OCR ↗︎
Philosophy ↗︎
Question preparation ↓

AO1: Aquinas’ 5th way

• A posteriori observation shows that Natural beings do not behave chaotically or randomly but almost always goal-directedly, towards their good end.
• E.g., flowers move towards the sun. Birds fly south in winter. The motion of planets.
• Natural beings are not sufficiently intelligent to direct their own behaviour.
• So, there must be some intelligent being which designed natural beings with this orientation to their good end.
• To illustrate, Aquinas points out that humans can give an inanimate object goal-directed behaviour through exerting force on it, like an archer does with an arrow.
• If we see an arrow directed towards a target, we infer that there must be an archer who shot it.
• Similarly, we can infer there must be an intelligent mind responsible for the goal-directed behaviour of non-intelligent natural beings.
• This mind is directing objects in a much greater way than we can.
• It uses natural laws (laws of nature/physics).
• All beings have a nature which inclines their behaviour towards their goal (telos). 
• E.g. bird nature is to fly south in winter. 
• Objects are directed towards their good end through the design and creation of natural laws.
• So, a designer of natural laws exists: “That thing, we call God.”

AO1: Paley’s design qua purpose (watch)

• Imagine walking on a heath and seeing a rock. The rock seems like it could have existed forever. Nothing about it suggests otherwise.
• However Paley claims we would think differently if we found a watch, because it has complexity enabling purpose.
• Its purpose depends on the exact individually intricate structure of its parts and their precise arrangement in relation to each other.
• Complexity by itself is not enough, since it can occur by chance. E.g. if we come across sand on a beach, it forms a complex pattern but does not indicate design. 
• However if we came across a sand castle, that complex arrangement of the sand serves a purpose. It’s so unlikely to occur by chance that it’s more reasonable to infer design.
• So we can infer design when a thing has the property of purpose enabled by complexity.
• This property we observe in the watch, we also observe in nature.
• E.g. the human eye, wings of a bird and fins of a fish are made of individually complex parts precisely arranged to enable the purpose of sight.
• So, nature must have a designer.
• Nature is much grander and greater than any human design, so the designer of the nature must be greater and more powerful than any human designer.
• Furthermore, a designer is a mind which is distinct from what is designed.
• So, a mind which designed the world and is distinct from it exists.
• This argument is typically interpreted as inductive and a posteriori, because its premises involve observations of the world which are used as evidence for the conclusion that God exists.

AO2: The validity of analogy 

• Swinburne supports design arguments by arguing analogical argumentation is scientifically valid.
• Imagine a scientist doesn’t know the cause of X, but they know X is similar to Y, which they do know the cause of.
• It is rational to hypothesise that the cause of X is similar (analogous to) the cause of Y.
• Design arguments employ exactly the same form of inductive reasoning:
• Things in nature are like things humans create (Paley’s watch) or direct (Aquinas’ arrow). 
• So, the cause of those natural things is analogous, i.e., an intelligent mind. 

Counter:

• Hume objects that like effects do not imply like causes.
• E.g. Dry ice and fire are not alike as causes, but their effect (smoke) is alike.
• So,things in nature being like a watch or an arrow doesn’t prove their causes are alike (i.e., an intelligent mind).
• Hume further argues it doesn’t even provide probabilistic evidence, as Swinburne claimed.
• He attacks the analogy between artefacts and natural beings as weak, because of their significant disanalogies.
• Artefacts are mechanical, mathematically precisely constructed. 
• Whereas the universe is more like an organic thing, more messy, less precise.
• So, the analogy between watches and eyes, or between arrows and the behaviour of birds/flowers is weak.

Evaluation:

• However, Hume’s critique of analogy doesn’t work against versions of the design argument which avoid analogical reasoning in favor of standard inductive probability and/or abductive inference to the best explanation.
• Paley is often interpreted as taking one of those forms today.
• On this reading, design arguments identify a property which is so unlikely to have come about by chance that design is a better explanation.
• The universe is like the watch (or the arrow), but that’s not what makes it designed.
• It’s designed because it has the property of complexity and purpose, or goal-directedness (or fine-tuning etc).
• The watch & arrows are just illustrations of how we infer design from that property.
• So, Hume’s critique of analogy fails.

AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation 

• Hume argues that even if the design argument succeeded, it cannot prove the Christian God in particular.
• Just as possible is a committee of Gods (polytheism), a junior God, or even a God who then died.
• There is no basis for preferring the Christian God as an explanation of the design in the universe, compared to those other options.
• So, the design argument could be inductively cogent, meaning its premises are well-supported and it provides strong probabilistic support for its conclusion.
• And yet, it would still be limited in scope, as it cannot justify belief in any particular God.

Counter: 

• Swinburne counters Hume, using the abductive reasoning of Ockham’s razor, since one God is simpler than multiple.
• However the main problem for Hume is that Aquinas, Paley and Swinburne aren’t trying to prove the Christian God in particular. 
• They know the design argument is limited to proving some generic designer.
• They all broadly follow the approach laid out by Aquinas’ Natural theology. 
• This involves inductive a posteriori argument aimed at supporting faith.
• Belief in a particular God is still made more reasonable by an argument that only shows there is some kind of God.

Evaluation

• So, sophisticated proponents of design arguments are appropriately careful about the scope of their conclusion. 
• Hume overreached with this critique and risks committing a straw man fallacy.
• As Aquinas says in the end of all his 5 ways, ‘that thing we call God’.
• This indicates awareness that the argument doesn’t prove exactly what that designer is. 
• That’s where the proper role of faith comes in, that the designer he’s found evidence for is the Christian God.
• This minimal support for faith through evidence of some higher power is the sole purpose of the argument.
• Hume incorrectly assumed it aimed to do more.

AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse

• Hume’s epicurean hypothesis claims an eternal universe made of atoms is guaranteed to sometimes assemble into orderliness by chance.
• In infinite time, every possibility becomes certain to occur at some point.
• Hume’s not claiming this is true, just that it is possible.
• It’s an abductive counter-example which breaks the necessity of inferring from order to God.

• Of course, the current evidence for the big bang suggests the universe isn’t eternal.
• Nonetheless, we can use the multiverse in the same way.
• Rather than infinite time, it involves infinite space (universes).
• Some versions claim all metaphysically possible permutations of beings (spatial order) and physical laws (temporal order) exist.
• This attacks all possible versions of the design argument.
• Whatever they could point to (organisms, natural laws or fine-tuning) can be explained by the hypothesis that every possible state or thing exists somewhere in the multiverse.

Counter

• Defenders of fine-tuning argue that the multiverse relies on very speculative physics, has no evidence for it, and seems potentially unfalsifiable.
• Swinburne argues a scientific explanation is impossible, since science can only discover which laws exist, not explain why there are such laws.

Evaluation

• However, the multiverse hypothesis is taken seriously by physicists. 
• It’s not incoherent, so Swinburne can’t dismiss scientific explanation as impossible. 
• Regarding its lack of evidence, we can follow Hume’s method and deploy it as an abductive counter-example which breaks the inference to God.
• This treats the multiverse as a competing hypothesis to God.
• Both are equal in explanatory power regarding the world.
• This is not a stalemate, since it shows design is not the only reasonable explanation of our universe.
• So, the teleological argument loses its persuasive force. 
• It cannot give us a reason to believe that a God is the explanation of the way the universe is.

