Monthly Archives: January 2014

“The Burden of Proof” versus “The Flying Spaghetti Monster”

26 Sunday Jan 2014

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In the law legislatures create burdens of proof so that fact finders can be guided on how to decide a case in light of uncertainty.    The same is done for debates where a “winner” and a “loser” needs to be decided.    These burdens exist so far as we make them up.  But what I would like to talk about is the notion of a “philosophical burden of proof.”

I would suggest that such a thing does not exist and the sooner you free your mind of the notion the better off you will be.

First, let’s address what people mean when they say “you have the burden of proof.”   I think there are actually quite a few questions along these lines but let’s just try to give a statement of what they might claim it is.  Tonight’s version of Wikipedia says this:

1)      “When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim.”

I think that sounds pretty much what I hear.  I might also hear something like this:

2)      “The person asserting an affirmative claim has the burden of providing evidence for his claim”

I don’t really think there is much difference between the two.

Now the first thing I would note is that both 1 and 2 are themselves claims which are often affirmatively asserted.   Yet I do not ever hear any proof or evidence that they are true claims.   Is this yet another case of a self-defeating claim?   It seems so.

But before we leave tonight’s Wikipedia I would note that it also says: “The fallacy of an argument from ignorance occurs if, when a claim is challenged, the burden of proof is shifted to be on the challenger.”  That’s true but misleading.  The Fallacy of ignorance occurs when someone argues that because you failed to provide enough evidence to convince them X is true that lack of evidence should somehow prove “Not X.”   So it should be clear that this fallacy in no way justifies a burden of proof.    If anything the fallacy of ignorance is a case where people draw faulty conclusions based on the assumption that a burden of proof exists.      If one never believed in any burdens of proof then it would be much easier to avoid the fallacy from ignorance.   Although I concede that someone can believe in some form of “the burden of proof” and not commit the fallacy of argument from ignorance, they are close relatives.

For example we can see this fallacy when we read what atheist Kieth Parsons says about Hanson another atheist writer  “According to Hanson, the same holds for the claim that God exists. To show that no compelling evidence or cogent argument can be offered in support of God’s existence is tantamount to showing that God does not exist.” Page 25 in his book “God and the Burden of Proof.”  This is about as clear a case of the fallacy of argument from ignorance as I have ever seen in a philosophy text.  And the fallacy is committed because of the author’s commitment to this imagined burden of proof.

Now, if Bigfoot or fairies existed I would expect we would have better evidence of them.   They are presumably material things that can be seen, captured, photographed, video recorded etc.    It is in part because I would expect that we would have better evidence than we do, that I do not believe they exist.   Moreover the existence of fairies or bigfoot has no other impact on my other beliefs such that I should weigh in favor of believing they exist.  Notice though I am stating my reasons why I do not think fairies or Bigfoot exists.   And indeed that is why I don’t think they exist.    I feel no need to resort to claims someone else needs to shoulder some imaginary burden of proof.  If someone believes in Big foot and I give him my reasons and he still believes ok.   I do not insist that he needs shoulder some burden to prove it to me.  He does not have any such burden.

Ok I imagine there are some readers who will want to ask me questions like “Do I believe that there are purple and yellow spotted platypuses on planets other than earth? And if not why not?”   Well the answer is no, and the reason I don’t is because it sounds made up.    Someone asked me “But what if someone who really believes it tells you this?”  I’m sorry but it still sounds made up.  Perhaps I just grew up with too many people who thought it was entertaining to fool people and so I am a bit distrustful.   When my brother first told me about quarks I thought he was making that up too.      But either way the person who believed in these platypuses would not have any burden to prove this to me.

Do I think we should have reasons for all our beliefs?  Maybe.    But I think 2 points are important here:

1) This is different than saying some “burden of proof” exists.  I might hold the belief that we should have a reason for our beliefs without alleging any sort of burden exists on others to prove anything.

