design argument

• empirical evidence- human eye

  
  

  like a telescope, is perfectly suited to vision as it's components come together to form vision.
• Analogy

  •a watch is made up of multiple parts and displays order, regularity and purpose.

  •from that we infer the watch has a watchmaker

  •the world is also mechanistic and shows the aforementioned order, regularity and purpose (seasons, orbits etc)

  •therefore, by analogy, there should be a world maker, who Paley names God
• Objection (Hume)

  •analogy is weak, man-made objects like a house (watch) don't work, instead he suggested a cabbage. Which leaves come together for the purpose of being a healthy food. but you wouldn't infer a divine cabbage maker from that.

  • nothing in the universe to which the universe itself can be compared
• Objections to Hume

  
  

  • the analogy stands since the things being compared do share the relevant similarities (complexity, regularity, purpose) other differences are unimportant.
  • there's enough evidence of design in both cases to infer a designer
• Value for religious faith

  the design argument is a natural theology, supports faith by observation and reason, without special revelation. even if it doesn't prove anything it shows theologians and philosophers can talk reasonably and meaningfully about god's existence.
• Status as proof

  inductive, uses past observations to reach it's conclusion, sunrise example shows how that doesn't always work. it cannot have the status of deductive proof even though much of science and crime investigation is based off of inductive reasoning
• empirical evidence- fish eye

  the crystalline lens is rounder than terrestrial animals, it shows the application of knowledge by the designer.
• empirical evidence- earwigs

  it's wings and hinges are "highly wrought, as if the creator had nothing else to finish". it shows care and dedication from the designer.
• empirical evidence- lacteal system

  number of paps are proportional to the number of young.
• hume objection

  the order Paley sites as part of apparent design is actually necessary, there'd be nothing to observe w/out it. A form of the anthropic principle.
• hume objection

  •epicurean thesis- infinite time, finite particles, all possible configurations will happen. no need for a cause at all, just random chance.
• hume objection

  hume criticised effect to cause. Used the pair of scales w/ one side hidden from view- we can never know by how much the hidden end outweighs the one in view
• hume objection

  when we look at the world we can only see the effect, we know nothing about the cause (God), could be anyone, an old god, dumb god, team of gods, team of demons etc.
• value for religious faith

  defense against atheists who claim religious faith is idle speculation, but atheists have no more evidence god doesn't exist than theists have that he does, so they are either both reasonable or unreasonable. design argument is easy to understand and not obscure so its a reasonable claim god exists.
• value for religious faith

  could sway an agnostic since its easy to understand and provides a basis for belief
• value for religious faith

  swinburne's cumulative argument for god, he claims that individually, arguments for god's existence are weak but cumulatively they could be persuasive.

  however flew uses the analogy of leaky buckets, says arguments for god make a bucket but the flaws are all holes and it is pointless trying to fill a bucket full of holes. the more arguments you add, the more flaws and the less the argument holds water
• value for religious faith

  doesn't have value because religious faith is a special state of mind, doesn't need supporting arguments, a la kierkergaard's argument we must take a "leap of faith" with infinite passion contrary to reason to embrace god
• value for religious faith

  H.H Price, belief in vs belief that. belief that god exists is supported by the design argument but belief in god is a matter of faith. this distinction supports the idea that faith is a separate issue from reasoned arguments for god like the design argument
• reproducing watch

  Paley tries to pre-empt a possible argument about reproduction. he says that the reproduction would be a part of the design which should impress us even more and shows the intelligence of the designer.
• Omnibenevolence

  the creatures on earth are "so filled with joy they don't know what to do with themselves". the goodness present in the world suggests the creator, God, is also good.
• intro and Key Words

  An inductive, a posteriori, synthetic attempt to prove the existence of god w/ empirical evidence and an analogy comparing the world to a watch put forward by William Paley
• objections to hume

  
  

  • epicurean thesis is literally not true, we don't have infinite time- there was a start, big bang and red shift suggests an end.
  • against THAT you can use multiverse theory, with infinite universes of finite size every possible universe will happen by random chance but multiverse theory is speculation.
• objections to hume

  'nothing to discuss if there was no order' could be responded to by saying that the order isn't objectively necessary, only necessary for us to exist. just cuz we wouldn't be able to discuss this potential disorderly universe doesn't mean it couldn't have existed
• objections to hume

  team of gods team of demons can be responded to w occam's razor, if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one.
• status as proof

  Paleys argument doesn't outright / decisively prove god's existence but it could be beyond reasonable doubt which is good enough in real life eg in court cases suspects are convicted without 100% certainty
• status as proof

  the argument is by analogy (two things are alike in one way, they'll probably be alike in others) but this isn't necessarily true concluding they will be similar in the ways theorised is not 100% proof
• status as proof

  some people treat the design argument as one telling us about a god we already believe in, its not actually trying to prove he exists at all. its only informing us what he could be like, informative rather then demonstrative.
• strengths

  the idea that the universe was designed a certain way resonates with the fact that it seems fine-tuned for life for human beings, what are the chances it ended up this way (a form of anthropic principle)
• strengths

  easy to understand, not obscure like the ontological argument.

  science can tell us that things like quantum mechanics exist but cant tell us why, it was god is as good an explanation as we have.
• strengths

  it is based on observation of apparent design, not speculation or individual experience but something that can be measured by anyone since it's a posteriori so based on empirical evidence.
• weaknesses

  inductive arguments can never be outright, decisive proof. they only deal in probabilities.
• weaknesses

  the part about god's omnibenevolence is flawed and opens the argument up to the problem of evil, there is plenty of natural evil to suggest god is not good.
• weaknesses

  it is a god of the gaps explanation, could be argued that gap was filled by the discovery of evolution or is yet to be filled in as scientists today search for why the universe is the way it is.
• weaknesses

  hume's objections show there's possible flaws in the argument.
• alternative analogies

  Before Paley, Aquinas' fifth way used the analogy of an arrow and archer, which provides the arrow with direction and purpose.

  Hume, while constructing an argument to argue against (freak) used the analogy of a house.
• objection

  
  

  • if it was available to him, Hume may have used evolution as an alternative explanation for apparent design, since it would mean god isn't needed as a designer.
  • against this it could be argued that evolution calls for an explanation, which he would postulate god