Here is a debate I did with the resolution, "Judaism is more logical than Christianity." Usually, when people say "logical," I take that to mean "conforming to logic," but people often just mean "reasonable" or something like that. I interpreted my opponent, who initiated this debate, to mean that Judaism was more reasonable to believe than Christianity or that it made more sense, or that it conformed better with reason and evidence, or something along those lines.
Here was my opening statement:
This sounds like a challenging debate.
I do not dispute that Judaism was logical in the past. I dispute that modern Judaism is more logical than Christianity. What I am going to argue is that in the present, Christianity is more logical than Judaism.
The problems with modern Judaism
Promises to Abraham
God promised Abraham that he would give the land of Palestine to his descendants forever.[1] Although he warned that he would exile them for their sins, he promised to always bring them back in fulfillment of his promises.[2] However, they have spent more time in exile than they have in their homeland, and to this day, they have not all been brought back. In fact, most Jews today have no desire to go back. The Judaism of today seems to have forgotten its past. Nobody even knows what became of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel after they were destroyed and scattered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.
Law of Moses
Judaism, as a religion, was founded when God gave the law to Moses. That Law is what defined Judaism. But the Law of Moses is largely inoperative today due to the fact that there is no Temple. Besides that, many of the laws are outdated and impractical. There are few Jews living today, if any, who would advocate re-establishing the whole Law in practice. In fact, it seems impossible that it ever could be re-established because the Law stipulated that only the sons of Aaron and the Levites could serve as priests, but nobody today knows who is elegible. The original intention of the Law was for it to be kept forever.[3] But that has now become impossible.
The Temple
Before the first Temple was built, the ark of the covenant was housed in a tent where all the priestly functions were done. The Temple was meant to be a more permanent building. After it was destroyed in 587 BCE, there was a lot of anxiety about rebuilding it. Reconstruction on the second Temple began 50 or 70 years later. That Temple lasted until 70 CE when it was destroyed by the Romans. After 2000 years, it still hasn't been rebuilt, and the majority of Jews are not anxious about rebuilding it. The Temple represented the presence of God. The smoke represented his glory, and it filled the Holy of Holies. The Jews have gone longer without the Temple than they ever had it, and the ark of the covenant is lost.
The throne of David
God promised to always have a man on the throne of David.[4] David's dynasty came to an end during the Babylonian captivity, but the prophets said God would fulfill his promise by raising up a descendant of David to re-establish that kingdom.[5] However, it's been 2500 years or so, and still no fulfillment (unless you count Jesus, but Jews don't). Moreover, nobody living today can trace their geneology back to David, so it doesn't even look like it's possible for that promise to be fulfilled. If somebody claimed to be the fulfillment, and they became king in Israel, he wouldn't be able to prove his legitimacy. Besides, hardly any Jews living today even want a king in Israel. They're happy with their present form of government.
Sin and exile
Almost all of the promises God gave to Israel were conditional on their obedience to the law. What history proved was that Israel was incapable of keeping the law. That was the explanation of all the prophets for why they lost their land, their Temple, their king, and their prosperity. If, by some miracle, all the Jews were restored to their land, their temple was rebuilt, their messiah took the throne of David, and everything was hunky dory, what would there be to stop them from breaking the law again and repeating history? Judaism has no permanent answer for sin. When they had a Temple, they had a temporary solution for sin that did not succeed in preventing them from going into exile, etc. As you'll see in a minute, Christianity does have an answer for sin.
Conclusion
The Judaism of today has largely abandoned what it was originally all about, and it appears that God hasn't dealt with the Jews in thousands of years. There have been no new prophets, no new revelations, no new scriptures, no fulfillment of promises, the law is not fully kept, etc. Now let's compare that to Christianity.
The truth of Christianity
Jesus the risen messiah
My opponent makes a very good point. Although the primary expectation of the messiah was that he would sit on the throne of David, re-establish national sovereignty, reunite Judah and Israel, and usher in an era of peace and prosperity, Jesus did none of that. Instead, he died in apparent failure in a humiliating way by Israel's occupiers. It is perfectly understandable that Jews today would reject him as the messiah.
However, that raises a very interesting question. Why did Jesus' movement survive his death? All of his followers were Jews! His death should've proved to them that Jesus was not the messiah. At first, it did![8] There were dozens of people in the first and second century who claimed to be the messiah. Each one of them was killed, and none of their movements survived their deaths because a dead messiah is a contradiction in terms in Judaism.
There's only one thing that could've kept Jesus' movement alive, and that's if his followers had very good reason to think he was still alive. As long as he's still alive, he may yet fulfill all the prophecies. Moreover, if he claimed to be the messiah sent from God, then was raised from the dead, that would seem to prove that his claim is true. God vindicated him by raising him from the dead. Since that is the best explanation for why his movement survived despite his humiliating death, it's probably true. So Christianity is very logical.
The second coming
My opponent rightly points out that there's no explicit second coming mentioned in the Old Testament. But the Old Tesatment doesn't rule one out either, so this is a fallacious argument from silence. Moreover, if Jesus proved he was the messiah by rising from the dead, then we have good reason to think he will come again just as he said he would.
The solution to sin
Earlier, I mentioned that Judaism had no permanent answer for sin. If sin is not permanantly dealt with, there is no way for God's promises to be permantly fulfilled. If they are fulfilled at all, history shows that it will be short lived. Sin will reek the same havok as it did before.
But Christianity has a permanent solution for sin. Jesus died for sins once and for all.[6] The sacrifices do not need to be repeated. Moreover, each Christian is the Temple of God, and his Spirit dwells in each of them.[7]
The laws of Moses
My opponent faults Christians for breaking the law of Moses, but the Law of Moses was never intended to apply to anybody but Jews living in Israel. It was their constitution. God never faulted other nations for breaking Sabbaths, for eating pork, or for wearing clothes with mixed fibers. Those were laws that only applied to Jews. Almost all Christians are gentiles. Although all people everywhere are obligated to keep the moral law, which some of the laws of Moses represent, they are not obligated to keep the whole Mosaic law. They never were.
Conclusion
As we can see, Christianity is far more logical than Judaism. It solves problems that Judaism doesn't. Also, Christianity has better evidence in his favor. Jews have no evidence that God intervened in their history, but Christians have the evidence of the resurrection, which I made an argument for. If Jesus is the messiah, then that proves that God acted in Israel's history. So the truth of Christianity proves the truth of ancient Judaism. But modern Judaism can offer no evidence for its truth.
[1] Genesis 12:7
Genesis 13:14-15
Genesis 15:18
Genesis 17:8
[2] Deuteronomy 30:1-5
Ezekiel 20:42
Ezekiel 34:13
Ezekiel 36:24
Ezekiel 37:21-22
Jeremiah 16:15
Jeremiah 23:7-8
Jeremiah 29:14
Jeremiah 30:3
[3] 2 Kings 17:37
[4] 2 Samuel 7:16
1 Kings 2:4,
1 Kings 2:45
1 Kings 8:25
[5] Isaiah 9:7
Ezekiel 37:25
Jeremiah 33:14-22
[6] Hebrews 7:27
[7] 1 Corinthians 3:16
[8] Luke 24:21
John 20:25
Monday, July 15, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Debate on the Kalam Cosmological Argument
Here's my opening statement in a debate I was in on debate.org. The resolution was The Kalam Cosmological Argument is unsound. I was Con. This turned out to be an interesting debate because instead of attacking the argument the usual ways, my opponent attacked the whole notions of a priori knowledge and inductive reasoning. So the debate turned out to be mostly over epistemology.
