Abstract
Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) against religious beliefs move from the claim that religious beliefs are caused by off-track processes to the conclusion that said religious beliefs are unjustified and/or false. Prima facie, EDAs commit the genetic fallacy, unduly conflating the context of discovery and the context of justification. In this paper, we first consider whether EDAs necessarily commit the genetic fallacy, and if not, whether modified EDAs (e.g., those that posit falsehood-tracking or perniciously deceptive belief-forming mechanisms) provide successful arguments against theism. Then, we critically evaluate more recent attempts to argue that a more promiscuous evolutionary scepticism renders religious belief unjustified because, unlike commonsense and scientific beliefs, religious beliefs have no way out of such scepticism.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This raises the question of what truth-tracking consists in. Kahane (2011) does not specify, instead assuming “an intuitive understanding of the epistemic premise (such an understanding doesn’t require a positive account of truth-tracking processes)”. Presumably, however, he has something like Nozick’s (1981) account in mind, in which:
-
(1)
p is true
-
(2)
S believes p
-
(3)
if p were not true then S would not believe that p, and
-
(4)
if p were true then S would believe that p (and would not believe that not-p).
-
(1)
Indeed, for epistemic externalists, reasons could count as causes; good reasons would thus be epistemically respectable causes
After all, Griffith and Wilkins’s (2013) inference to the best explanation is itself in the dock under this radical evolutionary scepticism.
This is not to deny that Swinburne thinks that religious experiences have a role to play in justifying religious belief. Indeed, Swinburne argues that “One who has had a religious experience apparently of God has, by the Principle of Credulity, good reason for believing that there is a God—other things being equal” (p. 324). But what if things are not equal? Swinburne concedes, as we do, that one who has had a religious experience but has other reasons to believe “that it is significantly more probable than not that there is no God” (p. 326) is not justified in believing that there is God. But what if it can be shown that “special considerations”—such as the influence of hallucinogens—render one’s religious experience questionable? Swinburne concedes, as we do, that the religious experience would not provide sufficient reason for believing that there is a God. However, neither Swinburne nor we believe that everything rides on the religious experience. Even if the religious experience itself fails to provide sufficient reason for believing that there is a God, other arguments are available. The validity and soundness of these arguments are not affected by the reason-providing poverty of the religious experience.
This is probably the reason why much of the EDA debate in philosophy of religion has so far been preoccupied with defending the truth-tracking nature of the cognitive mechanisms that (according to CSR) produce theistic beliefs. See, for example Clark and Barrett (2011), Murray (2009), and Murray and Goldberg (2009).
References
Atran, S. (2002). In gods we trust: The evolutionary landscape of religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barrett, J. (2004). Why would anyone believe in God?. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Beilby, J. (Ed.). (2002). Naturalism defeated?. Essays on Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Benfey, O. T. (1958). August kekulé and the birth of the structural theory of organic chemistry in 1858. Journal of Chemical Education, 35I, 21–23.
Bering, J. (2011). The God instinct: The psychology of souls destiny and the meaning of life. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
BonJour, L. (1980). Externalist theories of empirical knowledge. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5, 53–73.
Boyer, P. (2001). Religion explained: The evolutionary origins of religious thought. New York: Basic Books.
Brosnan, K. (2011). Do the evolutionary origins of our moral beliefs undermine moral knowledge? Biology and Philosophy, 26, 51–64.
Clark, K., & Barrett, J. (2011). Reidian religious epistemology and the cognitive science of religion. The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 79, 639–675.
Darwin, C. (1881). Letter 3230–Charles Darwin to William Graham 3 July 1881. Retrieved from http://www.darwinprojectacuk/entry-13230 on March 5 2012
Davies, B. (1985). Thinking about God. London: Geoffrey Chapman.
Dawes, G. W., & Jong, J. (2012). Defeating the christian’s claim to warrant. Philo, 15, 127–144.
De Cruz, H., Boudry, M., De Smedt, J., & Blancke, S. (2011). Evolutionary approaches to epistemic justification. Dialectica, 64, 517–535.
Dennett, D. (2006). Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. New York: Penguin.
Goldman, A. I. (1986). Epistemology and cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Goldman, A. I. (2008). Immediate justification and process reliabilism. In J. Smith (Ed.), Epistemology: New essays (pp. 63–82). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Griffiths, P., & Wilkins, J. (2013). Evolutionary debunking arguments in three domains: Fact value and religion. In G. Dawes & J. Maclaurin (Eds.), A new science of religion (pp. 133–146). New York: Routledge.
Hoyningen-Huene, P. (2006). Context of discovery versus context of justification and thomas kuhn. Archimedes, 14, 119–131.
Hume, D. (2008). Dialogues and Natural history of religion. J. C. A. Gaskin (Ed.), Oxford:Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1757).
Jong, J. (2012). Explaining religion (away?): Theism and the cognitive science of religion. Sophia, 52, 521–533.
Joyce, R. (2006). The evolution of morality. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kahane, G. (2011). Evolutionary debunking arguments. Noûs, 45, 103–125.
Klement, K. (2002). When is genetic reasoning not fallacious? Argumentation, 16, 383–400.
Leech, D., & Visala, A. (2011). The cognitive science of religion: A modified theist response. Religious Studies, 47, 301–316.
Leech, D., & Visala, A. (2012). How relevant is the cognitive science of religion to philosophy of religion. In: Y. Nagasawa (Ed.), Scientific approaches to the philosophy of religion. Basingstoke:Palgrave.
Mascall, E. L. (1943). He who is. London: Darton, Longman & Todd.
Murray, M. (2009). Scientific explanations of religion and the justification of religious belief. In M. J. Murray & J. Schloss (Eds.), The believing primate: Scientific philosophical and theological reflections on the origin of religion (pp. 168–177). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Murray, M., & Goldberg, A. (2009). Evolutionary accounts of religion: Explaining and explaining. In M. J. Murray & J. Schloss (Eds.), The believing primate: Scientific philosophical and theological reflections on the origin of religion (pp. 179–199). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plantinga, A. (1993). Warrant and proper function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nozick, R. (1981). Philosophical explanations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Plantinga, A. (2000). Warranted Christian belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plantinga, A. (2011). Where the conflict really lies?. Oxford: Science religion and naturalism Oxford University Press.
Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and prediction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ruse, M . (2006). Evolutionary ethics and contemporary biology. In G. Boniolo & G. de Anna (Eds.), Is Darwinian metaethics possible (and if it is is it well-taken)? (pp. 13–26). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruse, M. (2009). Evolution and ethics: The sociobiological approach. In M. Ruse (Ed.), Philosophy after Darwin (pp. 489–511). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Salmon, W. (1970). Bayes’s theorem and the history of science. In R. Stuewer (Ed.), Historical and philosophical perspectives of science (pp. 68–85). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Salmon, W. (1984). Logic. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Siegel, H. (1980). Justification discovery and the naturalizing of epistemology. Philosophy of Science, 47, 297–32.
Swinburne, R. (2004). The existence of God (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Street, S. (2006). A darwinian dilemma for realist theories of value. Philosophical Studies, 127, 109–166.
Tremlin, T. (2006). Minds and gods: The cognitive foundations of religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, D. S. (2002). Darwin’s cathedral: Evolution religion and the nature of society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jong, J., Visala, A. Evolutionary debunking arguments against theism, reconsidered. Int J Philos Relig 76, 243–258 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9461-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9461-6