, the many worlds interpretation states that there are an infinite number of branching universes, whereas the Bohmian interpretation states that there is only one universe. At the moment, it is thought by many physicists and philosophers that there is (in principle) no scientific test or observation that could favor one interpretation over another. But surely, only one of these interpretations can be correct. The world can only be one way. There have been different reactions to the problem of many interpretations. Some scientists reserve judgment, others argue for one interpretation over the others, and some adopt a position known as ‘instrumentalism’. Instrumentalism states that science is in the business of making accurate predictions and models, not informing us what the world is really like. Perhaps the instrumentalists have got this right. If science cannot tell us what the world is really like, maybe metaphysics and philosophy can. 

It is believed that most (if not all) metaphysical questions are to be solved through careful thought and logical analysis, rather than through observation and experimentation, two of the central investigatory tools of science. Scientific findings may inform the discussion, but they rarely answer metaphysical questions by themselves (*though most scientists believe the exact opposite is true!). Metaphysical views are compared with one another in terms of their overall plausibility, their compatibility with other theories, logical coherence and on measures of elegance and simplicity. To understand how metaphysical debates are carried out, I will focus on the relation between the mind and the brain. If we are to appeal to science alone, what kind of experiment or observation might determine whether minds and brains were one and the same?

 Let’s say that future scientists perfect brain imaging. Furthermore, let’s stipulate that such technology allows scientists to pinpoint the source in the brain for all mental activity. Your emotions are correlated with brain activity in region X, while your personality and moral character are correlated with brain activity in region Y, and so on. Could we conclude from such observations that the mind is simply identical to the brain, and that, for instance, there is no immaterial soul? Not from experimental data alone. Even perfect correlations between brain activity and mental activity do not establish causality, though it does provide one with good reason for thinking they are causally connected. Substance dualists, whom believe that the mind and brain are distinctly different kinds of things, will argue that the experimental data shows how the physical brain is affected by the immaterial soul. It doesn’t conclusively demonstrate that there is no soul. 

How can one rule out the possibility for there to be a soul causing all of the activity in the brain? Since the soul is said to be immaterial—i.e. not located in space—there would be no way to scientifically test for its presence. Instead of relying upon experimental data or observations, philosophers have offered several arguments for why there probably isn’t an immaterial soul. The first style of argument appeals to scientific theories and laws. It is argued that 1) the alleged causal interactions between souls and brains violate laws of conservation of energy and 2) are in conflict with Einstein’s relativity theory. 

A second style of argument is conceptual in nature. Such arguments question the coherence of mind-to-brain causation. If a mind is not located in space, and is not made up of anything physical, how does it interact with a physical brain located in space? Let’s suppose that the soul causes the brain to feel guilty about an immoral action. We can give a nice story about what goes on in the brain during such an experience, but what happens before the moment of soul-to-brain interaction? How does the soul initiate the sequence of brain activities? In everyday causal interactions (e.g. knocking over a glass of wine), objects typically interact through direct contact. My hand makes contact with the glass and then the glass falls off the table. But it doesn’t really even make sense to say that the soul ever “contacts” the brain since the soul does not occupy any space. The soul must interact with the brain in some other way. But given that the soul and brain have no properties in common (other than existing in time), it is hard to see how any kind of interaction is possible. Rene Descartes, an early proponent of substance dualism, conceded that this problem of causal interaction was a powerful objection to the view, and ultimately, was unable to give a satisfactory reply. At this point, a dualist might appeal to mystery. Just because we do not know how the causal interaction is possible doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. Soul-to-brain causation might just be beyond human comprehension.  