*****
Another KCA debate. Yay!
Preliminaries
Pro defined God as "the personal originator of all that exists." Since God could not have created himself, I want to tweak this definition to say, "the personal originator of the universe."
1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
The meaning of the first premise
Most things that begin to exist do so ex materia, but the KCA is more interested in beginning ex-nihilo. Although this first premise refers to both, I think we should focus on beginning ex-nihilo, though I'll briefly defend the more general principle.
There are two types of causes. A material cause is the material out of which an object is made, and an efficient cause is whatever brings about the change. For example, if I carve a bowl out of a piece of wood, the wood is the material cause, and I am the efficient cause.
I take the first premise to mean that whatever begins to exist has a cause, either of one kind or another. It doesn't specify which kind of cause each thing must have. This is relevant because the typical counter-examples that are raised against the first premise include pair production and radio active decay. According to some interpretations of quantum physics, these events entail the beginning of certain particles without efficient causes. However, these events do havematerial causes, so they are not counter-examples of the general principle.
If the first premise were tweaked to refer only to things which begin to exist apart from material causes, then the cause would have to be efficient. In that case, even if virtual particles begin to exist without efficient causes, they would still not serve as counter-examples since the tweaked first premise excludes them from its field of reference.
a priori defense
There are things we grasp by a rational intuition. For example, if two straight lines intersect, the opposite angles will be equal. We don't have to experiment to discover this to be universally true. We only need to grasp it. But not all things that can be known by rational intuition are known by all people. For example, some people rationally grasp why the Pathagorean theorem is necessarily true, but other people just memorize it and trust their math teacher.
The notion that it's impossible for something to spontaneously come into existence uncaused out of nothing is part of our rational intuition. One need only explore the idea in their minds to grasp that this is a necessary truth. It could be that the reason some people don't accept this premise is because, just like the case of the Pathagorean theorem, they can't "see" it. But that is no reason for those of us who do grasp it to have any doubts. This is something we can know with certainty.
If it were possible for something to spontaneously come into existence uncaused out of nothing, then there would have to be a potential or a probability that something could come out of nothing. Probabilities depend on initial conditions, so that would mean 'nothing' had properties. To have properties is to exist, so it would mean 'nothing' is actually 'something,' which is a contradiction.
a posteriori defense
Science is driven by a desire to know why things happen the way they do. When we observe something in the world, we want to know what caused it. With time and effort, we often are able to discover the cause. So we can inductively infer that there are causes to all events--even the ones whose causes we have yet to discover.
Most physicists subscribe to indeterministic interpretations of quantum physics, which entail undetermined events, such as radio active decay and pair production/annihilation. But it is a mistake to infer that because an event is indeterminate that it is therefore uncaused because indeterminate events have probabilities. The probabilities are determined by initial conditions, so those initial conditions serve as causes, albeit insufficient causes. Sufficient causes entail 100% probability in their effects, but insufficient causes entail less than 100% probability of their effects. The fact that particular isotopes have fixed half lives shows that radioactive decay is not completely a-causal.
2. The universe has a beginning of its existence.
The meaning of the second premise
For this debate, I'll define the universe as the sum total of all space, time, and energy. If there is a multi-verse, then it is included in "universe."
Usually, when something begins, it is preceded by a time in which it didn't exist. However, the universe could not have been preceded by such a time since time itself had a beginning. There could not have been a time before time in which time didn't exist because that's a contradiction. We must mean something different when we say the universe began to exist than when we say most other things began to exist.
What we mean, essentially, is that the universe has a finite past, and there is no state of affairs in which the universe exists timelessly.
The impossibility of forming an infinite set by successive addition
1. If the past had no beginning, it would be composed of an actually infinite collection of equal intervals of time.
2. An actually infinite collection of equal intervals of time cannot be formed by successive addition.
3. The past was formed by successive addition.
4. Therefore, the past cannot be an actually infinite collection of equal intervals of time. (from 2 and 3)
5. Therefore, the past had a beginning. (from 1 and 4)
I think the only controversial premise is 2. The reason the second premise is true is because there are no two finite numbers that you could add and reach infinity. The sum of any two finite numbers is always another finite number.
The grim reaper paradox
Suppose that time had no beginning and that during each hour in the past, a grim reaper (GR) was created and set to kill you at 12pm + 1/n minutes, where 'n' is the number of the reaper.. If you are alive when a GR goes off, it will kill you instantly, but if you are already dead, it will do nothing. With this set up, there is no first GR because each GR has a GR before it. It follows that no GR can kill you, yet you can't survive a moment past noon. Therein lies the paradox. If the past is beginningless, then the GR scenario would be possible, but since it's not possible, the past must have a beginning.
3. The universe has a cause of its existence.
This follows from 1 and 2.
4. If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Since we are defining God as "the personal originator of the universe," and since we have already argued that the universe had an originator, all that remains is to show that the originator is a person. For the purpose of this debate, I'll define a person roughly as a mind.
Nothing can create itself, so the cause of the universe must be other than the universe. Since the universe is the sum total of space, time, and energy, the cause of the universe must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial.
Disjunctive argument from minds and abstract objects
The only things that could have such properties are abstract entities (e.g. numbers, propositions, etc.) and minds. Since abstract entities do not stand in causal relations, the cause of the universe must be a mind, which means it's a person.
Only minds can create ex nihilo
When we act on purpose, a mental event causes the action. My intention to type is the reason my fingers move. Only substances have causal powers, and my mind has causal influence over my brain, so my mind is a distinct substance from my brain. It is an immaterial substance.
When a particle at rest begins to move, it has kinetic energy that it did not have before. That energy has to come from somewhere. Since minds are not composed of energy, the only way they can have causal influence in the world is by creating energy ex nihilo.
Since minds are the only entities known to have this ability, the best explanation for the beginning of the universe is a very powerful mind.
Therefore, God exists
This follows from 3 and 4.
*****
Another KCA debate. Yay!
Preliminaries
Pro defined God as "the personal originator of all that exists." Since God could not have created himself, I want to tweak this definition to say, "the personal originator of the universe."
1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
The meaning of the first premise
Most things that begin to exist do so ex materia, but the KCA is more interested in beginning ex-nihilo. Although this first premise refers to both, I think we should focus on beginning ex-nihilo, though I'll briefly defend the more general principle.
There are two types of causes. A material cause is the material out of which an object is made, and an efficient cause is whatever brings about the change. For example, if I carve a bowl out of a piece of wood, the wood is the material cause, and I am the efficient cause.
I take the first premise to mean that whatever begins to exist has a cause, either of one kind or another. It doesn't specify which kind of cause each thing must have. This is relevant because the typical counter-examples that are raised against the first premise include pair production and radio active decay. According to some interpretations of quantum physics, these events entail the beginning of certain particles without efficient causes. However, these events do havematerial causes, so they are not counter-examples of the general principle.
If the first premise were tweaked to refer only to things which begin to exist apart from material causes, then the cause would have to be efficient. In that case, even if virtual particles begin to exist without efficient causes, they would still not serve as counter-examples since the tweaked first premise excludes them from its field of reference.
a priori defense
There are things we grasp by a rational intuition. For example, if two straight lines intersect, the opposite angles will be equal. We don't have to experiment to discover this to be universally true. We only need to grasp it. But not all things that can be known by rational intuition are known by all people. For example, some people rationally grasp why the Pathagorean theorem is necessarily true, but other people just memorize it and trust their math teacher.
