Michael Lacewing enquiriesalevelphilosophycouk c Michael Lacewing Life Isnt life amazing Organs serve a purpose heart pump blood eye seeing We understand parts of an organ in relation to serving this purpose ID: 791891
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Slide1
Hume on the design argument
Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide2Life
Isn’t life amazing?Organs serve a purpose – heart – pump blood, eye – seeingWe understand parts of an organ in relation to serving this purpose
A living organism requires huge coordination of tiny parts each functioning well
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide3Design
The universe didn’t have to be like this – there could have been no order, no regularityOrder of this kind, the way parts work together for a purpose, can indicate designIf life involves design, by definition, there must be a designer
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide4Hume’s version
‘The
intricate fitting of means to ends throughout all nature is just like (though more wonderful than) the fitting of means to ends in things that have been produced by us—products of human designs, thought, wisdom, and
intelligence…
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide5Hume’s version
…Since the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of analogy that the causes are also alike, and that the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though he has much larger faculties to go with the grandeur of the work he has carried out
.’
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide6Hume’s argument from analogy
In the organization of parts for a purpose (the fitting of means to ends), nature resembles the products of human design.Similar effects have similar causes.The cause of the products of human design is an intelligent mind that intended the design.
Therefore, the cause of nature is an intelligent mind that intended the design.
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide7Hume’s objections
The analogy between man-made, designed objects and the universe is weak
.
There is a ‘great disproportion’ between
parts of the universe and the whole universe
So we cannot infer that the cause of nature is similar to a human mind.
Thought is a ‘tiny, weak, limited cause’ which moves the bodies of animals – why use it as a model for the whole universe?
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide8Hume’s objections to the analogy
The arrangement of parts for a purpose does not, on its own, show that the cause is a designer
We can only make this inference where we have further experience of a designer bringing about such order
We can’t make inferences about causes of single instances, such as the universe
We can only establish what causes what through repeated experience of cause and effect
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide9Is the designer the best explanation?
A designer may not be the best explanationE.g. Suppose matter is finite and time is infinite. Then all arrangements of matter will occur, by chance, over timeNeither this explanation nor a designer is clearly better, so we should suspend
judgment
(c) Michael Lacewing
Slide10Arguing from a unique case
Causation: whenever you have the cause, you get the effect‘Constant conjunction’So you can’t know from a single
instance, what causes what.
Repeated
experience is necessary to infer a causal relation.
The universe is unique. So we cannot infer its cause.We can only infer a designer in cases in which we have repeated experience of something being brought about by a designer
The arrangement of parts for a purpose
on its own
isn’t sufficient
(c) Michael Lacewing