MandM: Philosophy of Religion

Showing posts with label Philosophy of Religion. Show all posts

Friday, 28 August 2009

Darwinian Evolution, Chance and Design

In a previous post, God, Darwinian Evolution and The Teleological Argument, I argued that evolution does not refute the teleological argument. Also, even if it did, a lot more significant philosophical work over and above any appeal to natural selection would be needed to infer from this that theism is rationally untenable. There is, however, a second concern lurking in this area; it is that Darwinian evolution shows that evolution occurs by chance. Chance is incompatible with design; hence, Darwinian evolution shows that biological organisms were not created by God. Del Ratzsch summarises the argument succinctly,

[I]f it is genuine evolution, then the theory itself demands that the processes be governed by natural law and random chance … On the other hand, if its genuinely guided [by God], then the process must involve not chance but deliberately designed intervention.[1]

The argument has two premises,

[1] If evolution is guided [by God] then the processes must not involve random chance;

[2] Genuine evolutionary theory demands that the processes be governed by natural law and random chance.

I think this argument is mistaken. To be a valid argument, the word “chance” would need to be used the same way in both premises. The kind of chance that is incompatible with creation in [1] would have to be the kind of chance that is part of genuine evolutionary theory in [2].

Alvin Plantinga has argued that when one examines how the word “chance” is being used in this kind of argument it is evident that the word is not being used the same way in both premises and that when the ambiguity is cleared up the kind of chance that is involved in contemporary evolutionary theory is compatible with the idea that God created human beings.[2]

Let us turn to the first premise; [1] the claim that if evolution is guided [by God] then the processes must not involve random chance. This statement is true only if chance is defined a certain way, both that its existence is incompatible with the idea that God caused the event to happen (either immediately or indirectly via normal secondary causation) and that God did so intentionally and with purpose. To say then that an event occurs by random chance, on this definition, is to say the event was not caused, intended or planned by God.

The problem is that if chance is defined this way premise [2] is false; genuine evolutionary theory does not demand that mutations are not caused by chance, when chance is defined in this way. According to Eliot Sober, when the word chance is used in the context of evolutionary theory it means, “there is no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur.” Ernest Mayr makes a similar point, “When it is said that mutation or variation is random, the statement simply means that there is no correlation between the production of new genotypes and the adaptational needs of an organism in a given environment.”

Defined in the manner of Mayr and Sober, chance is entirely compatible with the idea that evolution is caused, intended or planned by God. The fact that there is, “no correlation between the production of new genotypes and the adaptational needs of an organism in a given environment” and “no physical mechanism (either inside organisms or outside of them) that detects which mutations would be beneficial and causes those mutations to occur,” does not mean that the events had no cause and it certainly does not mean that they were not intentionally caused by God.

To show that evolution occurred by chance, where chance is incompatible with divine design, contemporary biologists would need to show not just that no physical mechanism detects which mutations are beneficial and causes them and it would have to do much more than fail to produce a correlation between the “production of new genotypes and the adaptational needs of an organism in a given environment.” It would have to show that there was ultimately no supernatural cause to the process that intended evolution of human life to occur. Contemporary biology has not done this and it is certainly very difficult to see how it could do so without stepping outside the bounds of science, as currently practised, and venturing into controversial areas of philosophy and theology.

[1] Del Ratzch Battle for Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation Evolution Debate (Downers Grove IL: Intervarsity Press, 1996).
[2] Alvin Plantinga "Evolution and Design" in For Faith and Clarity: Philosophical Contributions to Christian Theology ed. James Beilby (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006) 201-217.

This post draws from parts of my paper "Does Evolution Make Belief in God Untenable?" given at the recent TANSA conference, Faithful Science? – Just How Well Do Science and Faith Get Along?

RELATED POSTS:
God, Darwinian Evolution and The Teleological Argument

Saturday, 8 August 2009

God, Darwinian Evolution and The Teleological Argument

Does Evolution make belief in God untenable? At the recent conference, Faithful Science? – Just How Well Do Science and Faith Get Along? I presented a paper examining this question.[1] This blog series has grown from that paper and the discussions I had with the theologians and scientists in attendance at the conference.

It is commonly argued that darwinian evolution renders belief in God rationally untenable because it refutes the teleological argument, commonly referred to as the argument from design. Darwin himself suggested this in his autobiography;

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.[2]

John Dupre adds, “Darwinism undermines the only remotely plausible reason for believing in God.”[3]

However, this purported refutation of theism is far too quick for several reasons. First, the claim that darwinian evolution refutes the teleological argument is false. There are several different versions of teleological arguments. What is arguably true is that it undercuts one particular version, that proposed by William Paley in Natural Theology. Although, in a recent study Del Ratzsch has suggested Paley’s argument has in fact been misunderstood and when these misunderstandings are stripped away it is not clear that discovery of the laws of natural selection do refute it.[4] Nevertheless, to rebut one particular teleological argument is not to undercut them all.

To justify the inference that darwinian evolution refutes teleological arguments one would need to show that darwinian evolution provides grounds for rejecting all such arguments. It does not. If one focuses on the contemporary literature, it is evident that there are currently several teleological arguments from design that are untouched by darwinism which are being seriously defended in the literature. These arguments may or may not be sound but whether they are or not has nothing to with darwinian evolution.

Two examples will suffice to illustrate this; the first is the teleological argument proposed and defended by Richard Swinburne in The Existence of God. Swinburne proposed an inductive teleological argument based on “The orderliness of the universe.” Swinburne elaborates what he means by this;

The temporal order of the universe is, to the man who bothers to give it a moment’s thought, an overwhelmingly striking fact about it. Regularities of succession are all pervasive. For simple laws govern almost all successions of events. In books of physics, chemistry, and biology we can learn how almost everything in the world behaves. The laws of their behavior can be set out by relatively simple formulae which men can understand and by means of which they can successfully predict the future. The orderliness of the universe to which I draw attention here is its conformity to formula, to simple, for mutable, scientific laws. The orderliness of the universe in this respect is a very striking fact about it. The universe might so naturally have been chaotic, but it is not—it is very orderly.

Swinburne argues that theism explains this order and that its existence increases theism’s probability. Regardless of the merits of Swinburne’s argument, it is evident that darwinian evolution does not refute it. This is because darwinism, far from explaining away such laws, actually assumes their existence;

Evolution can only have taken place, given certain special natural laws. These are first, the chemical laws stating how under certain circumstances inorganic molecules combine to make organic ones, and organic ones combine to make organisms. And secondly, there are the biological laws of evolution stating how organisms have very many offspring, some of which vary in one or more characteristics from their parents, and how some of these characteristics are passed on to most offspring, from which it follows that, given shortage of food and other environmental needs, there will be competition for survival, in which the fittest will survive.

