Arguments for a Designer Revision Notes

I produced a number of revision documents for my degree course, and maybe someone will find them useful. This is for A222 Exploring Philosophy, Book 2, The Philosophy of Religion, by Timothy Chappell.

I printed these revision notes on card as an aide-memoire to the issues I needed to touch on in an exam question on the subject; most exam questions require an exposition of the ground to be covered before any actual philosophy can be done (ie, the question answered!). Having these, almost bullet, points burned into my memory allowed me to write this background stuff whilst planning my answer.

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Rhyme or Reason?

Richard Dawkins suggests that Rowan Williams and other sophisticated theologians are being poetic about their beliefs - perhaps that they are metaphorical. I'm pretty sure that Williams thinks, however poetic he gets, that there is an underlying real truth behind what he says. And this is surely true of most senior Anglicans, despite the suspicion some have (or had, like Julian Baggini?) that they don't really believe in the unlikely things they say they believe in. Consider this, from Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, in the Daily Telegraph:

The proper relation of religion to science is also vital. Young people must be taught to appreciate both the experimental methods of science and the ultimate values which religion offers. Such a conversation must take place in the classroom if we are not to continue being divided by “scientistic” and religious fundamentalists.

Mr Cameron reminded us that inalienable human dignity is founded on the biblical idea that we are made in the image of God. But to whom does this extend? And are there circumstances when a person might lose such dignity?

Nazir-Ali implies that we have sources of reliable knowledge other than science, with his false opposition between scientism and fundamentalism, then notes that human dignity is based on 'the biblical idea that we are made in the image of God'. This is very debatable, of course, but, further, is 'made in the image of God' a literal truth or a poetic metaphor? Science shows that we are inextricably a part of the animal kingdom with no need for such a notion, so should we not conclude a contradiction between science and religion here? I think we should, but liberal theists might say that I am being too scientistic and literal in my interpretation of the teaching; lacking poetry, perhaps? 

As an aside, read Russell Blackford's discussion of scientism, and other things, here, which explains well how the charge of scientism lacks teeth - anyone who appeals to a worldview based on reason and evidence  (practically everyone, I should think) is automatically not scientistic; but that does not allow anyone to claim truths in opposition to science.

Nevertheless, Nazir-Ali clearly wants public policy based on this 'idea', linking it to the 'special nature of the human embryo' which suggests he, at least, thinks it's a literal truth that we are created in the image of God, in opposition to the huge weight of scientific evidence:

It was for these reasons that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act recognised the special nature of the human embryo and established an authority to regulate scientific work involving embryos. I support the Coalition’s desire to trim the quangos, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is not perfect. But we need a body, perhaps modelled on the US President’s Council, that can consider the moral implications of developments in bioethics.

If he doesn't think it's a literal truth, should we base such decisions on ancient metaphors? I think metaphors could be useful if they highlighted an underlying truth revealed by our explorations of reality, but the image of God and the special nature of the human embryo would need to be connected by something more than a biblical idea, since biblical ideas have a wretched record in the marketplace of ideas and, in any case, they should not be grounds for public policy in a secular, multi-cultural world, unless they can be supported by secular, multi-cultural arguments and evidence. Even good poetic reasons would not suffice, in my opinion.

The moral implications of developments in bioethics should be considered, but, like all morality, they should be considered by us all, in a mature group negotiation that considers all the facts as we understand them, in concert with mutually acceptable values.

Bizarrely, Nazir-Ali also says:

As Mr Cameron reminded us, the value of equality comes from the biblical teaching, confirmed by science, of the common origin of all humans.

He appears to blind himself to the evolutionary view which shows our common origin with other animals, and to ignore biblical teachings such as descent from Adam and Eve and the massacre of the Canaanites, which suggest that some humans are more equal than others.