2) The problem with the idea that we should always have a reason for our beliefs, is that the chain of beliefs needs to start somewhere.  If we have to have a reason for all our beliefs we would either be guilty of circular reasoning, or capable of holding an infinite set of beliefs, or believing things for reasons that we do not really believe,  or in a situation where we shouldn’t believe anything at all.   There is the logical possibility that all our beliefs stem from other self-evident truths.  But I don’t believe that is the case.

So right now although I might be sympathetic to the idea that we should have reasons for our beliefs.   It seems there are problems with even that claim.

If you are still convinced that “the burden of proof” is real, I have a few other questions:  1) What is the standard of proof? (e.g.,beyond reasonable doubt, or preponderance of the evidence or fair probability or clear and convincing evidence? Ect.)  2) To whom do I need to prove the claim? (e.g., a judge, a commission,  a jury?)   3) What are the supposed consequences of not meeting this burden?  (go to jail or not, win a money judgment, get an injunction move on to the next round of debate in the winners bracket?) These are all very clear in Courts and debates.     How does this supposed philosophical burden of proof work?

In the end however I believe the notion that others have some burden to demonstrate truths to you does indeed suggest that you are not required to figure it out for yourself.   Believing that you are somehow epistemologically justified in continuing to hold your beliefs so long as you decide some other person did not meet some imagined burden of proof is a poor way to go through life.   If two people give their reasons for believing opposing views and neither convinces the other, so be it.  Maybe one is stubborn or irrational who knows.  (see my blog giving a proof of God)  Thinking that we should insert some burden of proof never helps any discussion.    I think it is intellectually more healthy to place the burden on ourselves to investigate any sort of important question.  Don’t try to pass that off on others.

So anyway who wins “The Burden of Proof” or “The Flying Spaghetti Monster”?  In the end I think the evidence weighs in favor of “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” after all, at least we have pictures of it:

Image

What Do You Mean, I’m Wrong?

20 Monday Jan 2014

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I have started talking about morality and I will continue to talk about morality so I should probably explain a bit about what I mean.   By morals I mean what we should do, and what is right and wrong, good and evil.  I generally don’t distinguish between these different terms.     I am a moral realist so I will usually mean the first category, I describe below.

There are several different notions that people have about what morals are and what we mean when we say something is “wrong” immoral etc.  I think the explanations I give match pretty well with how philosophers generally understand these terms.    Here are what I consider the big 4 general ideas of meta-ethics.  That is if we step really far back from any ethical debate I think these 4 concepts can help us understand what we mean when we call something right or wrong:

Objective Moral Realism:  People in this group believe that when we say something is wrong we are making a positive claim about reality that is true or false regardless of what anyone believes about it.

There are several  types of realists but one distinction is between,  Non naturalists and naturalists.  Moral non-naturalists believe that rightness or wrongness is a property of reality that attaches to certain morally relevant occurrences.

Moral Naturalists think that that the rightness and wrongness simply is the set of facts that make up certain occurrences.     For the moral naturalist there is no additional property of wrongness.    But the naturalist still believes certain events are wrong.  Just like they believe some things are water.  Water happens to be those things that are h2o.  They are not, H2O plus another “water property.” Our understanding of water supervenes on anything that has the chemical composition H2O.  Likewise wrongness supervenes on certain occurrences.

Both are realists.  Moral realists include Russ Schaefer Landau (moral realist of the non-naturalist variety) and Nicholas Sturgeon (moral realist and naturalist)  The best introduction to meta-ethics I have found is Russ Schaefer landau’s “whatever happened to good and evil?”

I am a moral realist.  I don’t really have a strong view on moral naturalism versus moral non naturalism.

Error theorists, Nihilists:    This group believes there is no such thing as morality.    So arguing about whether something is right or wrong is like arguing about whether male unicorns have 38 or 42 teeth.   It’s all based on an erroneous understanding of the world.  JL Mackie’s excellent book “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong” is a great book that sets forth this understanding.  He is a very good writer and should be read on his own.  Among the points he makes is that if ethical properties were to exist in reality they would be queer things.   And even if they did exist how would we know what they are?