The second example is the teleological argument defended more recently by Robin Collins. Robin Collins appeals to the existence of what has been dubbed cosmic fine-tuning, the contention that, “Almost everything about the basic structure of the universe--for example, the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial distribution of matter and energy--is balanced on a razor’s edge for life to occur.”[5] Frances Collins explains that for life to evolve there are around 15 constants necessary, each must have precise values and if they were off by a million or one in a million, life could not evolve.[6] Robin Collins argues that this fine-tuning is significantly more probable if theism is true than if atheism is true and hence confirms theism over atheism.

I do not here wish to go defend (or criticise) this argument in any depth, my point is simply that darwinian evolution does not refute it. This is because the cosmic fine-tuning argument appeals to the conditions needed for life to evolve. The fine-tuning both Collins’ refer to are preconditions for the evolution of life to occur. As they are preconditions, evolution can hardly provide an explanation for this at all; even if it could, it is not clear that this would show that the probability of such fine-tuning occurring if atheism were true is as probable as it occurring on the background hypothesis of theism’s truth.

Hence, darwinian evolution does not undercut teleological arguments. It is worth noting that even it did then the conclusion that Dupre and Darwin draw, that theism is rationally unwarranted, does not follow. Even if all versions of teleological arguments were refuted by Darwin, it does not follow that all the other arguments for God’s existence are undercut; even if they were, it could be the case that belief in God is justified independently of any argument. Let me briefly elaborate on both these ideas.

The first, Dupre’s suggestion that the argument from design is the only plausible ground for believing in God, is simply false. In Two Dozen or So Theistic Arguments Alvin Plantinga sketched 26 arguments for God’s existence currently being defended in the literature. Earlier this year, Blackwell published the Blackwell Encyclopaedia to Natural Theology which contains current versions of 11 arguments used to defend the existence of God in the literature today. While the cogency of these arguments remains, like most philosophical claims, a subject of substantive debate it is undisputed that they exist and have been give serious and sophisticated advocacy from competent philosophers. To rebut them then requires serious philosophical argument not assertion.

The suggestion then that a refutation of all teleological arguments dismantles the case for theism is false. A true refutation of the plausible grounds for theism would involve a detailed rebuttal of all of the arguments for theism, not just commentary on one type.

Even if it were the case that teleological arguments were the only arguments for the existence of God, it does not follow that their failure would undercut the rational acceptability of theism. Such an assertion assumes that theism is rationally justified only if there is a good argument for it. It is widely acknowledged in epistemology that not all beliefs need to be demonstrated by argument to be rational. To claim they do creates a regress problem;

If everything needs to be proven then the premises of every proof would need to be proven. But if you need a proof for every proof, you need a proof for your proof, and a proof for your proof of a proof and so on-forever. Thus it makes no sense to demand that everything be proven because an infinite regress of proofs is impossible.[7]

To avoid this problem an influential movement in epistemology known as foundationalism maintains that at the base or foundation of one’s noetic structure are beliefs that one is justified in believing independently of any argument. These are called properly basic beliefs. Since the late 1970’s an extremely important movement within Philosophy of Religion, known as the reformed epistemology movement, has offered detailed and rigorous defences of the contention that for theists, belief in God can be a properly-basic belief. The most important defender of this position is Alvin Plantinga, though many others such as William Alston and Nicholas Wolterstorff have defended similar views. Plantinga notes the implication of this movement, “The demise of the teleological argument, if indeed evolution has compromised it, is little more of a threat to rational belief in God than the demise of the argument from analogy for other minds is to rational belief in other minds.”[8]

It seems then that the claim that evolution undercuts teleological arguments is a non starter. Even if it were true, this conclusion only has significance if all other arguments for God’s existence are also refuted and an argument can be provided that shows that belief in God is not properly-basic. This would require significant philosophical work, over and above, any appeal to natural selection. It is evident then that by itself, darwinian evolution would prove very little except, at best, that one 19th century argument by Paley might be unsuccessful.

[1] I am grateful to Alvin Plantinga who sent me a copy of his unpublished paper, “Science and Religion: Where Does the Conflict Really Lie?” which was extremely helpful in formulating my thoughts.
[2] Charles Darwin Life and Letters of Charles Darwin ed Francis Darwin (NY: D. Appleton, 1887) Vol. 1 279.
[3] John Dupre Darwin’s Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) 56.
[4] Del Ratzsch Teleological Arguments for God's Existence Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[5] Robin Collins “God, Design, and Fine-Tuning” originally published in God Matters: Readings in the Philosophy of Religion eds Raymond Martin and Christopher Bernard (New York: Longman Press, 2002).
[6] Frances Collins The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for the Existence of God (Free Press, 2006) 75.
[7] Roy Clouser Knowing With the Heart (IVP, Downers Grove, 1999) 69.
[8] Alvin Plantinga “Science and Religion: Where Does the Conflict Really Lie?” (unpublished).

RELATED POSTS:
Darwinian Evolution, Chance and Design

Friday, 17 July 2009

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong on God, Morality and Arbitrariness

Is morality independent of religion? One common argument for this position is that denying it makes God’s commands arbitrary.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues,

Let’s assume that God commanded us not to rape. Did God have any reason to command this? If not, his command was arbitrary, and then it can’t make anything morally wrong. On the other hand, if God did have a reason to command us not to rape, then that reason is what makes rape morally wrong. The command itself is superfluous. Either way, morality cannot depend on God’s commands.[1]

The conclusion of this argument is that morality cannot “depend” upon God, and that, God’s commands cannot “make” anything morally wrong. It is clear from what Armstrong says earlier in the same paper that he has in mind a relationship of constitution,[2] his target is the claim that moral obligations depend on divine commands in a manner analogous to the way the property of being water depends upon the property of being H20. His conclusion is that morality, which in this context refers to deontic properties such as being prohibited, being permitted or being required, is not constituted by divine commands.[3]

The premises of the argument can be summarised as follows,

[1] Either, (i) there is a reason, r, why God prohibits rape; or, (ii) there is no reason, r, why God prohibits rape.

[2] If there is no reason, r, why God prohibits rape then Gods commands are arbitrary.

[3] If there is a reason, r, why God prohibits rape then, r, is what constitutes the wrongness of rape.