The Commission on Assisted Dying will be reporting this week, and it has taken on board evidence from Robin Gill, an advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the current status quo should be maintained, preferring to limit patient choice to a denial of treatment, with all the potential for pain and suffering that that entails. This stems from another supposed truth (poetic or otherwise) that human life is a gift from God and thus not our own:

10. The sanctity of human life: This principle is crucial to Christians. It encapsulates their belief that life is in and of itself sacred because it is given by God. Life has an inherent value, not just a conditional one. The principle is enshrined in law in the form of an absolute prohibition on the intentional killing of innocent human beings. It is not normally taken to mean that any life ought to be preserved at all costs. But it does ‘protect each one of us impartially, embodying the belief that all are equal’ (quoted by the Archbishop and the Cardinal from the 1994 Select Committee’s report, included in Appendix I).
11. For a Christian, this principle also encapsulates the simple belief that God owns my life, not I, and I have, therefore, no right to end it.

(from the Church of England briefing paper to the Lords Select Committee on Assisted Dying)

The consequence of such literal beliefs is Anglican opposition to humane measures which recognise each individual's autonomy. But, it's a logical corollary to the view that our lives are not our own. Let us hope that the Commission recognises the evil nature of such warping ideas, poetic metaphor or not, since these beliefs have neither rhyme nor reason to my ears.

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Cameron Opts for Blinkered Dogmatism

The Guardian has arranged for various prominent figures to ask Prime Minister David Cameron some searching and not so searching questions. Terry Wogan asked "What does the PM think the public think of him?". I mean, really, what sort of answer is that going to elicit? Nothing that is going to tell us anything interesting about Cameron or his views.

Richard Dawkins did ask an important question:

Why do you support faith schools for children who are too young to have chosen their faith, thereby implicitly labelling them with the faith of their parents, whereas you wouldn't dream of so labelling a "Keynesian child" or a "Conservative child"?

This is an important question in a modern, secular society. Peter Robinson has today announced his intention to appeal to the whole community in Northern Ireland, to try to create a united Northern Ireland. This is probably a fool's errand until measures are taken to reduce sectarianism in that blighted province, and it's hard to see how he could get from here to there without removing the deep divide that is caused by faith schools. Of course, I don't pretend this change would be sufficient; just a necessary one.

The situation is less serious in Great Britain, probably due in no small part, I suspect, to Catholic persecution in the centuries after the Reformation - Catholicism has simply had very little standing in the body politic, so it has been unable to influence policies and attitudes sufficiently to generate conflict within communities. But in an increasingly pluralist society, the ghettoising effect of faith schools is unlikely to decrease inter-community tensions. So, can we hope for a serious engagement with the issue from David Cameron? He replies:

Comparing John Maynard Keynes to Jesus Christ shows, in my view, why Richard Dawkins just doesn't really get it. 

Clearly that would be too much to ask!

Notice, first, that Cameron simply dismisses Dawkins's view out of hand, mockingly, as the over-arch Anglican blogger Cranmer notices. So, it's often said that Dawkins mocks believers and that he fails to take their beliefs seriously. Yet here we have the Prime Minister of this country, half voted in by the populace, responsible to us for his decisions, refusing to engage with Dawkins's question seriously and effectively mocking him.

Is it fair to say he doesn't engage? I think so. Dawkins is not comparing Keynes and Christ, although I dare say Keynes's contribution to the well-being of society may be the greater. He's comparing what it's appropriate to teach kids in our publicly funded schools. Is it appropriate to teach them that Keynes's policies are the right and only way an economy should be run? I don't think so. Is it appropriate to teach them that Christ's way is the right and only way to run one's life? Again, no, I don't think so.

Now, to be charitable I suspect that what Cameron may be hinting at, but not expressing, is that there are normative elements to teaching children about Christ that are missing from an economics lesson. But this makes his case even poorer, because, in a secular society, peculiarly normative elements of any religion, or dogma, must be excluded to ensure pluralism isn't threatened by state sanction of one particular view. This point, if that is what he is hinting at, tells against faith schools.

Cameron goes on:

I think faith schools are very often good schools. Why? Because the organisation that's backing them – the church or the mosque or the synagogue – is part of the community. 

