Metaphysics: The Teleological Argument - Coursework Example

Metaphysics: The Teleological Argument Introduction The teleological argument or the argument from design possesses a long history that it could be traced to Socrates who argued that complex human body was invariably a result of master planning in the universe. Nonetheless the teleological argument is famously associated with the name of William Paley and his analogy of the watchmaker. He argued – indeed quite persuasively that his arguments even convinced Darwin until he came up with his famous discovery and stated that “the old argument fails” – that the sight of a watch sitting in a natural setting invokes questions in our mind about its maker. The fact that the watch has a purpose and that it would not have simply emerged from the ground make it necessary for us to think about and reason its existence as having caused by an intelligent architect, an artificer. He then applies this argument to the wider world in order to show that that the Universe and the contingent objects within it such as, say, the human and animal body, are complex, intricate, and help to satisfy purposes. The existence of non-human artifacts, such as human organs (as opposed to human artifacts which are made by the humans in order to meet our different needs, like the watch or pencil), could only be explained through a reference to the natural laws that are unchanging. The facts that natural laws are exactly what they are (and continue to hold and are sustained in existence) and that purposive organisms exist are therein two interconnected facts that must be explained. Reference to the existence and creative and designing activity of God offers the best explanation of those two facts. Hence Paley’s argument is based on the principle that similar effects usually have similar causes, and the more similar the effects, the more similar the causes are likely to be. The biological existence of humans and animals involves much more complexity than that of human made artifacts. Thus we may conclude that some very powerful, intelligent, and knowledgable non human designer is responsible for the creation and com plex order li ness of the uni verse.  The only appropriate name for such a designer, pre sum ably, is “God”; so it seems we have good evidence for God’s existence. This paper is an attempt to understand briefly the basic framework within which the argument of design or the teleological argument has provided its explanations about the origin of the universe. The paper mainly concentrates on the fine-tuning aspect of this whole argument with respect to the criticisms raised against it and other alternative explanations provided. That paper mainly uses the arguments provided by Inwagen (2009), and Conee and Sider (2005) as an axis from where the teleological argument as well as the objections raised against it could be understood. The fine-tuning argument It quite easy to see the anthropocentric elements in the argument supplemented above that the designer, or designers or God or Gods for that matter, is attributed by the humane qualities of “intelligence” and “great knowledge”. This is, on most occasions, raised as a major objection (Hume (1970), for instance) that God in such imaginations is unfitting for the traditional theist interpretations of it. But then it would be to point out that inductive reasoning – reasoning from detailed facts to general principles, a process that is so commonly associated with the development of our rational mind, is not inerrable. Now, there are different ways of arguing for, or not for, the existence of God, or for the existence of an intelligent designing activity behind the whole formation and functioning of the universe including the infinite objects within it. For instance it would be a rather simple way of complicating, and thus fixing it where it is, this argument of design by asking the question if this God is also not “designed” thus bringing it under the teleological roof. Nevertheless such questions, beyond the point of asking questions, do not give sufficient explanation for the delicate conditions that exist in the universe that makes life possible whereas the anthropic principle does. The modern variation of the teleological arguments explore through the probabilities and improbabilities of these delicate conditions. As Collins (1999) have made clear that “if the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as one part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form; in either case life would have been impossible” (49). Hence according to this fine-tuning argument speculation about the vast possible conditions in which life could not exist is compared to the conjectured improbability of chance under which these conditions came into existence. This, according to this view, could be seen as pointing towards a fine-tuned universe specifically designed that human life has become possible (Barrow and Tipler, 1986). To summarize the contemporary version of teleological argument, especially from the perspective of the fine-tuning argument, it contains that The phenomena of nature exist and it gives the appearance of bein directed towards goals that are a priori. This phenomena is fine tuned in such a way as to make life possible. This is an indication towards laws of nature that are unchanging, but nevertheless, observable and the seamless functioning of which sustains the whole universe in the way as it remains. Now to think about what would have caused the existence of this universe in the way it is now we stumble upon two alternatives, one of which is a suggestion regarding sheer chance and the other is a speculation about an intelligent designer behind the whole programme. Intelligent design is a better explanation than sheer chance, and therefore, we should accept the hypothesis that the creation of universe is the work of an intelligent designer. Inwagen’s intervention This is precisely where Inwagen’s intervention (2009) gathers significance. He suggests that an alternative to the intelligent design is indeed available. This does not imply that he does not see the force of the modern teleological argument. Rather he brings the argument of design to such a platform from where it would be possible to understand, through our rational skills, its weight against other alternatives and objections made to it. Hence he says that the teleological argument is indeed refuted by the Darwinian account which is rather a reflection upon the animated beings and other living organisms populated this universe. In addition to the fact that even this has remained a hypothesis until now, it is insufficient to account for the existence of the infinite unanimated objects and for the seamless functioning of natural laws in this universe. In chapter 8 (175-186) he leads his argument, in a rather sarcastic way, to a point from where teleological argument would seem convincing precisely from its perspective of a fine-tuned universe (125-128). Here the alternate explanation he provides seems to be that there exist many universes other than the observable ones, and that a vast range of laws and conditions that befit them in the way they presently exist, exist there. Among these there exist very few where there are conditions that make life possible. The reason we find ourselves in this life permitting universe is because we could not have existed in any other. Since this explanation is as compatible as the teleological expla­nation (so his objection runs), we may well adopt the one as the other.  