Lastly, a third style of argument appeals to a principle of logical reasoning called Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor states that you ought not multiply entities beyond necessity. Put in everyday English, if you have a theory that explains everything by positing one thing (e.g. the brain), then you shouldn’t posit something else (e.g. a soul) in addition to it. Positing additional entities runs the risk of error. A theory is more likely to go wrong if one starts adding extra parts that are unnecessary. For example, take a theory of electricity that appeals to electric demons. The theory is otherwise identical to modern theories of electricity, but insists that the flow of electricity is maintained by sprinting immaterial demons. What should we make of such a theory? It is clearly absurd to posit such entities to a theory because the demons don’t add anything to the explanation. If anything, they just complicate it for no good reason. The same is thought to be true of the addition of a soul to modern psychological and neuroscientific theories. Scientists and philosophers alike argue that we can explain everything without positing a soul on top of the highly complex organ that is the brain. Dualists might insist that there are certain things that psychology and neuroscience leave out. For instance, our subjective experience of the world. How can brain cells and chemicals give rise to consciousness? 

In closing, I have argued that there a subset of meaningful questions that science alone cannot answer. The distinction I’ve implicitly made between science and philosophy may be challenged. I’ve taken science to comprise the activities that scientists regularly engage in (e.g. observation and experimentation), and metaphysics—as a sub-branch of philosophy—to be the activities that philosophers regularly engage in (e.g. conceptual analysis, logical reasoning). I do not want to say that there isn’t a great deal of overlap between science and philosophy. On the contrary, I think that the two disciplines are entangled together. There are times in which we are all philosophers, and times in which we are all scientists. Philosophy and science are intellectual activities that human beings practice to better understand the world and their place in it. When we entertain purely metaphysical questions, we have our philosopher’s cap on. When we perform experiments, make predictions, or analyze data, we have our scientist’s cap on. Metaphysical questions have been lingering for millennia and offer no easy solutions. But each of us will likely find one of the (many) solutions to be plausible or, at the least, not as crazy as the rest. 

Free will and moral responsibility

On Halloween night, a man in a white mask goes door-to-door killing everyone in his sight with a large kitchen knife. He is arrested and brought in to trial. On a scale from 1 to 10 (1=not at all responsible, 5=somewhat responsible, 10=fully responsible), how responsible would you consider the man to be for his actions in light of the three following scenarios:

a)      The man was possessed by evil spirits

b)      The man was psychopathic with a severe self-control deficit

c)      The man planned everything and knew that his actions were immoral

If you think that the man wasn’t responsible in (a), but near fully responsible in (c), on what basis did you come to such judgments? Common sense says that the man who planned everything is responsible because he made the decision to kill all of those people whereas the man under possession did not. We consider ourselves to be responsible for those actions under our control. We do not blame small children or non-human animals for their actions because they are lack certain mental capacities (e.g reflective reasoning) and/or knowledge (e.g. moral norms) that allow for reason-guided action. It seems then that moral responsibility depends on whether or not we can freely act or make decisions, otherwise known as free will.

A view held by many scientists (and some prominent philosophers) rejects this common sense picture. Free will skepticism (FWS) entails that 1) no one has free will and that 2) no one is responsible for anything. If we are not morally responsible for our actions, then the correct answer for (a-c) should be a (1). The man who planned everything and knew his actions were immoral was no more responsible than the man who had all of his actions manipulated by evil spirits. 

FWS has radical implications for our moral, legal, and social practices. Unlike certain abstract philosophical questions (e.g. whether numbers exist), the free will debate is of real world significance. In this post, I will assess the plausibility of free will skepticism and defend compatibilist theories of free will—which I take to preserve many of our moral, legal, social practices—from recent attacks. Before I get into the details, I’d first like to state that the free will debate is deeply interconnected with many other philosophical topics (e.g. the nature of causation, philosophy of action, the mind-body problem, and laws of nature) for which there are no easy or obvious answers. In taking a side in the free will debate, one must tacitly accept views regarding all of these other topics. Likewise, the free will debate itself comprises a number of different questions:

·         What is free will?

·         Is free will compatible with determinism?

·         Is free will required for moral responsibility? 

·         What is moral responsibility? 

·         What follows if we don’t have free will and/or moral responsibility?

