Learning to think with conditionals and counterfactuals

One of the features of good philosophy is the ability to think with conditionals and counterfactuals. You can discern a sophisticated thinker (not only in philosophy, but in whatever field) in part by his ability to think like this. In philosophy this is essential, because often you're trying with to make sense of purely conceptual, possible or hypothetical issues, not just of factual realities as in science (in this sense, science is more limited in its intellectual scope than philosophy).

I'll discuss some examples taken mainly from philosophy and briefly from New Testament studies and Jesus scholarship.

Let's to clarify our terms:

A conditional is a proposition of the form "If P, then Q". 

A counterfactual is a conditional in which the antecedent ("P") is factually, actually false (i.e. the antecedent is contrary to the facts).

 

Example of a conditional: "If James Randi is a materialistic atheist, then he's a skeptic of the paranormal". 

Example of a counterfactual: "If James Randi had lost his million dollars challenge while testing a psychic, that test would be considered unreliable and non-conclusive by most professional skeptics".

The above is a counterfactual because Randi has not actually lost his challenge (at least not officially), so the above conditional has an antencedent contrary to facts.

Likewise, the above counterfactual about Randi is likely to be true: people who knows how organized skepticism works will tend to agree with it.

In philosophy, these notions are very useful because they allow you to explore the IMPLICATIONS of certains scenarions, state of affairs, hypothetical situations and propositions, and hence to evaluate critically their plausibility.

The above philosophical datum is essential while reading analytic philosophy and debates between theists and naturalists (among other debates).

 

I've been astonished to be apparently serious philosophers, who are absolutely incapable of thinking in terms of conditionals (or understanding arguments in conditional terms), at least in topics in which they are not specialized.

Examples of conditional arguments in philosophy and bad responses to them:

 

Alvin Plantinga has developed a sophisicated philosophical argument according to which, if evolutionary naturalism is true, then there is not reason to think that our cognitive faculties are reliable. Before commenting on this argument, let's to clarify two key concepts:

1-By evolutionary naturalism, Plantinga understands the conjuntion of naturalism plus Darwinian evolutionary theory.

2-By "reliable" cognitive faculties, Plantinga understands cognitive faculties which produce mostly true beliefs in the appropiate cognitive enviroment (e.g. for a normal, healthy person, her memory of what happened yesterday in her own life tends to be reliable, i.e. produce mostly true beliefs about what happened yesterday. But for a drunken person, such faculty tend to be unreliable).

Plantinga's argument is complex, but roughly he thinks that evolutionary naturalism only justifies the belief that our cognitive faculties are adaptive and pragmatically useful to survival and reproduction, but this doesn't implies that these faculties produce mostly true beliefs, because false beliefs (e,g, religious beliefs according naturalists) can be useful for evolution and be selected for despite their falsehood. Moreover, all what is required by evolutionary theory is that our cognitive faculties provide consistent indicators of the relevant details of the local enviroment, but obviously the existence of mere consistent indicators of the enviroment doesn't imply that our beliefs about the enviroment in question are true (e.g. when a man have a prostate tumour, there are tumour markers which consistently are present with the tumour and reliable indicators of the tumour; but it doesn't imply that tumour markers have "true beliefs" about the tumour. They are just biological correlates of the tumour. Likewise, perhaps our cognitive faculties provide us with specific biological indicators when we are in presence of a predator or food, but it doesn't imply that our cognitive faculties produce beliefs which are true, i.e. that refer and represent the object accurately, specially beliefs which are irrelevant to biological survival and reproduction, like beliefs about quantum mechanics, metaphysics or mathematics).

Note that Plantinga's argument is conditional: IF evolutionary naturalism is true, THEN there is not reason to think that our cognitive faculties are reliable. 

Naturalists who lack sophistication reply to this argument in a way that shows that they don't understand the nature of conditionals. For example, they reply "But our cognitive faculties ARE reliable, look at science for example"

But this reply obvious misses the point, because the argument is not whether our actual cognitive faculties are reliable or not, but if they WOULD BE reliable given evolutionary naturalism. If the answer is no, then the actual reliability of our faculties is evidence against naturalism.

Another common objection is "But if our beliefs are mostly true, then they're more likely to be selected for by natural selection". Fine, but the problem is that our beliefs being true is NOT required by natural selection and evolution in order to work (look at plants or bacterias or mosquitos... they have not "true beliefs" as far we know, but they have evolved perfectly by natural selection and by most time than human beings, despite of not having reliable cognitive faculties nor rationality nor a conscious mind). You don't need to pose the reliability of cognitive faculties in order to explain the work of natural selection on biological organisms and the survival of a given species. In fact, not even consciousness in a organism is itself necessary for natural selection in order to do its job.

And given naturalism, we have not reason to expect that certain biological organisms (e.g. human beings) will have consciousness, let alone a rational and reliable mind. Therefore, we have not reason to think that our cognitive faculties are reliable if naturalism were true.