The notion that it's impossible for something to spontaneously come into existence uncaused out of nothing is part of our rational intuition. One need only explore the idea in their minds to grasp that this is a necessary truth. It could be that the reason some people don't accept this premise is because, just like the case of the Pathagorean theorem, they can't "see" it. But that is no reason for those of us who do grasp it to have any doubts. This is something we can know with certainty.
If it were possible for something to spontaneously come into existence uncaused out of nothing, then there would have to be a potential or a probability that something could come out of nothing. Probabilities depend on initial conditions, so that would mean 'nothing' had properties. To have properties is to exist, so it would mean 'nothing' is actually 'something,' which is a contradiction.
a posteriori defense
Science is driven by a desire to know why things happen the way they do. When we observe something in the world, we want to know what caused it. With time and effort, we often are able to discover the cause. So we can inductively infer that there are causes to all events--even the ones whose causes we have yet to discover.
Most physicists subscribe to indeterministic interpretations of quantum physics, which entail undetermined events, such as radio active decay and pair production/annihilation. But it is a mistake to infer that because an event is indeterminate that it is therefore uncaused because indeterminate events have probabilities. The probabilities are determined by initial conditions, so those initial conditions serve as causes, albeit insufficient causes. Sufficient causes entail 100% probability in their effects, but insufficient causes entail less than 100% probability of their effects. The fact that particular isotopes have fixed half lives shows that radioactive decay is not completely a-causal.
2. The universe has a beginning of its existence.
The meaning of the second premise
For this debate, I'll define the universe as the sum total of all space, time, and energy. If there is a multi-verse, then it is included in "universe."
Usually, when something begins, it is preceded by a time in which it didn't exist. However, the universe could not have been preceded by such a time since time itself had a beginning. There could not have been a time before time in which time didn't exist because that's a contradiction. We must mean something different when we say the universe began to exist than when we say most other things began to exist.
What we mean, essentially, is that the universe has a finite past, and there is no state of affairs in which the universe exists timelessly.
The impossibility of forming an infinite set by successive addition
1. If the past had no beginning, it would be composed of an actually infinite collection of equal intervals of time.
2. An actually infinite collection of equal intervals of time cannot be formed by successive addition.
3. The past was formed by successive addition.
4. Therefore, the past cannot be an actually infinite collection of equal intervals of time. (from 2 and 3)
5. Therefore, the past had a beginning. (from 1 and 4)
I think the only controversial premise is 2. The reason the second premise is true is because there are no two finite numbers that you could add and reach infinity. The sum of any two finite numbers is always another finite number.
The grim reaper paradox
Suppose that time had no beginning and that during each hour in the past, a grim reaper (GR) was created and set to kill you at 12pm + 1/n minutes, where 'n' is the number of the reaper.. If you are alive when a GR goes off, it will kill you instantly, but if you are already dead, it will do nothing. With this set up, there is no first GR because each GR has a GR before it. It follows that no GR can kill you, yet you can't survive a moment past noon. Therein lies the paradox. If the past is beginningless, then the GR scenario would be possible, but since it's not possible, the past must have a beginning.
3. The universe has a cause of its existence.
This follows from 1 and 2.
4. If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Since we are defining God as "the personal originator of the universe," and since we have already argued that the universe had an originator, all that remains is to show that the originator is a person. For the purpose of this debate, I'll define a person roughly as a mind.
Nothing can create itself, so the cause of the universe must be other than the universe. Since the universe is the sum total of space, time, and energy, the cause of the universe must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial.
Disjunctive argument from minds and abstract objects
The only things that could have such properties are abstract entities (e.g. numbers, propositions, etc.) and minds. Since abstract entities do not stand in causal relations, the cause of the universe must be a mind, which means it's a person.
Only minds can create ex nihilo
When we act on purpose, a mental event causes the action. My intention to type is the reason my fingers move. Only substances have causal powers, and my mind has causal influence over my brain, so my mind is a distinct substance from my brain. It is an immaterial substance.
When a particle at rest begins to move, it has kinetic energy that it did not have before. That energy has to come from somewhere. Since minds are not composed of energy, the only way they can have causal influence in the world is by creating energy ex nihilo.
Since minds are the only entities known to have this ability, the best explanation for the beginning of the universe is a very powerful mind.
Therefore, God exists
This follows from 3 and 4.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
An abortion debate
I joined this web page called debate.org where you can have formal debates with people, have people vote on your debates, and vote on other people's debates. It's mostly young people (teens and 20's), but a lot of them have formal training in debating, so there's some good debates there sometimes. I've been kind of impressed with the level some of the teenagers on that page debate at. Of course, like any web page, it also has its trolls and idiots. Still, I'm having fun with it.
I've completed 39 debates so far, and I thought I'd post the opening statements to a few of those debates here on my blog just so I'll have something to post here. Some of my debates are silly, and in some of them I play devil's advocate. I'm not going to post those.
This first one is an uneventful debate on the subject of Abortion. My opponent wanted to argue that it was sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion. After stating his position, he forfeited every round, which is why it was uneventful, but I tried to keep the debate alive. Here was my opening:
Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. Pro hasn't given me much to work with, but I'll see what I can do.
Pro thinks it's wrong to forbid a woman to have an abortion, and he gives two reasons: (1) because it's sick and unfair, and (2) because women should be able to have control over their own bodies. Let's take these one at a time:
Pro's case
1. It's sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion.
It seems to me that whether it's sick or unfair depends on what exactly an abortion does. After all, you could replace the above sentence with a variety of other activities and discover that some of them are sick and unfair while others are not. If I replaced "have an abortion" with "drown her children in the bathtub," you'd all recognize right away that it wasn't sick and unfair to forbi that. But if I replaced "have an abortion" with "use the bathroom," you'd recognize that itwas sick and unfair to forbid that. But suppose I replaced "have an abortion" with something you had never heard of before. Suppose I replaced "have an abortion" with "bep a buon." Well, then you'd wonder what the heck I meant by "bep a buon." You couldn't say whether it was sick and unfair to forbid a woman to do such a thing unless you know what it was I was talking about.
Likewise, with abortion, whether it's sick and unfair depends on what it does. If, for example, if abortion entailed removing a tumor, then it would be sick and unfair to forbid that. But if abortion takes the life of an innocent human being just because the mother doesn't want to be burdened with it, well then it's hard to see why it would be sick and unfair to forbid a woman to do that.
Now, keep in mind that pro has the buden of proof in this debate. That means he's got to defend that claim. He's got to tell us what abortion does before we can accept his first argument. In a little bit, I'm going to argue that abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, so he's going to have to answer that argument, too.
2. Women should be able to have control over their own bodies
In general, i agree with this, but I do not think it is without exception, and the exception I make is very relevant to this topic.
Let's say that some woman had a baby, and the only way to feed that baby is to breast feed it. There's no formula available, and nobody else is willing to relieve the woman of the burden. Would she be morally justified in letting her baby starve on the basis that she has control over her own boob and has the right to say who can and can't use it? Well, surely we'd recognize that if a woman did such a thing she'd be a monster. We might in some extreme cases say that a violinist who was attached to her, using her organs to stay alive, had no right to stay attached, but mothers have obligations to their own young that they don't have to adult violinists. A mother who starved her own child and attempted to justify it on the basis that she ought to have control over her own body would clearly be in the wrong. And so it is not wrong to punish her for neglect and child abuse. And the right to punish her depends on the right to forbid her to do such a thing.