AO1: Darwinian evolution vs design

• Paley and Aquinas appealed to the complexity and purpose of organisms.
• However, evolution by natural selection can also explain that.
• There is variation in species. Members that are better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes which code for that adaptation.
• Over time, this causes a greater prevalence of those traits in the species as it becomes increasingly adapted to its environment.
• This makes animals appear designed for survival. Really, those traits evolved over millions of years due to natural selection causing increasing adaptation.
• This includes traits like instincts guiding animal behaviour, which explains Aquinas’ claim that they have a telos.
• Dawkins wrote ‘the blind watchmaker’ referencing Paley. Taking Paley’s example of the eye, Dawkins explains how it could have evolved part by part over hundreds of millions of years.
• So yes there is a watchmaker, but it is ‘blind’, meaning merely the blind mechanical force of natural selection.
• Dawkins concludes complexity and purpose in organisms can be explained through simpler, more scientific means. This suggests belief in a designer is unnecessary.

AO2: Hume & Darwin on Design vs the problem of evil

• Darwin noted how vicious natural selection is, concluding “I cannot see evidence of design”. 
• He illustrates with digger wasps which lay eggs inside caterpillars that are eaten from the inside when they hatch.
• He concludes it’s not credible to think a perfect God designed this world.
• Hume’s evidential problem of evil makes this point more philosophically.
• Excessive and dysteleological suffering could have been avoided if nature were designed differently. 
• So, natural evil is evidence against a perfect creator and designer.
• This is a stronger critique than Hume’s ‘committee of God’s’ objection. 
• It claims the world could not have been designed by the Christian God, not merely that it could have been another God.

Counter

• Religious philosophers attempt to respond with theodicies.
• These generally claim it is logically impossible for God to remove evil without also removing some greater good necessarily connected to evil. 
• E.g., our deserved punishment for Augustine, free will for Plantinga or soul-making for Hick.

Evaluation

• However, natural evil kills innocent children and animals.
• Free will or punishment cannot excuse such cases.
• Hick would insist random evil is how a perfect God would design the world, to maintain the epistemic distance which enables soul-making.
• However, by definition there can’t be evidence for that claim; it is unfalsifiable.
• So all theodicies are vulnerable to Hume’s evidential argument. 
• God may be consistent with the evidence, but can’t be inferred from the evidence.
• Design arguments are intended by natural theologians (Aquinas, Paley etc) to support faith in the Christian God, through providing evidence for a generic designer.
• Hume’s critique undermines this aim.
• It shows the only rational inference from observation of an imperfect world, would be to an imperfect designer.
• When we make a full accounting of all the evidence, including evil, we see that inference from imperfection to perfection is empirically invalid.

AO2: Design arguments after Darwin

• Tennant broadened the design argument to the overall structure, regularity and intelligibility of the universe.
• Swinburne developed this, arguing Aquinas’ focus on temporal order was ‘wiser’ than Paley’s focus on spatial order..
• Evolution can explain spatial order (e.g., the eye), but not the laws of nature.
• Physical constants like the charge of the electron must be extremely precise for our universe to be life-permitting..
• A tiny degree different and there would be chaos.
• So, fine-tuning by a God is more reasonable than chance.

Counter

• However, anthropic fine tuning relies on the assumption that the constants of nature are contingent.
• The assumption is that while laws of logic are necessary, there’s no contradiction in a universe with different laws. 
• This overlooks that the laws of nature could be a metaphysical necessity.
• There could be a deeper reason why our constants just are what reality must be.
• Physicists seek a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, which could show that our physical laws arise from mathematical necessity.
• So, just because we can mathematically conceive of different laws, doesn’t mean different laws are metaphysically possible.

Evaluation

• Evolution demonstrates a broader critique of the bad design of design arguments, which modern ideas of necessary laws and multiverses merely extends. 
• Design arguments point to current scientific ignorance and claim God must explain it.
• Despite their best efforts to avoid being a God-of-the-gaps style argument, they do fall into that fallacy.
• Advances in biology undermined Paley’s argument.
• But crucially, Paley’s argument was never justified to begin with.
• A lack of scientific explanation doesn’t justify inferring God.
• So, lacking explanation for the intelligibility or laws of nature doesn’t justify inferring God.
• It’s not justified to believe God explains X, just because we can’t think how else X could be explained.