The point is that either a person must admit that God’s commands are arbitrary or deny that his commands constitute moral obligation.

I think this argument is problematic; the problem is that the word “reason” is ambiguous. William Wrainwright notes that the word reason can be used in two different senses. The first is a constitutive sense; one affirms that the reason water has certain phenomenological properties is because it is H20. In this sense, the use of the word “reason” denotes a special kind of ontological relationship. The second sense is a motivational reason; as in, when I state that the reason I feed my daughter is because I love her. This sense is more psychological or epistemological.[4]

It is important to note that these two senses are not the same as the following illustration demonstrates. Noah fills a glass with water. If we ask what the constitutive reason was for his action, the answer would be that he filled the glass with water because he filled the glass with H20. If we ask what the motivational reason was for his action, the answer would be that he wanted a drink. Yet, his wanting a drink does not constitute water, likewise water being H20 is not the motivational reason he wants the drink.

When Armstrong states, “Let’s assume that God commanded us not to rape. Did God have any reason to command this?” he could be asking if there is a motivating reason as to why God prohibits rape or he could be asking if there is a constitutive reason as to why God prohibits rape. Either way, however, his argument fails.

Turning to the first option, if Armstrong means to ask, did God have a motivating reason for prohibiting rape? then r refers to a motivating reason and premise [2] is correct. If God has no motivational reasons for prohibiting rape then God's commands are arbitrary. To avoid the conclusion that God’s commands are arbitrary one would have to concede that God has motivating reasons for issuing them.

The problem is that on this sense of “reason,” premise [3] is false. If r refers to a motivating reason then it does not follow that because r exists, r constitutes the wrongness of rape. I noted this in the example I gave above; the fact that Noah has a motivating reason to pour water into a glass does not mean that these motivations constitute him pouring water into the glass. What constitutes water are H20 molecules, not his motivations.

Armstrong could avoid this by denying that he means r to refer to a motivating reason, that he meant r to refer to some kind of constitutive reason. This might enable him to affirm that [3] is true. The problem is that if this is what is meant by r then [2] is false. Even if God does not have constitutive reasons for prohibiting rape, he could still have motivating reasons and if he does then [2] is false. If God has motivational reasons, such as concern for the welfare of others for issuing the commands he does, then God's commands are not arbitrary.

Armstrong’s argument therefore commits the fallacy of equivocation.

[1] Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough: A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics eds Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008) 108.
[2] Ibid 106.
[3] Ibid 105; where he turns to the question of whether Theism is an adequate foundation for objective moral duties.
[4] William Wrainwright Religion and Morality (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2005) 91.

Monday, 13 July 2009

Living Philosophers of Religion

Over at Common Sense Atheism, Lukeprog has compiled an impressively comprehensive list of 100+ Living Philosophers of Religion and Their Best Work. Lukeprog identifies his list of philosophers of religion as those who have "published at least one influential work in the field" offering "analytic arguments over the truth of theism vs. atheism."

What I find interesting about this list are the following features.

The ratio of theists to atheists is significantly stacked in favour of theism. Now the numbers of people who believe something do not determine the truth or falsity of the thing but what it suggests is that those who specialise in the actual subject that studies whether or not belief in God is rational, defensible, etc. the majority believe that it is. This of course is extremely hard to reconcile with the common popular level atheist claims that the case for theism is so obviously ridiculous that no sane, thinking person would believe in it. It also tends to call into question the claim that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any merit at all for the existence of God.

Equally interesting is who did not make the list. Noticeably absent are the popularly cited "authorities in the field," Sam Harris, John Loftus, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens. Also absent is Daniel Dennett who, despite being a very good philosopher of mind, is not a philosopher of religion.

Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part II

In my last post, Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part I, I sketched Tooley's distinction between a deontological and an axiological argument from evil and argued that Tooley rejects the axiological version because it rests on controversial ethical claims that are likely to be rejected by many theists. I outlined Tooley's deontological version and explored the moral assumptions it is based on and Plantinga's criticism of these.

"God can do wrong only if he commands himself to do something and then proceeds to disobey his own command."In this post, I will argue that Plantinga's criticisms can be reformulated by appealing to a divine command theory of ethics and when they are, it can be shown that Tooley's argument relies on controversial moral assumptions that many theists do, in fact, reject. Finally I will look at two objections to this line of argument; the claim that, even on a divine command theory, God has obligations and Tooley's critique of the divine command theory. I will argue both objections fail.

To save you having to click back repeatedly to the previous post, I will first re-cite step one of Tooley’s argument,

(12) The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.
(13) The Lisbon earthquake killed approximately 60,000 ordinary people.

Therefore, from (12) and (13):

(14) Any action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake has a very serious wrongmaking property.

Tooley then adds as an additional premise,

(15) No rightmaking properties that we know of are such that we are justified in believing both that an action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake would have had those rightmaking properties, and that those properties are sufficiently serious to counterbalance the relevant wrongmaking property.[1]

III. Modifying Plantinga's Response : The Divine Command Theory
In a more recent paper, Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience, Plantinga makes a comment that suggests he could formulate his objection so that “permitted by God” was taken in the second sense mentioned above. Plantinga writes,

Theists typically think ethical properties are intimately related to what God approves or values or commands. Thus they will often think of moral obligation as a matter of what God commands. What is obligatory are those actions God commands or wills; what is wrong are those actions God prohibits; what is permissible are those actions God does not prohibit.[2]

Plantinga here refers to what has been called the divine command theory of ethics[3]; the position that, “an action or kind of action is right or wrong if and only if and because it is commanded or forbidden by God.”[4] According to a divine command theory of ethics, being permitted by God is a right-making property; actions are right, if and only if, and because, they are permitted by God. I am inclined to think that any theist who accepts a divine command theory of ethics will deny (15) whether or not they “offer a theodicy.” They will also have reasons for denying (12).

This is because, if the divine command theory of ethics is true then (12) is false. Tooley affirms that, “the property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.” According to a divine command theory of ethics this is false; there is only one ultimate wrong-making property, that of being contrary to God’s commands. Given that the property of “choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000” is not the same property as “being permitted by God,” it follows that the former property is not a right-making property of actions and, as such, (12) is false.

Even if one puts this point to one side, if a divine command theory of ethics is true, there is a further problem with (12); it is ambiguous compare:

[12 a] The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the deaths of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a serious wrongmaking property of actions performed by human beings (or rational creatures relevantly like human beings).

and

[12b] The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the deaths of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a serious wrongmaking property of actions performed by (including God).