Free will can be conceived of in more than one way. There is first, the libertarian conception of free will, which states that free will gives us ultimate control of our actions or the unconditional ability to do otherwise. Possession of libertarian free will entails that if we were to rewind the clock right before the moment of some action (e.g. eat cereal for breakfast)—*fixing all of the past conditions (e.g. mental states, prior events, etc.)*—we would be able to do otherwise (e.g. eat eggs for breakfast). This conception of free will often goes hand in hand with dualism—the view which states that the mind and body are independent—as well as theism (1). Under a theistic reading, free will can be thought of as a god given power, giving humans ultimate responsibility for their actions. Many scientists and philosophers doubt that we have this kind of free will. Without this kind of free will, it is thought that humans are just like billiard balls, with each action the result of a long chain reaction of past events constrained (or determined) by the laws of nature. But there is also the compatibilist conception of free will, an alternative that’s been around since Ancient Greece (2).

Compatibilism states that we can have free will even if the universe, and our actions, are the result of past events and the laws of nature. In a nutshell, compatibilism is the view that we can be morally responsible even if we lack immaterial souls or magical causal powers. Hume thought of free will as the ability to make decisions without any external constraints (e.g. having a gun up to your head) (3). Eddy Nahmias, a contemporary compatibilist, conceives of free will as a set of psychological capacities (4). Such capacities include: self-control, future planning, and rational deliberation. The extent to which an agent has free will depends on whether there are any internal (e.g. mental illness) or external (e.g. gun to head) pressures working against these capacities. On this view, free will is not an all-or-nothing feature, but rather, a matter of degree. 

Many have challenged compatibilist theories on the grounds that their proponents are changing the subject. Free will skeptics claim that most people (i.e. non-philosophers) have the libertarian conception in mind, and that therefore, it is then misleading to say that we have free will, but of a different kind. Sam Harris gives a nice way to illustrate this objection.

“Imagine that we live in a world where more or less everyone believes in the lost kingdom of Atlantis. You and your fellow compatibilists come along and offer comfort: Atlantis is real, you say. It is, in fact, the island of Sicily. You then go on to argue that Sicily answers to most of the claims people through the ages have made about Atlantis. Of course, not every popular notion survives this translation, because some beliefs about Atlantis are quite crazy, but those that really matter—or should matter, on your account—are easily mapped onto what is, in fact, the largest island in the Mediterranean. Your work is done, and now you insist that we spend the rest of our time and energy investigating the wonders of Sicily” (5).

For Harris’s analogy to work, one must assume that everyone more or less believes in the libertarian conception of free will. This is an empirical question, one that, at best, remains unsettled (6). But let’s assume for the sake of argument that most people do have the libertarian conception in mind. Does it follow that we should then conclude that free will does not exist? Another option would be to state that the folk are simply wrong about the nature of free will. We wouldn’t want to say that energy doesn’t exist simply because the folk conception of ‘energy’ is erroneous. What’s relevant is whether the concept maps onto something in the world, not how many people happen to misunderstand it. There are further, pragmatic, reasons for siding with the compatibilists. 

It would be absurd, if not impossible to give up talk of moral responsibility altogether. As human beings, we have emotional reactions to certain kinds of behavior (7). We feel indignation towards those who do us wrong and we feel gratitude towards those who help us. If no one is morally responsible, then no one deserves blame or praise. It would thus be irrational to experience such reactive emotions and we would be rationally compelled to try and eliminate them from the human experience. Unless we come to the point where drugs and genetic modification can rid us of such emotions, I think they are here to stay. 

In summary, there are roughly three positions one may take up in the free will debate. One can be a libertarian, a skeptic, or a compatibilist. I have argued that compatibilism is the most appealing option, on the grounds that it preserves our common sense intuitions about moral responsibility (which may be part of our human nature), but this is far from a knock-down case for the view. There is much more to say about all three of these views. In the future posts, I will dive much deeper into many of the questions raised here. I will focus mainly on the debate between free will skeptics and compatibilists and ultimately argue that compatibilism is the more plausible view to hold. 