The organisation that's backing the school is part of the community? This is almost tautological. Of course they're part of the community, as is the local council. Just being part of the local community is not sufficient qualification for running a school, else local political parties, or even hoodie gangs, would qualify.

And it brings a sense of community and the backing of an institution to a school.

Again, we have many institutions that don't run schools; being an institution is not a sufficient qualification to run a school.

The church was providing good schools long before the state got involved, and we should respect the fact that it's not just the state that can provide education but other bodies, too.

Well, churches have provided bad schools long before the state got involved too, so this point has little purchase. But, more importantly, we're talking about state-funded faith schools here, not private religious schools. Again, Cameron offers an argument that barely qualifies as one, and refuses to engage properly with the important issues that are at stake. Plainly other bodies can provide education, but the question is what sort of society do we want to build? Do we want a society populated by well rounded critical thinkers, or do we want it populated by blinkered dogmatists? If the first, then what do we need to do to provide such a population?

Faith schools are more likely to teach one dogma in preference to another, else why Cameron's initial dig at Dawkins? So my contention is that faith schools are more likely to teach a specifically Christian/Muslim/Jewish dogma in preference to all others, and Cameron seems to think this is a justification for faith schools. So they are more likely to deliver blinkered dogmatists. I suppose it's possible that Cameron would prefer a society of blinkered dogmatists, in which case I understand his answer to Dawkins's question.

UPDATE 28th November 2011: 

It's ironic that Cameron is being so cavalier with his approach to faith schools when, as I mentioned above, Peter Robinson is wrestling with their effects in Northern Ireland. Here is what he said on the Today programme this morning:

We bring children up in different schools and then we scratch our heads when there's division in society.

He called for an end to "religious apartheid" in NI schools.

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Gene-machine Darwinism and Responsibility

Many folk complain that an 'ultra-Darwinist', or 'gene-machine' Darwinist, view of the world renders us incapable of assigning blame to individuals. The implication is that we are creatures at the mercy of our genes, mere puppets, so cannot be blamed or praised for our behaviour. Is this true?

The view sometimes assigned to sociobiologists, or evolutionary psychologists, that we must follow our genetic blueprints, gains traction from the analogies drawn to illustrate their ideas, such as Dawkins’s ‘lumbering robots’. This inference is unfair, since they do accept cultural influence on behaviour, but, relevant to this question, they would expect the sexes to have evolved differently (even competitively) because of their differing physical characteristics. Women have larger sex cells than men, and carry the foetus for nine months. Because men can afford more reproductions in a lifetime, sociobiology would suggest that emotions would evolve differently to motivate men to spend more than women; i.e., have more promiscuous tendencies. Does this mean that some of the more rabid accusations aimed at evolutionary psychology are true? If we consider this statement, typical of the sort of thing:

If gene-machine Darwinism is true, then we cannot blame a man for sexual infidelity, nor praise a woman for being faithful.

To tease out the implications of this conditional statement, we can consider it the outline of an argument, with the antecedent as the premise and the consequent as the conclusion:

Premise	Men’s genes give them a tendency to sexual infidelity
Conclusion	Men cannot be blamed for sexual infidelity

This is invalid; there is a hidden premise or two. We could complete it like this:

Premise 1	Men’s genes give them a tendency to sexual infidelity
Premise 2	Men cannot be blamed for their tendencies
Conclusion	Men cannot be blamed for sexual infidelity

This looks valid, although there is a slight equivocation on the word ‘men’. Not all men will have a tendency equally, so we cannot conclude that all men are blameless for sexual infidelity. But we’ll pass on this and assume ‘men’ refers to the average man.

The implication of P2 is that our tendencies are overwhelming in their force. This doesn’t seem to be true at all. We are all aware of temptations and understand we can resist them. In such circumstances, other inclinations and reasoning help us to resist. Sociobiology claims we are a basket of competing traits and tools evolved for dealing with the world, and it’s too simplistic to say we blindly follow our tendencies. And to say we blindly follow one tendency, such as a sexual imperative, is even more so. The law recognises in cases of diminished responsibility that in some circumstances, including natural aberrations, we cannot be held wholly responsible for our actions. But this principle acknowledges that the average person is responsible for their actions, and it’s the average person we’re considering.