Another error theorist is Richard Joyce.   He argues that even if moral properties did exist what we know about evolution makes it extremely unlikely that we would know what they are.  He wrote an excellent book covering this theory called “The Evolution of Morality.”    He has also written several papers many of which can be accessed on his website.  Both are good writers Mackie’s book might be a bit easier for someone new to the meta-ethics to digest.

Note that although Richard Joyce argues that evolution makes our moral beliefs (if they were to exist) unreliable that in itself does not really make him a nihilist.  Richard Joyce, Sharon Street, and Mark Linville are 3 philosophers who have published papers explaining how our understanding of evolution debunks the notion that we can have reliable moral beliefs.    That is if we assume naturalism is true it debunks them.  Here btw “naturalism” just means not believing in anything supernatural.  So no God(s) or spirits or anything of the sort.  “Naturalism” is related to “moral naturalism” but not the same term.   It’s pretty clear that Richard Joyce and Sharon Street are naturalists and Mark Linville is a Christian.   I think Sharon Street is a relativist, Mark Linville is a realist and Richard Joyce is a nihilist.  So Mark Linville is making the argument based on the assumption that naturalism is true, where as the other two really think naturalism is true.

Relativism:   Generally speaking this group thinks that moral claims can be true or false by comparing it with reality but it’s not independent of what people believe.    Subjectivists might think what is right and wrong is up to each individual. Here morals are like tastes in food.   Asking if giving to the poor is good is like asking if chocolate is good.  Most will agree it is but it’s up to each individual.

More commonly relativists tend to base morals on a relevant community.  They believe that there is some relevant community (sometimes a hypothetical community which to some extent can make it like realism) that decides what is right or wrong.    Currency is a common analogy.  A $10 bill is a piece of paper.  But it is worth $10.  It would be false to hold a $10 bill up and say “this is worth $14 dollars.”  But that statement is true or false due to the beliefs of the relevant community.   Gilbert Harman is a well-known relativist.

My own view on relativism:  Ok this is where we get the problems along the lines of what if the Nazis killed everyone who disagreed with them so all that was left were Nazis who thought Jews should be killed.  Would it then be right to kill Jews?  That seems a problem with this position.  Russ Shaefer Landau asks if the same event can take place in several different societies.   For example a member of the mafia might kill a victim who is also in the mafia’s cultural community and it is not wrong in that set of circumstances according to that community.  But it also occurred in New York and according to that society it is wrong.   If it can occur in 2 societies, then the same exact event might be wrong and not wrong at the same time.

But beyond that I think I have another deeper problem.  This is taking the position that when it comes to morals we make it all up.   Do we want to believe in make believe?  It is essentially adopting the position that we are staring at the shadows on the cave and we are fine with structuring our lives around that.  For me, I can’t really get behind it.  If that is all we mean by truth when it comes to morals then moral truths lose too much significance.  I don’t really care if I live my life wrongly if all that means is I lived my life wrong according to some group or other.

Noncognitivists:   This group denies that moral claims are the sorts of claims that can be considered true or false.    Thus if I were to say “it’s wrong to stick babies with bayonets” they think this is only my expressing disapproval.  In essence they think I am saying “boo to sticking babies with bayonets!”   Now is “boo to sticking babies with bayonets” true or false?  What about “yay! 49ers” or “Boo!  seahawks”?  These utterances are really neither true or false.  They are not making a claim about reality but instead are just expressions of approval or disapproval.   According to noncognitivists moral statements are really just these sorts of utterances and should not be interpreted as propositions that can be either true or false.

These are what I consider 4 corners of what people people mean by morals.  There are many different theories and terminology involved, and these theories are not always exclusive of each other.   But I think just getting an understanding of these 4 basic ideas is helpful to navigate.

Like I said I am an objective moral realist.  So when I refer to morals that is typically the brand I am referring to.

