Last Exam Flashcards
Pascal Wagers?
Either there is an all-powerful, all-knowing, morally perfect being or there is no such being; those are the
only two options concerning the existence of God. Suppose for the moment that the evidence for the
existence of God is just as good as the evidence against the existence of God. In decision theory terms, that
would mean it is equally likely that God exists and that God does not exist.
objection to Pascal Wager?
The Diversity of Religions: There are lots of religions in the world and almost all of them are
contrary to each other; it is not possible for all of them to be true. But each of those religions asserts
that believing that religion is true has the highest value. So, every specific religion could construct
a Specific Wager Argument to show that believing in that specific religion is rationally required,
and then you would be rationally required to believe the claims of every religion. But since it is not
possible for all religions to be true, it could not be rational to believe all of them.
ontological argument?
▪ ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (FIRST VERSION)
O1 –The concept of God is the concept of the greatest conceivable being.
O2 –If God did not exist, then it would be possible to conceive of a greater being (specifically, a
God that exists).
O3– It is not possible to conceive of a being greater than the greatest conceivable being.
O4{} God exists.
perfect island objection to ontological argument?
If the Ontological Argument worked, then it would be possible to prove the existence of, for
example, a perfect island: the concept of the perfect island is the concept of the greatest
conceivable island. By the logic of the Ontological Argument, such an island must exist, for if it
did not, then it would be possible to conceive of an even better island – namely, an existing
perfect island. But clearly the existence of islands cannot be established from concepts alone, so
the Ontological Argument does not establish the existence of God either
Kantian Objection to ontological argument?
[O2] is false because it requires that existence be a property that something can have or lack, but
existence is not a property. Think about a poodle, for instance. What properties does it have?
Well, it has four legs, soft, curly fur, a tail, it barks, it plays, and so on. Now think about a poodle
that exists. There’s no difference! When you thought of the poodle before, you already thought of
it as existing – that wasn’t a property that was contained within the concept.
Whether that poodle exists or not cannot be established by the concept alone. If the poodle exists,
then there is something in the world that matches that concept; if the poodle does not exist, then
there is nothing in the world that matches that concept. But there aren’t two different concepts
involved – one of the existing poodle, one of the non-existing poodle – there is just a single
concept.
Likewise, the Ontological Argument fails because [O2] claims that if God did not exist, then one
would need a second concept of God, but that’s not true. If God exists, then there is something in
the world that matches that concept; if God does not exist, then there is nothing in the world that
matches that concept. But there wouldn’t be two different concepts.
State and explain the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (MODAL VERSION)
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (MODAL VERSION)
OM1 It is conceivable that God exists.
OM2 Conceivability entails possibility.
OM3 It is possible that God exists – there is at least one possible world where God exists.
OM4 Either God exists in all possible worlds, or God does not exist in any possible world. (If
God exists, then God exists necessarily.)
OM5 ___God exists.
State and explain the ATHEIST ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
establishing the non-existence of God:
AO1 It is conceivable that there is no God.
AO2 Conceivability entails possibility.
AO3 —- It is possible that there is no God – there is at least one possible world where
there is no God.
AO4 Either God exists in all possible worlds, or God does not exist in any possible
world. (If God exists, then God exists necessarily.)
AO5 —- There is no God.
explain why appeals to sacred text fail to provide rational support for religous belief?
(1) Appealing to a sacred text to show the existence of God already assumes what is supposed to
be shown, namely that God exists. There are stories about Sherlock Holmes but those
certainly don’t show that Sherlock Holmes exists, so why are religious texts supposed to be
different? The advocate of such appeals claims that while stories about Sherlock Holmes were
written by a human who created them out of his own thoughts (Arthur Conan Doyle); the
religious texts were written by humans inspired by God. Ah, but that right there assumes
what was supposed to be argued for!
“Why should I believe that God exists?”
“Because the Torah says so!”
“But why should I think the Torah is correct?”
“Because it represents the word of God!”
This is what philosophers call ‘viciously circular reasoning’.
State and explain the ARGUMENT FROM RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES
Appeals to Religious Experiences
R1 People claim to have experiences caused by divine beings.
R2 The best explanation of those experiences is that they are in fact caused by divine beings.
R3 God exists.