For Tooley's argument to be successful he must mean for (12) to be taken as [12b]. Tooley is arguing for the conclusion that if God exists then he has performed actions that it would be wrong for God to perform; which, given that God is good, is an impossible state of affairs.

However, what is an “uncontroversial moral claim” that “does not seem very problematic” is [12a]. If a divine command theory of ethics is true then [12b] is false. This is because one implication of a divine command theory of ethics is that God does not have obligations and hence, strictly speaking, nothing he does can be right or wrong.[5] Craig notes “nor, plausibly, is God bound by moral duties since he does not issue commands to himself.”[6] Similarly Alston, in an article defending the claim that God has no obligations, states “we can hardly suppose that God is obliged to love his creatures because he commands himself to do so.”[7]

Craig and Alston's arguments seem sound. If the divine command theory of ethics is true then a person p is required to do an action a, if and only if, God commands p to do a. It follows then, that God is required to do a, if and only if, God issues commands to himself. Moreover, if divine command theory of ethics is true then a person engages in wrongdoing, if and only if, they disobey a command that God issues to them. Hence, if divine command theory of ethics is true then God can do wrong only if he commands himself to do something and then proceeds to disobey his own command.

Neither of these conditions seems very likely. It seems unlikely that God issues commands to himself. Why would he need to? If he wanted to do something wouldn't he just do it? Moreover, it seems absurd to suggest that even if God issues commands to himself that he would then disobey them. That would suggest that God displays some form of weakness of the will and it is not clear that weakness of the will is compatible with a supremely excellent being such as God.[8]

The divine command theorist will take a similar stance towards (15). If a divine command theory of ethics is true then the property of “being permitted by God” is a right-making property. If God permits an action, in the sense of refraining from prohibiting it, then that makes the action morally permissible. Consider then, “[God's] action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake.” For the reasons spelt out above, God did not forbid himself from doing this; hence, this action has a right-making property that a theist, who embraces divine command theory of ethics, knows about.

Similarly, this right-making property outweighs any wrong-making property that the action has. As I mentioned previously, according to a divine command theory of ethics, there is only one ultimate wrong-making property, the property of being contrary to God’s commands. Given that God did not command himself to stop the Lisbon earth quake, the action of allowing the Lisbon earthquake to occur does not have any wrong-making properties and so there can be none that outweigh it.

Consequently, if a divine command theory of ethics is true then both (12) and (15) are false. It is not just theists who offer a theodicy then who would reject (15).

The Significance of this Conclusion
I think this conclusion is significant for two reasons. First, a significant number of contemporary theists embrace and defend the divine command theory of ethics. Those who have defended it include, Robert Adams,[9] John Hare,[10] William Alston,[11] William Lane Craig,[12] Stephen C Evans,[13] Philip Quinn,[14] Edward Wierenga,[15] Janine Marie Idziak,[16] William Wanwright,[17] William Mann,[18] Thomas Carson[19] and more recently Alvin Plantinga.[20] These people are not obscure, marginal representatives of theism; these names include some of the leading defenders of theism in the literature today. Tooley's argument then contains a premise that would be, and in fact is, rejected by many leading theists.

Second, this fact introduces a significant incoherence into Tooley's discussion of the argument from evil. In “Does God Exist?” Tooley rejects an axiological argument from evil on the grounds that it rests on a moral claim that was “within ethical theory deeply controversial, and likely to be rejected by many theists and others.” Tooley's own argument, however, presupposes the denial of a divine command theory of ethics. This is a controversial moral claim and one that is rejected by many theists. His own deontological argument then seems to be no better than the axiological version he rejects.

Finally, it seems in light of these conclusions that Tooley's deontological argument from evil is incomplete. It is not enough for Tooley to simply ask “what rightmaking properties can one point to that one has good reason to believe would be present in the case of an action allowing the Lisbon earthquake and that would be sufficiently serious to counterbalance the property of allowing more than 50,000 to be killed?”[21] The theist can point to such a property. Tooley needs to supplement his argument with a refutation of the divine command theory; specifically, he needs to argue that even if theism is true then this theory is implausible and problematic. Until the divine command theory can be shown to be a rationally untenable option for theists, theists can avoid Tooley's deontological argument from evil.

IV Objections
In this last section I want to anticipate and criticise two lines of argument that Tooley or a defender of Tooley, might make against the above line of critique.

Tooley's Critique of Divine Command Theory
In III I suggested that Tooley's argument was incomplete until he provides the theist with some reason why a divine command theory of ethics cannot be accepted then the theist can reject two crucial premises of his argument. (A defender of Tooley could object here that he has argued for this conclusion. In a debate with William Lane Craig at the University of Colorado Tooley addressed the divine command theory and offered a Euthyphro style argument against it. I agree that a complete defence of my position requires a response to this argument, regular readers, however, will note that I have addressed this argument previously in Tooley, The Euthyphro Objection and Divine Commands.)

Divine Commands and Divine Obligations
My argument in III depended on the claim, made by Craig and Alston, that if a divine command theory is true then God does not have duties. Linda Zagzebski has called this claim into question. In “More Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists,” Zagzebski proposes an account of divine obligations which is compatible with a divine command theory. Zagzebski starts by offering an account of the meaning of obligation, “What we mean by ‘obligation,’ is essentially this: there is no other option compatible with moral goodness.”[22] From this definition she argues that “the metaphysical source of divine obligation” and “the metaphysical source of human obligation are distinct.”[23]

The metaphysical source of the property of an act of a human being which makes it the case that there is no alternative act compatible with goodness is that it is commanded by God. The metaphysical source of the property of an act of God that makes it the case that there is no alternative act compatible with goodness is that that any alternative is incompatible with Gods nature.[24]

Hence, she concludes that it is “metaphysically necessary that an act X is an obligation for a human if and only if X is commanded by God” and “it is metaphysically necessary that an act X is an obligation for God if and only if X is compatible with Gods nature.”[25]

While I am not convinced by Zagzebski's account of divine obligations, even if one grants them for the sake of argument it is clear that it cannot be used to defend Tooley's deontological argument from evil. Consider,

(15) No rightmaking properties that we know of are such that we are justified in believing both that an action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake would have had those rightmaking properties, and that those properties are sufficiently serious to counterbalance the relevant wrongmaking property.[26]

If Zagzebski's account of divine obligation is correct then (15) is false. Plantinga's original unreformulated response is rehabilitated. As Plantinga pointed out “God exists and is a perfectly good being. If this is true, then any action that God has in fact performed has the property of being performed by a perfectly good being.”[27] Moreover, “theists believe that God performed the action of permitting the Lisbon earthquake. They therefore believe that the action of performing the Lisbon earthquake has the property of being performed by God, who is a perfectly good person.”[28] But if the Lisbon earthquake was performed by a perfectly good person, performing it must be compatible with the divine nature and hence it has the very right-making property that Zagzebski identifies in her account of divine obligation.