The ‘gene-machine’ charge might be levelled by a 'blank-paperist' (a believer in the social science model that holds that a large part of our nature derives from the cultural environment), in which case we can ask if their counter position can be justified. This would have to look something like this:

P1	People’s behaviour is determined by their culture
P2	People determine their culture
P3	People can be blamed for what they determine
Conclusion	People can be blamed for their behaviour

Some say that people do determine their cultural environment. In a sense, that’s true about their current situation. But the development of traits that occur pre-adulthood is inaccessible to us as adults. Many traits form in the years before 16, so there may be an opportunity for the blank-paperist to determine them in childhood that is not available to the gene-machinist. That may be relevant to the wider community, but no individual, contra P2, can determine their own culture in their formative years. And there is no reason to believe that how these traits are formed makes them more or less mutable in adulthood.

So, once determined, however that may be, the problem of blame presents itself. To determine one’s own traits, one would have to exist prior to one’s own conception – a logical impossibility. So determinism seems to be the enemy of blame, not genetic determinism.

Looking at P3, we do blame people for what they do, often ignoring prior causes. This arises from a sense of localised or ordinary responsibility because, perhaps, it’s more important to understand immediate causes. Consider a house underneath a cliff that suffers from rock-falls. If the rock-falls are due to an unstable rock face, the instability can be addressed. If they’re due to someone pushing rocks down, then they should be held responsible and prevented from re-offending. Observing that, ultimately, both the unstable rock face and the vandal are simply following causes deterministically as part of one long chain of causality from the Big Bang doesn’t help us to decide a future course of action.

Consequentialists and deontologists would take different approaches to the vandal; the consequentialist would see little value in blame unless it resulted in greater benefits than other responses. Deontologists would lay blame because of the inherent wrongness of the act. But neither would blame, morally, the unstable rock face for falling on the house, because it lacks agency. If agency is a temporary phenomenon, it would not be appropriate to say that someone is, or is not, ultimately to blame, but to say that they are locally to blame is pragmatic. We recognise prior agencies as mitigating factors; if the miscreant has been unduly influenced by another, for example. But the further back from the current moment we move the less responsibility we assign. So the passage of time is relevant to the level of responsibility, in conjunction with agency, and neither rests on the truth of gene-machine Darwinism.

The charge from immaterialists, typically theists, is that determinism follows from materialism (immateriality is redundant in gene-machine Darwinism). Science suggests that materialism may not entail determinism, but we’ll allow this assumption for the sake of argument. Immaterialists suggest that morality is meaningless without ‘free’ choice; if our actions follow unavoidably from prior events, blame cannot be laid:

P1	Materialism entails determinism
P2	Determinism dictates that every cause has a prior cause
P3	Responsibility rests where the causal chain stops; at a cause without a prior cause
Conclusion	Materialism precludes responsibility

We blame the person responsible, but if the causal chain doesn’t stop, neither does the responsibility. The argument looks valid; P1 we are allowing, P2 is just determinism defined, but P3 looks suspect. As discussed above, a local responsibility is understandable, even with a chain of events extending back into the past to other ultimate causes. In fact, to rest the responsibility where there are no prior causes can prevent us laying blame. Consider the following scenario: a woman sees a man advancing toward a baby with his arms outstretched. She hits him with her handbag, knocking him out. Among the reasons for her actions could be:

a)       She knew the man meant to harm the baby.

b)       She’s a lunatic out to hit the first man she sees.

c)       She made the decision to hit the man, or acted to hit the man, with no prior cause.

