Hume objects to the argument from design, this can be said to be an atheistic position but in the context of his dialogues not an anti deist one; for the argument here is upon the nature of god more than the possible existence or not of god. It is not the case that I intend to agree or disagree with him but to first understand what it is he is arguing against, analyse how he is doing so and consider how useful this is to us in forming our own view. A nod to the history of western religious beliefs is necessary to understand why in his time Hume’s project is by necessity a great work; it would have been easy to write in a pro religious manner when most accept that an intervening almighty being exists. Hume contends that god is not sufficiently proved in the works he had read and sets out philosophically to deconstruct the ideas of others in the form of interlocutors engaged in a dialogue that covers all the competing ideas on the subject. We will focus on Hume’s arguments against the designer proposed by the books of the abrahamic religions and supported by the writings of theologians, philosophers and scientists such as Aquinas, Bentley and Paley.
The dialogues
The abrahamic religions propose a creator who makes a world with purpose. This argument suggests that all objects in reality are effects of causes that are themselves effects of a first cause or prime move; it also suggests that the deity in question has the ability to intervene and influence. This reasoning necessitates an omnipotent prime mover, a god.
Demea
In Hume’s dialogues concerning natural religion (Cottingham, 2008) the historical dogmatist is represented by the character Demea who supports a somewhat deist view of a god that cannot be known by empirical endeavour and is beyond the physical world. This view is in line with the work of Aquinas and his attempted synthesis of the Aristotelian view of an infinite universe and the christian view of a created universe.
Aristotle – proposes that the universe is finite yet infinite in time with the earth at the centre and all bodies revolving around it (Leahy, 2000).
Aquinas – proposes that although the world is infinite in time a deity could create that infinity; therefore the universe has a beginning as written in scripture (Leahy, 2000).
Demea – supports these propositions and concludes that the deity in question is beyond comprehension and unbound by the reality of the physical universe.
Demea is of little use to Hume in his objections; the position taken is simply that of not knowing, this is insufficient for building an argument based on empirical reasoning because it avoids claims that can be tested other than that which can be observed as of now; god creates the universe and it is as we find it. I suspect that Hume includes this character for the historical purpose of pointing out that the argument from design was a direct response to new doubts on the nature of god created by the enlightenment and the age of reason.
Cleanthes
Cleanthes is the theist in the dialogue, he adopts the idea that god may be known through the manifestation of his creation, he supports this with the observation that all things in the universe form a machine that is similar to in nature but beyond in complication the creations that mankind is able to create. His analogy is dependent on a creator god who is similar to but greater than man and also on the idea that there is purpose as well as perfection in his creation. It is with this character that Hume represents the idea of a universe made for the benefit of man; from his work I feel that Hume is highlighting a suspicion that this may not be the case and that he sees imperfections that are not indicators of an omnipotent designer. It is Cleanthes theist position that Hume concentrates his main objections upon.
Philo / Hume
Philo represents Hume’s own scepticism on the proposition of the nature of god. In his attack on the first premise of Cleanthes argument Philo finds the analogy between man-made objects and the god-created universe insufficient in that the subjects are too dissimilar, one we can know by experience and precedent, the other is without such references. Here he highlights the problem of inferring conclusively that the universe is a creation because it is similar to the creations of man on the grounds that the creations of man are known to men as creations because of their similarity to other creations of man whereas the universe is similar to no other.
This is an important point that Hume makes, if we look at a later work from Paley (Paley, 1802) on the watchmaker analogy we can see the same proposal as Cleanthes has made that there can be no watch without a watchmaker. From my own perspective I can agree with Hume that Cleanthes’s analogy is weak in that none of the principals of the physical universe are created by mans machines that utilise them in the way that a creator would not only be able to design complexity but the rules within which that complexity is bound. Mans creations adhere to that which we already have discovered in that we can build the lever but not the leverage, the principle of leverage exists before the lever and needs not the lever to express it. For Cleanthes’s proposal if the analogy were to be correct then the deity would have to be bound by the same rules of creation that man was bound by, given that the creator of the universe is apparently omnipotent this could not be the case. So the creator is not omnipotent or the universe has not the same equally comparative properties as a man made artifact.
