Helen De Cruz at Prosblogion has just returned from a philosophy of religion workshop (where arguments for and against theism are erected and tested for structural integrity, presumably) at which the Common Consent Argument for the existence of God was revived. In its simplest form:
1. Most people believe in God
2. Therefore, God exists.
Cruz reports that the argument has fallen on hard times among philosophers recently. One wonders how it ever enjoyed good times:
The proposition that the mere popularity of a belief might constitute evidence for its truth may strike us as odd. Mill, for instance, argued that common opinion might be OK for the common folk who are unable or don’t feel entitled to form their own opinion, but to us, thinkers “the argument from other people’s opinions has little weight. It is but second-hand evidence; and merely admonishes us to look out for and weigh the reasons on which this conviction of mankind or of wise men was founded.”
Most would (and should) smirk at the crude formulation of the Common Consent Argument above, particularly those interested in proving its conclusion false. But the comparison between the reasoning of the argument and that of society’s moral culture is eerily accurate. Replace “exists” with “is morally neutral,” and “God” with anything that’s fashionable.
Read more here
May 30th, 2012 | 4:45 pm
It seems to me that, in the discussion we’ve been having in another thread, there is something akin to the Comment Consent Argument in the contention that believers define themselves positively whereas atheists define themselves by what they don’t believe in. It is as if atheists couldn’t exist without religions to disbelieve.
But the comparison between the reasoning of the argument and that of society’s moral culture is eerily accurate.
I’m not sure to what extent this is true. I was reading something on a Catholic web site (perhaps on Mirror of Justice, I can’t find it now) in which college-level teachers were commenting that on issues such as same-sex marriage, when students debate with one another, those in favor of “fashionable” positions (for example, same-sex marriage) make moral arguments (fairness, equality, justice, tolerance, and so on) and students with religious objections generally appeal to authority (the Church or the Bible says it’s wrong) without being able to justify their positions. The conclusion was, of course, that the students weren’t adequately trained in their faith, and was had to be found of making the Catholic position more comprehensible and teaching it to Catholic students. My point here is not to start a discussion of same-sex marriage, but to argue that I don’t think it is true (or I think it is less true than some people would have us believe) that people are morally indifferent, or believe in “moral relativism,” or are content with attitudes like, “If it feels good, do it.” Frequently, people on both sides of current controversies, or people who support “fashionable” ideas, are not arguing, “If you think it’s immoral, then it’s immoral for you.” They are arguing with the assumption that some things are right, some things are wrong, and they are the ones who are right (even if the Church teaches otherwise).
May 30th, 2012 | 5:41 pm
Frequently, people on both sides of current controversies, or people who support “fashionable” ideas, are not arguing, “If you think it’s immoral, then it’s immoral for you.”
Oddly, that was generally my experience twenty years ago, when I was in college. Back then, though, the argument was abortion.
Arguments to “fairness”, “tolerance”, “equality” are little more than assertions if no explanation of why something is “fair”, “tolerant”, or “equal” is given. In my experience, people who make such arguments have nothing deeper to back up their assertions, and so — since you mention same-sex marriage — when an interlocutor points out the simple biological fact that heterosexual marriage has a distinctly different potential than any homosexual pairing, in fact, a potential that any society ought to value and privilege above homosexual pairings if it wants to be around in a half-century, they either start talking about overpopulation, denounce him of bigotry, or ignore him.
Of course, that has been my experience with university graduate students and faculty over the past decade and a half, but as it has been my distinct and painful experience, I have little doubt that few of them are reporting their students’ arguments accurately.
May 30th, 2012 | 6:17 pm
1. Most people believe in God.
2. Therefore, it must be reasonable to believe God exists.
The above assumes “most people” are reasonable in spite of their not being philosophers. ;o)
“Most people” who believe in God, I think, do not do so for philosophical reasons. They do so based on personal experience. Many reasonable people have had what they believe to be a spiritual experience. Such experiences are very real, so real that those who have them often find them so profound that they really don’t care whether science claims that there is a natural explanation for their experience, or whether the belief that springs from it is defensible with respectable philosophical arguments. They have experienced “knowing” in a deeper way than we commonly “know” those things of which nearly everyone is certain. They believe and tell others they believe. The testimony of such people is often accepted simply because they are entirely reasonable people. It is reasonable to do so.