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

AO1: Aquinas’ 5th way
AO1: Paley’s design qua purpose (watch)
AO2: The validity of analogy
AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
AO1: Darwinian evolution vs design
AO2: Hume & Darwin on Design vs the problem of evil
AO2: Design arguments after Darwin

Question types:

Questions could focus on, or ask for a critical comparison of, any the following:

• Aquinas’ 5th way
• Paley’s design argument
• Hume’s critiques of the design argument
• Evolution

Can Aquinas’ 5th way be defended against the issue of ‘chance’? [40]

• AO1: Aquinas’ 5th way (Full amount)
• AO2: Design arguments after Darwin
  • Evolution argues for ‘chance’, though Swinburne argues Aquinas gets around it – but, there could be necessary laws which would make our existence chance (or perhaps predetermined!).
• AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
  • This argues the world could have come about by chance
• AO2: Hume & Darwin on Design vs the problem of evil
  • Evil makes the world appear like it was either the result of chance, or the result of an evil God, or a God who just didn’t care and happened to make us by chance, or created a world that could have made us by chance without caring about nor intending that.

Evaluate whether Hume’s critiques undermine Paley’s design argument [40]

• Split focused AO1: between Paley’s design argument and Hume’s critiques
• AO1: Paley’s design qua purpose (moderate amount)
• Then, any 3 of these 4 will work:
• AO2: The validity of analogy
• AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
  
• AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
• AO2: Hume & Darwin on Design vs the problem of evil

“How convincing are Hume’s criticisms of the teleological argument” [40]

• Minor explanation of Paley and/or Aquinas
• Then, there are 4 critiques from Hume to choose from, I’d do these ones:
• AO2: The validity of analogy (Hume’s critique)
• AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
• AO2: The epicurean hypothesis (Hume’s critique) & the multiverse  (modern extension of Hume’s style of critique)
• Line of argument / Conclusion: Hume’s analogy and multiple God’s critiques fail, but his epicurean hypothesis succeeds with developments from modern science – so he undermines the design argument.
• Or you could add his problem of evil critique instead, which you could argue succeeds.

“Does evolution undermine the possibility of arguing for God based on design? [40]

• Very short AO1 for Paley and Aquinas’ 5th way
• AO1: Darwinian evolution vs design
• AO2: Hume & Darwin on Design vs the problem of evil
• AO2: Design arguments after Darwin
  • Fine-tuning / anthropic design arguments may get around evolution, but they don’t get around the possibility of ‘necessary laws.
  • The key thing to set up here is: this extends the evolution ‘style’ of critique, by showing scientific explanations block the inference to God. 
  • So Tennant and Swinburne repeat the same mistake as Paley, which evolution already highlighted: assuming that if science can’t explain something, then God does. 
• AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
  
  • I’d probably leave out the epicurean hypothesis part and focus on the multiverse.
  • The key thing here is that Swinburne attempts to argue a scientific explanation of the laws of physics is impossible. 
  • This could show that modern scientific critiques of design arguments cannot simply extend the evolution style of critique.
  • However, the multiverse is ‘possible’, and therefore Swinburne seems to fail.
  • So design arguments can be accused of a god of the gaps fallacy.
  • Paley assumed organisms couldn’t be explained by science so require God. 
  • Swinburne assumes the same about the laws of physics.
  • So evolution does highlight the flaw in design arguments: the assumption that science being unable to explain something justifies thinking God is the explanation.

Critically compare Aquinas’ 5th way with Paley’s design argument [40]

• AO1: Aquinas’ 5th way (half amount)
• AO1: Paley’s design qua purpose (half amount)
• Then you could do any of the following:
• AO2: The validity of analogy
  • Ends up saying Paley seems stronger as his argument isn’t based on analogy. Though maybe Aquinas’ doesn’t have to be either?
• AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
  • They both get around this critique – following Aquinas’ natural theology approach.
• AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
  • This critique destroys all design arguments – showing aquinas and paley both fail equally.
• AO2: Hume & Darwin on Design vs the problem of evil
  • This also counters both arguments equally
• AO2: Design arguments after Darwin
  • Evolution is more of an issue for Paley, since Aquinas focuses on order at the level of natural laws rather than biological organisms – what Swinburne develops into calling ‘temporal order’. But in the end, even Aquinas’ version also fails against modern scientific hypotheses about multiverses and necessary laws.