Again, it all depends on what abortion does and to what. If there is a living human being inside the woman, then abortion isn't just something she does to her own body. Rather, it's something she does to somebody else's body. What if the fetus inside of her was a girl! Abortion would violate her bodily rights!
My case
In tonight's debate, I'm going to defend two basic contentions: (1) that the unborn, at least through most stages of development, is a living human being, and (2) that it is not sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion.
1. The unborn, at least through most stages of development, is a living human being.
The fact that the unborn is a living something is beyond dispute. Biological life is typically defined by certain characteristics, such as growth, reproduction, metabolism, and reaction to stimuli.[1] The unborn has all of these, so it is definitely alive.
But so are plants, lizards, and possums. What distinguishes species is whether they can interbreed. Now, of course, there's more to it than that. After all, nobody thinks that a human toddler can procreate, but it is still a member of the human species. What distinguishes species, more specifically, is their DNA. In fact, their DNA is what determines whether they can interbreed when they become adults.[2] Well, there's no doubt that the unborn have human DNA. We know this because the DNA you have now is the exact same DNA you had when you were a zygote. If your DNA is human now, then it was human then. It follows that the unborn are living and human. (Surely no one thinks there's a possum in there that later turns into a human!)
But not everything that is human is an individual human being. After all, your hair, liver, toes, and shin bones are all living and human. Well, okay, your hair is not living, but the rest of it is. However, your liver, toes, and shin bone are not individual human beings. They're just human parts and organs that belong to individual human beings. I'm going to give a few reasons to think that the unborn that is both living and human is also an individual human being.
1.1. It has a unique DNA distinct from its parents, and it does not share that DNA with anything else. It follows that it isn't just a part of another human being since there's no other human being that it could be a part of.
1.2. It is self-integrating. That is, if allowed to, it will go through every stage of human development--zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, child, adolecsent, adult. As Frank Beckwith once said, "You didn't come from a zygote; you once were a zygote."[3]
1.3. If the unborn were part of its mother rather than being a distinct human being, then after only a few weeks, you'd have a woman with two heads, four legs, four arms, and in the case of a male fetus, you'd have a woman with a penis.[4] But individuals do not have two heads, etc. Even simese twins are two distinct individuals.
It follows from what I have argued that the unborn, through most stages of development (and probably from conception) is an individual living human being.
2. It is not sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion.
It should be evident by now that it is not sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion. Abortion takes the life of an innocent individual living human being. Mothers have an obligation to care for their young, so it is plainly immoral to have them killed. It is not sick or unfair to forbid a mother to abuse her own young to the point of death. Nor is it sick and unfair to require a mother to care for her young when she is unable to put it up for adoption yet.
Rather, it is sick and unfair for a mother to have an abortion, knowing what it does--takes the life of her own offspring. I don't want to gross anybody out, so I'm not going to post any pictures here, but if you can stomach it, this link shows images of aborted fetuses from the first trimester.[5] These pictures show exactly what abortion does. You can distinctly see the severed arms and legs of the fetus, complete with fingers and toes. This is a real human being. I submit to you that it is sick and unfair to the unborn for a mother to have them killed for any other reason than to save her own life. I doubt you would be nearly as turned off by pictures of removed tumers or appendixes because you know that's not the same thing.
Conclusion
That's pretty much all I have to say. I look forward to Pro's closing statement and hope he'll have some good arguments for me.
[1] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Biological+life
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17652131
[3] http://www.ccel.us/Beckwith.3.html
[4] I got this point from Scott Klusendorf. http://prolifephilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-is-unborn.html
[5] http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosbyage/index.htm
I've completed 39 debates so far, and I thought I'd post the opening statements to a few of those debates here on my blog just so I'll have something to post here. Some of my debates are silly, and in some of them I play devil's advocate. I'm not going to post those.
This first one is an uneventful debate on the subject of Abortion. My opponent wanted to argue that it was sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion. After stating his position, he forfeited every round, which is why it was uneventful, but I tried to keep the debate alive. Here was my opening:
Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. Pro hasn't given me much to work with, but I'll see what I can do.
Pro thinks it's wrong to forbid a woman to have an abortion, and he gives two reasons: (1) because it's sick and unfair, and (2) because women should be able to have control over their own bodies. Let's take these one at a time:
Pro's case
1. It's sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion.
It seems to me that whether it's sick or unfair depends on what exactly an abortion does. After all, you could replace the above sentence with a variety of other activities and discover that some of them are sick and unfair while others are not. If I replaced "have an abortion" with "drown her children in the bathtub," you'd all recognize right away that it wasn't sick and unfair to forbi that. But if I replaced "have an abortion" with "use the bathroom," you'd recognize that itwas sick and unfair to forbid that. But suppose I replaced "have an abortion" with something you had never heard of before. Suppose I replaced "have an abortion" with "bep a buon." Well, then you'd wonder what the heck I meant by "bep a buon." You couldn't say whether it was sick and unfair to forbid a woman to do such a thing unless you know what it was I was talking about.
Likewise, with abortion, whether it's sick and unfair depends on what it does. If, for example, if abortion entailed removing a tumor, then it would be sick and unfair to forbid that. But if abortion takes the life of an innocent human being just because the mother doesn't want to be burdened with it, well then it's hard to see why it would be sick and unfair to forbid a woman to do that.
Now, keep in mind that pro has the buden of proof in this debate. That means he's got to defend that claim. He's got to tell us what abortion does before we can accept his first argument. In a little bit, I'm going to argue that abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, so he's going to have to answer that argument, too.
2. Women should be able to have control over their own bodies
In general, i agree with this, but I do not think it is without exception, and the exception I make is very relevant to this topic.
Let's say that some woman had a baby, and the only way to feed that baby is to breast feed it. There's no formula available, and nobody else is willing to relieve the woman of the burden. Would she be morally justified in letting her baby starve on the basis that she has control over her own boob and has the right to say who can and can't use it? Well, surely we'd recognize that if a woman did such a thing she'd be a monster. We might in some extreme cases say that a violinist who was attached to her, using her organs to stay alive, had no right to stay attached, but mothers have obligations to their own young that they don't have to adult violinists. A mother who starved her own child and attempted to justify it on the basis that she ought to have control over her own body would clearly be in the wrong. And so it is not wrong to punish her for neglect and child abuse. And the right to punish her depends on the right to forbid her to do such a thing.
Again, it all depends on what abortion does and to what. If there is a living human being inside the woman, then abortion isn't just something she does to her own body. Rather, it's something she does to somebody else's body. What if the fetus inside of her was a girl! Abortion would violate her bodily rights!
My case
In tonight's debate, I'm going to defend two basic contentions: (1) that the unborn, at least through most stages of development, is a living human being, and (2) that it is not sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion.
1. The unborn, at least through most stages of development, is a living human being.
The fact that the unborn is a living something is beyond dispute. Biological life is typically defined by certain characteristics, such as growth, reproduction, metabolism, and reaction to stimuli.[1] The unborn has all of these, so it is definitely alive.