May 30th, 2012 | 7:30 pm
Jack Perry,
Nevertheless, assertions about fairness, equality, justice, and tolerance are moral arguments. I was of college age during the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement. I wonder what percentage of the people who protested against the war or marched for civil rights could have given a detailed, philosophical justification for why they thought the war was immoral or why segregation was unjust.
In a debate between people supporting X by saying justice and fairness demand it and people opposing X because God says it’s wrong in the Bible (and they’re not telling you what they say, they’re telling you what God says), the people supporting X have won the debate (even if X is terribly wrong).
I mentioned same-sex marriage only because that was the example on the blog I read. My point is not about same-sex marriage but about moral relativism. I think there is a lot less of it than people claim.
May 30th, 2012 | 7:41 pm
Most people believe in God.
harry,
It seems to me this is just barely true, and only to the extent that Christians and Muslims believe in the same God.
I think many people who are not Christians or Muslims have spiritual experiences that do not cause them to believe in God (that is, become monotheists). I think you’re talking about something that might be called “materialism versus spiritualism,” and if so, I would imagine the majority of the world population gravitate toward the latter. But that doesn’t mean that they “believe in God” (the way we talk about it here). And if by God you mean the Blessed Trinity, then most people (in the world) do not believe in God.
May 31st, 2012 | 12:31 am
Good blog that of prosblogion.
Jack:
“In my experience, people who make such arguments have nothing deeper to back up their assertions, and so — since you mention same-sex marriage — when an interlocutor points out the simple biological fact that heterosexual marriage has a distinctly different potential than any homosexual pairing, in fact, a potential that any society ought to value and privilege above homosexual pairings if it wants to be around in a half-century, they either start talking about overpopulation, denounce him of bigotry, or ignore him.”
Oh, well but then your arguments are as shallow and weak as those you denounce of your liberal peers back in the 80´s.
1. There is no moral justification for society to privilegde one form of union over another, and doing so for a demographic end certainly is as bad as any other argument.
2. Anyway, there is no evidence that homosexual unions being recognized as marriages will have any impact on demographic trends (unless you can prove it can deter heterosexuals from marrying or procreating inside or outside marriage).
3. Since you still haven´t presented any single decent argument against gay marriage and for giving privileges to heterosexuals ones, it is warranted to call you and people like you, “bigots”, even if you don´t intend to act like one (in a Marxian sense, you are being objectively bigoted).
Harry:
It will be interesting to see some research on the causes people believe in God. To contest your own subjective personal appreciation, in my own experience I will say most people believe in God by the virtue of… costume. They learn such belief since they are kids and it shapes their experience and perceptions of the world in their later life. But without some solid research to back up our own intuitions, it is difficult to say.
May 31st, 2012 | 1:26 am
“The proposition that the mere popularity of a belief might constitute evidence for its truth may strike us as odd. ”
Why? Most people believe they need to eat food, so therefore it’s reasonable to think people need to eat food. If most people believe in God, then it’s reasonable to think that yearning for God is part of human nature and is certainly evidence towards God creating people who believe in him.
And, the fact that “morally neutral” means, in society today, “acceptable to most people” just shows that we have no cultural understanding of objective morality, not that the philosophy puzzle reveals anything of note vis a vis truth.
May 31st, 2012 | 9:09 am
I think Harry is right and David Nickol mischaracterises the nature of the experience.
“In the course of the normal development of man”, says Abbé Bremond, the great historian of mysticism, “there occur moments in which the discursive reason gives place to a higher activity, imperfectly understood and indeed at first disquieting.” This higher activity…is intuitive rather than logical in its methods. It knows by communion, not by observation. It cannot give a neat account of its experience: for this experience overflows all categories, defies all explanations, and seems at once self-loss, adventure, and perfected love. If we attempt to analyse and pigeon-hole what it gives us, we ruin it at once… [it] is more like bathing in a fathomless ocean, or breathing an intangible and limitless air. It gives contact and certitude, but not understanding: as breathing or bathing give us certitude about the air and the ocean, but no information about their chemical constitution.
May 31st, 2012 | 9:52 am
Sergio: “1. There is no moral justification for society to privilegde [sic] one form of union over another, and doing so for a demographic end certainly is as bad as any other argument.”