The first two explanations allow us to draw on further evidence and perhaps assign praise (a) or blame (b, with diminished responsibility). But (c) leaves us helpless, because intentions are a major factor in moral judgements. Indeterministic acts happen for no reason. Further, it’s hard to see why someone could do something without prior cause; how would they know what to do without the knowledge of the situation? Perhaps knowledge of the situation exists, but does not count as a prior cause? But the woman is hitting the man because he’s there, else she’d be flailing at nothing. It is a necessary precursor to the act, so must be a component of some prior cause. So indeterminism stops us placing blame, and gene-machine Darwinism is not to blame for that!

The expanded argument for the second part of the conditional we're considering shares the same problems:

P1	Women’s genes give them a tendency to sexual constancy
P2	People cannot be praised for their tendencies
Conclusion	Women cannot be blamed for sexual constancy

The implication is we have no choice but to follow our tendencies. To expand further:

P1	Women’s genes give them a tendency to sexual constancy
P2	People have no choice but to follow their tendencies
P3	People should only be praised for choosing to act well
P4	Sexual constancy is acting well
Conclusion	Women cannot be praised for sexual constancy

P2 is false per gene-machinists, but P3 is troublesome too. Comedian Richard Herring cracks the joke “I was very moral as a teenager; I was a virgin by choice, but also because no-one would have sex with me.” We recognise a difference between acting well by choice rather than by circumstance (imagine if Herring's setup was that he was trying to be promiscuous, but failing). But the charge against gene-machine Darwinism is a little deeper than this; it’s the suggestion that we have no choice because of our nature and cannot choose to act well, so never act well. But we hear stories of people acting ‘heroically’ and afterwards saying ‘I had no time to think’ or ‘It all happened so quick’. Heroes often act instinctively, not through choice, but we think they are praiseworthy still. We praise them because of the nature that compelled them; the hero could have done otherwise in a way that the rock from the previous example could not, but didn’t, and wouldn’t. The idea that they might do something else in the same circumstances would just make their actions arbitrary, and them unreliable, which would hardly attract plaudits. Natural compulsion, then, doesn’t preclude praise, and gene-machine Darwinism’s supposed denial of choice is not fatal to praise-giving, either.

Whether we can praise or blame, then, may still be an issue, but the fact of it does not turn on the truth of so-called gene-machine Darwinism. The arguments to support the conditional could be constructed differently, so we have not exhausted all possible justifications. Nevertheless, based on the arguments considered above, it's clear that the implications often ascribed to ultra Darwinism are quite unwarranted. Ultimately, all that it argues for is the origin of personality traits, not their strength or immutability. As Dawkins says in The Extended Phenotype, when he complains about the unjustified reputation that genes have acquired as 'sinister' and 'juggernaut-like':

Educational, or other cultural influences may, in some circumstances, be just as unmodifiable and irreversible as genes and ‘stars’ are popularly thought to be.

Quite.

Bibliography:

Radcliffe-Richards, J. (2000) Human Nature After Darwin (A211 Book 4), Milton Keynes, The Open University

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Waterloo at Wellington for Theists

Another debate organised by Intelligence Squared, this time at Wellington College in Berkshire. The motion was 'Atheism is the new fundamentalism', proposed by Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford and Charles Moore, opposed by A C Grayling and Richard Dawkins. Moderated by Anthony Seldon, headmaster at the school. He's a professor at the College of Teachers. Who teaches them, one wonders. This one was streamed online, so I won't go into too much detail; I think it should be available to watch very soon.

EDIT: watch the debate here.

Outside the venue

Celeb watch; two sightings. Seventies chanteuse, Lynsey De Paul (who'd have thought?) and Jeremy Paxman.

Richard Harries

The very *motion* is an ad hominem response to atheism, in my opinion; rather than address the arguments, cast 'new' atheism (they tend to qualify the atheism) as the new fundamentalism, and consequently dismiss it as worthless. This implicit notion fed through to both Harries' and Moore's opening statements, which addressed what fundamentalism is, and why it's a bad thing (no argument from me there), but also name-called Richard Dawkins, sitting bemused opposite them. Harries called him an 'attack dog' and Moore described a scene in which 'Commandant Dawkins' would have theists all gunned down, presumably for daring to object to rational argument.