But so are plants, lizards, and possums. What distinguishes species is whether they can interbreed. Now, of course, there's more to it than that. After all, nobody thinks that a human toddler can procreate, but it is still a member of the human species. What distinguishes species, more specifically, is their DNA. In fact, their DNA is what determines whether they can interbreed when they become adults.[2] Well, there's no doubt that the unborn have human DNA. We know this because the DNA you have now is the exact same DNA you had when you were a zygote. If your DNA is human now, then it was human then. It follows that the unborn are living and human. (Surely no one thinks there's a possum in there that later turns into a human!)
But not everything that is human is an individual human being. After all, your hair, liver, toes, and shin bones are all living and human. Well, okay, your hair is not living, but the rest of it is. However, your liver, toes, and shin bone are not individual human beings. They're just human parts and organs that belong to individual human beings. I'm going to give a few reasons to think that the unborn that is both living and human is also an individual human being.
1.1. It has a unique DNA distinct from its parents, and it does not share that DNA with anything else. It follows that it isn't just a part of another human being since there's no other human being that it could be a part of.
1.2. It is self-integrating. That is, if allowed to, it will go through every stage of human development--zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, child, adolecsent, adult. As Frank Beckwith once said, "You didn't come from a zygote; you once were a zygote."[3]
1.3. If the unborn were part of its mother rather than being a distinct human being, then after only a few weeks, you'd have a woman with two heads, four legs, four arms, and in the case of a male fetus, you'd have a woman with a penis.[4] But individuals do not have two heads, etc. Even simese twins are two distinct individuals.
It follows from what I have argued that the unborn, through most stages of development (and probably from conception) is an individual living human being.
2. It is not sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion.
It should be evident by now that it is not sick and unfair to forbid a woman to have an abortion. Abortion takes the life of an innocent individual living human being. Mothers have an obligation to care for their young, so it is plainly immoral to have them killed. It is not sick or unfair to forbid a mother to abuse her own young to the point of death. Nor is it sick and unfair to require a mother to care for her young when she is unable to put it up for adoption yet.
Rather, it is sick and unfair for a mother to have an abortion, knowing what it does--takes the life of her own offspring. I don't want to gross anybody out, so I'm not going to post any pictures here, but if you can stomach it, this link shows images of aborted fetuses from the first trimester.[5] These pictures show exactly what abortion does. You can distinctly see the severed arms and legs of the fetus, complete with fingers and toes. This is a real human being. I submit to you that it is sick and unfair to the unborn for a mother to have them killed for any other reason than to save her own life. I doubt you would be nearly as turned off by pictures of removed tumers or appendixes because you know that's not the same thing.
Conclusion
That's pretty much all I have to say. I look forward to Pro's closing statement and hope he'll have some good arguments for me.
[1] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Biological+life
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17652131
[3] http://www.ccel.us/Beckwith.3.html
[4] I got this point from Scott Klusendorf. http://prolifephilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/07/what-is-unborn.html
[5] http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosbyage/index.htm
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Is same-sex marriage a matter of equal rights?
Rights can be had either by individuals or by groups. When it comes to the right to marry, should we think of it as a right that a couple has, or should we think of it as a right that individuals have?
The right of individuals to marry
If we think of it as a right that individuals have, then I don't think the same-sex marriage debate is a matter of equal rights. The reason is because each individual, whether gay or straight, has the same right already. Whether you are gay or straight, you have the right to marry somebody of the opposite gender. So gay people and straight people don't differ in their individual rights; rather, they differ in their desires. Gay people don't want to marry people of the opposite gender.
But gay people could construe the right differently. Instead of being "the right to marry a person of the opposite gender," which a gay person would have to admit to sharing along with straight people, they could construe it as, "a right to marry the person of your choice," or "the right to marry the person you love." In that case, perhaps straight people do have a right that gay people don't have.
But I'm skeptical of that since not even straight people can marry just anybody they choose or anybody they love. And most gay people would agree. If we construe the right as being "the right to marry who you love," and if we wanted every individual to have that right equally, then we would have to allow incest.
Now, I know a lot of people just got up in arms about that because you think you've heard this argument before. But I can almost guarantee you that if you're feeling hot under the collar right now, you're probably just having a knee jerk reaction, not to what I actually just said, but to what you imagine I must've said. You've heard something similar that was offensive, and you've read that into what I said. But what I said is actually quite logical and nothing to be offended by it all. I'm taking the supposed right to marry who we love to its logical conclusion.
1. Each person should have the right to marry who they love.
2. A brother and a sister love each other.
3. Therefore, a brother and a sister should have the right to marry each other.
The only way to reject the conclusion is to reject the right spelled out in the first premise. So take a chill pill. I'm tired of coddling people who are unable or unwilling to think carefully and simply react in emotional outbursts like silly children. If you're still offended, I don't care. It's up to you to get a grip. I've done my part.
In summary, if the individual's right to marry is construed as a right to marry a person of the opposite gender, then gay and straight people already have equal rights. But if it's a right to marry the person you love, then gay and straight people do not have equal rights, and hardly anybody thinks they should.
The right of couples to marry
If the right to marry belongs to groups or couples rather than individuals, then it is true that gay couples do not have the same right to marry as straight couples. In that case, the debate on same sex marriage is a matter of equal rights.
However, not even same sex marriage advocate really want there to be equal rights granted to groups or couples because if there were, then it would have to be granted to every group or couple that wanted to get married. Otherwise, the right would not be equal. They would have to allow polygamy and incest marriages.
Did you just get offended again? I don't care. It follows. Deal with it.
Think about other equal rights we think of as applying to kinds of groups. Equal rights between races means that people have the same rights regardless of their race. If white people and black people had the same rights, but not Asians, then we would not have racial equality. So if the right to marry were granted to couples, the only way we could have equal rights is if the right were granted equally to every kind of couple. But hardly anybody really advocates that.
So the same sex marriage debate cannot be a matter of equal rights granted to couples or groups.
Then why construe the debate as a matter of equal rights?
I think the primary reason the same sex marriage debate is framed in terms of equal rights is that pragmatically, it's a good idea. It works. We have a strong belief in equal rights in this country because if the long hard battle for equal rights between men and women and racial equality. We have a past of inequality that we're ashamed of. So if we can frame any right in terms of "equal rights" is going to be rhetorically effective. It's effective because it's very emotionally appealing and it makes anybody who opposes it look like a bigot. That lessens the need to argue.
Maybe pro-lifers should frame the abortion debate in terms of equal rights. The unborn should have an equal right to life along with the rest of us. But I digress.
What's this debate really about?
What this debate is really about is the fact that same sex couples want to get married, and for two reasons--respect and benefits. If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them. It's as simple as that. That's what the same sex marriage advocates should be arguing.
1. If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.
2. Same sex couples want to get married.
3. There's no reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry each other.
4. Therefore, same sex couples ought to have the right to marry each other.
Somebody who wanted to defend same sex marriage while opposing incest and polygamy could say that this argument won't work in their case since if you plug them in, there are reasons to deny the third premise. For example, polygamy leads to oppression of women as well as poverty which ends up being a burden on the state. It also makes divorce and inheritance a nightmare. Incest leads to children with birth defects. Personally, I don't think those arguments are all that great, but I won't get into that. The point is that this argument allows same sex advocates to consistently support same sex marriage while opposing polygamy and incest.
Somebody who opposes same sex marriage could attack the first or third premise, and I've heard them do both.
