Rust Belt Philosophy

One of the challenges of doing philosophy is interpreting arguments. Though this has its clearest expression in cases of historical works, translated as they are from dead languages and dialects, it's really equally pressing in modern cases. So as to standardize and formalize a line of thought and thereby avoid these problems, philosophers have begun to lay out their arguments either in linguistic or logical syllogisms. This often makes those arguments easier to evaluate fairly, but it also has its disadvantages.

Take as an example AP Taylor's argument for universalism, which is apparently the idea that everybody goes to heaven. Taylor puts it this way:

"1. If Libertarianism about the will is true then none of our decisions is causally determined by any previous physical or mental event(s) (or state(s)).
2. If none of our decisions is causally determined by any previous physical or mental event(s) (or state(s)) then there is always a possibility that even the most recalcitrant rejecter, R, of divine reconciliation may, at some time in the future, tF, freely choose to be reconciled to God.
3. Therefore if God sustains R in existence until tF, then R will be freely reconciled to God.
4. Furthermore, It is no cost to an omnipotent God to sustain R in existence until tF.
5. So then, God if God desires that everyone is freely reconciled to him, then he will sustain everyone in existence until they freely choose to be reconciled to him.
6. God does desire that everyone is freely reconciled to him.
7. Thus everyone is freely reconciled to God. (i.e, Universalism is true)."

Notice how neat and clean the syllogistic form makes things: it's very easy to simply read down the page (or screen, I guess) and see the connections between the ideas. In fact, it's so easy to do this that one might miss how strange the actual content of this argument is. Premise 2 in particular is just bizarre. I think, though he doesn't offer an explanation, that his reasoning went something like this: if we are free to decide among the choices presented to us, we can decide to reconcile with God.* But there's little to no reason to believe that this is a choice presented to the general "us": comatose people, lunatics, and people who've never even heard of Taylor's God are just some groups that we would expect not to have this choice at all.

Though putting this argument in syllogistic form helped make it clear in one way, it also hid the ad-hoc nature of its premises. Luckily for Taylor, the subject matter allows for an easy fix: if he just stipulates, as I'm sure he would, that God magically makes reconciliation available to everyone, then the problem goes away (though it is replaced by another, more fundamental problem). In other contexts, this kind of issue is much harder to resolve. Here I turn to an argument by Michael Huemer, again concerning free will. According to Huemer:

"1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods. (premise)
2. Whatever should be done can be done. (premise)
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done. (premise)
4. I believe MFT [i.e., "at least some of the time, someone has more than one course of action that he can perform"]. (premise)
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)"

Whereas the legitimate structural fortitude of Taylor's syllogism belied the weakness of its content, Huemer's argument suffers in mere intelligibility when laid out in this way. His 1, for instance, seems very different than the way he describes it in prose: "What we may not do, consistent with rational discourse," he says initially, "is to accept mistakes or biases as such." This is quite obviously not the same thing as saying that we may not accept mistakes or biases at all. Similarly, Huemer defines "we" as "I" at various points in his article, "A should happen" turns to "[someone] in some manner recommend[s] in favor of A," and "'can' is used in the sense (whatever that is) that is relevant to free will." With all of the shifting that takes place in this argument, it's not even clear enough to evaluate - any one of these definitions can make or break multiple premises, so stacking them up on atop another like Huemer does turns his argument into one big question mark.

As useful as syllogisms can be, then, sometimes they're only good for masking an argument's weak points. Every argument is in some sense a rube goldberg device, and syllogisms help to identify the various pieces of rhetorical gadgetry in a given argument and the way that they go together. What they can't ensure - and what Taylor and Huemer badly need to demonstrate - is that even one of those pieces works the way the inventor says it does.

*This is the most sane version I can come up with. If this isn't it, I can't imagine this argument being even remotely plausible.

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Labels: ad hoc, ethics, free will, incoherency, religion