This is called “begging the question”. That is, you assume your conclusion, hence anyone who disagrees with you can be called any name you like. Why? Because you assume that as well.
You would do better, Sergio, to argue that the government should get out of the marriage game and stop providing any such benefits with your assumptions. If it shouldn’t privilege one group, then it shouldn’t privilege any. The only other alternative is to argue that everyone who wants to can declare themselves married and thereby receive government benefits.
May 31st, 2012 | 9:58 am
Michael PS,
It is not the nature of the experience I am in disagreement over. It’s whether having such an experience constitutes, or cause one to have, a belief in God. I think in discussions here we almost always think of God as the God of Jews, Christians, and (possibly) Muslims. Or perhaps we are talking about “the God of philosophers.” We generally don’t talk about polytheistic religions. Would it make sense to say that those who adhere to polytheistic religions “believe in God”? That is why I proposed two broader groups—materialists and spiritualists.
May 31st, 2012 | 11:07 am
David
I did not say they weren’t arguments, I said they were “little more than assertions” — i.e., arguments with little substance. In any case, that wasn’t the point, anyway.
Sergio
There is no moral justification for society to privilegde one form of union over another, and doing so for a demographic end certainly is as bad as any other argument.
Mike pulled this apart pretty well, but:
(1) For the sake of argument, assume you’re correct. Absence of moral justification does not render such privilege immoral. The tax code privileges homeowners over people who rent; no one has ever pretended to give moral justification for this. So, by your reasoning, the tax code ought not privilege homeowners in this manner, the absence of a moral argument means any other argument — socio-demographic or otherwise — is as bad as any other.
This is patently silly, and the rest of your argument follows. Thanks for taking the high road, and not calling me a “bigot”, though. ;-)
(2) All the same, you are not correct. Civilization has not merely a moral justification for encouraging unions that ensure its own future; it has a moral obligation to encourage unions that ensure its own propagation.
Anyway, there is no evidence that homosexual unions being recognized as marriages will have any impact on demographic trends (unless you can prove it can deter heterosexuals from marrying or procreating inside or outside marriage).
To the contrary, evidence that the loss of value people place in traditional marriage has had a deleterious effect to society — not as regards homosexual unions in particular, but as regards society in general — is in abundant evidence; the Washington Post ran an article on it just the other day, with the delightful title, Dan Quayle was Right, echoing a cover story of The Atlantic some years ago. A few years back, Bill Cosby made himself an enemy of many leaders of the African-American community by saying as much to community gatherings about the absence of fathers in black families.*
While those articles & speakers have been the ones that stick out in my mind, they are hardly the only ones. Such evidence has accumulated, and some of it was reported on this weblog, and it tends to be denounced by certain commenters.
*It is true, of course, that Cosby might not be the best proponent for fidelity in marriage.
May 31st, 2012 | 11:41 am
Hi, David Nickol,
You would agree that genuine atheistic materialists are and have always been in the vast minority, right? How do you explain that?
A certain self confidence (arrogance?) is required to assume one has a superior understanding of reality that the vast majority of humanity has failed to grasp. Is that a reasonable assumption on the part of atheism? I don’t think so.
For example, if the natural Universe had a beginning — if there was a point at which it wasn’t — then its origin had to be supernatural, as there wasn’t yet anything natural around to bring it about. Do the atheists have an answer to that? If it is it that the natural Universe always was, that doesn’t help them any, as there is no natural explanation for that, either, as that which always was had no cause. Since that is the case, strictly atheistic, materialistic science is doomed to fail miserably, as its project ends with announcing that everything can be traced back to some “stuff” that just always was. That is the ultimate lame answer. One can’t ask how that “stuff” came to be. It didn’t – it always was. One can never know why it is there; there is no “why” – it just always was. Ending with that is a denial and contradiction of everything that such “science” has proclaimed to us about there being natural explanations for all phenomena.
If the glorious quest of atheistic, materialistic science ends in it admitting that it was wrong about there being natural explanations for everything, then that is indeed a very lame, miserable failure. It seems much more reasonable, logical and intellectually satisfying to assume that there was once nothing natural at all and then there was, and ever since then what is natural has pretty much been behaving as science would expect even if science doesn’t yet understand how it all works.