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“Hume’s criticisms of the teleological argument are the most serious that it faces” – Discuss. [40]

• Saying Hume fails and evolution succeeds as a critique would be easiest:
• Minor explanation of Paley and/or Aquinas
• AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
• AO1: Darwinian evolution vs design (moderate amount)
• AO2: Design arguments after Darwin
• Then you could do either:
• AO2: The validity of analogy
  • To show Hume fails even more
• Or more interesting would be:
• AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
  • This argument from Hume works in style, but needs extending by modern scientific critiques like the multiverse. 

Weirdly worded questions:

Whether a priori or a posteriori is the more successful type of argument [40]
Or: Whether God’s existence best justified a posteriori / a priori [40]

• This question requires that you judge whether the ontological argument (a priori) is better or worse than a posteriori arguments (teleo/cosmo).
• You must do the ontological argument, and then at least one of teleo or cosmo – or both.

   

• You will then have judged whether: 
• They all succeed (So ontological better – because it tries to prove God’s existence for deductively certain – whereas cosmo/teleo are inductive arguments trying to show the evidence supports belief – but doesn’t prove it for certain). 
• One type fails and the other succeeds (so the other type is more successful/convincing).
• They all fail (equally unsuccessful/unconvincing).

I’d choose these:

• AO1: Anselm (short), AO2: Kant (either of Kant’s critiques will do)
  • Kant is more of an upgraded critique than Gaunilo to be frank so an essay which leaves our Gaunilo feels more comprehensive than one which leaves out Kant.
• AO2: Design arguments after Darwin
  • This is a nice one for this purpose because it covers a variety of design arguments and how they interact with the evolution issue, and then more contemporary issues.
• AO1: Aquinas’ 3rd way (short), AO2: The fallacy of composition
  • Fallacy of composition targets all versions of the cosmological argument and touches on infinite regress issues and the universe needing no cause – so it’s the best for capturing the overall issues.
• Or: AO2: The Im/possibility of a necessary being
  • This critique of a necessary being works very well because it attempts to attack both cosmological and ontological – but Copleston replies that it only undermines the ontological argument, not the cosmological, making the cosmological seem stronger. However in the end I evaluate that Hume succeeds, showing all varieties of argument to equally fail (though you could evaluate differently if desired).

• This question would be answered best if you could highlight how the criticisms of each especially target their a priori or a posteriori nature. 
• E.g., Kant shows the difficulty of proving existence through definition – which attacks a priori demonstrations of existence.
• E.g., most criticisms of the design and cosmological arguments exploit its inductive a posteriori nature – by showing the evidence they point to could be explained by alternative conclusions (evolution, or the universe having no cause, or some scientific cause like necessary matter).

Does the teleological argument contain logical fallacies? [40]

• A very broad definition of a logical fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. 
• The more standard definition of a fallacy is a particular type of mistake, which are then called formal or informal fallacies.

• Without getting into that though, it would be simplest to treat this as a question about whether the criticisms highlight flaws in the reasoning of the argument. Not just providing evidence against it. E.g., evolution provides evidence against the design argument – but the fallacy it highlights is the assumption that complexity and purpose implies design, or that science being unable to explain something is a reason to think God designed it (God of the gaps fallacy). 
• For Hume:
  • AO2: The validity of analogy
    • It’s a fallacy to think human creations are analogous to natural objects.
  • AO2: Hume’s critique: God not the only explanation
    • It’s a fallacy to infer the existence of the Christian God in particular
  • AO2: The epicurean hypothesis & the multiverse
    •  It’s fallacious to assume that complexity and purpose couldn’t come about by chance.