WILLIAM PALEYS TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

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WILLIAM PALEYS TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

• William Paley (1743-1805) says that our
  perception of certain kinds of object will
  suggest that their existence is due to an
  intelligence which caused them, while our
  perception of other kinds of object will not lead
  us to such a conclusion.
• For instance, if we come across a stone in a
  desert we might suppose that it had been there
  forever - it is not absurd to suppose this, as
  Paley notes. But if we come across a watch in
  the desert, or anywhere else, we would not
  similarly suppose that it had been there forever
  - this does seem absurd, according to Paley.

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN I

• It seems absurd because the watch seems to have
  been constructed for some purpose, whereas the
  stone does not seem to have been constructed for
  any purpose.
• Because we think that the watch has a purpose, we
  think that it must have had a designer - someone
  who created it specifically for the purpose of
  marking time.
• And Paley says that we would think that the watch
  had a designer even if we had never seen a watch
  being made had never known any watchmaker that
  we couldnt make a watch ourselves or didnt
  understand how it was made.

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN II

• We could still see by examining its parts that
  they are framed and put together for a purpose.
  That purpose includes producing motion so that
  the watch will tell time.
• And we can see by examining the watch that, if
  the different parts had been differently shaped,
  or were a different size, or were put together
  in any other order, either the watch would
  produce no motion at all, or it would produce a
  kind of motion through which the watch ceased to
  tell time.

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If we cut through a rock, such as at the left, we
do not find any signs of parts which seem to fit
together as a design. Accordingly, there is no
absurdity in supposing that the rock has not been
created by an intelligent agent. However, this is
precisely what we do find when we take the watch
apart we find a number of parts which seem to
have been intelligently designed for a purpose.
Paley says that it would be absurd to suppose
that there is no intelligent agent behind the
existence of the watch.
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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN III

• From our examination of the watch the conclusion
  is clear the watch must have had a maker.
  There must have been, at some place or other, an
  artificer or artificers who formed it for the
  purpose which we find it actually to answer to
  tell time who comprehended its construction and
  designed its use.
• Paley also says that we would think this even if
  we had never seen a watch made had never known
  a watchmaker did not know how to make one
  ourselves and did not understand how a watch is
  put together to tell time.

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN IV

• It also does not matter whether the watch was
  produced by a human or some other species, since
  we will still suppose that it was produced by
  some designer or other.
• It would also not matter to our inference that
  the watch had a designer that it sometimes
  stopped working, or never told the time well. We
  could still see that it was designed for a
  purpose even if it is not fulfilling that purpose
  very well.
• It is not necessary for a machine to be perfect
  in order to show with what design it was made.
  Even if the watch stopped working we would still
  think that it was designed for a purpose. The
  main question about the object is whether it was
  designed or not.

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN V

• Paley also says that it does not affect the
  argument that the watch had a designer if we
  cant determine how some of the parts of the
  watch work in order for it to measure time. (The
  more complex an object the more likely it is that
  we will be unable to understand the working of
  all of its parts.)
• And even if it seemed that some of the parts of
  the watch did nothing to contribute to its
  purpose to tell time we could still legitimately
  infer that the watch had been designed for that
  purpose.

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN VI

• Paley next says that no one would suppose that
  the existence of the watch could be explained by
  saying that it was just one of a number of
  possible combinations of material forms. We
  would not think that the watch had just come
  together as a possible object by a chance
  arrangement of matter - like lines in the desert
  produced by the blowing of grains of sand by the
  wind.
• We also would not think that there existed in
  nature a principle of order or a law or laws of
  matter which could have resulted in the watch -
  that it had come together somehow from the lawful
  working of nature.
• According to Paley, we cant even conceive of
  what such a principle of order would be apart
  from the intelligence of the watchmaker.

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN VII

• We would be surprised to hear then that the watch
  is not evidence of a watchmaker, and even more
  surprised to be told that it resulted instead
  from some law or laws of nature concerning
  metals.
• As did Aquinas, Paley here uses Aristotles
  notion of efficient cause or the agency to which
  an object is due, and says that a law
  presupposes an agent, and that a law cannot act
  as the efficient, operative cause of anything.
• The law itself would presuppose an agent who is
  the power behind the law according to which the
  object of design can be constructed. Without
  this agent, without this power, which are both
  distinct from the law, the law itself does
  nothing

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A WATCH AS AN OBJECT OF DESIGN VIII

• Finally, Paley says that the person who finds the
  watch would think that it had a designer even if
  he was told that he knew nothing at all about
  the matter. This is because he knows at least
  enough to make his argument that the watch must
  have had a designer.
• He knows that the watch has a purpose, and he can
  see that its parts fit together in a way which
  serve as means to the end of measuring time. If
  he knows this much, he can see that the watch
  must have had a designer whether he knows
  anything more or not.