What is natural always has a natural explanation that way – except for its supernatural origin (and, of course, the supernatural interventions Christians and other theists believe have taken place since then ;o). This makes much more sense than the Universe having always been there in some form or another without any possible natural explanation of “how” or “why” that “stuff” was always there. It isn’t just hard to take seriously the notion that the natural Universe always existed, it is a painful violation of common sense, which indicates that the natural Universe is an effect that had a cause, and that cause was necessarily a supernatural one.
That there are supernatural realities seems very, very likely. The atheists need to share their esoteric, secret knowledge with the rest of us or resign themselves to remaining a vast minority that others see as an unreasonable group of people desperately clinging the their peculiar, religious belief about God’s non-existence and mistakenly calling that unreasonable belief “science.”
May 31st, 2012 | 12:22 pm
harry –
It falls to why they think something. The vast majority of humanity, for the vast majority of history, has had a low opinion of women’s intellectual potential, for example. Yet there’s a sizable chunk of people today who think that women have just as much potential as men, and can point to reasons why they think so. Are they ‘arrogant’ to think so?
Also, does one have to believe oneself to be superior if one believes oneself to be correct? Does one have to believe others are inferior if they hold an incorrect position? What if someone felt they had been fortunate in their experiences and teachers to lead them to a particular insight?
And, finally, one can conclude that particular answer is wrong without being certain what else might be right. (Disproving hypotheses, for example?)
May 31st, 2012 | 2:01 pm
Mike:
Excuse me, it is jack who actually made the strong claims without providing any evidence for them. And I am the one begging the question?
And yes, I think the goverment should get out of the buisness of giving marriage liscences. But while that happens, I will like to see that heterosexual and homosexual unions are treated exactly in the same way.
May 31st, 2012 | 4:37 pm
Sergio,
It seems to me that you provided an example supporting Jack’s point. But then in your latest, you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too by being for two contradicting goals. I know people who follow through and make the choice (they tend to be libertarian). Make your case. Don’t just claim it. You’ll be more believable and may even persuade a few people.
May 31st, 2012 | 5:01 pm
It is a point frequently made (especially by Catholics) that truth and morality aren’t arrived at by popular vote. So I don’t see why in a worldwide vote on materialism versus spiritualism, the majority would necessarily be correct. There was a time when the vast majority of the world population believed the earth was flat. It turned out they were wrong.
May 31st, 2012 | 8:21 pm
Hello, David Nickol, Ray Ingles,
So, here is what is comes down to, according to materialistic science: Some “stuff” always was. That stuff took the form of a “singularity.” That singularity, after an eternity of just “sitting there,” inexplicably exploded. That “explosion,” again inexplicably, was luckily and amazingly a very precisely fine tuned explosion: Had the rate of expansion been too fast, then gravity wouldn’t have been able to form planets and stars from cosmic dust; there wouldn’t have been a planet for life to emerge on or a star to provide it with energy. Had it been too slow everything would have collapsed back into a singularity before life could have emerged. Luckily it was just right.
That amazing bit of luck was only the beginning. To get an idea of just how much dumb luck was involved, take a look at
THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT AND THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE. Even with all the amazing luck described there, the luckiest events were yet to come: Mindless, lifeless, dumb matter then accidentally assembled itself into the nanotechnology of life, the functional complexity of which is way beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch. Think about that. It isn’t just that dumb matter accidentally assembled itself into functional complexity way beyond what can be reasonably expected to be arrived at by the combination of the laws of physics and chance, it mindlessly and accidentally assembled itself into nanotechnology the functional complexity of which is light years beyond that which the best minds of science know how to assemble. Now that is luck! That is winning the lottery every day! Now that’s reasonable, right?
Wrong. Atheistic science is asking us to accept notions far, far more far-fetched than believing that nobody is cheating if the same guy wins the lottery every time he plays. It is very likely if that happens that the lottery is rigged, just as atheistic science is “rigged” such that it doesn’t contradict atheism’s “religious” convictions.
It is far, far more likely that God exists than not. It is so likely that God exists that it is truly unreasonable to deny that possibility as though one could be certain that is the case.
