Following up from the previous post, I want to sketch a reply to the GPO that saves the central Plantingian model of theistic belief, the A/C model. The GPO illustrates that Plantinga's anti-independence strategy (the strategy of arguing that there's no rationality objection independent of an objection to theism's truth) is very weak. Many sets of beliefs can adopt this strategy. The mere possibility of a position being able to adopt the anti-independence strategy shouldn't imply that the position is rational (recall Duhem's stress on sens bon or good sense in theory choice; see Laudan's great article on the Quine-Duhem underdetermination thesis). DeRose puts the point this way (see the link he provides in comments on the previous post): The GPO illustrates that sets of beliefs that are irrational turn out to be rational in the many sense of 'rational' Plantinga recognizes.
Here's an attempt to solve this problem: First, drop stress on the anti-independence strategy. The strategy is very weak and seems to assume a principled distinction between rationality considerations and veritic considerations that seems questionable anyway. Second, in order to keep Plantinga's anti-evidentialist themes--and the Swinburne-Plantinga debate--stress that warranted theistic belief needn't have positive evidential merit in order to be rational. It suffices for warrant that theistic belief is produced in a way in accord with the A/C model. This yields Plantinga's famous (or infamous) claim that *if* theism is true then theistic belief is warranted. Third, to handle the GPO stress that theism is epistemically possible--not known to be false--whereas voodoo and flat earthism is not epistemically possible. Epistemic possibility is not independent from truth, so this is different from the anti-independence strategy. It also provides a good opening for evidentialist related considerations. Plantinga can claim--and hints at in the recent preface to God and other Minds--that there is good evidence for theism, but it's just good enough to make theism epistemically possible. One could combine this with some stress on Pascal's wager to make theistic ventures rational (but one's needn't to that). The resulting position is one in which there's no GPO, theism is epistemically possible, those in theistic practices are rational (b/c of wager related considerations), and theistic belief is warranted if produced in accord with the A/C model.
The Great Pumpkin Objection: A Constructive Reply
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Ted,
Interesting strategy, however you say"
Third, to handle the GPO stress that theism is epistemically possible--not known to be false--whereas voodoo and flat earthism is not epistemically possible.
I think the obvious question that will occur to many proponents of the GBO (of which I am not one), would be this: For whom is voodoo and flat earthism not epistemically possible? Obviously for the followers of voodoo, voodoo must be epistemically possible, since no would suppose that anyone could hold a belief that was empistemically impossible for them to hold. The same applies, mutatis mutandis for flat earthism.
For the theist and the scientist, voodoo and flart earthism may well be epistemically impossible, but I can't how that fact would at all defuse the GPO.
Furthermore, I am skeptical about making objective claims about what sort of belief is or is not epistemically possible for x. People can always preserve even the most strikingly odd beliefs by adjusting auxiliary in the relevent way.
The GPO illustrates that Plantinga's anti-independence strategy (the strategy of arguing that there's no rationality objection independent of an objection to theism's truth) is very weak. Many sets of beliefs can adopt this strategy.
Ted,
I'm not sure what you mean by calling this a "weak strategy". I haven't looked closely at the text in a while, but I thought Plantinga's position included the claim that it is very difficult to establish the de facto claim: namely, the claim that Christianity is just false. If that's so, and if you need to show that it is false in order to show that we are not rational in believing it, then we seem to know something pretty important. Objectors to belief in Christianity cannot (so easily) establish the condition necessary to showing that it's irrational to believe Christianity is true.
Now, I wonder if that's true for Great Pumpkinism as well. Is it true for GP both that (i) the rationality of belief in GP is not independent of the truth of GP, and that (ii) it is very difficult to show that GP is false? Isn't the evidence, on balance (do we need any balance?) pretty clearly against the de facto claim that GP is true?
So I guess I'm worried that though it might be true that we can establish the dependency claim in (i) for many bizarre beliefs, we cannot so easily establish (ii) for such beliefs.
A.P.
You're right that the focus shifts naturally to the epistemic possibility claim. But what's epistemically possible or not doesn't shift with communities. Adherents to voodoo, flat earthism, etc, may think that their views are epistemically possible, but they'd be wrong. On Quinean revisions, you're right that people can revise in any number of ways; however, the possibility of revision doesn't itself imply that the view epistemically possible. Larry Laudan's article on the Quine-Duhem thesis is instructive here.
Mike,
I'm not sure I have your worry. The anti-independence strategy is to show that there's no de jure objection to X independent of a de facto objection to X. Plantinga shows that Christian belief is such that there is no de jure objection to it independent of a de facto objection and, moreover, that it's difficult to establish the de facto objection. Perhaps you're pointing out that my initial characterization of P’s strategy lacked this second element: relative success in setting out the de facto objection. And in the case of GP you're right the de facto objection can be established. That sounds right to me, but it does go against what Plantinga says on p. 350 of WCB.
That sounds right to me, but it does go against what Plantinga says on p. 350 of WCB.
