Philosophy Paper - Need some Help.
Offline Hey guys,
I'm taking Philosophy 101 online from a near by university and one of my assignments is to construct a pragmatic justification for the belief in God, and then answer the question of "If pragmatic considerations show it is irrational not to believe in the principle of induction, does it also show that it is irrational not to believe in God?"
This is my response, and I would love to get some feedback; criticism is more then welcome. I know my grammar is quite poor so pointing that out would be of great help. Thanks.
Pascal’s Wager is by far the most famous pragmatic justification for the belief in God. It follows like this: if we assume that the existence of God can neither be proven nor disproven, and we go on to assume that those who believe in God will receive eternal life in paradise, while those who disbelieve in God will receive eternal punishment in hell, four possible options will arise.
1) God exists; you choose to believe in God; you will receive eternal life in paradise.
2) God exists; and you choose to not believe in God; you will receive eternal punishment in Hell.
3) God doesn’t exist; and you choose to believe in God; you will receive nothing after death.
4) God doesn’t exist; and you choose not to believe in God; you will receive nothing after death.
It is clear that option one would be the best outcome, and option two would be the worst outcome; therefore it would be rational to behave as if there is a God. For if you believe in God and God exists you get eternal life; if God doesn’t exist nothing happens. However if God exists and you don’t believe in God and God does exist you get eternal punishment; if God doesn’t exist nothing happens. The believer’s worst outcome is the non-believers best outcome. It would then be logical to behave as if God does exist.
One can see through pragmatic considerations that it would be irrational not to believe in the principle of induction. If we accept that the future will either resemble the past or it will not. And we will either expect the future to resemble the past or we won’t expect it too. From this, one of these four possibilities will obtain:
1) The future will resemble the past, and you will expect it too.
2) The future will resemble the past, but you won’t expect it too.
3) The future will not resemble the past, but you will expect it too.
4) The future will not resemble the past, and you expect it not too.
We can conclude that it would be quite chaotic to hold any belief except for option one. To hold beliefs two, three, or four would be to lead a life of complete disorder. To live successfully we need the world to remain as it is, and we need to expect the world will remain as it is. Without behaving in this way, what could one possibly get accomplished? Because we need to behave in this way, holding option one as your belief or expectation is the most rational choice. We have no way of knowing with certainty that the world will remain as it has been, but to behave otherwise would be an irrational option. This leaves us with the conclusion that it would be irrational to not believe, or at least not behave as if the principle of induction is valid.
Based on these two pragmatic arguments we can conclude that we are justified in believing in both the principle of induction and God. We even went one step further and concluded that it would be irrational not to believe in the principle of induction; can the same be said about the belief in God? The answer is quite simply no. The pragmatic justification for God makes us assume two things (1) God’s existence can neither be proven nor disproven and (2) Those who believe in God get a reward, those who disbelieve receive a punishment. Assumption (1) is a valid one. We have no evidence that sufficiently proves God’s existence. However assumption (2) is completely invalid, especially when it follows assumption (1). Why is it necessary or in any way rational of us to first assume that God does in fact exist, and second God will reward those who believe? Where are our reasons for accepting the existence of God, which we’ve already accepted as a belief that cannot be proven, and why do we accept, or expect God to punish the disbelievers and reward the believers?
If we compare the pragmatic justification for God to the pragmatic justification for the principle of induction we can see that the God belief doesn’t match up. The assumption one must make when exercising the principle of induction is that the future will resemble the past. We have good reason, perhaps even excellent reason to assume that the future will in fact resemble the past. The sun rises everyday, the laws of nature have been in effect to this date, the motion of the earth hasn’t changed, etc. We of course cannot know with absolute certainty that the future will resemble the past, but when we accept the principle of induction it allows to behave with certainty. I would even argue that we have no good reason to behave as if the future won’t resemble the past. When do has some woke up and not felt a floor under their feet? When has a man jumped out a window and fallen upwards? These things just don’t happen, so what reason do we have to expect they will? Therefore it would be irrational not to accept the principle of induction.
