David Hume's criticisms of the Design Argument in 5 minutes

An overview of David Hume's criticisms of the design argument from chapters 2-5 of the "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion", along with some key quotes.

The key issue

Design arguments such as the one Hume critiques in "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" (1779), compare the complex and ordered nature of the world with complicated and ordered things humans have made (for example machines). The argument is that as things such as machines have been made by someone, this can suggest (by analogy) that a complex and ordered natural world must also be the result of a deliberate act of creation. In other words, where we find complexity in the natural world this is evidence that there is a world maker, who is God.

Schematic diagram of the human eye
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye)

The importance of analogies

The success of design arguments is dependent on how close the analogy works to compare the natural world with things humans have made. If the natural world can be shown to be complex and organised without any appeal to outside influences, then the analogy is significantly weakened.

Section 1: The analogy is weak (Chapters 2-4)

The following objections were made in response to an analogy based on building a house:

• Objection 1: The analogy does not compare like-for-like things. We cannot compare the building of a house with the creation of the world. They are too different ("The unlikeness in this case is so striking that the most you can offer on the basis of it is a guess")
• Objection 2:  We cannot take one small part of nature and use this "as the model for the whole world" coming into existence ("From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything about how men come into being?")
• Objection 3: Why assume the natural realm exhibits evidence of intelligent design, rather than simply the creation of more natural stuff? ("When nature has operated in such a wide variety of ways on this small planet, can we think that she incessantly copies herself throughout the rest of this immense universe?")
• Objection 4: The analogy between building a house and creating a world is only valid if you have seen both a house and a world being built, otherwise the analogy is based on assumptions ("Have worlds ever been formed under your eye")

New house under construction Pittsfield Township Michigan
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_construction)

Section 2: What sort of God created this sort of world (Chapter 5)

The following objections were made in response to a principle established at the outset, that "like effects prove like causes" and "that the more similar the observed effects... the more similar the causes that are inferred":

• Objection 5: Based on evidence from the (finite) world we live in, we have no reason to conclude that God is infinite ("What right have we (on your theory) to ascribe infinity to God?")
• Objection 6: We have no reason to conclude that God is perfect from looking at the way things are in the world ("Consider the many inexplicable difficulties in the works of nature - illnesses, earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, and so on")
• Objection 7: This world may be one in a line of many "imperfect" worlds made by an "imperfect" God ("It may be that many worlds were botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, before our present system was built")
• Objection 8: Why assume the creation of our world was the work of just one God? ("A great many men join together to build a house")
• Objection 9: The things we see being made around us are created by intelligent humans, why not go the whole way and say that God is also human? ("No man has ever seen reason except in someone of human shape, and that therefore the gods must have that shape")
• Objection 10: God might exist, but why assume God is still around and interested in our world? ("This world was only the first rough attempt of some infant god, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his poor performance")

William Blake's The Ancient of Days (1794)
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_of_Days)

Was Hume an atheist or an agnostic?

In the essay "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion", the character Philo represents Hume's skeptical point-of-view. Before the critiques of the design argument are set out (Chapters 2-5), the character Philo seems to state a version of the Cosmological Argument:

That [God] exists is, as you well observe, unquestionable and self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause; and the original cause of this universe (whatever it may be) we call ‘God’, and piously ascribe to him every kind of perfection.

It should noted that the "First Cause" mentioned here could be God as traditionally believed, or a natural phenomenon such as the 'Big Bang'?

Key quotes

"Since the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of analogy that the causes are also alike, and that the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man."

"The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar outcome... But the evidence is less strong when the cases are less than perfectly alike; any reduction in similarity, however tiny, brings a corresponding reduction in the strength of the evidence; and as we move down that scale we may eventually reach a very weak analogy."

Key Text

• DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION

William Paley's Watch Analogy

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Atheists and the Problem of Evil

If God exists then why is there evil in the world? If God exists why do people suffer? If God exists why do bad things happen? Many atheists use this kind of argument as a basis for rejecting belief in God, the point being that if there is an all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-good (benevolent) Deity, then why do bad things happen?

In Christian theology this is known as The Problem of Evil. The classic statement of this "problem" was set out by Epicurus circa. 300BCE, and later rehashed by David Hume in "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" (1779):

Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then [God] is impotent. Is [God] able, but not willing? then [God] is malevolent. Is [God] both able and willing? then where does evil come from?

Murder in the House by Jakub Schikaneder (1890)
(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jakub_Schikaneder_-_Murder_in_the_House.JPG)

The argument assumes that if God exists then God could, would and should do something about the presence of evil in the world. That there is evil and suffering in the world must mean God does not exist. The argument seems decisive, and believers have largely bought into the paradox, leading to all manner of theological gymnastics being performed across the years in the attempt to resolve this so-called "problem".

Yet for any atheist who uses this as a basis for arguing against God's existence I think the question begs: What exactly do you expect God to do about evil and suffering? Let me phrase this another way. If the claim is being made that were God to exist then God should, could and would do something about the presence of evil in the world, then what does God acting in the world essentially boil down to? In the end we are essentially talking about miracles.

Christ Appearing to His Disciples After the Resurrection by William Blake (1795)
(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_Appearing_to_His_Apostles_Blake.jpg)

In suggesting that God should, could and would address the problem of evil and suffering, what an atheist is basically asking God to do is nothing short of a miracle! Yet atheists do not believe God does miracles... or do they? If atheists want to ground belief in God's non-existence on the assumption that if God exists then God would do something about evil, then they are essentially making the case that God does miracles. Yet if we are suggesting that God can do a miracle to end evil and suffering, why not go all the way and say that God could also raise Jesus from the dead, this being the miracle par excellence for Christians as it not only proves God's existence but justifies the profession of Jesus Christ as our Saviour:

For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins (1 Corinthians 15:16-17)

I doubt any atheist would go this far. In fact somewhat paradoxically in "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" (1748) David Hume actually rejects the logical probability of miracles and the resurrection occurring, which seems to undermine his suggestion thirty years later in the "Dialogues" that were God to exist, then God should be doing something about evil and suffering. In the end, Hume cannot have his theological cake (why doesn't God do a miracle to stop evil and suffering) and eat it (miracles don't happen).

