Philosophy Exam 2

Determinism

everything that’s happening now and that will happen in the future was already guaranteed to happen by that things that happened in the distant past

Physical Necessitation

the state of the universe physically necessitates some other state, all present and future states of the universe are physically necessitated by states of the universe in the distant past

The Argument from Determinism

1.) Determinism is true

2.) If determinism is true, then you are never able to do otherwise

3.) If you are never able to do otherwise, then none of your actions are free

4.) So, none of your actions are free

The Doomed Regardless Argument

→ It objects to the claim that indeterminism (randomness) can save free will.

1.) If an action is determined to happen, then you couldn’t have done otherwise.

2.) If you couldn’t have done otherwise, then the action is not free

3.) So, if an action is determined to happen, then it is not free

4.) If an action happens randomly, then it is not free

5.) Every action you perform is either determined to happen or happens randomly

6.) So, none of your actions are free

Compatibilism

possible for determinism to be true and have free will

The Argument from Determined Decision

→ response to compatibilism

1.) Determinism is true

2.) If determinism is true, then you are never able to decide to do otherwise

3.) If you are never able to decide to otherwise, then none of your actions are free.

4.) So, none of your actions are free

omni-being

all powerful, all knowing, all good

The Argument From Suffering

1.) There is suffering in the world

2.) If there is suffering in the world, then God does not exist

3.) So, God does not exist

The Argument from Pointless Suffering

1.) There is pointless suffering in the world

2.) If there is pointless suffering in the world, then there is no omni-being

3.) So, there is no omni-being

Appreciated Goods

 → Objection to Argument from Pointless Suffering

• God allows suffering to enable us to appreciated the good things

• constant state of contentedness would strike us as normal

Rebuttal - God could arrange our pleasure to keep increasing at every moment, look back and feel more appreciative that they are better off now, even if some suffering helps us appreciate good things, there is far more suffering than needed, so much of it still appears pointless

Character Building

 → Objection to Argument from Pointless Suffering

• Certain valuable character traits can develop only in the face of adversity, failure, temptation 

• Building character requires a potential for suffering

• War → courage and selflessness

• Betrayal → profound acts of forgiveness

Rebuttal - War could lead to debilitating PTSD or kill soldiers before they could build character, unable to explain the purpose of suffering in such cases 

Free Will

 → Objection to Argument from Pointless Suffering

• A world in which people have the ability to do things of their own free will has to be a world in which suffering is permitted

• No one can freely make good choices unless God steps back and permits people to sometimes make bad choices

Rebuttal - Free Will Defense only accounts for suffering caused by other humans, doesn’t explain how an omni-being could allow suffering caused by disease or scarcity or natural disasters or animals, t's not clear it can account for all the human caused suffering in the world, God could occasionally intervene to prevent a terrorist attack or genocide,

Hidden Reasons

 → Objection to Argument from Pointless Suffering

There isn’t pointless suffering, what seems like pointless suffering in fact has a purpose; we can’t know what that purpose is because it is beyond our understanding, but everything is a part of God’s plan even if we don’t understand why or how it is

Rebuttal- It’s possible there is some hidden-reason, but this seems unlikely. It is hard to see what good can come of some of the horrible sufferings people have endured; if a ruler allows terrible suffering, we assume they are unable, unaware, or immoral—not that the suffering is part of a greater plan.

The Argument for Betting on God

1.) One should always choose the option with the greatest expected utility 

2.) Believing in God has a greater expected utility than not believing in God

3.) So you should believe in God

Objection to Premise 2 Betting on God (Many Gods)

• There are many gods to choose from

• Believing in some god or other continues to have greater expected utility than not believing at all

• Involuntary belief, you don’t get to decide what to believe in the way that you get to decide when to imagine or what to say

The Argument for Trying to Believe

1) One should always choose the option with the greatest expected utility 

2) Making an effort to believe in God has greater expected utility than not making effort to believe in God 

3) So, one should make an effort to believe in God.

Objection to Betting on God Premise 1 (One should always choose the option with the greatest expected utility) 

you can’t choose what you believe

Descartes Mediation 1

to find what, if anything, he can know with certainty he will try to doubt everything he has known 

The Dream Argument

1. I can not know with absolute certainty that I am not asleep and that everything I sense is just part of my dream. 

2. If (1), then I can not know with absolute certainty that any of my beliefs based on my senses are true. 

3. So, I can not know with absolute certainty that any of my beliefs based on my senses are true

Objection - some beliefs would remain justified even when dreaming (math and geometry)

The Evil Demon Hypothesis

• imagine a powerful deceiver who puts ideas in my mind

• not something Descartes believes, but a device to see what more he can doubt

Know for Certainty with Evil Demon Hypothesis

• I think therefore I am, (mental faculties - thinking + doubting), how things seem

Meditation 2 Cogito Ergo Sum

I think, therefore I am

Even if a demon deceives me, there must be a “me” to be deceived

Argument from the Idea of God

1. I have an idea of an infinite, perfect being (“God”)

2. Only an infinite, perfect being could be the source of the idea of an infinite, perfect being 

3. Therefore, an infinite, perfect being exists (“God”)

Argument from My Existence

1. I exist now as a thinking thing

2. My existence must have been caused by something (and it must have a sustaining cause as well)

3. I am not the cause of my own existence

4. No merely finite imperfect cause adequate explains my existence as a thinking thing

5. So, an infinite perfect cause (God) explains my existence as a thinking thing

Because God is perfect and not a deceiver, Descartes argues that our clear and distinct ideas must be true, which allows us to trust our knowledge about the external world.

Inductive Extrapolation

Reasoning from observed cases to unobserved cases, “It's been like this before, so it will be like this again”

Inductive generalization

 reasoning from observed cases to a general rule governing those cases, “I’ve seen some cases so this is true of all cases”

The Uniformity Principe

• The future will resemble the past (in the relevant ways)

• Unobserved cases will resemble observed cases (in the relevant ways)

• Nature behaves consistently over time 

• Justified by reason or experience

A priori

Justified by reason alone

• UP can’t be justified by this because we can imagine the future being different from the past without contradiction, so it cannot be proven by reason alone.

A posteriori

justified, at least in part, by experience

• fails because it relies on past experience to prove that past experience is reliable for predicting the future, which is circular (using inductive extrapolation to prove it)

Response 1 to the Problem of Induction - Nature’s Uniformity as a Precondition to our Existence

• some principles are required for experience at all

•  the world must be somewhat regular and law-governed for us to have meaningful experiences at all

Response 2 to the Problem of Induction - Best Explanation

• We trust that the future will be like the past because the best explanation for patterns in nature is that there are real underlying laws causing them.

• ex - eraser falls everytime when dropped because of gravity

Response 3 to the Problem of Induction - Is circulatory vicious?

Premise-circularity = assumes conclusion (bad)

Rule-circularity = uses rule to justify itself (possibly unavoidable).

Response 4 to the Problem of Induction - Don’t justify induction go case by case

Instead of trying to justify induction as a whole, we should evaluate individual inductions as better or worse.

Ex- Good induction: “Every time I’ve heated water to 100°C, it boils → it will boil again”

Bad induction:“I wore lucky socks once and won → I’ll always win with them”