The same is true for (12). Tooley contends,

(12) The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.

On Zagzebski's account (12) is false. There are only two right-making properties that exist. The property of being compatible with God's nature, which is what makes God's actions right, and the property of being permitted by God, which is what makes human actions right. Now the property of “choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the deaths of more than 50,000 people” is neither of these properties and hence, is not a right-making property.

[1] Michael Tooley “Does God Exist?” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) 119; I am following Tooley's enumeration.
[2] Alvin Plantinga “Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience” 31 available at http://www.ammonius.org/grant_topics.php#0708 accessed 4 April 2009.
[3] The position is perhaps more correctly known as ethical voluntarism as some proponents of it emphasise the divine will as opposed to divine commands. However, because of the widespread use of the term 'divine command theory' in the literature I will stick with the term.
[4] W K Frankena Ethics 2nd ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973) 28.
[5] It should also be noted that the claim that God does not have obligations has been defended on grounds other than a divine command theory. See, for example, William Alston, “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed. Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). Hence, even if one dismisses a divine command theory of ethics it still follows that [12a] is not the obviously uncontroversial statement Tooley thinks it is.
[6] William Lane Craig Philosphical Foundations of a Christian World View (Downers Grover Il: Intervarsity Press, 2003) 529.
[7] William Alston “Response to Zagzebski” Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston eds Heather D Battaly, Michael P Lynch, William P Alston, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) 204.
[8] It is worth noting the definition of God that Tooley works with in formulating his argument. For the purposes of his argument, Tooley is defining God as “an appropriate object of worship” as well as an appropriate object of other human concerns such as the desire that good will triumph over evil, and that justice will be done” etc.
[9] Robert Adams “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979); Finite and Infinite Goods (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
[10] John Hare God's Call: Moral Realism, God's Commands and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001); God and Morality: A Philosophical History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).
[11] William Alston “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990).
[12] William Lane Craig “This most Gruesome of Guests” in Is Goodness Without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism and Ethics eds Robert K Garcia and Nathan L King (Lanthan: Rowan and Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009) 172; also Philosphical Foundations of a Christian World View (Downers Grover Il: Intervarsity Press, 2003) 529-532.
[13] C Stephen Evans Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[14] Philip L Quinn Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); “An Argument for Divine Command Theory” in Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy ed Michael Beaty (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) 289-302; “The Recent Revival of Divine Command Ethics” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Fall 1990) 345-365; “The Primacy of God's Will in Christian Ethics” Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992) 493-513; “Divine Command Theory” in Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory ed Hugh Lafollette (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 2000) 53-73; “Theological Voluntarism” The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 63-90.
[15] Edward Weirenga The Nature of God: An Inquiry into the Divine Attributes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989) 215-27. See also, “Utilitarianism and the Divine Command Theory” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984) 311-318; and “A Defensible Divine Command Theory” Nous 17 (1983) 387-408.
[16] Janine Marie Idziak “Divine Commands Are the Foundation of Morality” Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion (Malden, MA:Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004) 290-298.
[17] William Wrainwright Religion and Morality (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2005).
[18] William Mann “Theism and the Foundations of Ethics” in The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Religion ed William Mann (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005).
[19] Thomas Carson Value and the Good Life (Notre Dame IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2000).
[20] Alvin Plantinga “Naturalism, Theism, Obligation and Supervenience”available at

http://www.ammonius.org/grant_topics.php#0708 accessed 4 April 2009.
[21] Michael Tooley “Does God Exist?” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008), 122
[22] Linda Zagzebski “More Suggestions for Divine Command Theories” in Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston eds Heather D Battaly, Michael P Lynch, William P Alston, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005) 189.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Tooley “Does God Exist?” 119.
[27] Alvin Plantinga "Reply to Tooley's Opening Statement" in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008), 170
[28] Ibid.

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part I

This article criticises the deontological argument from evil proposed by Micheal Tooley in The Knowledge of God, the print debate between him and Alvin Plantinga.1 My critique proceeds in four parts. In I I will sketch Tooley's distinction between a deontological and an axiological argument from evil and will argue that Tooley rejects the axiological version because it rests on “controversial ethical claims;”2 claims that are “likely to be rejected by many theists.”3 In II I will outline Tooley's deontological version and focus on the moral assumptions upon which it is based and Plantinga's criticism of these. This will conclude Part I of the series.

In my next post I will argue III, that Plantinga's criticisms can be reformulated by appealing to a divine command theory of ethics and when they are it can be shown that Tooley's argument relies on controversial moral assumptions that many theists do, in fact, reject. Finally IV will look at two objections to this line of argument; the claim that, even on a divine command theory, God has obligations and Tooley's critique of the divine command theory. I will argue both objections fail.

I. Deontological and Axiological Arguments from Evil
Tooley distinguishes axiological versions of the argument from evil from deontological versions. The former, "are formulated in terms of axiological concepts—specifically, in terms of the goodness or badness, the desirability or undesirability of states of affairs."4 [Emphasis original] The latter, "uses concepts that focus upon the rightness and wrongness of actions, and upon the--rightmaking or wrongmaking--properties that determine whether an action is one that ought to be performed."5

Tooley suggests that axiological versions are problematic. He takes as a paradigm the version proposed by William Rowe. Central to Rowe's argument is the following conceptual claim about a perfectly good being.

(2) Any omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect person would prevent the existence of any state of affairs that is both (a) intrinsically bad, or undesirable, and (b) such that he could prevent its existence without either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good.6

Rowe applies (2) to concrete evils in the world. He identifies various concrete evil states of affairs and contends that these concrete cases meet the criteria (a) and (b) specified in (2).