Thus we needn’t pick the teleological explanation, and so the new teleological argu­ment loses its force. His attempts to measure the competency of the teleological argument leads him to a conclusion that this explanation fails due to reasons that could primarily be ascribed to its failure to meet the demands of human rationale. One thing is that teleological argument does not and cannot claim to “imply that the designer has the very many of the properties traditionally ascribed to God” or “to the existence of a being that is all-powerful, all knowing and recognizes any moral obligations towards the rational beings whose existence it is responsible for” (188). All that the teleological argument can claim is that this universe was designed with purpose and intelligence just as a ship is built by humans. That the ship can outlast its designer or architect, so does the cosmos too, that it can outlast its designer. But then teleological argument fails to attribute the designer of any purposes for designing the whole universe in the way it exist in the present. In other words he asks the question “what is the meaning of our existence?” to which teleological argument can hardly provide a convincing response (189-190). Nevertheless the critique arguments in favor of sheer chance have no better claims to an alternative response either. On this occasion Inwagen thinks that chances for a chance behind the question of the existence of the universe stands equally unconvincing to the rational questions it invoke as are the teleological explanations: that the possibilities for a chance behind some of the most improbable events seems no better an explanation than the explanation that attributes deliberate attempt behind the happening of that event (190-194). Nevertheless since there remains hardly any convincing explanation about the purpose of our existence there is sufficient reason to expect the designer to have a purpose to create a universe with the most important feature that he specifically implied, that is, the fitness for rational beings. Inwagen’s attributions here is to the specific features of ‘intelligent designers’ that leads to him to such conclusions. Nevertheless this argument definitely contains room to make conceptual connections between the designer and the features of the objects that he either intends to design or has already designed. But Inwagen does not stop here and explores further through the powerful potentials of chance. He uses the Darwinian explanation (something which he calls “decisive” (195) for the teleological explanations) that chance can cause events that one would initially ascribe to a deliberate and rational attempt (195-198). The “action of chance can mimic the productions of a rational being” (197) and that “it can produce the appearance of “design”” (198). Conee and Sider’s theory Conee and Sider (2005) provides another way of arriving at the complexities of the argument. They consider the laws of nature in this context and attempts to understand how feasible it would be to suggest that God does or does not exist. That the laws of nature are not contingent does not seem to explain the existence of God in itself. This is precisely because there exist as infinite number of phenomena in the world that cannot be explained just by depending upon the laws of nature. They give the instance of number of trees in Latin America at a particular point of time which cannot be explained through any laws of nature. Conee and Sider turns towards the regularity theory, which explains laws of nature on the basis of their regularity. The fact that laws of nature are not laws any more than we understand them as such, but rather are patterns or rather provides us with an exceptionless regularity. But this, as the authors themselves suggest, has major flaw that there are other events in our material lives that can be explained as exceptionless regularity but not as laws of nature. For instance, if the school A has a history of all students passing out in its major exams then it is an exceptionless regularity that a student of school A passes out. This provides us with a glaring instance to differentiate between exceptionless regularity and natural laws because if natural law was an exceptionless regularity it would have been otherwise also just as in the case of school A; that a student from school A may still fail in the major examination disqualifies it to be as ‘regular’ as laws of nature. hence regularity theory conflicts with both our ordinary and sophisticated conceptions of laws of nature (185-187). Then comes the universal theory of laws. They provide the instance of the chemical formula that methane and oxygen reacting to produce carbon dioxide and water. This law is not just a regularity but rather produces the expected results always. “Now each of these universals are related to each other in such a way that the first two react to produce the second two. Now this clearly defies all the challenges that are confronted when we bring the case of regularity theory. Hence, according to the universals theory, a law is a fact about the universals involved” (188-189). The universals are related with each other in such a way that one necessitates the other. On the other hand regularities do not imply necessitation; they are contingent i.e. they can be otherwise. Universals related in a lawlike manner do. In certain cases (in cases of laws) the relations cannot be otherwise, so they are not contingent. If we think we can imagine them being otherwise, then we fail to appreciate their necessity. If copper conducts electricity is a law of nature, there is no possible world in which each of the two universals is instantiated, and instances of the first fail to conduct instances of the second (188-190). .But here again a major problem occurs in terms of the demystifying effects of the regularity theory in terms of which the universal explanation goes much in a backward direction. “Turning laws into regularities demystifies them demystifies them by making them part of the ordinary world of events; on the other hand, doing so is incompatible with our ordinary conception of laws as local explainers of regularities. It is hard to know what to think” (190). Conclusion The complicated lines that draw the bounderies between regularities and universals and laws of nature as also between chances and possibilities of an intelligent designer seems to be directing, in Conee and Sider (2005) towards a similar conclusion as Inwagen has attempted. A counter argument to anthropic principle is that one could use statistics to exemplify as many natural situations as one likes that are extremely improbable, but still that have happened. The key problem here is that the issue at hand, that is the creation of the universe, is already happened and there is absolutely no possibility to observe and/or experiment it so as to come to a conclusion. A similar issue pertains to the question regarding its existence also, that we still have to wait, although as Inwagen makes it clear, in a rather skeptical mood, that we know with our todays level of knowledge and rational capacities that there is hardly any chance for an answer to emerge. References Collins, Robin, (1999). “A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God.” in Murray (Ed.), Reason for the Hope Within (pp. 47–75). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Hume, David. (1970). Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Indianapolis IN: Bobbs–Merrill Educational Publishing. Conee and Sider. (2005). Riddles of Existence: a guided tour of Metaphysics, Oxford: OUP. Inwagen, Peter van. (2009). Metaphysics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Barrow. J.D., and Tippler, F. J. (1986). The anthropic cosmological principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More