Works cited:

(1)   Not all libertarian views are religiously motivated. For example, the philosopher Robert Kane defends a naturalistic theory of libertarian free will. See his 1998 book, “The significance of free will”, for an articulation and defense of his view. 

(2)   Scholars have argued that ancient Stoics, such as Chrysippus, advanced compatibilist theories. Sharples, R. W. (1983). Alexander of Aphrodisias on fate: Text, translation, and commentary. Duckworth.

(3)   http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-freewill/

(4)   http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will/?_r=0

(5)   https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-marionettes-lament

(6)   Murray, D., & Nahmias, E. (2014). Explaining away incompatibilist intuitions.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88(2), 434-467.

(7)   The philosopher Peter Strawson has written extensively about the relevance of emotions to the free will debate. See his classic text Freedom and resentment (1963).

Further reading:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

Recommended films with connections to the free will debate:

The Adjustment Bureau

Minority Report

A Clockwork Orange

Atheism

  

Philosophers discuss perennial questions whose answers may not be settled through scientific inquiry alone. Does God exist? Is there an afterlife? Why is there something rather than nothing? With respect to the existence of God, there are roughly three positions one may hold.

I take Atheism to be the view which states that God does not exist. Theism is the view which states that God exists. Agnosticism is the view which states the existence of God is unknowable or an open question. The agnostic does not find the arguments and evidence provided by either the Atheist or the Theist to be compelling. Thus, unlike the theist or atheist, the agnostic does not take a stand on the question.

Before moving forwards, it’s important to clarify two things: what I mean by God and how to interpret the claims made by both the theist and atheist.

I take God to be a disembodied mind that created the universe. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good, transcendent (exists outside of space and time), and eternal. This description of God holds true for the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), but may not accord well with conceptions of God from eastern religions, for which I know little about. I shall then focus my discussion on the Western conception of God.

What exactly does it mean to be an atheist? Some atheists have understood the claim as relative to some particular God. On this interpretation, one can be an atheist with respect to the Christian God, but a theist with respect to the God of Islam. Despite this being a popular interpretation on the web—and amongst “New Atheism” circles”—I will use the term how it has been traditionally used. Most philosophers—especially within the sub-discipline of philosophy of religion—understand the claim to be universal. Atheism is typically taken to be a rejection of all Gods. All it takes to be a Theist is to believe that a God exists, whether it is the God of the Bible or the God of the Quran.

Lastly, to be a theist or atheist, one does not need to be certain, nor does one even have to have any justification. One can be a theist or atheist based on faith. But to rationally defend either position, one would have to provide some justification.

Why do people believe in God? To be clear, I am interested in the justification for belief in Theism rather than some causal story (e.g. ‘because they were taught at a young age’). Here are three different kinds of justification:

1)      Evidence: Religious experiences, the apparent fine-tuning of the physical constants, miraculous events.

2)      Rational argument: The Kalam cosmological argument, the argument from Design

3)      Pragmatic reasons: Pascal’s wager (i.e. given the possibility of hell, it’s best to believe)

      Believing that God exists on the basis of some evidence or arguments can be perfectly reasonable thing to do. Whether or not such a belief is true is another matter.

       Of all of the rational arguments for the existence of God, I find the Kalam cosmological argument to be the most powerful, though ultimately not compelling (see Craig and Sinclair 2009 for an extensive overview). The argument goes like this:

The Kalam cosmological argument

P1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause

P2) The universe began to exist

C) The universe had a cause

If C, then the universe was caused by something other than itself. It is argued that the cause of the universe must be immaterial and timeless (outside of space and time), and have the power to create universes. Theists argue that the best candidate for the cause of the universe is God. I will now assess each of the premises in turn.