There are well rehearsed problems with Rowe's attempt to do this.7 While Rowe can maintain that there are cases where we do not know of any greater good lost or greater evil prevented by the allowance of these evils, this is insufficient to show that the cases meet the specified criteria. His argument requires that we know that there are no greater goods lost or evils prevented known to an omniscient being. Tooley notes that the step from “we don't know” to the claim that an “omniscient being does not know” is difficult to bridge and Rowe's attempts to do so have been unsucessful.8

Tooley's most important objection is to contest (2) itself. Tooley notes that (2) appears to rely on a,

common consquentialist claim ... namely, the claim that an action is morally wrong if it fails to maximise the balance of good states of affairs over bad states of affairs. But the difficulty then is that "such a claim is, within ethical theory, deeply controversial, and likely to be rejected by many theists, and others.9

In response, Tooley develops and defends an argument from evil which does not rely on “controversial ethical claims,”10 one that focuses “upon the rightness and wrongness of actions.”

II. Tooley's Deontological Argument
Tooley summarises his argument succinctly,

The basic idea involved in a deontological formulation of the argument from evil is then as follows. First, it is claimed that the world contains certain states of affairs such that any action of allowing any of those states of affairs to obtain would involve one or more known wrongmaking characteristics that would outweigh the sum total of known rightmaking characteristics that the action would have. If this is right, then any such action is prima facie wrong, relative to the total information that one presently has concerning the action's rightmaking and wrongmaking characteristics. Secondly, the crucial question is then whether there is any sound inductive argument that will take one from the conclusion that such an action is prima facie wrong to the further conclusion that the action is probably wrong all things considered. If there is, one will then have an 'inductively sound' version of the evidential argument from evil.11 [Emphasis original]

As Tooley notes the argument has two crucial steps. The first is the claim that an argument that allows a certain states of affairs to occur is prima facie wrong. The second is an inductive argument from the conclusion that such an action is prima facie wrong to the claim that it is ultra facie wrong; that is, wrong all things considered.

It is clear that Tooley considers the second step to be the ‘crucial question’ and he spends most of his article defending the inductive inference he draws. Tooley appears to think that the first step is fairly straight-forward and uncontroversial. His defence of it consists of a few paragraphs.

1. Tooley’s Argument for Step One
Tooley’s argument for the first step consists of three premises,

(12) The property of choosing not to prevent an event that will cause the death of more than 50,000 .ordinary people is a wrongmaking property of actions, and very serious one.
(13) The Lisbon earthquake killed approximately 60,000 ordinary people.
Therefore, from (12) and (13):
(14) Any action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake has a very serious wrongmaking property.

Tooley then adds as an additional premise,

(15) No rightmaking properties that we know of are such that we are justified in believing both that an action of choosing not to prevent the Lisbon earthquake would have had those rightmaking properties, and that those properties are sufficiently serious to counterbalance the relevant wrongmaking property.12

Tooley believes that (12)-(15) are uncontroversial “(12) makes a moral claim, but one that does not seem at all problematic while statement (13) makes a historical claim for which there is, I believe, very good evidence."13 Tooley appears to think that the only potentially controversial premise is (15) but that this would be denied only by philosophers who offer a theodicy.14 Tooley maintains that (15) is,

[V]ery reasonable, given the relevant facts about the world, together with the moral knowledge that we possess. For what rightmaking properties can one point to that one has good reason to believe would be present in the case of an action of allowing the Lisbon earthquake, and that would be sufficiently serious to counterbalance the wrongmaking property of allowing more than 50,000 to be killed.15

Tooley concludes that, in the absence of a defensible theodicy, there are compelling arguments for concluding that allowing the Lisbon earthquake to occur is prima facie wrong. This is not an insignificant conclusion. Many contemporary theists discuss the argument from evil by conceding that there are no defensible theodicies and then arguing that even in the absence of such a theodicy, belief in God is not rendered improbable by the existence of evil. If Tooley is correct, this line of argument is mistaken. The burden of proof is clearly on the theist to provide a theodicy; if he or she cannot then God’s action of permitting the Lisbon earthquake to occur is prima facie wrong. Moreover, if Tooley's inductive arguments hold, the God's actions will be ultra facie wrong.

2. Plantinga's Response
Plantinga responds to Tooley’s argument by calling into question (15).

Christians and other theists believe that God exists and is a perfectly good being. If this is true, then any action that God has in fact performed has the property of having been performed by a perfectly good being. Furthermore, Christians and other theists believe that God performed the action of permitting the Lisbon earthquake. They therefore believe that the action of permitting the Lisbon earthquake has the property of having been performed by God, who is a perfectly good person. This is a rightmaking property that clearly outweighs and counterbalances any wrongmaking properties that action has.16

In this citation, Plantinga denies that only theists who offer a theodicy would contest [15]. Plantinga suggests that theists will typically believe that there is a right making property of which they know of; the property of being permitted by God. This property overrides all others and the action of allowing the Lisbon earthquake has this property. Hence, the Theist has good reasons for rejecting [15] even if he or she cannot offer an adequate theodicy.

Tooley’s response is to deny that being permitted by God is a right making property,

Suppose that God exists, and, thus permitted the Lisbon earthquake. One can ask “What property did the action of permitting the Lisbon earthquake have that made it morally permissible for God to permit it?” The response that it had the property of having been permitted by God, who is perfectly good, is not a satisfactory answer to that question: there must be some other property that made it permissible for God to permit the Lisbon earthquake. The property of having been permitted by God, while it entails that there must have been a rightmaking property, is not itself a rightmaking property.17 [Emphasis original]

The phrase “having been permitted by God” is ambiguous. In one sense it could refer to God allowing an event to occur; if he does not stop it occurring then God permits the Lisbon earthquake. In another sense, however, it can refer to God refraining from forbidding an action. God permits drinking alcohol, for example. If God refrains from issuing a command to abstain from drinking alcohol then it is clear, I think, that Plantinga means the former and Tooley seems18 correct in suggesting that in this sense it is clear that being permitted by God is not a right making property but this leaves an important question hanging; couldn't Plantinga's critique be reformulated in terms of the “second sense” of the phrase “having been permitted by God.”

In my next post I will propose a Plantingan reformulation and address some objections.