Plantinga's argument is NOT that it is impossible that our cognitive faculties be reliable given naturalism; rather his argument is that, IF naturalism were true, THEN it is unlikely that our cognitive faculties be reliable (even if they happen, by accident, to be reliable). Can you understand the logic of the argument? (For a detailed defense of Plantinga's argument, see his lastest book Science and Religion: Where the conflict really lies")

Another example of misunderstanding of conditionals is in the case of the moral argument for God's existence. The argument says:

1-If God doesn't exist, then objective moral values don't exist.

2-Objective moral values do exist.

3-Therefore, God exists.

The first premiss poses a negative conditional which implies that objective moral values are grounded on God (note that it doesn't say that they're grounded on God's arbitrary "will" or arbirtrary commands. They could depend on God's perfect and holy nature. Even God's will is limited by his nature... for example, God cannot "will" to be extinguished foreover... because it would violate his nature as a necessary and eternal being. Many atheists, in their intellectual superficiality and spiritual blindess, simply cannot grasp the point and prefer ground human morality in imperfect, contingent and non-personal grounds like biological evolution, or contingent personal circunstances like human conventions, scholarly consensus, the deliverances of the human mind, etc.).

By "objective" moral values, it refers to a mind-independent realm of moral order which is part of (in the case of theism, created by God) reality. It doesn't refer to moral beliefs nor propositions nor statements, nor to subjective projections of our subjective consciousness. (Atheists tend to conflate their own sense of moral conviction with the actual existence of morality... a conflation which they wouldn't accept if a theist would appeal to his own subjective conviction that God's exist. The atheist's own convictions are seen by them as facts, but the convictions of theists are delusions, wishful thinking, ignorance or self-deception).

The argument is posed against naturalistic alternatives of morality (since the most plausible and scientifically-informed form of atheism is metaphysical naturalism). 

The argument implies that IF atheistic naturalism were true, THEN there is reason to think that objective moral values do not exist in a universe which is wholly material and void of any intrinsic and trascendent spiritual and moral dimension (Note that in theism, given that God is trascendent and intrinsically spiritual, talking of a moral order of creation make sense).

Naturalism, as a non-personalistic worldview, can function fine without any person at all (just imagine that human beings and all of life on Earth were destroyed by a meteorite... would it refute naturalism? Obviously not. Naturalism is fully compatible with an universe void of life, composed of pure brute physical, mechanical and insentient matter).

So, in naturalism, we wouldn't expect to life to emerge from purely insentient matter (in fact, naturalists think that life is an exceptional event in the universe). Moreover, even if life were (by a lucky accident) to exist, you wouldn't expect that PERSONS would eventually appear. But even if persons were (by another lucky accident) to appear, you wouldn't expect that such persons would have intrinsic moral values either because in naturalism persons are simply ANIMALS (relatively evolutioned primates with a relatively more complex organized brain having more complex intelligence in order to survive and reproduce). But having a more complex intelligence does nothing to prove that such organisms are the locus of objective moral value (after all, intelligence is not a necessary condition of moral value, otherwise little babies and people who are mentally retarded or impaired or suffer of severe brain coma or are in a vegetative state by some disease would be morally irrelevant, amoral and without any intrinsic value, which is clearly wrong. Also, nobody would claim that artificial intelligence would make a machine the locus of moral value... and in naturalism, the difference between an intelligent machine and a biological organisms including human persons is purely chemical and physical, not ontological because both kinds of objects are material (composed of a bunch of physical particles organized in certain ways), and physical matter has not moral properties according to natural sciences).

This argument, posed in conditional terms, is iron-claded once you think hard about it. Sophisticated atheists, who are able to think with conditionals (If naturalism were true.../ Or If theism were true...) have realized this and recognize that naturalism doesn't provide rational grounds for thinking that an objective moral order exists.

But other atheists, incapable of thinking with conditionals, simply cannot understand the point. For them, moral values exists, period.

Let's  to mention a concrete example of how atheists misunderstand the argument:

In his debate with William Lane Craig, atheist ethicist and moral philosopher Walter Simmon Armstrong, after trying to justify morality in a naturalist worldview, replied like this:  "Craig still might ask, “What’s immoral about causing serious harms to other people without justification?” But now it seems natural to answer, “It simply is. Objectively. Don’t you agree?” (God? A debate between a Christian and an Atheist, p 34. emphasis in blue added)

That Armstrong is unable to understand the conditional nature of Craig's argument is evident in his misrepresentation of Craig's question. Actually Craig asked what is immoral about causing serious harms to people without justification GIVEN NATURALISM (i.e if naturalism were true). After all, according to evolutionary theory, animals kill each other often, and for naturalism human beings are the evolutionary by-product of such wild, violent, permanent struggle for existence with other species and organisms in which some animals destroyed others in order to survive. It is just part of nature (the nature to which the naturalist is "everything that exists").

More importantly, note that Armstrong doesn't understand at all that the debate is about the ontological grounding of morality, posed in terms of conditionals and counterfactuals.  He simply CLAIMS that moral values are objective. But Craig is not disputing the existence of objective moral values, what he's disputing is the counterfactual claim that moral values WOULD exist IF naturalism were true.