Dealing with Uncertainty in a Rational Way

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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In my last blog I explained that I learned we need to deal with uncertainty.  I have found that many people do a very bad job in dealing with uncertainty.  They demand certainty and if they don’t get it, they sort of mentally turn off.  I think rational people take actions (which I think can include holding beliefs or at least trying to hold certain beliefs) in light of uncertainty.  That’s really what I think being rational is all about.

In doing this we not only need to consider the likelihood that a belief is true but also consider the consequences that would occur if our beliefs end up being right or wrong.   Of course Pascal’s famous wager brings this up.   I am not necessarily going to argue the wager in the same way Pascal did, but I do contend that rational people must weigh the consequences of the actions including the act of trying to believe something or other.

BTW I think Pascal’s wager is likely the victim of the more ill-founded criticisms than about any other philosophical argument.  Here is a good paper on it by Lycan and Schlesinger if you are interested:

http://joelvelasco.net/teaching/hum9/pascalswager.pdf

In my post discussing what it means to be rational I argued that Clifford’s claim “”it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”  was illogical because it was self-defeating.

But I think there is at least one other problem.  It seems to only view one of the essential aspects of making a rational decision to believe or not.  It seems to only address the chance of the belief being true.  It does not address the consequences of believing one thing and being right or wrong about it.

William James gives a good counter argument in this regard.  He says that if it is the case that by believing I will survive cancer, I will actually increase my chances of surviving, then it is rational for me to believe I will survive cancer.  This is so even if the evidence doesn’t suggest I will.   So if my chance of survival doubles from 1% to 2% if I believe I will survive it’s hard to say I have sufficient evidence to believe I will survive.  Yet it seems rational to go ahead and try to double my chances to survive by doing my best to believe.

Is that the only type of situation where this might come up?  I don’t think so.  I think in morals it comes up often.  I believe every time we are tempted to do wrong it is easy to waiver unless we strongly commit to believe certain moral standards.  Often we will commit to believing moral standards well beyond the “evidence” that the moral standards really exist.  Whether there can even be “evidence” that a moral standard exists, and what such evidence would look like, will be the topic of another blog.

If anyone would like to comment on what they think evidence of objective moral standards would look like I would enjoy reading it.  Also feel free to just put a link to it in the comments.

Before We Leave Descartes

13 Monday Jan 2014

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One of the classes I took was on skepticism.  In that class we really dove into Descarte’s notion that we could be dreaming or deceived by a “deceiver god.”   We even took the idea further, that we are just a brain in a vat that some evil genius on a far away planet is tweaking to give us the ideas we have about our whole life.    How do we know this isn’t happening?  If we don’t know this is not happening then can we know anything about the external world?

 

I took this problem seriously with my oath to follow logic.  I was sure I would be able to solve such a fundamental problem which threw into doubt so much of what we take for granted.    But in following that oath to logic I had to admit in the end that we really have no evidence to think it is not happening.

 

Several very intelligent people took a stab at it.   For example could we presume that because things seem coherent over and over therefore perhaps they are.  Again and again I walk on a floor and don’t fall through so that means it’s solid.   Sadly, that doesn’t work because the evil genius could just give us that thought that things are the way they are.  Every time we walk through a wall as in a poorly programed computer game, he might just have us forget it or give us the thought that it was only a dream.  He might just be tweaking the brain to force the belief that we the world is coherent even though it’s not.

 

Another writer basically proposed that what we perceived even if it is the product of an evil genius is actual reality.  But that is just believing the shadows on the wall from Plato’s allegory of the cave is reality.   There were several other attempts and failures along the way. 

Some people might think wracking your brain over such issues is just a waste of time.  But I strongly disagree.   I did not learn that I could start walking in front of buses because maybe it was just a dream, but that does not mean I didn’t learn anything.    I think I learned allot from the experience.

1)    That we live in an uncertain reality and we just need to deal with it as best we can.

2)    That even science which is based on empirical evidence (perceptions) is based on assumptions that have no evidence to support them.  Although that does not mean I am anti-science.  I am not anti-science. 

3)    That to a certain extent we are captive to our beliefs/mind.  In that we can’t really step outside our beliefs/mind to objectively examine them.

