teleological criticisms

7/29/2019 Teleological Criticisms

1/4

A Level Philosophy and Ethics

Notes

Criticisms ofThe Teleological Argument

The Teleological Argument (Argument from Design)1. David Hume (1711 - 1776)

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume noted theArgument by Design. He argued:-

The possibility that the Universe was designed does not necessarilymean that Goddesigned it. The world is imperfect and finite. It is

full of suffering and misery (remember he was writing in theEighteenth Century!). It hardly suggests a good, all-perfect God!

There is no evidence that the universe needs a designer - it maycome into existence naturally.

The Universe may have a predisposition to order. It may be in itsnature to be the way it is, just as a vegetable develops naturally (as

opposed to some machine that needs a builder).

We have no evidence to suggest that the Universe is not just theresult of pure chance.

Patrick Clarke points out that Hume's attempt to force us to considerthe universe from within, and locate its cause within itself (see

Cosmological Argument notes), may simply refocus attention on theultimate cause of the universe.

Hume sets out two versions of the Design argument.

His First Argument goes as follows: Seeing evidence for design in the world suggests an intelligent

designer. Suggesting that the design in the world is great suggests a

great designer. There is great design in the world. There must therefore be a great designer.This would seem reasonable think of any great design, and it seemsreasonable to argue for a designer!

In a recent TV Poll,Isambard Kingdom Brunelwas voted oneof the greatest Britons ever. He is responsible for some of thegreatest feats of engineering in the UK. To look at his Clifton

Suspension Bridge, or the Great Western Railway, or the Tamar

Bridge, is to see evidence of genius.

The cause of great design is a great designer. Hume sees this as a

perfectly reasonable conclusion, but he goes on to note that it wouldmean an anthropomorphic view of God we are back with the God

the Builder view of God!

In a word, Cleanthes, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps toassert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something

like design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single

circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by theutmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows, is


2/4

Criticisms of The Teleological Argument

2

very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was onlythe first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it,

ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of some dependent,inferior deity; and is the object of derision to his superiors: it is the

production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and eversince his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and activeforce which it received from him. You justly give signs of horror, Demea, at

these strange suppositions; but these, and a thousand more of the samekind, are Cleanthes's suppositions, not mine. From the moment the

attributes of the Deity are supposed finite, all these have place. And Icannot, for my part, think that so wild and unsettled a system of theology is,in any respect, preferable to none at all.

Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, pt 5http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm

The imperfection of the world, with its earthquakes and volcanoes,diseases and famine, suggests an inadequate or vindictive God. If one

of Brunels bridges collapsed, we would argue that he was a flaweddesigner.

It would also seem reasonable to argue that if the world shows

evidence of design, it shows evidence of not one but an entire army ofDesigner Gods!

Hume concludes:Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated

and organized, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety andfecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the onlybeings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How

insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odiousto the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature,impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap,without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children!

Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, pt 5http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm

Humes Second Argument argues that the world came about through

chance. The World is ordered It could be ordered and organised because someone meant it to be,

or it could be pure chance. It is equally possible that either option is true.Science notes that random events can occur, but that order tends toimpose itself eventually. Hume argues for an early form of the theory

ofNatural Selection. Hume notes that animals can adapt to respondto their surroundings the variety of life on earth may be a result ofthese adaptations, rather than of intelligent design.


3/4


3

Hume argues that the perception of design and regularity in the worldsimply argues for the existence of design and purpose in the universe. It

does not argue for an intelligent designer God to be in charge of the

Universe.

2. John Stuart Mill(1806-1873)Mill is best known for his development ofUtilitarianism. In one of hisThree Essays on Religion, Mill laid out his objections to the idea that

there is an intelligent designing power behind a perceived order in theUniverse.

Consider:

This is a scene from Wildlife on One (a BBC Wildlife Programme)

A Warthog gives birth to a litter of piglets. She protects them in a

small hollow beneath a log. A pride of lions is in the area. A lioness gets the scent of the

warthog, and begins to circle. The warthog puts up a stout defence. Eventually, the lioness uses her claws and teeth to hack through

the Warthogs body to get to the piglets. The lioness doesnt seem terribly bothered. However, the

audience is sobbing with memories of Puumba and Nuala fresh

on their mind.The poet Alfred Tennyson wrote:

Man

Who trusted God was love indeedAnd love Creations final law

Though Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shrieked against his creedIn Memoriam A.A.H.

Mill thought that the Universe is not a pleasant place. He saw instances

of events which, if carried out by a Human, would be punished with the

full force of the law.

'Nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doingto one another are nature's everyday performances. Even the love of'order' which is thought to be a following of the ways of nature is in

fact a contradiction of them. All which people are accustomed to

deprecate as 'disorder' and its consequences is precisely acounterpart of nature's ways.Anarchy and the reign of Terror areovermatched in injustice, ruin, and death by a hurricane and a

pestilence...http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/poltheory/mill/three/intro.html


4/4


4

He believed that the existence of so much suffering in the world could

mean one of two things:

Either God is not GoodOr God is limited in some way (i.e. God is notomnipotent)

Mill does not argue against the existence of God, but rather that God isnot the unlimited omnipotent being that traditional Christianity has

taught.

3. Charles DarwinThese are arguments for Design qua Purpose, appearing to arguethat the universe works to some pre-ordained purpose. Hume

compares the universe to a machine, and then prefers to compare it

with a vegetable. This suggestion that the Universe's apparent purposeis rather more internal and organic than external and mechanical isbefore its time - Darwin's Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection is

a possible explanation for the apparent design in the world.

Remember the comparison between the camera and the eye. Darwin's

theory of natural selection would explain that the eye is the result ofcountless generations of genetic development and mutation. Only those

members of the species that displayed characteristics which enabled themto survive went on to breed. The less well suited simply die off!

Darwin offers a mechanical explanation for the perceived design -previously this was thought of as the role of God. Recent developments

in Quantum Mechanics suggest that the design in the universe can beexplained in terms of Einsteinian Physics. The role of God appears tohave been explained away!

4. Richard DawkinsIn The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins looks at the impact of recent

genetic research on the view of the Universe.

Genetic mutation takes place when damage occurs to genetic information

stored in DNA molecules. Where this mutation promotes the chances ofsurvival, the carrier is able to pass on the mutation to its offspring. Wherethe mutation is not beneficial, the carrier has less chance to pass it on.

These changes are entirely random.

Dawkins illustrates the way that these random changes lead to anamazing diversity in nature. He reflects a growing interest in the waythat "open" complex systems appear to self-arrange.

teleological criticisms

Documents