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PHILO > Design Argument > Flashcards

Design Argument Flashcards

1
Q

Swinburne’s Argument from Design

A
  1. Copresence
  2. Temporal
  3. analogy
  4. scientific explanation
  5. 2 types
  6. temporal persons
  7. L = p
    c. designer
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2
Q

Hambourger’s preferred argument from design

A
  1. genetic material
  2. replicates
  3. chaos
  4. gradually
    c. intelligent designer
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3
Q

Schlesinger Surprises

A

When it is highly improbable that even just a single member of a given set of events should take place, then the occurrence of any member is an occasion of surprise, calling for an explanatory hypothesis.

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4
Q

Criticism of surprise theory

A
  1. slight difference
  2. multiverse
  3. no inference
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5
Q

Fine tuning argument

A
  1. L = intelligent
  2. more likely if
  3. If
  4. God exsits
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6
Q

God’s utility function is

How is this shown

A

DNA survival
The amount of excess work would be cut down if there was a function of welfare. DNA survival causes the spread of DNA which has no beneficial effect.

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7
Q

Hume’s Objections to Swinburne

A
  1. sufficient cause must equal exact effect. Omni God would create excess qualities.
  2. Can’t infer from regularities of succession to an unobserved God unless observed Gods before.
  3. Can’t reach conclusions about an object one of its kind.
  4. universe of ideas requires a cause as much as a material world.
  5. analogy of man may as well be extended to other aspect.
  6. Many gods
  7. analogy - cause of regularities could be sim to vegetation
  8. matter arrangement accident
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8
Q

Cosmological Argument

A
  1. D or SE
  2. not D
    C. SE
    DV
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9
Q

PSR

Applied to CA

A

Existence
Positive Fact
No self contained reason for existence

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10
Q

Objection to Premise 2 CA

A
  1. Collection of dependent beings as dependent
  2. Inference of causation
  3. Expl of collection is an expl of each thing
  4. brute fact
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11
Q

Rowe’s Concern over PSR

A

Nature is not bound to satisfy our presuppositions. Our presupposition that everything must have an expl is not necessarily true. PSR can’t be proven to be true therefore CA cant be true.

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12
Q

Aquinas appeals to 3 facts of CA

A

the unchanging changer
the uncaused cause of existence
the being which had to exist

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13
Q

Pruss + Gale’s inference of CA

A
  1. It is possible that it is necessary
  2. ”
    C. It is necessary
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14
Q

Clifford’s Principle

A

It is wrong, always, everywhere and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence
why?

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15
Q

The Difference Thesis

A

Either religious belief should be held to a stricter epistemic standard than beliefs of other types or if they are to be held to the same, they typically fare worse under this standard.

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16
Q

Clifford’s Other Principle

A

It is wrong, always, everywhere and for anyone to ignore evidence that is relevant to his beliefs, or to dismiss relevant evidence in a facile way.

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17
Q

Clifford’s Double Standard

A

Religious belief in relation to evidence and argument is set an impossible test. Very few of our beliefs would pass this test but Clifford views religious evidence as inadequate and incomplete to fit his anti-religious agenda.

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18
Q

Plantinga’s AC model

A

If God exists and if he has constituted the human cognitive system in such a way that when it is properly functioning belief in him would come about naturally; one could be warranted in believing in God.
Failure to believe in God is as a result of a dysfunction of the divine senses. Triggered by spontaneous beauty.

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19
Q

Plantinga’s AC model claims

A
  1. epistemically possible
  2. no clear logical objections
  3. Close to the truth
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20
Q

De jure and de facto

A

de jure: ignores the ontological status of God’s existence and focuses on justification and rationality.

de facto: reality or truth of religious conviction

dependency between warrant/rationality and truth/falsehood of theism. De jure is not independent of the de facto. A successful objection to theism must be aimed at truth of theism not rational.

21
Q

Pascal’s Wager

A

It is one’s own interest to behave as if God exists.
Not an argument for the existence of God but an argument for the rationality of being a Christian.
Argument is infinitely strong, when the finite is at stake in a game of equal chances and the infinite is to be won.
Those unable to believe must act as those who believe.