Why should we accept the first premise? One reason would be that it seems as if everything we observe in the universe is brought into existence by something else. For example, the birth of a newborn was—in part—caused by its mother. Barring possible exceptions within the quantum world (e.g. nuclear decay of atoms), I will grant the theist this much. However, the first premise can be challenged on the following grounds. It may be true that everything within the universe has a cause, but that the universe as a whole does not. Just because a lego castle is made up of tiny bricks does not mean that the castle has to be tiny. Therefore, the first premise sneaks in what has been called the fallacy of composition.

 However, theistic philosophers, such as William Lane Craig, argue that one can provide support for premise 1 without appealing to such a fallacious argument. He argues that premise 1 is common sense and that it is just absurd to accept the alternative. To think that something, especially an entire universe, could just pop into existence out of nothing, seems preposterous.

What about the second premise? Support for premise 2 is often marshalled from the science of cosmology. At the moment, most cosmological evidence points towards the observable universe having a beginning, though it does not demonstrate that the cosmos as a whole had a beginning. Our universe could be one of many universes within an eternal multiverse. Given that cosmology as a science is still highly speculative and premature, we shouldn't give much weight to claims about the cosmos as a whole, but one might argue that the evidence we do have supports premise 2, at least for what is observable to us. 

Logic 101 dictates that if an argument is logically valid and the premises are true, then the conclusion also has to be true. The argument is clearly valid. Therefore, if one is to reject the argument’s conclusion—the universe had a cause—one must reject one of its two premises.

Here are three escape routes an atheist might want to consider. First, the atheist could argue that the universe could have popped into existence out of nothing (Note that this isn’t what certain physicists, such as Lawrence Krauss (2012), have in mind when they say the universe could have came from nothing. Krauss and others cheat by substituting nothing with a quantum vacuum state containing energy. That isn’t nothing!). Second, they could say that current cosmological theories and models are flawed or incomplete. Lastly, the atheist could argue that the cause of the Universe need not be God. All three escape routes require supporting arguments and justification which I will not take up here. I will now turn to some of the arguments and reasons for adopting Atheism and explain why I take some of them to be compelling.

To rationally accept atheism, it is not enough to say that the arguments and evidence for God’s existence aren’t convincing; one must provide positive arguments for atheism. Lacking positive reasons for adopting atheism, agnosticism seems to be the more reasonable position to maintain. Many self-proclaimed atheists reject such a requirement on the following grounds. First, they argue that you cannot prove a negative, and therefore, atheism isn’t a position that can be defended. Rather, it is a position that reflects one’s lack of belief in God. Furthermore, to be an atheist, all that one needs to show is that there is no evidence and/or arguments that support God’s existence. I disagree on multiple counts. Not only can you prove a negative, you can provide a rational defense of Atheism. I’d like to add that defending a philosophical position does not require proving that the other side is wrong. One just needs to show that the arguments in support of their side are more persuasive that the supporting arguments for the opposing view. So, why do people accept atheism?

Evidence that makes God’s existence unlikely: The countless instances of pointless suffering the world, the success of naturalistic theories at explaining how the world works and where it came from (God is superfluous), religious diversity.

Arguments for atheism: The argument/problem of evil, the argument from divine hiddenness, the causal argument, the concept of God involves contradictions.

Perhaps the most famous example of an argument for atheism would be the argument from evil (also known as the problem of evil). The argument comes in many forms, but I will soon put forward what I take to be one its strongest forms (see Tooley 2015 for a review). First, I must clarify something about the nature of evil. There are older arguments that suggest that the existence of evil or pain and suffering is itself incompatible with God’s existence. These arguments fail because some suffering is thought be necessary for personal growth, appreciation of the good, and the greater good of mankind. Pain and suffering is also thought to be a way for God to test his creatures’ faith. The following argument concedes that some pain and suffering is necessary for God’s plan to work, but that copious amounts of pain and suffering that seemingly serve no purpose, provide reason to think that God probably doesn’t exist.

Evidential argument from evil

P1) If God is all good and all powerful, then there wouldn’t be any pointless pain and suffering

P2) There exists copious amounts of pointless pain and suffering in the world (e.g. natural disasters, mass extinction events, animal suffering from predation, disease, genetic abnormalities, starvation etc.).