1 Michael Tooley “Does God Exist?” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, M A: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) 70-147.
2 Tooley “Does God Exist?”105.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid, 106.
6 William Rowe “Evil and Theodicy” Philosophical Topics 16: 119-32. I am following Rowe's enumeration.
7 Stephen John Wykstra “Rowe's Noseeum Arguments from Evil;” Peter van Inwagen “The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence” and “Reflections on the Chapters by Draper, Russell, and Gale;” William P Alston “The Inductive Argument from Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition” and “Some (Temporarily) Final Thoughts on Evidential Arguments from Evil;” Daniel Howard-Snyder “The Argument from Inscrutable Evil” in The Evidential Argument from Evil ed Daniel Howard-Snyder (Bloomington, Indiana University Press: 1996). See also, Alvin Plantinga Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
8 Tooley “Does God Exist” 104.
9 Ibid, 105.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid, 116.
12 Ibid, 119; I am following Tooley's enumeration.
13 Ibid, 122.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Alvin Plantinga “Reply to Tooley's Opening Statement” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) 170-71.
17 Michael Tooley “Closing Statement and Reply to Plantinga's Comments” in The Knowledge of God eds Michael Tooley and Alvin Plantinga (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2008) 238.
18 I say seems because Linda Zagzebski's account of divine obligations would challenge this contention as I will argue in part IV.

RELATED POSTS:
Tooley, Plantinga and the Deontological Argument from Evil Part II

Sunday, 26 April 2009

Antony Flew v William Lane Craig debate "Does God Exist?"

In 1948 Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston debated the existance of God on the BBC radio. That debate was considered the definitive debate of that generation.

Fifty years later, to commemorate this debate, a debate re-examining the arguments for and against the existence of God was arranged between William Lane Craig and Antony Flew before 4,000 students at the University of Wisconsin in 1998.

Flew has since, famously, become a theist but at the time he was one of the world's leading atheists so this is a great engagement of minds. This debate is now online. Watch and enjoy.

Hat Tip: Many thanks to Josh Darville who sent us this link via Twitter.

Thursday, 16 April 2009

The Foundations of the Alexandrian Argument against Feticide Part VI

This post marks the conclusion in my series on The Alexandrian Argument. Having addressed whether Exodus 21:22-25 deals with a miscarriage or premature birth, whether the harm mentioned in verses 22 and 23 refers to the woman or the fetus and whether the punishments in the relevant clauses are qualitatively different, I will return to the original question which motivated this investigation.

Does the Septuagint Mistranslate the Hebrew?
Harrison claims that the Septuagint is a mistranslation that transforms a text that condemns killing pregnant women into a text condemning feticide. I have already disputed her reading of the MT. However, her third claim raises the question of the relationship between the two texts.

In referring to the LXX as a translation, Harrison’s comments are unobjectionable. The LXX does not render the wording of the MT accurately and introduces a distinction that is not part of the text. However, this does not mean that the LXX misinterpreted the text; translation and interpretation are not the same thing. Mark Scott writes,

It is commonly recognized that, in many passages, the Septuagint presents, in the Greek lingua franca, a gloss or commentary rather than a literal rendering of the Hebrew text, as the translators were attempting to embody -- in a widely accessible form -- then-current applications of the Scriptures.[1]

If the interpreters of the LXX were trying to render an accurate commentary and faithful application of the law as opposed to a literalistic translation, then the pertinent question is not whether they translated it accurately but whether the LXX faithfully articulated its teachings and correct applications of them. I think that it did.

There are three major differences between the LXX and the MT. First, the MT does not explicitly specify the number of men in the brawl. It opens with, “if men (plural) are fighting and they strike a pregnant woman”. However, the LXX explicitly mentions that there are “two” men fighting. Second, the LXX renders the final clause of v 22 as “according to an assessment”, whereas many English translations of the M.T. interpret this “as the judge determines”. Finally, the MT mentions harm done to the woman and the appropriate punishment. The LXX introduces the distinction between a formed/unformed conceptus.

None of these appears straightforwardly to involve an error in interpretation. The first is of little significance when one realises that

A careful examination of the relevant Hebrew biblical texts reveals that when the verb n.sh is used with the basic meaning “to contend”, or “to strive”, as opposed to “to fall into ruins”, no more than two adversaries are involved.[2]

The difference between the Hebrew for “men strive” and the Greek “two men fight” appears to be merely semantic. I addressed the second difference earlier where I noted that the LXX’s rendition of the final clause as “according to an assessment” is a correct rendition of the Hebrew. This leaves the final two, the omission of harm to the mother and the formed/unformed distinction. These are clearly the most important.

The LXX’s teaching about an assault upon a woman does not contradict the MT’s teaching on this question. While the LXX does not mention harm to the mother in this passage, causing harm to the mother falls readily under the other laws dealing with assault where an assailant is required to compensate his victim for damages suffered. Hence, its teaching on this question is essentially the same as the MT’s even if the presentation of it differs.

Nor does the teaching of the LXX regarding feticide contradict the teaching of the MT. The MT states that if a person kills a fetus he or she must pay a fine based upon an assessment. While the mode of assessment is not specified, evidence suggests that there existed a practice that based it upon the age of the fetus. The LXX does not contradict this. It states that if a person kills a fetus he or she must pay an assessment and it bases the assessment upon the age of the fetus.

The difference between the two is that the LXX specifies exactly how this assessment is to be carried out. It claims that when the conceptus is formed the payment must be a payment for homicide. The Hebrew is silent as to how the assessment is to be carried out so it does not deny that this is the correct way to carry out the assessment. Hence, the LXX is entirely compatible with the Hebrew here. As Scott notes, “This Greek interpretation of the passage reveals how the law had come to be applied over centuries of use, at least in the Alexandrian, Jewish community”.

The distinction made between a formed and unformed conceptus strengthens this conclusion. The distinction appears to be drawn from Greek natural philosophy. Kapparis notes, “Formation was a crucial concept in connection with the human identity of the unborn in Hippocratic medicine”. [3] He adds,

In the understanding of many, [Hippocratic doctors] the acquisition of human identity was not something that happened at birth but well before that, when the foetus was sufficiently formed to be considered a human being.[4]

Kapparis draws attention to numerous examples of the formed/unformed distinction in numerous, ancient, embryological writings. Galen for example noted that two contemporary studies, The Commentaries on the Demonstration and On the views of Hippocrates and Plato, defended the view “That what is in the womb is already a living being when it is formed in all its members”.[5] Similarly, the Hippocratic study On the Nature of the Child, affirms that a conceptus “becomes a child” when it attains form.[6] A similar view appears to be expressed by Socrates in Platonic dialogues.[7]

The formed/unformed distinction appears in numerous other works. Soranus mentions the distinction and suggests that abortions should be performed only when the conceptus is unformed.[8]

Interestingly, authors who mentioned the formed/unformed distinction tended to place its occurrence at roughly the same time, though they differed on the precise details. Diogenes Laertius informs us of the Pythagorean view.