22
Q

Wager objections and responses

A
  1. greed: scheming and calculative.
    response: distinction between selfish and self interested
  2. Practice and belief: verbal profession is not the same as devotion
    Response: must be engaged in what is indispensable for achieving objective
  3. Stitch: 3rd possibility of jealous non-Christian God.
  4. Why wager at all? Duff: there will be a small probability i will come to believe in God regardless of if I wager.

Response: varying depth and intensity of infinite life.

23
Q

Many gods objection response

A

other deities do not correlate with natural aspirations of mind and heart.
different deities have different probabilities, if there are infinite deities it does not follow each has P0
A deity who provides just rewards for development of soul is more likely than a random unloving deity.
the greater the sublime properties the greater the likelihood of existence.
Pascal is addressing those who know about real religions which have internal coherence and appeal to intellect and nobler sentiments.
Principle of Simplicity: the theistic hypothesis is the simplest because it can be expressed using single predicate.
PSR: 95% benevolence requires questioning and lack of reasoning. 100% is explanatory.

24
Q

The Impossibility of Eliminating Naturalism Martin

A
  1. Science progresses more becomes explainable
  2. any event will become available
    C. not reasonable to believe in miracles
25
Q

Miracles are too improbable Flew

A
  1. Investigate history to demonstrate
  2. we know about the past if we assume regularities of past are the same as present.
  3. must employ knowledge of what is possible or probable.
  4. miracles are highly
    C. Cannot be known historically.
26
Q

Hume’s argument against miracles.

A
  1. Miracles are rare and improbable
  2. much more probable that historical testimony is false.
    C. wise man will not believe testimony.
27
Q

Proof against Proof

A

Proof against the proof of a miracle comes from the fact that a miracle by definition comes from having proof that such a thing cannot happen. there must be a uniform experience against every miracle.
Therefore, the miracle can only be credible by an opposite proof which is superior.

28
Q

Response to Hume’s criticism of Miracles

A

Hume supposes that the only evidence is human testimony.
Scientists can revise laws
Begs the question - Hume views laws of nature as true statements.

29
Q

The Wrong Laws Objection + Response

A

A law of nature is not violated but what is thought to be Law of nature is not actually. Nothing that actually happens is contrary to the truth.

R: deny the premise of a miracle and say that something could be a law even with exceptions. Supernatural exception as miracles fall between what is logically and physically possible. Remains logically possible for God to act by direct causal intervention.

30
Q

Challenge of Naturalism to miracles.

Response

A

whatever causally explains an occurence in the natural world must itself be part of the natural world.

R: little reason to state the natural world must be a closed system. Naturalism isnt something we’re constrained to believe, the non-believer must prove it to be true.
Not every natural event has a prior cause e.g raising hand is not bound to a prior event.

31
Q

Problem of Divine Hiddenness (Murray) Logical Problem

A

If belief in God is essential to human fulfillment, one would expect God to provide us with unambiguous evidence for his existence.

32
Q

Response to Divine Hiddenness. Antecedent free will, natural regularities and evil

A

Antecedent free will: there are certain conditions that must necessarily hold or fail to hold if beings with freedom are to be able to exercise this freedom in a morally significant manner.

Natural regularities: God cannot give us true beliefs about the effects of our actions without providing natural processes whereby these effects are produced in a regular way.

Natural evil: if we are to have knowledge of consequences, we must learn through natural processes or through discovering God’s intention (which would cause increase in threat level).
A’s producing Bs in different conditions.

33
Q

Threat and Divine Hiddenness

A

Threat: if God does not remain hidden, some beings would be compelled by a threat and could not exercise their freedom in a morally significant manner.

If God was not hidden it would interfere with free action;

  1. we are free but no rational person would go against threatener.
  2. we are not free at all
  3. moral significance of actions are reduced - praise and blame are not justified.
34
Q

Factors which determine threat significance:

A

Strength of threat - consequential
Imminence - probability
Wantonness - ability to disregard personal well-being.

35
Q

types of threat imminence

A

Probabilistic - robber vs old lady
Temporal - gun vs slow poison
epistemic - repetition leading to increased force

36
Q

Christian threat of eternal damnation

A

The theist must provide an explanation for how this threat can be mitigated in order to not compromise freedom.

God is concerned with preserving every individuals freedom. since the threat is constant, God must tailor the degree of general revelation to the individual most likely to be compelled by a threat - least wanton individual.

Each individual is maximally aware of God’s existence to the extent possible without jeopardising free will.