The first premise: If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.
The first premise is attacked by claiming that it isn't enough for there to be no reason to deny something to somebody. There has to be some positive reason for why you should give it to them other than the fact that they want it. The state has to have an interest in it. The reason the government is involved in marriage at all is because marriage is the institution where families are created and the next generation comes into being. Families are necessary for societies, and regulating marriage is how the government protects families. By giving married people certain rights and benefits, it encourages people to stay together, and that's good for society.
The state has no interest in regulating same sex marriage because it is impossible for same sex couples to have children. While same sex advocates point out that it's impossible for some opposite sex couples to have children as well, opponents respond that opposite sex couples are at least the kind of relationship capable of producing children, so it's the kind of relationship that the state has an interest in regulating. I'm not going to go into the merits of either of these responses.
The third premise: There's no reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry each other.
I have heard many same sex marriage supporters say that they can't even imagine why somebody would oppose same sex marriage other than because of their religious beliefs. However, same sex marriage opponents have offered many reasons.
1. It encourages the kind of relationship that leads to early death.
2. It would entail the right to adopt children, which would result in those children being denied either a father or a mother.
3. "Same-sex marriage" is a contradiction in terms since marriage is a union between a man and a woman.
4. It will weaken the institution of marriage.
Of those three, I think the second one is the strongest, but the third one is the one I most often hear. An advocate of same sex marriage would obviously not find any of them to be an adequate reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry. Most flat out deny 4.
What about civil unions and domestic partnerships?
I used to think civil unions gave same sex couples the same rights as married couples, but just denied them the "married" label. Back in 2008 when I was on that Alaska cruise, I met this guy named Cole who was gay. When he noticed the badge I was wearing for the apologetics conference, he knew right away that I was a Christian. We ended up having a long talk about gay rights and the motivations of the gay community. I asked him why civil unions were not enough if they gave gay couples the exact same rights as married couples. He said it wasn't just the rights they wanted. They also wanted the dignity, respect, and recognition that the "married" label carries with it. They wanted public approval.
But I heard an interesting argument recently in a debate between Andrew Sullivan and Douglas Wilson.
Sullivan, the one arguing for same sex marriage, made an argument against civil unions and domestic partnerships. He said that if we have civil unions and domestic partnerships, the right would have to be extended to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. That would create "marriage light" because it wouldn't require as much responsibility, commitment, or legal force. That would weaken marriage because many heterosexuals would prefer "marriage light" to the full commitment and responsibility involved in traditional marriage.
Notice that this argument only works if civil unions and domestic partners do not have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. That was news to me.
He argued, on the other hand, that allowing same sex marriage would strengthen society. In general, men who are married are monogamous and men who are not married are promiscuous. That is true whether men are gay or straight. If men are not allowed to marry, they will have as many sex partners as they can, and that is bad for society. For one thing, it causes diseases to spread quicker and more widely. Allowing gay people to marry would be good for society because it would reduce the amount of promiscuity out there.
He also argued (half jokingly, I'm sure), that if homosexuality is immoral, then we ought to encourage same sex couples to marry. Why? Because marriage kills sex. I thought that was funny. Of course he doesn't think homosexuality is immoral. He was just telling people who do that they ought to support same sex marriage.
What's the real reason Christians oppose same sex marriage
In spite of all the legal and pragmatic reasons that Christians give for why we should not allow same sex marriage, I am fairly confident that the real reason they oppose it is because they think it's immoral. They don't want to have to recognize immorality, and they don't want to have to be forced to respect it.
They're also afraid that as homosexuality becomes more and more acceptable in society, Christianity will become less and less acceptable. That will make it harder for Christians to find employment because if being anti-gay is seen to be morally equivalent to being racist, then society will feel perfectly justified in marginalizing Christians for their religious beliefs and denying them employment because of it.
I think that is a legitimate concern. Of course I'm sure the homosexual community could care less. One of my friends on facebook recently posted a link to a Christian complaining about being "persecuted" because of his opposition to same-sex marriage, and he said, "They can dish it out, but they can't take it." Although I don't think things have risen to the level of persecution yet, I would not be surprised if it rises to that level within the next fifty years, and nobody will think Christians are being wronged. Christians will be regarded as haters, bigots, and the bane of society, and discriminating against them will become perfectly acceptable. We do seem to be headed in that direction.
The right of individuals to marry
If we think of it as a right that individuals have, then I don't think the same-sex marriage debate is a matter of equal rights. The reason is because each individual, whether gay or straight, has the same right already. Whether you are gay or straight, you have the right to marry somebody of the opposite gender. So gay people and straight people don't differ in their individual rights; rather, they differ in their desires. Gay people don't want to marry people of the opposite gender.
But gay people could construe the right differently. Instead of being "the right to marry a person of the opposite gender," which a gay person would have to admit to sharing along with straight people, they could construe it as, "a right to marry the person of your choice," or "the right to marry the person you love." In that case, perhaps straight people do have a right that gay people don't have.
But I'm skeptical of that since not even straight people can marry just anybody they choose or anybody they love. And most gay people would agree. If we construe the right as being "the right to marry who you love," and if we wanted every individual to have that right equally, then we would have to allow incest.
Now, I know a lot of people just got up in arms about that because you think you've heard this argument before. But I can almost guarantee you that if you're feeling hot under the collar right now, you're probably just having a knee jerk reaction, not to what I actually just said, but to what you imagine I must've said. You've heard something similar that was offensive, and you've read that into what I said. But what I said is actually quite logical and nothing to be offended by it all. I'm taking the supposed right to marry who we love to its logical conclusion.
1. Each person should have the right to marry who they love.
2. A brother and a sister love each other.
3. Therefore, a brother and a sister should have the right to marry each other.
The only way to reject the conclusion is to reject the right spelled out in the first premise. So take a chill pill. I'm tired of coddling people who are unable or unwilling to think carefully and simply react in emotional outbursts like silly children. If you're still offended, I don't care. It's up to you to get a grip. I've done my part.
In summary, if the individual's right to marry is construed as a right to marry a person of the opposite gender, then gay and straight people already have equal rights. But if it's a right to marry the person you love, then gay and straight people do not have equal rights, and hardly anybody thinks they should.
The right of couples to marry
If the right to marry belongs to groups or couples rather than individuals, then it is true that gay couples do not have the same right to marry as straight couples. In that case, the debate on same sex marriage is a matter of equal rights.
However, not even same sex marriage advocate really want there to be equal rights granted to groups or couples because if there were, then it would have to be granted to every group or couple that wanted to get married. Otherwise, the right would not be equal. They would have to allow polygamy and incest marriages.
Did you just get offended again? I don't care. It follows. Deal with it.
Think about other equal rights we think of as applying to kinds of groups. Equal rights between races means that people have the same rights regardless of their race. If white people and black people had the same rights, but not Asians, then we would not have racial equality. So if the right to marry were granted to couples, the only way we could have equal rights is if the right were granted equally to every kind of couple. But hardly anybody really advocates that.
So the same sex marriage debate cannot be a matter of equal rights granted to couples or groups.
Then why construe the debate as a matter of equal rights?
I think the primary reason the same sex marriage debate is framed in terms of equal rights is that pragmatically, it's a good idea. It works. We have a strong belief in equal rights in this country because if the long hard battle for equal rights between men and women and racial equality. We have a past of inequality that we're ashamed of. So if we can frame any right in terms of "equal rights" is going to be rhetorically effective. It's effective because it's very emotionally appealing and it makes anybody who opposes it look like a bigot. That lessens the need to argue.