4)    I also learned allot about what it means to “know” something.       And in relation to this problem I realized that we don’t need to know we know something to know it.  

The traditional understanding of knowledge is this:

Subject, S, knows proposition, P, if and only if:

1)    P is true

2)    S believes P

And

3)    S has sufficient reason to believe p. 

 

In later blogs we will get back to this definition, how it was refuted by a philosopher named Gettier, and how Robert Nozick tried to revitalize it.  Nozick’s ideas are important for a key argument made by another philosopher on a very different and important issue.   But this blog is long enough already so I will just end it with the traditional definition. 

 

 

 

 

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! God’s Existence Proven!!

11 Saturday Jan 2014

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How much would you pay for this?   19 thousand dollars?  30 thousand dollars?   For just 3 easy payments of 19.99 you too can own the video in which I prove the existence of God!

 

Well I have been posting on some atheists websites.  And a very common response to just about anything I comment on is “prove God exists!”  I almost feel like I should be able to say “Ok open up Skype and watch me prove it!”  I don’t fault them.   I’m sure we all would have liked more certainty at one point or other.  But proving things isn’t so easy.    

 

When I was a freshman in college I took my first philosophy course, which happened to cover Plato, and I was completely enthralled with logic.  Logic came easy to me and I really loved it.   I can still remember making a sincere mental oath that I would follow logical principles no matter where they led!  In fact, I never abandoned that oath and I still love logic.   

 

As an undergraduate one of my majors was philosophy.  So my oath to sincerely follow logic lead me down many different paths.  But one day I read a chapter out of a book by a philosopher named George I. Mavrodes.  He really burst my bubble.  You see I used to think to prove anything I just needed to come up with a sound argument.  A “sound” argument is one where all the premises are true and the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.  (A “valid” argument is one where the premises are not necessarily true but *if* they are true the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows)  Unfortunately I had to concede Professor Mavrodes demonstrated that logical proofs were subjective.   Blasphemy!

 

How awful.  Logical proofs subjective?   Well yeah he gave a proof of Gods existence which I had to agree was likely sound but nevertheless would clearly not be a “proof” to anyone.   Perhaps you are as crestfallen as I was, so let me let you down nice and easy and explain the problem.

 

One of the beautiful things about a sound argument is the premises just have to be true.  It doesn’t matter if anyone believes them; they just have to be true.  Well that beauty is sort of the problem as well.  I can offer lots of sound arguments that prove God exists but if you don’t actually believe the premises (even though they are in fact true) it will not “prove” anything to you. 

 

This works both ways I might add.  Let’s consider an atheist “proof” that the Christian God does not exist:

Premise1) “If the Christian God (one that was all knowing all powerful creator of everything and thoroughly good etc.) existed then there would be no evil in the world.”

Premise 2) “There Is evil in the world.”

Conclusion:  “Therefore, the Christian God does not exist.” 

 

Now we should be able to agree on whether this argument is “valid.”  I think it is.  Some atheists would likely view this as a sound argument.  That is they think the premises are in fact true and the conclusion necessarily follows.   Now for some Christians this, or something similar, did act as a proof that the Christian God does not exist and they may have abandoned their faith.   This has no doubt caused many thoughtful Christians to think long and hard.   Others would say they don’t believe the first premise.  If, in fact, they do not believe that premise then this argument (even if it were sound) will not be a proof of anything. 

 

Now when I hear atheist ask for a proof of God I picture someone waiting for me to serve the tennis ball so they could smack it back saying that they do not believe one or more premises.  It really doesn’t matter that the premises are true.      I can of course then try to “prove” those premises by presenting other premises which yield the first premises as a conclusion.   But of course they can say they don’t believe those either.    Well this could go on infinitely, and these busy days, who has time for that?    So what use is Logical argument? 

