Fine‐tuning, weird sorts of atheism and evidential favouring
Analytic Philosophy (3):1-12 (2021)
Abstract
This paper defends a novel sceptical response to the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God (FTA). According to this response, even if FTA can establish, what I call, the confirmation proposition: ‘fine-tuning confirms the God hypothesis’, there is no reason to think that a strengthening of FTA can establish the evidence-favouring proposition: ‘fine-tuning favours the God hypothesis over its competitors’. My argument is that, any criteria for the explanation of fine-tuning that permit us to take the God hypothesis seriously ought to make us sceptical that fine-tuning favours the God hypothesis over its competitors. As taking the God hypothesis seriously requires us to give a fair hearing to all sorts of non-theistic explanations, including the so-called weird sorts of atheism.Author's Profile
Reprint years
2022
DOI
10.1111/phib.12232
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Citations of this work
Likelihoodism and Guidance for Belief.Tamaz Tokhadze - 2022 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 53 (4):501-517.
References found in this work
Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science.Elliott Sober - 2008 - Cambridge University Press.
The plurality of bayesian measures of confirmation and the problem of measure sensitivity.Branden Fitelson - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (3):378.
A Treatise on Probability.J. M. Keynes - 1989 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40 (2):219-222.