May 31st, 2012 | 8:30 pm
“So I don’t see why in a worldwide vote on materialism versus spiritualism, the majority would necessarily be correct.”
Because our belief in God and the existence of God are not independent. The conditional probability of God existing given that we believe in him is higher than the probability of God existing. This is not the case for other types of statements.
That is why the abstraction in the OP goes too far on this matter.
May 31st, 2012 | 9:31 pm
Jack:
1. “Absence of moral justification does not render such privilege immoral. The tax code privileges homeowners over people who rent; no one has ever pretended to give moral justification for this. So, by your reasoning, the tax code ought not privilege homeowners in this manner, the absence of a moral argument means any other argument — socio-demographic or otherwise — is as bad as any other.”
First, I really doubt that such a delicate thing like taxing (and the way people are taxed) lacks of moral justification. But even if that was the case, it is wrong. It should require a moral justification to make some people pay taxes and to make some pay more than others. And certainly to discriminate against other fellow human beings you really should have a very strong moral justification, assuming such thing is possible.
On the issue of “civilization having the obligation to encourage such unions”, I wonder with do you refer with “civilization” and “obligation”. For my part I am more modest. I trust more individuals to make the right choices, whatver if that is forming unions or deciding to procreate (which, I hope you know, are not necesarely the same thing).
Mike:
I think the case is very simple. There is no right to deny people of the same sex to form an union and there is no justification for giving priviledges to heterosexuals couples. It is you who are on the buisness of using the power of the state to discriminate people in such manner, and so, is you that most provide very strong arguments for such attitude.
May 31st, 2012 | 10:27 pm
“You would agree that genuine atheistic materialists are and have always been in the vast minority, right? How do you explain that? ”
Until 5 centuries ago, genuine defenders of the heliocentric model were in the minority to, and were for millenia. That proves what? That they were arrogant for not believing as anybody else did?
I will like to point also that the examples cited in the blog post are not very similar to the claims of theism. I mean, ordinary people believe all sort of things in their daily life that can be easely coroborated. Billions of persons that live in cities with electrical power believe that such is constantly suplied to them. They assume it. And they can point that in fact, most of the time they do recieve a suplly of electricity to their homes or buisness. They can show us to us, it is tangible. That doesn´t seem to be the case with theism. Inspite of the large held belief, I haven´t seen the first theist that can show me that their God is real, visible to all of us (including people who disbelieve their God and believe in other or others). There is no direct evidence that, unlike other massively popular held beliefs, God exist. If that was enought, people like Harry wouldn´t end their tirades with other arguments in favor of God existence – like the antropic principle- and against “atheistic materialism” (since apparently it is the only one that he acknowledges to exist…)
June 1st, 2012 | 7:19 am
Typically, Buddhist arguments against the existence of God are not materialistic.
To take one well-known example, “According to one doctrine, there is a great, self-existent deity whose substance is real and who is all-pervading, eternal, and the producer of all phenomena. This doctrine is unreasonable. If something produces something, it is not eternal, the non-eternal is not all-pervading, and what is not all-pervading is not real. If the deity’s substance is all-pervading and eternal, it must contain all powers and be able to produce all phenomena everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously. If he produces phenomena when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause. Or else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal. Other doctrines claim that there is a great Brahma, a Time, a Space, a Starting Point, a Nature, an Ether, a Self, etc., that is eternal and really exists, is endowed with all powers, and is able to produce all phenomena. We refute all these in the same way we did the concept of the Great Lord”
Rather it reflects two cardinal teachings, the denial of the substantial self and the principle that things exist only as processes of knowing and have no intrinsic reality.
June 1st, 2012 | 11:31 am
harry – That’s not “according to materialistic science”. That’s your mischaracterization of ‘materialistic science’.
We don’t know that there was a singularity, for example – our best models break down a few femtoseconds after the Big Bang, so (a) we don’t know what happened before that, and so (b) we don’t know what might have caused it, or whether time ‘began’ then or not. “Fine tuning” arguments also have problems (turns out if you vary multiple parameters, you find stars or star-equivalents in ~40% of universes, for example) and we already know that I, er, disagree strongly with your characterization of evolution and abiogenesis.
I understand you have a hypothesis that you really really passionately believe in, but that’s not the same as knowing.
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