Ted,
There's a lot on p. 350. One thing he says there is that, for the leading non-religious alternatives to Christianity, it cannot be shown that the dependence claim is true. It also cannot be shown for voodoo, etc. Ok. But my concern was with your claim that Plantinga's strategy is a weak one. I think it isn't so weak if you can show not just the dependence, but also that the de facto objection is hard to establish. If that's so, then you have insulated the rationality of Christian belief in a pretty interestng way, and have fended off a slew of objections that aim to show how irrational Christian belief is. I take it we agree about that, no?
Should I be looking at something else on 350?
Mike,
I think we're in agreement here. When I was talking about Plantinga's anti-independence strategy I was talking only about the strategy of showing that the de jure objection depends on the de facto objection. It's that strategy that's very weak. But if you add to that strategy the claim that the de facto objection is very hard to establish then you do have a much more substantive strategy. This was basically what I was trying to do with my proposal; but perhaps it's more charitable to read that as Plantinga's strategy all along. It does make me wonder, though, why he just didn't say that the de facto objection is sustainable against voodoo and flat earthism. The textual evidence seems to indicate that he wasn't clear about this. See where he lumps together humean skepticism and evolutionary naturalism with voodoo and flat earthism re the independence claim. That's the passage on p. 350 that I was focusing on.
The textual evidence seems to indicate that he wasn't clear about this. See where he lumps together humean skepticism and evolutionary naturalism with voodoo and flat earthism re the independence claim.
No, I agree. This might be because he is trying to do several things at once there, and it's complicated. He is clearly trying to address alternatives to Christianity whose truth undermines their warrant. I'm sure he couldn't resist the neat contrast with Christianity whose truth (more or less) ensures its warrant. That's very nice. But he also seems happy to share this epistemic advantage with other views (some forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, for instance). So he's not claiming that Christianity has some exclusive epistemic advantage. Finally, he is trying to dismiss some crackpot (voodoo) positions whose truth does not ensure their warrant.
Ted,
Sorry, I am getting lost here. You say,
I was talking only about the strategy of showing that the de jure objection depends on the de facto objection. It's that strategy that's very weak. But if you add to that strategy the claim that the de facto objection is very hard to establish then you do have a much more substantive strategy.
If the de jure objection doesn’t depend on the de facto objection, then the de facto objection is mostly irrelevant, and the atheist can go back to focus on the de jure objection. But since confronting that kind of de-jure-without-de-facto objection was Plantinga’s whole point in WCB, how is that project a “much more substantive strategy”?
Also, what is “epistemic possibility” on your view? In my idiolect it’s something like: P is epistemically possible for S iff S does not know that not-P. But you say
Adherents to voodoo, flat earthism, etc, may think that their views are epistemically possible, but they'd be wrong.
This makes no sense with my kind of epistemic possibility, so I’m a little lost. You seem to want to say that Christianity (and naturalism?) are just plain plausible, in some mind- and circumstance-independent way, in a way that voodoo and flat-earth theories are not. I’m doubtful that there is any such thing.
Hi Heath,
The strategy of arguing (a) that there's no de jure objection independent of a de facto objection for (e.g.,) Christian belief and (b) that the de facto objection is very difficult to establish implies that (e.g.,) Christian belief is epistemically possible. The weakened strategy of merely arguing that (a) doesn't imply that (e.g.,) Christian belief is epistemically possible. I think the best way to understand Plantinga's strategy in WCB is (a) & (b) in addition sketching the A/C model. Of course, this means revising Plantinga's reply to the GPO – now the reply is simply that the de facto objection can be established against crackpot views.
Re epistemic possibility: epistemic possibility is an accessibility relation between sets of evidence and propositions. The idea that some theories are epistemically viable and others are not is more of a Duhemian idea than a Platonic one. The scientific community recognized that the phlogiston theory was no longer epistemically viable, even though there were still adherents to the theory. One might put the point like this: given the evidence the scientific community recognized that the phlogiston theory wasn’t epistemically possible. The Duhemian point, I take it, is that there is privileged set of evidence across diverse communities (or practitioners).
This isn't a debate that I've been following, but I am a bit puzzled by the examples that get used in the discussion. Voodooism and flat-earthism do not imply that probably we have a truth-directed properly functioning doxastic faculty that delivers the relevant beliefs. At least according to wikipedia, Haitian Voodooism holds that there is a supreme creator who is a deus absconditus, and lesser spirits. But there seems to me to be little reason to think that a deus absconditus would bother to give us a truth-directed properly functioning doxastic faculty that gives us correct beliefs about his own existence and the existence of lesser spirits. And flat-earthism is even further from the Plantingan story, since flat-earthism is compatible with naturalism.