If we now follow the same line of reasoning, and expect the same amount of verification out of the pragmatic justification for the belief in God, we find that it cannot offer the same validity. Assumption (1) God cannot be proven nor disproved is valid, because we have no reason to assume otherwise. There is no sufficient evidence for either side. Assumption (2) God hands out rewards and punishments is where we run into trouble. This is an invalid assumption. Unlike the principle of induction there aren’t good reasons to believe in God, yet with assumption (2) we immediately take the leap to believe in God. Why is this? What reasons are there to believe in a God that can’t be proven? The typical response is faith. Faith is our reason to believe. Faith by definition is to believe without evidence, or reason. If we cannot be certain about the sun rising, which we have seen happen each day, why are we even considering behaving as if there is a God? What justifies our belief in God? Another problem which arises even once you accept the existence of God is why do we assume that God will reward the believers and punish the non-believers? All one would have to do is switch it around and say God will reward the non-believers and punish the believers, and now we find that it is far more “rational” to not believe in God. The invalid assumption of (2) is what makes the pragmatic justification for God, a weak argument, and proves that it is in no way irrational not to believe in God.
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Pascal's Wager doesn't address the following possibilities (among others)
1) God exists, but does not communicate to man.
2) God exists, but cannot communicate to man.
3) God exists, and is evil, and lies to man
4) God exists, and can communicate, but only in a flawed manner.
5) God exists, and is not the Christian god.
5A-ZZZZ) God exists and is (insert any one of a thousand or more possible gods that have been invented by man.)
6) God exists, and believes he has the power to send people to heaven or hell, but doesn't.
7) Multiple gods exist
9) Multiple gods exist, and none of the religions contain any truth
10) Multiple gods exist, and belief in religion is irrelevant to them
This could go on for days.
Just from 5, with all its additional possibilities, we see that the option 1) that Pascal proposes, is not the only safe answer. There are literally an endless number of possible gods, known or unknown, each of which could possibly send us to a very bad place when we die, and our knowledge or lack of knowledge about them would have no effect on the reality of the situation.
If we eliminate those that are dead, or unknown, we are still faced with the possibility that Allah is the correct god, and he promises a similar hell to that of Jehovah.
If you want to approach the wager from a fallacy standpoint, it is riddled with non-sequiturs.
There is a god or there is not a god. This is legit, but after this, it's non-sequitur city.
If there is a god, the question is begged that:
1) He is knowable
2) He wants to be known
3) He has the capacity to be known
4) He is truthful
5) He is known by man
6) The bible is his handiwork
7) The bible, as his handiwork, is trustworthy
9) That he is omniscient
etc... etc...
The wager is built upon unsupported premises. The correct progression goes like this...
There is a god or there is not.
There is no evidence either way.
With no evidence, nothing can be deduced.
The end.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Very solid up through paragraph 6 "If we compare," and in fact paragraph 6 is where I think you score the most points in terms of addressing the assignment. Your argument, as I read it in that paragraph, is that repeated, predictable experience is the key differentiator between acceptance of induction and acceptance of God's existence. So the analogy is false. I buy this argument.
The next question to ask yourself is, will the person assigning you a grade for this assignment be offended by this viewpoint? Is this a religious school or teacher? If so, then you may wish to tweak your argument around to the other viewpoint--that accepting the validity of evidence on faith is the same as accepting the existence of God on faith. Life is long; school is short. I give this advice as a lifelong student and current college professor: If a polemical professor is using this assignment to push his ontological agenda (highly improper, I agree) then it's in your best interests pragmatically to play along.
Paragraph 7 (the conclusion) is currently disjointed and fragmented. Take another look at it and decide what you want it to say, and make it more unified in reference to the rest of the essay.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
22,
First, whatever you do, don't "play along" like Textom advised. If you think you have a good argument for a belief of yours, then present it. This is what philosophy professors want from you (Textom is obviously not a philosophy professor). In philosophy, if there are strong, rational reasons to believe some proposition p, then we should seriously consider believing that p (it doesn't matter if p happens to offend us). Most philosophy professors will give you a good grade if your prose is clear and your position is well-argued, even if they disagree with you or find your view offensive. So don't be timid and don't "play along"; keen philosophy professors will almost always recognize this, frown upon it, and get the impression that you aren't an independent thinker.