 

I think it’s of great value.  But it’s really of value mainly when people are open minded and intellectually honest about what they think.   They need to be open to discuss the matter so acceptable premises can be found.   The idea that someone will come up with a logical proof that will convince everyone God exists is extremely unlikely.  But I think using logic can convince some people that believing in God is the rational way to go.  Putting ideas in logical format with premises and a conclusion is also a great way to help identify where disagreements are.  Is there a disagreement about one or more premises or is the disagreement about the validity of the argument ?(that is the logical connections between the premises and conclusion).

 

 

 

Well anyway I said I would give a proof of God so here is one:

P1) If anything is sacred then God exists.

P2) Human life is sacred.

Conclusion:  therefore God exists.

 

Now I think this is a sound argument.   Will it prove anything to anyone?  That depends on whether persons thinks human life is sacred to begin with. 

 

That said I will post more in depth logical arguments that it is rational to believe in God.   I will also often break up arguments into premises and conclusion format when I think it is helpful.    Sorry if this is not what you were hoping for.  I do offer a 30 day money back guarantee.   

Government Should Get Out of the Marriage and Divorce Business

10 Friday Jan 2014

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Part of my practice is in family law so I know a bit what I am talking about and if anything I would only lose some business.    Yes it sounded crazy when I first thought of it but I have been thinking about it for about 2 years now and it keeps making more and more sense.   (Ok I just used google and see I am not alone in this view)

 

The proposal that I throw out there is this:

 

1)      The state would no longer issue marriage licenses and no longer grant divorces.

2)      There would no longer be any government advantages to being married.  Its irrational inequality to treat married people different than single people and if you are getting married for economic incentives the government offers then pretty much everyone can agree you’re getting married for the wrong reasons anyway. 

3)      People could of course get married in churches or other entities to however they want.  There could be private secular agencies as well as churches and religious agencies.  They would have explanations for what marriage would mean and contractual understandings on what would happen in the case of divorce.  Preferably they would have arbitration clauses so these private matters do not need to be public record in court houses.   It’s not like the parties would need to sign a long contract either.  The marriage license could just incorporate the code or rules it uses (much like today when you get married you are basically incorporating the marriage and divorce code into that marriage license you sign.)

4)      When they get married they would have the church or whatever other entity draw up the paperwork about what it means for them.   The disputes would preferably be arbitrated by the church or other entity instead of in court.   There should be an incentive to keep this out of court so we do not need to waste public funds to sort these disputes out.  Smaller churches would likely pool resources and use the services of certain agencies.  Larger churches could have their own procedures and understandings. 

5)      The courts would simply interpret the agreements as any other if they needed to.  Again though arbitration would be preferred. 

6)      The statement that “we are married” will generally mean nothing to the courts.   Other than perhaps identifying parents.

 

Why do this?

1)      Save tax payer money that goes to funding court house resources.  Trials are a poor way to award custody and the entire public should not need to pay for disputes between 2 angry adults about how they should divide their property. 

2)      The government would no longer be embroiled in trying to “define” what marriage is when the people it governs don’t agree at all.   In a multicultural society that will always be a non-starter. 

3)      Although many churches preach that they think Divorce should only occur in certain circumstances they often don’t practice this.  Instead of trying to make everyone in the state conform to their beliefs they could focus on having their own congregation conform to their professed beliefs.  This is a win for everyone. 

4)      Does anyone really care what the government thinks of their relationship?  I have been married for 10 years and I couldn’t care less what Illinois’s government thinks my relationship with my wife is.   It is between me, my wife, and God.   I care about what my church thinks but I definitely don’t care what the Illinois legislature thinks.

5)      Courts and trials are horrible at addressing family issues.  No judge can get to know enough about the parents or the kids in a 2 day trial to reliably make good judgments.  Churches would have more options through their arbitration rules.   

 

Limitations of this proposal:

1)       There would still be the interests of children that would need to be protected.  Children born out of wedlock (i.e. no contract) would still be handled by the public courts unless the parents agree to use one of the various private arbitration options that would arise.  So it wouldn’t entirely do away with public courts.  For example the Catholic Church does not believe in divorce.  If the parties did not sign some sort of contract or agreement on how the children issues would be handled in the case of separation then the courts would still need to be used.    