Is the worry, then, that there are strengthened versions of Voodooism and flat-earthism that fit better with the Plantingan story? The strengthening doesn't seem so easy. Initial attempt: Voodoo+ = Voodoo + claim that Bondyè has revealed in our hearts that Voodoo is true. But if that's how it is, it does not probably follow from the fact that Voodoo+ is true that belief in Voodoo+ is warranted. It only follows from Voodoo+ that belief in Voodoo is warranted. And so Plantinga can say that while one cannot argue against the rationality of belief in Voodoo without arguing against the truth of Voodoo+, nonetheless one can argue against the rationality of belief in Voodoo+ without arguing against the truth of Voodoo+.
One might try to fix this up with self-referential theories. Thus, Voodoo+ might say that Voodoo is true and Bondyè has revealed in our hearts that Voodoo+ is true, while flat-earthism+ might say that flat-earthism is true and there is a God who has implanted in our hearts a truth-directed doxastic faculty that delivers the belief that flat-earthism+ is true. But should that worry Plantinga? Can't he just say: "Yes, Voodoo+ and flat-earthism+ cannot be criticized for irrationality without being criticized for falsehood. But it's not clear that anybody actually accepts Voodoo+ or flat-earthism+, and we shouldn't worry about such weird hypothetical theories. Indeed, they couldn't be criticized de jure without being criticized de facto, but since they're easy to criticize de facto, it's not a big deal."
I think there is something I'm missing, not having been in the debate.
In my last comment, I misused the term "deus absconditus". I should have said "deistic God".
Alex,
What you say is right. Apparently, though, that's not what Plantinga did. Plantinga's stress on the anti-independence strategy gets him in hot water with the GPO. Here's another way to see the problem: Plantinga claims that *if* theism is true then theistic belief is warranted. The Swinburne complaint is "well, is theistic belief is warranted?" Plantinga has been less willing to adopt the evidentialist themes than Swinburne. So it looks like what the GPO points to is the need for stronger evidentialist themes than Plantinga has been willing to subscribe to thus far. How's this for a Plantingian dilemma: either face the GPO or buddy up with Swinburne? (That's very quick and dirty... but after working on administrative material all day it sounds half-way decent.)
I am still not clear on what exactly the objection is. What is wrong with saying that the person who believes in a Great Pumpkin Plus has a belief which is warranted if true? (A Great Pumpkin Plus is a great pumpkin which implants in people a natural truth-directed tendency to believe in the Great Pumpkin Plus.)
After all, is it particularly controversial that there are potential beliefs that satisfy the logical condition that their warrant follows from their truth? Let p be any proposition, and take the self-referential belief:
(p*) p* is warranted, and p.
Then, if p*, then p* is warranted. So there are lots of such potential beliefs--one for just about every believable proposition p, in fact. Call a proposition for which warrant logically follows from truth "warrant-implying".
It's not surprising that there are many warrant-implying propositions. But it is a still a non-trivial, and kind of interesting, fact that theism, Christianity and Catholicism are each warrant-implying. (I don't know about Islam and Judaism--it depends on what their stories about grace are.)
Or is the objection not so much to the clearly true fact that the proposition that the Great Pumpkin Plus exists is warrant-implying (it plainly is), but to the use to which Plantinga puts the warrant-implyingness of theism and Christianity, a use we wouldn't want the warrant-implyingness of GPP to be put to? If so, then I guess the way the GPO needs to be made is by specifying first the use that Plantinga puts warrant-implyingness to, and then showing that we shouldn't want that done in the case of the GP or GPP.
Sorry, I think I am really confused, because after all this discussion, my grasp on what Plantinga is actually trying to accomplish has slipped.
I am still not clear on what exactly the objection is. What is wrong with saying that the person who believes in a Great Pumpkin Plus has a belief which is warranted if true? (A Great Pumpkin Plus is a great pumpkin which implants in people a natural truth-directed tendency to believe in the Great Pumpkin Plus
I think GP+ might have the same epistemic advantage as Christianity. But maybe not. It might be consistent with GP+ that we are also also very susceptible to misleading evidence. Suppose we are made in the image of the great pumpkin and he has the positive epistemic properties in spades. The objection then, I take it, goes that there is not much evidence for the truth of GP+. I think there's none. So Christianity is distinctive in being difficult to show false, and such that the rational belief in C is not independent of it's truth.
Here’s a way to put the fundamental objection to P’s defense of Christian belief in WCB. The dual claims that (i) the de jure objection to Christian belief depends on the de facto objection and (ii) if Christian belief is true then theistic belief is warranted do not show that Christian belief is epistemically possible. This is illustrated by GP+. The problem is with the role of evidential considerations in Plantinga’s overall epistemology. The fix involves a greater stress on such considerations coupled the claim that Christian belief has significant evidential advantages over "crackpot" theories. That seems relatively easy. But a more significant problem is that there’s a sorities series from "crackpot" theories to serious alternatives (e.g., voodoo, polytheism, Kali worship, folk Mahayana Buddhism, sophisticated forms of Mahayana Buddhism, Judaism). The problem will be that once it’s recognized that evidential considerations have a significant role to play in P’s overall epistemology it’s hard not to move in Swinburne’s direction. It seems like an interesting project is to compare P’s views here with his response to religious pluralism.