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THE UNIVERSE IS LIKE A WATCH

• Paley then applies this argument concerning the
  watch to the world at large, and says that the
  sort of design that we can see in a watch is one
  which we can also see in nature, with the
  difference that the world is much more
  complicated than the watch.
• Nature is much more complicated than any human
  artifact, with many more complicated natural
  objects in it. However, we can see that these
  are not less evidently designed than the watch
  because they are so well suited to their role and
  purpose in nature.

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NATURE IS A DESIGN AND GOD ITS DESIGNER

• For Paley, we can see that nature has a design
  just as we can see that the watch has a design.
  Accordingly, just as we are entitled to infer
  that the watch had a designer, we are entitled to
  infer that the universe has a designer.
• The designer of the universe is God.

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WE SEE THAT NATURE IS A DESIGN EVEN IF WE DO NOT
UNDERSTAND THE DESIGN

• Just as we can see from examining a watch that it
  is a design due to an intelligence behind it even
  if we do not understand how watches are put
  together, so we can see that the universe is a
  design even if we have to admit to the following
  points
• We have never seen a universe made do not know
  how to make one ourselves do not understand all
  of its workings do not understand how all of its
  parts fit together and do not see that all of
  the parts contribute to the design.
• And the universe remains a design, with God as
  its designer, even if the design seems not to
  function properly at times, as in cases of
  natural disaster like hurricanes and volcanic
  eruptions.

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E. NAGELS CRITICISM OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT I

• Nagel points out that the design argument is an
  argument from analogy. Recall that we reason by
  analogy when we say that, because two or more
  entities are alike in one or more respects, then
  they are probably alike in another respect as
  well.
• The application of that reasoning here is to say
  that the universe is like a watch in exhibiting
  an order of its parts. And as the order of a
  watch is due to an intelligence behind the watch,
  so we can infer, analogically, that the order of
  the universe is due to an intelligence behind it.
• But Nagel asks, Is the analogy a good one?

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E. NAGELS CRITICISM OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT II

• Nagel notes that there are problems with saying
  that the world is a unified system like a watch -
  but says that he will let that go. And he grants
  that we havent come across watches that werent
  made by anyone. However, the situation is
  nothing like this watches being made by
  watchmakers in the innumerable animate and
  inanimate natural systems with which we are
  familiar.
• Thus, parents of animals do not make their
  offspring the way a watchmaker makes a watch.
  And once this point is clear, the inference from
  the existence of living organisms to the
  existence of a supreme designer no longer seems
  credible.

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E. NAGELS CRITICISM OF THE DESIGN ARGUMENT III

• Nagel Moreover, the argument of a master
  designer loses all its force if the facts which
  the hypothesis of a divine designer is supposed
  to explain can be understood on the basis of a
  better supported assumption.
• Nagel says that these facts are better explained
  by Darwins theory of natural selection.
  Darwinian theory accounts for the nature of
  biological species in terms of chance variations
  in the structures of organisms, and in terms of a
  mechanism of selection which gives species an
  advantage for survival.
• And the evidence for Darwinian theory is
  well-substantiated - as well as anything which we
  have in science. Therefore, the argument from
  design has nothing to recommend it.

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A SECOND DESIGN ARGUMENT

• Certain parts of nature conform to mathematical
  laws. As Galileo said The book of nature is
  written in the language of mathematics. And no
  one who is familiar with the facts can fail to be
  impressed by the success with which the use of
  mathematical methods has enabled us to obtain
  intellectual mastery of many parts of nature.
• This second design argument says that the order
  of the parts of nature which are successfully
  described by mathematics must be due to an
  intelligence behind that mathematical order.
• This is to see God as the supreme mathematician.

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NAGELS RESPONSE TO THE SECOND DESIGN ARGUMENT

• Nagel says that this second design argument
  assumes that mathematics can be used only if
  nature exhibits some special kind of order. And
  it further assumes that, if the structure of
  things were different from what they are, we
  couldnt use mathematics to describe them.
• But Nagel says that, no matter what the world was
  like, it would still possess some order - and so
  could be described mathematically.
• Accordingly, you cant infer a mathematical
  designer of the world because any world will be
  one which can be described mathematically - even
  if it impressed us as being utterly chaotic.