C) A God with such attributes (omnipotence + omnibenevolence) is very unlikely to exist

 Both premises require more explication and justification. At first glance, the first premise seems pretty uncontroversial. If there were instances of pointless pain and suffering (i.e. pain and suffering that does not lead to personal growth or to some greater good), then God would and should have the power to prevent them. At this point the theist might pull the mystery card. As mere mortals, we cannot know why God does certain things, or what the right courses of action should even be. Such a line of argument could be used to challenge the second premise as well. There may seem to be copious amounts of needless pain and suffering in the world, but it doesn’t follow from that that there in fact is. To test the plausibility of such a claim, let’s look at a specific proposal.

Mass extinction events: Assuming that most non-human animals can experience pain and suffering, events where 90% of the animal population were wiped out (e.g. asteroid impacts) would involve a great deal of pain and suffering (see Kolbert 2014 for a review of five such catastrophes). Billions of creatures starving to death, burning alive, and being poisoned or smothered by toxic gases. What was the point? How did the suffering of billions of creatures contribute to some greater good? Couldn’t God have brought about the human race without such a long history of pain and suffering?

Theists have given several responses to such claims. Some have alleged that most (if not all) non-human animals lack the capacity to experience pain or suffering. If true, mass extinction events would not be a strike against God. To be fair, I think it is an open question whether certain creatures experience pain and suffering. For example, there is some reason to think that creatures ranging from insects to bony fish lack the capacity to experience pain and suffering (Key 2016). Bony fish lack certain brain regions (e.g. neocortical areas) seemingly responsible for the sensation of pain in other vertebrates, such as mammals. But even if I give the theist this much, there is good reason to think that most mammals and birds experience pain and suffering, and that still constitutes a very large number of creatures.

Another response shifts the blame to rebellious spirits, ghosts, or fallen angels (Plantinga 1977). The philosopher Alvin Plantinga argues that it is logically possible for all pointless evil to be attributed to the actions of humans or other kinds of moral agents (e.g. fallen angels). While atheists may ridicule an appeal to evil spirits, such entities are a part of a theistic worldview. How might such an explanation go? Did the fallen angels somehow redirect the asteroid towards Earth? Are all of these beings just running around messing with nature in order to cause pain and suffering for the fun of it? Whatever the case may be, a story involving rebellious spirits sounds quite fantastical.

A third explanation for the long history (~600 million years) of animal suffering would be that such suffering was necessary for the evolution of human beings. But this would effectively be putting constraints on God's power. Why couldn't God have created the world in six days, skipping the whole evolutionary process altogether? Certain theologians and theistic philosophers concede that there are some constraints on God's power, namely, that God is bound by the laws of logic. It is said that God cannot make 2+2=5, bring about square circles, or create married bachelors, all of which involve some kind of contradiction (a violation of logical law). But what is contradictory about creating human beings without evolution? If there is no contradiction involved, then either 1) God has even less power than previously believed (by being bound by some physical or metaphysical constraints), 2) God is not all-good, or 3) no such being exists. 

There is much more to say about the other examples of pointless suffering I have mentioned. Collectively, I consider the evidence for pointless pain and suffering to be overwhelming. Consequently, I believe that the problem of evil provides good reason to think that God doesn’t exist. While a full defense of atheism would require much more space, I hope to have shown the steps involved in issuing such a defense. If you have not been sold by any of the arguments presented within this blog post, then you might have some other reasons or arguments in mind for defending atheism or theism, or you might be an agnostic.

Next week’s post: Free will and moral responsibility. I will offer a defense of compatibilism against free will skepticism and libertarianism. I will also say why the debate matters, and why the issue is much more complex than many scientists and laypeople make it out to be.

Works cited:

Craig, W. L., & Sinclair, J. D. (2009). The kalam cosmological argument. The Blackwell companion to natural theology, 101-201.

Key, B. (2016). Why fish do not feel pain. Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling, 1(3), 1.