This first creation [the conceptus] is formed in forty days, and then, in accordance with the law of harmony, the baby is perfected and born after seven, or nine, or maximum ten months.[9]

Empedocles similarly argued that formation started on the 39th day and was completed on the 49th.[10] Asclepiades noted the formed/unformed distinction and suggested that for males formation occurred between the 26th and 50th days and females were formed around 60 days.[11] The tract, On the Nature of the Child, states a male fetus is formed after 30 days and female fetuses were formed on the 42nd day.[12] The author of On Seven Months Child, states a male conceptus is formed at 40 days while a female is formed after this.[13]

Perhaps the most influential of Greek biologists was Aristotle. Aristotle developed the Hippocratic views with more sophistication. He argued that the soul was the life principle of the body. A conceptus began with a vegetative soul and then gradually acquired a sensitive soul. It became fully human when it achieved form, which occurred 40 days after conception for a boy or 90 for a girl.[14] Aristotle’s views were based on empirical investigations. Other biologists from the period also based their views on empirical observation either from miscarriages and abortions that had occurred in humans or on analogy with the embryological development with animals.[15]

There appeared then to be an established distinction in ancient Greek embryology between a formed and unformed fetus. The similarity between the Hippocratic/Aristotelian position and the LXX can hardly be a coincidence. It appears Alexandrian Jews utilised the biological information of their day, concluded that a formed conceptus was a human being and hence applied the law accordingly. In many ways this is unsurprising because even with Palestinian Rabbinical Judaism, Aristotelian embryology was often appealed to by Jewish scholars. Several examples bear this out.

The first comes from Nid. 3:2-7. Here the question arises about how the cleanliness laws recorded in Leviticus 12 apply to a woman who has miscarried. The law prescribes that a woman who has given birth to a child is unclean for forty days if the child born is a boy and eighty days if it is a girl. The question raised is when does miscarrying a fetus constitute giving birth to a child?
The answer given is that a miscarriage qualifies as the birth of a child if the conceptus has the form of a human being. It is stated that this happens on the forty-first day after conception. The justification provided for this ruling is precisely the kind of empirical studies that Greek biologists had appealed to.[16]

A second example occurs in Ker. 1:3-5. The law requires that after a woman has undergone her post-birth period of uncleanness she is required to make a sacrifice. The question is asked, does this apply if she miscarries a fetus? The answer is the same as in the previous case, after forty-one days the conceptus has form. At this stage, a miscarriage is considered the birth of a child.

The third example comes from Bek. 8:1. Here the issue is the application of Exodus 13:12 where it states that a woman must redeem her first-born son with an offering. The question arises as to whether a child born to a woman who had miscarried previously is considered the first-born son. The answer is yes but only if the miscarried conceptus had not been formed which occurs at forty-one days after conception.

Four things then are evident. Firstly, in translating the LXX Alexandrian scholars aimed at “a gloss or commentary rather than a literal rendering of the Hebrew text”.[17] They were “attempting to embody -- in a widely accessible form -- then-current applications of the Scriptures”.[18] Secondly, it was common practice even in Rabbinical Judaism to utilise Greek natural philosophy in applying the Torah to various issues. Thirdly, the dominant, Greek, natural philosophy placed an important stress upon form in determining the human status of a conceptus. Fourthly, the LXX appears to utilise this distinction in applying the Torah to the question of feticide.

The best explanation appears to be that Alexandrian Jews utilised Greek embryology in an effort to apply the Torah to the question of feticide. The law told them that if a person killed a fetus they had to be punished based on an assessment of the maturity of the fetus. The science of the day taught them that a conceptus was human when it attained human form around 40 days post-conception. Hence, they concluded that if a person killed a formed conceptus this was homicide

Consequently, the LXX is perhaps best seen as simply complementing the MT and offering an interpretation as to how to apply the law that it prescribes.[19] The scribes behind the LXX did not so much attempt accurate translation of the text but rather faithful interpretation of it to explain its requirements to others. The Hebrew text taught that if a man killed a fetus one was to base the punishment upon an assessment based upon its level of development. This is precisely what the Alexandrian Jews did. Utilising the empirical information of the day they made such an assessment and concluded that early in the pregnancy it constituted homicide. In order to determine if their conclusion were mistaken or correct, the time of hominisation must be assessed. It is not determined by examining the text. The text simply demands that the assessment be made. The question is whether it was made correctly. Are there good grounds for holding that a formed conceptus is a human being? If there are then the LXX does propose a faithful application of the law.

[1] Mark Scott, “Quickening in the Common Law: The Legal Precedent Roe Attempted and Failed to Use,” Michigan Law and Policy Review 1 (1996) 204.
[2] Nina Collins, “Notes on the Text of Exodus 21:22,” Vetus Testamentum 63: 3 (1993): 299.
[3] Konstantinos Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co, 2002), 44.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Galen cited in Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, 46.
[6] Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, 46.
[7] Ibid., 87.
[8] Soranus I, cited in Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, 43.
[9] Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, 39.
[10] Ibid., 45.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., 17-18.
[15] Galen sums the method up, “[t]his is apparent in abortions and in the dissection of pregnant animals” Galen cited in Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, 44. Similarly, the author of On the Nature of the Child, cited in Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World, 45 wrote, “many women aborted a boy shortly before the 30th day and it looked unformed, but those who aborted on the 30th day or afterwards, looked formed. On a girl, after the abortion, the formation of members is accordingly visible after the 42nd day”.
[16] Nid. 30b.
[17] Scott, “Quickening in the Common Law,” 205.
[18] Ibid.
[19] It is worth noting that this conclusion about the LXX being compatible with the MT would follow even if one accepts the variant reading that pllm means “as the judges determine”. On this reading it is still the case that there is a monetary fine based on some objective assessment; one made by the courts. The LXX simply specifies how the assessment is to be made. Moreover, even if, contrary to what has been argued above, one holds to the view that the law does prescribe a harsher penalty for killing the woman than it does for the miscarriage it does not follow that the law considers a fetus to be less than a human.
I noted in previously, that there is an important evidentiary difference between the two cases. In the case of the woman, an ancient Israelite judge could tell that the blow caused the death. In the case of a miscarriage, he could not. Hence, there would be a basis for a difference in punishment even if the fetus and woman were both considered human.

RELATED POSTS:
The Foundations of the Alexandrian Argument against Feticide Part I
The Foundations of the Alexandrian Argument against Feticide Part II
The Foundations of the Alexandrian Argument against Feticide Part III
The Foundations of the Alexandrian Argument against Feticide Part IV
The Foundations of the Alexandrian Argument against Feticide Part V

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