2)      Yes this would need to be implement out in the future so private entities could get ready for this.  

Do you BELIEEEEVE!

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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Christianity focuses allot on beliefs.  Faith is belief and trust in God.    It’s important to “believe in Jesus” but before we get to what that might mean (another blog)  let’s consider what it means to “believe” anything?

Although it is not a definition, IMO the best description of what it means to believe something was given by W.V. Quine and J.S. Ullian in their book “The Web of Belief.”

“Let us consider, to begin with.  What we are up to when
we believe.  Just what are we doing? Nothing in particular.
For all the liveliness of fluctuation of beliefs, believing is
not an activity.  It is not like scansion or long division. We
may scan a verse quickly or slowly. We may perform a
division quickly or slowly. We may even be quick or slow
about coming to believe something, and quick or slow
about giving a belief up. But there is nothing quick or slow
about the believing itself; it is not a job to get on with. Nor
is it a fit or mood, like joy or grief or astonishment. It is
not something that we feel while it lasts.  Rather, believ­
ing is a disposition that can linger latent and unobserved.
It is a disposition to respond in certain ways when the
appropriate issue arises. To believe that Hannibal crossed
the Alps is to be disposed, among other things, to say “Yes”
when asked. To believe that frozen foods will thaw on the
table is to be disposed, among other things, to leave such
foods on the table only when one wants them thawed.
Inculcating a belief is like charging a battery. The bat­
tery is thenceforward disposed to give a spark or shock,
when suitably approached, as long as the charge lasts.
Similarly the believer is disposed to respond in character­
istic ways, when suitably approached, as long as the belief
lasts. The belief, like the charge, may last long or briefly.
Some beliefs, like the one about Hannibal, we shall proba­
bly retain while we live. Some, like our belief in the
dependability of our neighborhood cobbler, we may abandon
tomorrow in the face of adverse evidence. And some,
like the belief that a bird chirped within earshot, will
simply die of unimportance forthwith. The belief that the
cobbler is dependable gives way tomorrow to a contrary
belief, while the belief in the bird is just forgotten. A
disposition has ceased in both cases, though in different
ways.

In this quote, we can see what the authors say, “[belief] is a disposition to respond in certain ways when the appropriate issue arises.”  I read this description of belief early in my studies in philosophy and never felt the need to stray from it.  As Quine and Ullian explain through their examples, the response can be an action or an utterance on our behalf.   Sometimes I don’t think there is an actual action but our response might be internal/mental.  E.g., when you hear something that doesn’t sound right.  You will tend to think through your beliefs to check why that doesn’t sound right.  But you still have the reaction.

To be sure, there are, perhaps some controversies which can arises in a definition that links belief so closely with action, especially in the field of morals where we talk about beliefs of what we should or shouldn’t do.  I think it is clear that we can imagine examples where people do wrong even though they will correctly say they’ve always believed they should do otherwise.  For example, someone may believe they should return library books on time.  Their failure to return the book on time does not necessarily mean they did not believe they should return it on time.  That said, their failure to return the book might indeed be an indicator that the strength of their belief was quite weak.  To use the battery analogy, the charge that that belief holds is not very strong.

Despite some difficulties when we are dealing with moral beliefs about what we should do and whether someone can hold those beliefs and still not act appropriately, I still believe that a person’s actions can often be a better indicator of what they believe than their claims.  For example, someone may say  that they believe they will go to hell if they do not go to church every Sunday.  If that person does not go to church every Sunday, I believe we are entitled to question whether they truly hold that belief.  Actions often reveal beliefs better than words.

The other issue that can come up with beliefs is whether we have the capacity to change our beliefs.  There is no question whether our beliefs can change.  But what amount of control do we have over our beliefs?  I don’t think we need to really delve into this question more than to state we have some control over our beliefs.

Whether that control is direct or indirect and the extent of the control is somewhat irrelevant to our task.  If it were true that we had absolutely no control over our beliefs, then it would be wrong to assign culpability to people who have stubborn, irrational beliefs.  At least if we believe that it is wrong to blame them for something that they have no control over.