Explain an OBJECTION to the ARGUMENT FROM RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES
Assume for the moment that people claiming to have religious experiences really are having
experiences of that sort – that is, for the sake of argument, we don’t need to worry about whether
people actually have the experiences they claim to have; we’re interested in whether or not those
experiences reflect reality.
Of course, in practice, the fact that someone claims to have had a certain experience can be met
with skepticism: if someone tells me they had lunch with former president George Washington
and ancient Greek philosopher Plato, on a spaceship in the Andromeda galaxy, not only will I not
believe it happened, I won’t even believe that the person making the claim believes it happened.
There are cases of people exploiting the religious beliefs of others by claiming to have had some
deep, religious experience and then offering some sort of product for sale based on this alleged
experience. The financial gain to the person warrants skepticism on the part of the listener
State and explain the PROBLEM OF EVIL ARGUMENT
E1 God exists only if an all-powerful, all-knowing, morally perfect being exists.
E2 An all-powerful, all-knowing, morally perfect being exists only if there is no morally
unnecessary suffering and nothing morally impermissible ever happens.
E3 There are vast amounts of morally unnecessary suffering and morally impermissible
actions & states of affairs.
E4 There is no all-powerful, all-knowing, morally perfect being.
E5 There is no God.
The first premise of the argument is just a conceptual matter, clarifying what the concept of God is.
[E2] and [E3] are the premises doing most of the work. [E3] points out that the world we inhabit is
one marked by large quantities of suffering, both across history and in day-to-day life: malnutrition,
cancer, violent conflicts, natural disasters, etc. Terrible things happen constantly, things that no
morally decent agent would allow to happen if given the power to prevent. [E2] points out that such
terrible things simply wouldn’t come about if there were something with the power, knowledge, and
moral motivation to prevent them from happening
Explain the FREE WILL OBJECTION to the PROBLEM OF EVIL ARGUMENT
Some theists have responded that [E2] & [E3] are false, using the notion of free will to defend
their position:
1 Humans have free will (i.e., humans exercise control over their own actions).
2 Having free will requires having the ability to do terrible and immoral things (like
brutally raping, torturing, and murdering people).
3 The value of having free will outweighs the badness of all of the terrible and immoral
things that have happened in the world.
Explain the ATHEIST RESPONSE to the FREE WILL OBJECTION
Reply to 1: It is actually a deep, philosophical controversy whether humans have free will.
One cannot simply assume that our actions are freely performed; one must argue
for that position and there are plenty of arguments that entail we do not have free
will.(For example, our bodies – every last part of them – are physical objects
subject to the laws of physics, just as much as inanimate objects are. If physical
events are determined, and every action your body performs is a physical event,
then it is not clear that any of your actions are performed freely.) If in fact we do
not have free will, then the Free Will Response fails from the outset.
Explain the MORAL IGNORANCE OBJECTION to the PROBLEM OF EVIL ARGUMENT
Some theists claim that [E3] is false because God is justified in allowing all of the terrible,
horrendous things to happen, instead of preventing them, but we do not know what those
justifications are.
Explain the ATHEIST RESPONSE to the MORAL IGNORANCE OBJECTIO
Consider for a moment any given terrible, awful thing that happens. If you think God
exists, then you are committed to thinking that God could have prevented that terrible
thing from happening but didn’t. If you further endorse the Moral Ignorance Response,
then you are committed to thinking that a morally perfect agent allowed something
terrible to happen that could have been prevented. But if a morally perfect agent would
allow it to happen, in what sense was it wrong for the person to do it? That is, the atheist
replies that claiming moral ignorance in such cases would mean that we are mistaken to
think that something wrong has happened – but we are not mistaken when we claim that
it is wrong to brutally rape, murder, and torture, for example.
Some theists attempt to get around this worry by claiming that it would be wrong for God
to interfere with the free will of, for example, the brutal rapist. However, that entails that
it would also be wrong for me to interfere with the free will of the rapist – what’s wrong
for the morally perfect agent to do is also wrong for the morally imperfect agent. But that
is incorrect: if I can prevent a rape, then I am morally required to do so regardless of
whether that “interferes” with the free will of the rapist. (See also the failure of the Free
Will Response above.) So the atheist’s reply stands: if the Moral Ignorance Response
worked, then we wouldn’t know anything about what is right and wrong. But we do know
at least some things about what is right and wrong.