A C Grayling

The tenor of both presentations was that atheism, as represented by Dawkins, adopted a *certainty* about the truth that was not justified. I think Harries called it "not allowing for the great 'perhaps'". This seems very odd to me, because faith in god is surely about banishing doubt from one's belief - I blogged on this some time back, prompted by an article by a Catholic priest.

Charles Moore

For me, this is a straw man; whilst new atheist scientists consider that the Christian God is almost certainly non-existent, they cannot discount any god's existent, nor the existence of Russell's teapot, and Dawkins corrected them on this point. Harries made the point that The God Delusion doesn't mention the 'balance of probabilities', but chapter 4 includes quite a discussion on this. Interestingly, Grayling as a philosopher seems less bound by this scientific principle, and happily confirmed his certainty about God's non-existence. This I could only agree with if he's talking about some concept that suffers from non-cognitivism. Which might apply to God.

Richard Dawkins

After many demonstrations of good sense from Grayling and Dawkins, Harries was left grasping at the value of the numinous, as if this was the heart of the matter. Moore complained that such debates never analysed the more complicated ideas that were at issue (this after a question on consciousness, I think). A pretty vacant comment, after he had spoken for a motion that 'atheism is the new fundamentalism', an approach that is *calculated* to dismiss the arguments of one's opponents.

The final score: 363 for, 1070 against, 85 don't knows. Predictable from the feeling I got inside the hall.

Oh, and I said to Jeremy Paxman in the moving throng on the way out, 'Can I ask you how you voted?'. 'Well, there you are then', he replied, cryptically. I should have pressed him, but I imagine he gets fed up with that in public.

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Lois Rogers fails to apologise

Richard Dawkins was misrepresented shamefully in this article in The Sunday Times by Lois Rogers. He wrote to them saying:

The Editor
The Sunday Times
London

Sir

The duplicity of Lois Rogers' title, "Dawkins Sets up Kids' Camp to Groom Atheists" (Sunday Times, June 28th), is exceeded only by its Jesuitical opening line, "Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week's summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life." I had nothing to do with the setting up of Camp Quest, and it is not, in any sense whatever, inspired by me, or influenced by me. The British version, run by Samantha Stein with no help from me, follows the admirable American model founded some years ago by Edwin and Helen Kagin, of Kentucky.

Lois Rogers asked me for a quotation, and she thanked me warmly for the following: "Camp Quest encourages children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally. There is no indoctrination, just encouragement to be open-minded, while having fun." Isn't that about as far from Jesuitical grooming as you could imagine? One of my dominant motivations, passionately expressed in The God Delusion, is an abhorrence of childhood indoctrination, of atheism just as much as of religion. It is in this spirit that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has made very modest contributions to Camp Quest. Lois Rogers' traducing of both Camp Quest and me is, alas, par for the course for religiously motivated journalists. Fortunately, I am not the litigious type, but an apology would be nice.

Richard Dawkins
Oxford

They have now published this:

Your article Dawkins Sets Up Kids’ Camp to Groom Atheists(News, last week) begins with the Jesuitical opening line: “Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.” Camp Quest, is not inspired by me or influenced by me. The British version, run by Samantha Stein, follows the American model founded by Edwin and Helen Kagin, of Kentucky.

I gave the following quote to Lois Rogers: “Camp Quest encourages children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally. There is no indoctrination, just encouragement to be open-minded, while having fun.” Isn’t that about as far from Jesuitical grooming as you could imagine? One of my dominant motivations is an abhorrence of childhood indoctrination, of atheism just as much as of religion. It is in this spirit that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science has made very modest contributions to Camp Quest.

Richard Dawkins
Oxford

I can't even highlight the redactions; it's been paraphrased and bowdlerised. And there's no apology from Lois Rogers. She is presumably happy with the errors in her report. If this is what passes for good practice in the British press, we are in trouble.

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