Kolbert, E. (2014). The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. A&C Black.

Krauss, L. M. (2012). A universe from nothing. Simon and Schuster.

Plantinga, A. (1974). God, freedom, and evil. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Tooley, Michael, "The Problem of Evil", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/evil/>.

Academia or Blogging?

I have just finished a terminal MA program in philosophy from a top-ranked program (GSU). Over the next few months, I will have to seriously consider what I should do next. In order to teach philosophy full-time—which is what I think I’d like to do for a living—I would have to first get into a good PhD program. My first two attempts at applying to PhD programs were unsuccessful, and as Steve Stich once told me, “That is the easy part”. To complete the PhD program, I would then have to spend at least five years taking courses, teaching, and writing a 100-page dissertation. Upon completion, I would have to apply to dozens (if not hundreds) of jobs across the country with a fair chance of not being hired. Best case scenario (which is pretty unlikely): I get into a top 30 PhD program, complete it in five years and then get a full-time teaching job. Even then, in order to advance in the field, I would have to publish quite regularly. Publishing in peer reviewed journals is like applying to graduate school all over again, except you are competing with hundreds of other people with PhDs (most philosophy journals reject at least 90% of the submissions). Making it as an academic philosopher is no easy task. 

For the past four years, I have been able to hand pick courses that most interested me, studying a wide range of topics; from the foundations of quantum mechanics to the evolution of the brain. Studying philosophy has led me to become a better writer, sharper thinker, and more aware of who I am. It has supplied me with the intellectual tools to deconstruct complex arguments, to spot the relevant passages in a lengthy text, and to research complicated issues effectively. If I decide to retreat from the pathway into academia, I would not lose anything. 

Outside of academia, I believe there is much philosophical work to be done. For one, when it comes to the field of philosophy, effective communication with the general public and with professional scientists has been lacking. Most people know perfectly well what science is, but are deeply confused about the nature of philosophy. Science popularizers, such as, Bill Nye, Lawrence Krauss, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, have all inadvertently contributed to such confusions. All while assuming that philosophy is just a waste of time or a thing of a past, such scientists tacitly defend philosophical views with little to no argument. For example, Lawrence Krauss seems to endorse utilitarianism (the ethical theory which prescribes the greatest good for the greatest many), but rolls his eyes when philosophers try and point out to him that it's a philosophical position (1). There is a reason why philosophers come up with names for philosophical views. Not only does it make philosophical discussion easier; it allows certain logical problems or puzzles for such views to become apparent. One job of the philosopher is to develop and defend more nuanced views that aim to address such problems. (If only there were philosophical views in accord with common sense that had no problems with them!)

Everyone—including scientists—holds philosophical views, whether they like it or not. We all have views about God, morality, free will, the extent of our knowledge, and the nature of reality. Doing philosophy allows one to realize the menu of theoretical possibilities regarding such issues. It also allows one to figure out which option is most compatible with one's own intuitions and beliefs. A further relevant question is then, ‘What reason do we have to accept the philosophical views that we hold?’ Philosophical views need to be argued for, even if they seem to be common sense or obviously correct.

While I have studied a wide range of views across a large number of topics, I do not have many firm beliefs. The existence of this blog is in part a remedy to my fence-sitting. In the blog posts that follow, I will closely examine philosophical issues and try to lay some of my cards down on the table (2). In trying to defend some position, I believe that I will become more aware of what I really think about the topic. At the same time, I hope to clear up some common confusions regarding philosophy and aim to show why it’s extremely useful discipline. Perhaps after blogging for a while, I will get a good sense as to whether academic philosophy is the right move to make.

Works cited

            

(1) http://www.reasonablefaith.org/life-the-universe-and-nothing-has-science-buried-god

[ctrl F: "utilitarianism" for the relevant excerpts]

(2) http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl     

* I will often refer back to the views featured within this survey. Eventually, I plan to fill out the survey in its entirety, hopefully having an informed opinion about each of the issues.