Philo’s second objection to Cleanthes position is that many conclusions reached based upon the observation of the universe are of equal merit in that the universe could be explained by other means that are equally as plausible or ridiculous as the argument from design. In this objection Philo is pointing out that:
Intelligence is not the sole cause of complexity in the world.
There are other explanations that are in line with the premises.
This is an example of an Ad Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy in which even if the premises are taken to be true the conclusion is not validated by them. This argument is appealing in that it shows that the conclusion is being wished for by the proposer and reminds me of a modern work called Bad Science (Goldacre, 2008) where the thematic is that work done to prove a pre-held conclusion is inherently flawed. starting with the conclusion is the opposite of science for Goldacre, start with the theory and build toward what is to be discovered by repetition and observation; this is an example of the difference between inductive (back ways reasoning) and deduction (forwards ways reasoning).
His third observation is on the nature of unknowing or the simple lack of data, he points out the bias in assuming that the proposed design favours our existence intentionally based on what we would now call egotism. What I think Hume is saying here is that since we know ourselves to be the most complicated object in the universe then it follows that, in a created universe, we are likely to believe we are the purpose of that creation, but that condition can apply only until we might know of a greater object in the universe that is more sophisticated than us; in this respect we would no longer be solid in our assumption that the purpose is us, and since we cannot know of the universe sufficiently to discount a greater object than ourselves our proposals go no further than assumptions. We cannot therefore infer that we know the universe well enough to determine its purpose by so small a measure than our own existence. I like this objection in that it is always true scientifically that we will know more in the future than we know today about the universe; what we know today is that we know very little, Hume was very well read and I think aware of how intelligent he himself was, this made him also aware of how little his contemporaries and those who preceded him could have known about the nature and purpose of existence.
The fourth attack on the argument is the fallibility of human reasoning; having proved many things to be true there is always, from his perspective, a chance that generalisations based upon experience may cease to be true. Hume asserts here his view of the difference between demonstrative and probable statements, we can infer through observing phenomenon to be correlatable to other phenomenon that there will be continuance but not sufficiently prove it in the same way that demonstrative reasoning would because it contains within its reasoning no assumptions. For me this is a weak argument from Hume because it is not specific enough to this case, I do not argue that he is incorrect in what he says but since knowledge gathered by observation of cause and effect are the basis of science I find it almost useless to rely upon a position that doubts observations as a method to examine a claim that is based solely on empiricism; by this reckoning we are in the realm of Descartes and nothing can be known other than Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am). If this was Hume’s position it is all he would have had to say on the matter since nothing further can be proved.
What Hume is saying
In these arguments Philo/Hume is not stating that the universe is unknowable, he is not saying that it has not been designed or that there is not a designer, he does not propose a theory of design for competition with that of the designer theory proponents other than that which is absurd simply to highlight its absurdity and he does not deny complexity greater than that which man can construct. Hume is simply using the character of Philo to deconstruct the method and reasoning of Cleanthes and prove insufficient the conclusion that the nature of god can be known by such means. Philo/Hume infers through his objections also that even if the argument from design is taken to be correct that still there is no basis for believing the nature of god is as the abrahamic monotheistic religions believe, he goes on to argue with Demea on the purpose of evil, flaws in the design that give rise to unnecessary suffering and a lack of intervention that proves either the reticence or inability of the designer. Hume’s work is brilliant; I think he succeeds in proving the argument from design to be flawed.
Conclusion
Hume sets out to punch holes in the argument from design; I think he successfully does so while staying within the bounds of logic and argument and without making assumption, which is a problem his work highlights in his opponents position. Even if we were to assume/contend that Hume was a deist, a theist or an atheist it would not matter as it has no impact on his project, it would have been easy to make the question of Hume’s own belief the meat of the sandwich but I think that it is important not to do so. Hume puts Demea’s and Cleanthes’s cases as well as Philo’s, he argues their positions with as much determination in the dialogue as he can; we are not simply presented with a refutation of the theories that these characters represent but a complete picture. He objects and attacks the initial premises of the argument, points out the limitations of what can be concluded and make us aware of when certain assumptions have been made without evidence; which for an evidence based argument, like that of the one from design, is a gaping chasm more than a hole.
Paul Simon Wilson
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