To avoid any suspicion that I'm misrepresenting Craig's view as a counterfactual claim, note carefully the conditional form of his reply to Armstrong: "This claim is, however, very problematic for the atheist. First, given atheism, why think that it is true? Why, given atheism, think that inflicting harm on other people would have any moral dimension at all? Sinnott-Armstrong rejects Atheistic Moral Realism. So why would it be wrong to hurt another member of our species? He answers, “It simply is. Objectively. Don’t you agree?” Of course, I agree that it is wrong, since I am a theist. But I can’t see any reason to think that it would be wrong if atheism were true. For on atheism we are just animals, and animals don’t have moral duties. Sinnott-Armstrong retorts that human beings are unlike other animals because we are “moral agents.” But this claim seems to assume precisely what needs to be proved, unless some neutral content can be given to the concept of “moral agent.” (ibid, p. 68)

By "atheism", Craig is referring to the metaphysical naturalism which Armstrong defends (you have to keep this in mind, because naturalism implies a bunch of pressupositions which run contrary to morality, including its disregarding of nonphysical causation, free will and moral responsability).

Note that Armstrong's reply that human beings are special because we're "moral agents" is irrelevant and question-begging (because assumes, not proves, that naturalism grounds objective morality, which is a logical pre-condition for any agency to be "moral") and misses the point again because the issue at stake is IF human beings WOULD BE moral agents GIVEN naturalism. Again, the conditional and counterfactual nature of the argument is misunderstood by Armstrong.

I'm astonished by these kind of replies by sophisticated atheist philosophers (I consider Armstrong to be a serious and good one).

A final example:

In New Testament scholarship, specially regarding the life and teaching of Jesus, you can see how implicit conditionals are operative in the mind of scholars. Since most of them are not philosophers, perhaps they don't understand the proper nature of conditionals and their proper use and function. But they use them (in fact, everybody does), sometimes with sad consequences.

For example, in liberal scholarship, there are at least two implicit conditionals being actively operative in the mind of many scholars:

1-If the scientific (naturalistic) conception of the world is true, then  Jesus's actual historical identity, life, deeds and teachings wouldn't be as the Gospels say.

2-If the early Church HAD NOT manipulated the teachings and life of Jesus, then you WOULDN'T find in the Gospels an exalted view of Jesus who was God, who was the only son to God and who was resurrected.

As I said, these conditionals are implicit (even though in the Jesus Seminar's books, some of their naturalistic pressupositions are explicit). But a careful philosophical analysis of their work make it evident.

The first conditional produces extreme skepticism regarding the Gospels' accounts of Jesus, specially about any aspect of Jesus' implying supernatural events.

The second conditional allows to disregard, as an invention of the Church interested in produce an account theologically coloured (and hence, considered as unreliable and non-historical) any claim suggesting that Jesus pereived himself to be divine in some sense (either implicitly as God himself or as the son of God or as the risen one). Any claim about Jesus' resurrection, sayings implying divine authority (or the same status that God), or a special and exclusive connection with God, is seen with extreme skepticism and is explained away or interpreted in a way which is compatible with the above conditionals.

This anti-Christian prejudice tends to be rationalized in many liberal scholarly writings through a misuses of the standard criteria of authenticity, which are used positively and negatively (according to the scholar's particular purpose), and as necessary (instead of sufficient) conditions, in order to produce a preconceived notion of what Jesus would be if the above two conditionals were true.

The result is a historically misleading version Jesus which has almost nothing to do with the four biographies in the Gospels plus the early Pauline information about Jesus nor with the Jewish context in which Jesus lived and taught (a Jewish context which included, for example, the Old Testament view about "sins"... so, Jesus' claims of having authority to forgive sins has to be understood in the full Jewish background according to which only God had authority to forgive sins, which tells us a lot about Jesus' self-perception and how he was perceived by his followers and enemies).

But such liberal Jesus is very similar to the liberal scholar's own values and beliefs about corpses that cannot come back to life (after all, if God doesn't exist as the liberal scholar thinks, then the resurrection is a non-starter), about no religion being the "true" or only one (after all if God doesn't exist, no theistic religion can be true), about a Jesus who was a mere sage (among any others, and hence compatible with religious pluralism), a mere teller of stories for changing people's perspectives (a kind of Jewish version of Wyne Dyer or Deepak Chopra), etc.

The whole procedure is a misleading and question begging effort to undermine and destroy the traditional view of Jesus on behalf of contemporary religious pluralist and secular sensibilities which implicitly define what is palatable or not for most people in religious (and moral) matters.

The above is relatively easy to recognize once you study the evidence without preconceived opinions nor wishful thinking about what historical Jesus must or must not be, but my point here was to analyze briefly only one particular aspect of the question (some liberal portraits of Jesus) in terms of conditionals and counterfactuals. A more comprehensive treatment of this problem, including the conditionals and counterfactuals implicit or explicit in non-liberal scholars (conservative, Jewish, etc.) will be addressed in other posts.

Learn to think with counterfactuals and conditionals, and your thinking will tend to be a lot of deeper and wider, specially in matters in which is easy to be mislead by superficial or apparently counterintuitive impressions or assumptions (like in the moral argument, which as said above is commonly misrepresented by atheists as dependending on God's "arbitrary will").