Maybe pro-lifers should frame the abortion debate in terms of equal rights. The unborn should have an equal right to life along with the rest of us. But I digress.
What's this debate really about?
What this debate is really about is the fact that same sex couples want to get married, and for two reasons--respect and benefits. If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them. It's as simple as that. That's what the same sex marriage advocates should be arguing.
1. If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.
2. Same sex couples want to get married.
3. There's no reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry each other.
4. Therefore, same sex couples ought to have the right to marry each other.
Somebody who wanted to defend same sex marriage while opposing incest and polygamy could say that this argument won't work in their case since if you plug them in, there are reasons to deny the third premise. For example, polygamy leads to oppression of women as well as poverty which ends up being a burden on the state. It also makes divorce and inheritance a nightmare. Incest leads to children with birth defects. Personally, I don't think those arguments are all that great, but I won't get into that. The point is that this argument allows same sex advocates to consistently support same sex marriage while opposing polygamy and incest.
Somebody who opposes same sex marriage could attack the first or third premise, and I've heard them do both.
The first premise: If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.
The first premise is attacked by claiming that it isn't enough for there to be no reason to deny something to somebody. There has to be some positive reason for why you should give it to them other than the fact that they want it. The state has to have an interest in it. The reason the government is involved in marriage at all is because marriage is the institution where families are created and the next generation comes into being. Families are necessary for societies, and regulating marriage is how the government protects families. By giving married people certain rights and benefits, it encourages people to stay together, and that's good for society.
The state has no interest in regulating same sex marriage because it is impossible for same sex couples to have children. While same sex advocates point out that it's impossible for some opposite sex couples to have children as well, opponents respond that opposite sex couples are at least the kind of relationship capable of producing children, so it's the kind of relationship that the state has an interest in regulating. I'm not going to go into the merits of either of these responses.
The third premise: There's no reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry each other.
I have heard many same sex marriage supporters say that they can't even imagine why somebody would oppose same sex marriage other than because of their religious beliefs. However, same sex marriage opponents have offered many reasons.
1. It encourages the kind of relationship that leads to early death.
2. It would entail the right to adopt children, which would result in those children being denied either a father or a mother.
3. "Same-sex marriage" is a contradiction in terms since marriage is a union between a man and a woman.
4. It will weaken the institution of marriage.
Of those three, I think the second one is the strongest, but the third one is the one I most often hear. An advocate of same sex marriage would obviously not find any of them to be an adequate reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry. Most flat out deny 4.
What about civil unions and domestic partnerships?
I used to think civil unions gave same sex couples the same rights as married couples, but just denied them the "married" label. Back in 2008 when I was on that Alaska cruise, I met this guy named Cole who was gay. When he noticed the badge I was wearing for the apologetics conference, he knew right away that I was a Christian. We ended up having a long talk about gay rights and the motivations of the gay community. I asked him why civil unions were not enough if they gave gay couples the exact same rights as married couples. He said it wasn't just the rights they wanted. They also wanted the dignity, respect, and recognition that the "married" label carries with it. They wanted public approval.
But I heard an interesting argument recently in a debate between Andrew Sullivan and Douglas Wilson.
Sullivan, the one arguing for same sex marriage, made an argument against civil unions and domestic partnerships. He said that if we have civil unions and domestic partnerships, the right would have to be extended to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. That would create "marriage light" because it wouldn't require as much responsibility, commitment, or legal force. That would weaken marriage because many heterosexuals would prefer "marriage light" to the full commitment and responsibility involved in traditional marriage.
Notice that this argument only works if civil unions and domestic partners do not have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. That was news to me.
He argued, on the other hand, that allowing same sex marriage would strengthen society. In general, men who are married are monogamous and men who are not married are promiscuous. That is true whether men are gay or straight. If men are not allowed to marry, they will have as many sex partners as they can, and that is bad for society. For one thing, it causes diseases to spread quicker and more widely. Allowing gay people to marry would be good for society because it would reduce the amount of promiscuity out there.
He also argued (half jokingly, I'm sure), that if homosexuality is immoral, then we ought to encourage same sex couples to marry. Why? Because marriage kills sex. I thought that was funny. Of course he doesn't think homosexuality is immoral. He was just telling people who do that they ought to support same sex marriage.
What's the real reason Christians oppose same sex marriage
In spite of all the legal and pragmatic reasons that Christians give for why we should not allow same sex marriage, I am fairly confident that the real reason they oppose it is because they think it's immoral. They don't want to have to recognize immorality, and they don't want to have to be forced to respect it.
They're also afraid that as homosexuality becomes more and more acceptable in society, Christianity will become less and less acceptable. That will make it harder for Christians to find employment because if being anti-gay is seen to be morally equivalent to being racist, then society will feel perfectly justified in marginalizing Christians for their religious beliefs and denying them employment because of it.
I think that is a legitimate concern. Of course I'm sure the homosexual community could care less. One of my friends on facebook recently posted a link to a Christian complaining about being "persecuted" because of his opposition to same-sex marriage, and he said, "They can dish it out, but they can't take it." Although I don't think things have risen to the level of persecution yet, I would not be surprised if it rises to that level within the next fifty years, and nobody will think Christians are being wronged. Christians will be regarded as haters, bigots, and the bane of society, and discriminating against them will become perfectly acceptable. We do seem to be headed in that direction.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, revisited
I thought of another objection to Plantinga's "Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism." If you'll recall, I blogged on this before.
Plantinga's argument hingest on the fact that for any kind of adaptive behavior you can think of, you can think of a combination of a false belief and a desire that will result in that behavior. Since false beliefs can result in adaptive behavior just as well as true beliefs, and since natural selection is determined by beliefs only insofar as those beliefs affect behavior, then the probability that evolution would result in reliable belief-producing cognitive faculties is low or inscrutible, provided that naturalism is true (in which case there are no gods who preordained or directed with the evolutionary process).
One of the primary objections people raise against Plantinga's argument is that while false beliefs can result in adaptive behavior just as well as true beliefs, you cannot have systematically false beliefs that will result in adaptive behavior. My objection is similar but with more detail.
All of the beliefs and desires we might imagine that could produce adaptive behavior are derived beliefs. That is, they are inferred from observation, experience, laws of inference, and foundational a priori beliefs. It does not seem possible that all of our behavior-inducing beliefs could've been built into our brains from the get go and still be adaptive since the environment is in a constant state of change. So the only way beliefs and desires could result in adaptive behavior is if they are derived (at least in part) from our interaction with our environment through some process of reasoning. The only kind of knowledge that could be built into a brain to enable it to form beliefs are a priori knowledge, including some kind of laws of inference.
Right now, it seems like we are able to learn true information about the world because our built in beliefs about the laws of inference are true. The laws of inductive and deductive reasoning are reliable guides to truth when combined with true premises and reliable observations.
But there are only a couple of ways things could have been different. One way is that we could've been born without having any built in knowledge of laws of inference. Another way is that we could've been born with completely different laws of inference.