Explanations and their Logical Baggage

06 Monday Jan 2014

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Before Darwin nonbelievers had more difficulty explaining how we came to be here. Darwin’s theory of natural selection filled out an explanation. By and large this has been viewed as helpful to the atheist’s position. But when you start attaching explanations you start making affirmative claims. And once you start making claims you open yourself up to the possibility of logical inconsistency.

For example, Christians explain certain qualities God has: Omnipotent, Omniscient, Creator of everything, Good through and through etc. Doing this opened them up to the argument concerning the problem of evil. I think there are valid ways around the problem of evil but there can be no question that this problem was created because Christians offered explanations of what God is. Having the problem of evil to contend with is logical baggage from the claims that God has these attributes. If Christians just continued to shrug when asked if God was all knowing, all powerful, etc then they wouldn’t have this problem.

So now the atheist no longer just shrugs when the theists ask how we came exist. They have an explanation of how humans could come about from other life without God. On the surface it seems good for them. But when we start to understand what that process is we start to see that problems can arise.

I think Descartes was anticipating problems long before Darwin. He noticed that to the extent one were to say we are the product of something less than a perfect being then we would have more reason to suspect the reliability of our beliefs:

“Some, indeed, might perhaps be found who would be disposed rather to deny the existence of a Being so powerful [God] than to believe that there is nothing certain. But let us for the present refrain from opposing this opinion, and grant that all which is here said of a Deity is fabulous: nevertheless, in whatever way it be supposed that I reach the state in which I exist, whether by fate, or chance, or by an endless series of antecedents and consequents, or by any other means, it is clear that the probability of my being so imperfect as to be the constant victim of deception, will be increased exactly in proportion as the power possessed by the cause, to which they assign my origin, is lessened.”

It is clear this concern was not baggage from natural selection since Descartes wrote this over 200 years before Origin of the Species was published. But it clearly anticipates logical problems that any unbeliever will face. What baggage natural selection actually creates with respect to the reliability of our beliefs will be the topic of several of these blogs.

End Note: I should clarify that by “natural selection” I mean “natural selection and naturalism” – ie, no God. However, there is no reason to think that Christians can’t understand that they have evolved from a system along the lines of natural selection any more than we need to deny that we came about from the interaction of sperm and egg. Some people would want to claim it is incompatible with Christianity due to randomness natural selection presupposes. But really there are all sorts of things that are random to us but not to God and Christians always understood God might be acting in the world in ways we don’t know. This would including which sperm reaches which egg. So, natural selection really raises nothing new.

True and Rational

05 Sunday Jan 2014

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Rational:
What is rational is subject to a bit more controversy than how truth is understood. Accordingly I am just going to gloss over some ideas that I tend to believe about what it means to be rational.

First I think I would distinguish the irrationality of people who are insane. It seems to me that this sort of irrationality is beyond the person’s control. We are trying to be rational. To the extent we are trying to become rational we to some extent believe we have some control over this. Indeed I would say that an important part of being rational is recognizing what is beyond our control and acting accordingly.
I also tend to think of being rational in terms of game theory. That is make rational or irrational choices. This I think can extend to what beliefs we hold – to the extent we can choose them.
So just a quick outline of what it means to be rational would be:
1) Not be illogical
2) Not be overly concerned with things beyond your control
3) Make choices based on analysis of the risks and benefits of your alternatives
4) Rational people tend not to go on emotion.

Some people will notice that I do not include Clifford’s claim “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Frankly this claim has always seemed self-defeating and therefore in violation of the first principle I outlined – don’t be illogical.

That is, I do not have sufficient evidence to believe “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” and so believing that principle would violate it.

This is just an off the cuff outline. Perhaps we could add some other concepts to this outline. For example I think rational people consider evidence for and against their position. But I think to the extent there is a difference between being “rational” and being “reasonable” I would say that belongs more along the lines of being reasonable, but think it could fit here as well. And the terms reasonable and being rational are very close anyway.