Second, I don't have much time to read your paper in detail. I'll try to later. But from briefly skimming through it, I have a couple of quick suggestions. Don't talk about "invalid assumptions". This is OK in informal contexts, but for philosophy papers it is best to reserve the term "invalid" as a property of arguments. Use "incorrect assumption" or something like that instead.
Also, beef up your exposition of Pascal if you have the time. Try to present his position in argument form, not a series of "options". (PM me if you'd like resources for contemporary readings on Pascalian Wagering that would help you out to this end. Also, see my post here for an example of what kinds of issues surround the wager.) This will, if anything, help you present his position accurately. You won't make mistakes like Hamby does above, since anyone who's studied Pascalian arguments in detail would know that they work (if they work at all) for people in specific epistemic contexts. The wager is not intended for somebody who seriously thinks it's possible that, say, a malevolent but highly intelligent and powerful chipmunk governs the universe. If it works, it would be for somebody who has already limited the range of epistemic possibilites they're willing to take seriously about God. If you included a list of possibilities like Hamby's, and you tried to say that they create trouble for Pascal's argument, you would most likely receive a failing grade for sloppy argumentation and expositional carelessness. It's important in philosophy papers to understand something in excruciating detail before you critique it.
It also definitely wouldn't hurt your grade to interact somewhat with the things contemporary philosophers have recently said about Pascalian wagering. (Again, feel free to send me a message for resources.)
Additionally, be more specific in your introduction. For philosophy papers, it's best not to start out with broad openings like the one you have. It's crucial to specify what your plan for the paper will be. For example:
"My paper will be divided into three sections. In the first section, I will explain both Pascal's wager and the problem of induction. In the second section, I will defend Pascal's wager by arguing that [give a brief summary of your argument]. I will conclude in this section that i[whatever your conclusion is]. Finally, in the third section, I will relate this conclusion to the problem of induction by showing that [blah blah blah blah]"
The idea here is to give the reader a very precise layout of your project. This may seem like a boring way to start a paper; and it would be, if your paper were for a creative writing class. But this is philosophy: clarity matters more than creative prose. Hope this helps. I'll try to look at your paper in more detail this weekend. When is it due? (And out of curiosity, who is your professor?)
Cheers,
Gavagai
Rude, offensive, irrational jackass.
Correct. I am, in fact, an English professor.
I've known many philosophy professors over the years, and I wish I could say that they all gave good grades even when they disagreed with a position. Many of them did, but others did not, and some even gave lip service to objectivity and respect for student opinions while, in fact, being as subject to their own cognitive biases as any other human.
My advice is to make the best possible assessment of the audience that's there and then make the best effort to address that audience. If it appears that the prof has genuine respect for different viewpoints, then "playing along" will probably not produce the desired results, I agree.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
1) I can't believe you were asked to provide justification for belief in god, unless you first offered the opposite viewpoint and are now being asked to think of objections so you can iron your own argument out. Or you were asked to provide either viewpoint and are providing your own.
2) pascal's wager has long been debunked; it really sucks.
Edit:
You are right to say that "god" could reward atheists and punish theists.
Take that further and you have the best objection to P.W.
Any number of gods and afterlives are possible, with questional probability of existing. Infinite reward and punishment are both possible in any "god exists" category (god A exists and punishes believers in god B, while rewarding everyone else...or Gods A,B,C exist who eternally struggle over dying human souls to punish/reward them at will. Belief is irrelavent...etc.), making P.W. irrelevant.
Pascal was trying to say that, no matter the chance of god existing, it is rational to believe in god. Pascal was just simply wrong. The chance of a certain god existing is a problem, as well as how/if we know anything about the truth of what we conceive of as being 'god'. (will 'god' punish atheists or reward them?, will 'god' punish christians and reward everyone else?, will 'god' punish everyone?)
Sorry this is a bit chopped together.
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
George Orwell.