If we were built without any laws of inference, then there would be no way for the brain to produce consistent beliefs. One day, I may see a tiger and think tigers are dangerous. Another day, I may see a tiger and think tigers are safe. All of my beliefs would be random, arbitrary, and in a constant state of change. So there is no way that I could survive. I'd be weeded out of the gene pool. I couldn't have consistently adaptive beliefs because I wouldn't have consistent beliefs at all.
If we were built with different laws of inference, then the types of beliefs we came to might be consistent, but they couldn't be consistently adaptive. The reason is because the only way to come up with combinations of desires and beliefs that are adaptive is to be random. It's easy to think of random combinations of beliefs and desires that are adaptive for any situation. But it would be a great coincidence if, given some fixed laws of fallacious inference, the beliefs we came to usually turned out to work in our favor even though they were false
It is understandable why sound laws of inference would tend to produce beliefs that are adaptive. It's because, in general, true beliefs are adaptive. But false beliefs are not adaptive in general. So if we were built with fallacious laws of inferences, they could not consistently produce adaptive beliefs, even if some of the wrong beliefs were adaptive.
Since almost all true beliefs are adaptive, and since most false beliefs are not adaptive, it stands to reason that natural selection would be more likely to produce minds with built in valid laws of inference rather than invalid laws of inference.
Plantinga's witch illustration doesn't address this objection. The witch illustration is meant to be an example of a systematically false beliefs that are nevertheless adaptive.
**Edit: Jan 13, 2013**
I came up with this today, posted it on facebook, then decided to add it here:
I was just thinking about how all animals seem to have a survival instinct. But what if, instead, we all had a suicidal instinct? You'd think our species would become extinct. We could survive if there were a variation in our species in which a few people here and there had a survival instinct. Over several generations, that instinct would become dominant, and very few people would want to commit suicide.
But I was just thinking that's not necessarily so. What if, in addition to having a suicidal instict, we also had an innate belief that (1) the best way to commit suicide is to eat poisonous food, and (2) all the food that we would ordinarily think is good for us is actually poisonous. In that case, we would instinctively be drawn to food that is good for us, thinking it was poisonous and hoping to die by eating it. But instead of dying, we'd survive and flourish. So it seems possible that we could be born with unreliable belief-producing falculties, and still survive. Natural selection wouldn't necessarily select for true beliefs or reliable brains.
Of course, you might think if that were the case that people would be able to learn from experience that their innate beliefs were false. But we could only learn that if we were also built with the innate belief that past experience can tell us what to expect in the future. As David Hume showed in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, it's not possible to prove that supposition without engaging in circular reasoning. So maybe if we were born without that belief, then our past experience of always remaining healthy after eating "poisonous" food would not be able to tell us that the food wasn't poisonous after all. So it still seems possible that natural selection might result in us having unreliable belief-producing cognitive faculties.
But I question whether it would be possible to survive without the belief that the future will resemble the past. I'm having a hard time coming up with a hypothetical scenario in which people are unable to learn from past experience, yet still survive and thrive. Any ideas?
Plantinga's argument hingest on the fact that for any kind of adaptive behavior you can think of, you can think of a combination of a false belief and a desire that will result in that behavior. Since false beliefs can result in adaptive behavior just as well as true beliefs, and since natural selection is determined by beliefs only insofar as those beliefs affect behavior, then the probability that evolution would result in reliable belief-producing cognitive faculties is low or inscrutible, provided that naturalism is true (in which case there are no gods who preordained or directed with the evolutionary process).
One of the primary objections people raise against Plantinga's argument is that while false beliefs can result in adaptive behavior just as well as true beliefs, you cannot have systematically false beliefs that will result in adaptive behavior. My objection is similar but with more detail.
All of the beliefs and desires we might imagine that could produce adaptive behavior are derived beliefs. That is, they are inferred from observation, experience, laws of inference, and foundational a priori beliefs. It does not seem possible that all of our behavior-inducing beliefs could've been built into our brains from the get go and still be adaptive since the environment is in a constant state of change. So the only way beliefs and desires could result in adaptive behavior is if they are derived (at least in part) from our interaction with our environment through some process of reasoning. The only kind of knowledge that could be built into a brain to enable it to form beliefs are a priori knowledge, including some kind of laws of inference.
Right now, it seems like we are able to learn true information about the world because our built in beliefs about the laws of inference are true. The laws of inductive and deductive reasoning are reliable guides to truth when combined with true premises and reliable observations.
But there are only a couple of ways things could have been different. One way is that we could've been born without having any built in knowledge of laws of inference. Another way is that we could've been born with completely different laws of inference.
If we were built without any laws of inference, then there would be no way for the brain to produce consistent beliefs. One day, I may see a tiger and think tigers are dangerous. Another day, I may see a tiger and think tigers are safe. All of my beliefs would be random, arbitrary, and in a constant state of change. So there is no way that I could survive. I'd be weeded out of the gene pool. I couldn't have consistently adaptive beliefs because I wouldn't have consistent beliefs at all.
If we were built with different laws of inference, then the types of beliefs we came to might be consistent, but they couldn't be consistently adaptive. The reason is because the only way to come up with combinations of desires and beliefs that are adaptive is to be random. It's easy to think of random combinations of beliefs and desires that are adaptive for any situation. But it would be a great coincidence if, given some fixed laws of fallacious inference, the beliefs we came to usually turned out to work in our favor even though they were false
It is understandable why sound laws of inference would tend to produce beliefs that are adaptive. It's because, in general, true beliefs are adaptive. But false beliefs are not adaptive in general. So if we were built with fallacious laws of inferences, they could not consistently produce adaptive beliefs, even if some of the wrong beliefs were adaptive.
Since almost all true beliefs are adaptive, and since most false beliefs are not adaptive, it stands to reason that natural selection would be more likely to produce minds with built in valid laws of inference rather than invalid laws of inference.
Plantinga's witch illustration doesn't address this objection. The witch illustration is meant to be an example of a systematically false beliefs that are nevertheless adaptive.
**Edit: Jan 13, 2013**
I came up with this today, posted it on facebook, then decided to add it here:
I was just thinking about how all animals seem to have a survival instinct. But what if, instead, we all had a suicidal instinct? You'd think our species would become extinct. We could survive if there were a variation in our species in which a few people here and there had a survival instinct. Over several generations, that instinct would become dominant, and very few people would want to commit suicide.
But I was just thinking that's not necessarily so. What if, in addition to having a suicidal instict, we also had an innate belief that (1) the best way to commit suicide is to eat poisonous food, and (2) all the food that we would ordinarily think is good for us is actually poisonous. In that case, we would instinctively be drawn to food that is good for us, thinking it was poisonous and hoping to die by eating it. But instead of dying, we'd survive and flourish. So it seems possible that we could be born with unreliable belief-producing falculties, and still survive. Natural selection wouldn't necessarily select for true beliefs or reliable brains.
Of course, you might think if that were the case that people would be able to learn from experience that their innate beliefs were false. But we could only learn that if we were also built with the innate belief that past experience can tell us what to expect in the future. As David Hume showed in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, it's not possible to prove that supposition without engaging in circular reasoning. So maybe if we were born without that belief, then our past experience of always remaining healthy after eating "poisonous" food would not be able to tell us that the food wasn't poisonous after all. So it still seems possible that natural selection might result in us having unreliable belief-producing cognitive faculties.
But I question whether it would be possible to survive without the belief that the future will resemble the past. I'm having a hard time coming up with a hypothetical scenario in which people are unable to learn from past experience, yet still survive and thrive. Any ideas?
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