37
Q

Horrendous Evils (Adams)

A

Evils, the participation in (doing or suffering of), which gives one reasons prima facie to doubt whether one’s life could (given their inclusion in it) be a great good to one on the whole.
Seemingly impossible to overcome - positive value is removed.

38
Q

Horrendous evil solution

A

Engulf evil and made meaningful through positive defeat.
The divine reason for these evils are beyond what we are cognitively, emotionally and spiritually mature enough to understand.
God, out of respect and commitment to his creation, positively defeats evil through integrating horrendous evils into a personal relationship with God:
1. identify with Christ
2. divine gratitude
3. God has capacity and responds.

39
Q

Argument for atheism based on evil (Rowe)

Probability

A
  1. There exists instances of intense suffering which an omni being could prevent w/o losing greater good or permitting evil equally bad or worse (can’t prove but rational to believe)
  2. An omni being would prevent occurence of any intense suffering it could unless it could not do so w/o thereby losing good or permitting evil. (agreed by both theist and non)
    c. there does not exist an omni-being.

G.E Moore Shift: theist uses C as premise 1, so argument decided on which of P1 is more believable.

40
Q

Hypothesis of Indifference (HI)

A

Neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings on earth is the result of benovelent or manevolent actions performed by non-human persons.
HI is consistent with both the existence and non-existence of supernatural beings.
HI is inconsistent with theism because if supernatural beings exist no action performed by them is motivated by a direct concern for our well-being.

41
Q

Biological usefulness of pain and pleasure

A

P(O/HI) > P(O/theism)
Pain and pleausure for HI will play the same biological role that other parts of organic systems play.
Pain and Pleasure for theism means God creates it on the basis of moral reasons rather than biological usefulness - different from organic systems.

42
Q

Friendly atheism

A

some theists are rationally justified in believing in God. truth does not relate to rational justification. Just as the atheist is rational in believing God does not exist. The atheist is also rational in rejecting the theists reasoning. Hence GE Moore shift.

43
Q

Darwin’s Doubt

A

the probability of human cognitive faculties being reliable (mostly true beliefs) is low given that human beings have cognitive faculties (of the sort we have) and given that those faculties have been produced by blind evolution.

44
Q

Stitch’s argument for high probability of true beliefs and the reasons why he rejects it

A

a) evolution produces organisms with good approximations to optimally well-designed characteristics or systems.
b) an optimally well-designed cognitive system is a rational cognitive system which in turn is a reliable system as it produces true belief.

criticism:
a) natural selection is not the only process at work in evolution e.g random genetic shift.
b) Optimal design is to be understood in terms of fitness, therefore, reliable cognitive systems are not necessarily more fitness-enhancing than unreliable ones.

45
Q

Probability Problem of naturalism

A

P(R/(N&E&C))

R = reliable cognitive faculties 
N = naturalism 
E = cognitive faculties as a result of evolution

Naturalistic evolution has a low probability of hcf being reliable. this provides a defeater for R which then allows defeater for any belief that is produced by cognitive faculty (all of them).

Complete skepticism - we assume that our hcf nearly at 100% reliable but should be more at 50%. You can’t give an argument for true beliefs because you are using your cognitive faculty to make that belief.

46
Q

The presumption of atheism

A

systematic inquiry must start from a position of negative atheism. Comparison with legal case: presumptions are procedural not substantive - they assume no conclusion positive or negative. If God is proven to exist, the onus was still right to be on the theist.

Theist must provide knowledge to their true belief.
Atheism is not known to be true but it can be seen as more probable.

47
Q

criticisms of the presumption

A

Hick: the religious man no more infers God than we infer the existence of the world. If we regard him to be rational, we must acknowledge he is rational in believing his experiences.

Response: A claim of truth does not mean it is well grounded.

The territory which reason cannot inhibit may nevertheless be freely colonised by faith.

Response: the rational man is not free to believe or not believe as his fancy takes him. if your leap of faith is not to be arbitrary or irrational you must have presentable reasons.

48
Q

The Five Ways in Defeating PoA

A

Things which can be observed in the world cannot be accounted for on the assumption of the non-existence of God and hence there is need to postulate the existence of God.

49
Q

Shalkowski thinks both atheists and theists are…. and should be held

A

guilty of a leap of faith

to the same burden of proof.

PHILO (1 decks)

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