All this appears to leave the atheist having to restate the "problem" of evil in the following manner: Either God exists and can do a miracle to stop evil and suffering, which leaves the question begging as to why someone would then logically reject Jesus' resurrection, or God does not do miracles, which means the existence of evil and suffering in the world is not God's problem to solve, but ours!

Utilitarianism: Criticisms and Responses

The Is and Ought problem

The central notion in both Bentham and Mill’s principle of utility is that humans, by nature, are naturally inclined towards the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain. They both justify this conclusion on the basis of what they see people doing:

“Nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” (Jeremy Bentham)

“The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest-Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” (John Stuart Mill)

In moral theory we might say that Bentham and Mill are attempting to derive an ‘Ought’ from an ‘Is’:

• IS (the way things are): Humans are naturally inclined towards the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain.
• OUGHT (how we should act): Only do those things which maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Logically this ‘ought’ is also equated with ‘Good’.

However, writing 50 years earlier in A Treatise of Human Nature (1738), philosopher David Hume argued that any attempt to derive an ‘Is’ from an ‘Ought’ is logically problematic:

“In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning… when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained.” (David Hume)

If Hume had read either of Bentham and Mill’s argument for the principle of utility, he might have critiqued them along the lines of the following: To say we are naturally inclined towards the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain is one thing, but this does not explain why we should do those things which maximise pleasure and minimise pain.

Hume’s point is that we are missing an explanation here:

• "Humans only do those things which maximise pleasure and minimise pain", because… ?

Now one could respond to this by saying we should maximise pleasure and minimise pain because this is a good thing to do, and this is basically what Bentham and Mill are saying. However, if we say this then we are left with having to explain how and why ‘maximising pleasure and minimising pain’ is equated with ‘Goodness’. Why is maximising pleasure and minimising pain a good thing to do? The assumption seems to be that it just is, but why? On the other hand, if we say we should do those things which maximise pleasure and minimise pain because they maximise pleasure and minimise pain, well this is nothing more than a tautology (saying the same thing twice).

The Naturalistic Fallacy

Bentham and Mill are equating what makes us happy with what is good. We might express this in the following way:

• Being happy = Good

However, in his book Principia Ethica (1903) philosopher G. E. Moore argued that doing something like this leads us to problematic conclusions. For if we suggest that being happy is something good, then we are essentially saying that a definition of ‘Goodness’ is being happy:

• Good = Being happy

It should be quickly evident to us the nature of the problem this creates. For example, Hitler was happy that millions of Jews died during World War II, so does that mean the Holocaust was a good thing? Most would disagree in the strongest terms.

So Moore’s basic concern is that you cannot define Goodness by equating it with something like ‘pleasure’ or ‘being happy’. Instead ‘Goodness’ needs to be understood on it’s own terms, in the same way that say yellow is:

“My point is that good is a simple notion, just as yellow is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, by any manner of means, explain to anyone who does not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good is.” (G. E. Moore)

Moore is saying that we only intuitively know what Goodness is, just as we  intuitively know what Yellow is and recognise it’s presence in various things such as lemons or bananas. Ask someone to explain what yellow apart from these things, and they cannot do this. In the same way we know what a good act is, but we cannot ultimately define what ‘Good’ is.

Of course, if Goodness is incapable of being defined then this means moral questions are simply open-ended and unanswerable. This also means we can have no moral basis for condemning such things as The Holocaust. If we can’t say why something is good or bad then we’re simply left saying we’d prefer such things not to happen, and that is all (Intuitionism).

In response to Moore

In an introduction to selected writings on Utilitarianism, philosopher Mary Warnock argued that Mill was not interested in constructing a moral theory but only concerned with describing the behaviour of most people; this being that they appear to be driven by a desire to maximise pleasurable outcomes, and thus decrease painful ones, because they believe this is a good thing to do. Warnock does not believe Mill intended to say that pleasure was (or equal to) good (which is the assumption of Moore's critique). In fact, Mill appears reluctant to offer any fixed definition of what counts as 'good', in much the same way Moore did:

”No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.” (John Stuart Mill)

Of course the problem here is that in saying people do x because they do x, we have no real reason put forward for why they are choosing to do x, and as such this leaves their behaviour meaningless and irrational.

Warnock also believed Mill intended only to say it is types of behaviour and not specific actions that produce 'measurable' outcomes. If we look for the specific pleasure/pain value in

each particular case, then our pursuit of a final 'value' will never be found due to infinite 'exceptions to the rule'. On the other hand, if we say that in general x behaviour leads to y outcome then we appear to have some basis for evaluating whether what we are doing is right or not.

One final point...

Utilitarians believe people should seek to maximise happiness (or pleasure) in their respective communities, but what exactly is this? Defining pleasure seems rather subjective, which is actually a common criticism of Utilitarianism. What makes one person happy is not always going to make another person happy. For instance, dropping a bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki supposedly contributed to the rapid ending of World War II, thus reducing the amount of potential suffering to come for non-Japanese soldiers and as such can be deemed a good act by them and their families. But what about the horrendous suffering the Japanese people endured as a result? Was their suffering taken into account when the act of dropping a bomb was evaluated, and if so why was the bomb still dropped?

“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” (Mohsin Hamid)

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