Belief in God Instinctive?

[nightbringer]

I just remembered Seer that I never got back to your response to my comment in post 9.

I don't think that is the point. If naturalism is correct then process did produce a seriously flawed rational process. And a man could avoid the tiger for any number of non-rational reasons and still survive.

I think my point was that evidence that belief in God is instinctive does not generate any more worry for the naturalistic evolutionist about the reliability of their cognitive faculties than what is already generated from reflection upon Plantinga's basic argument.

I hold that a person can rationally believe that certain areas of their cognitive faculties are unreliable. And a naturalistic evolutionist has good reason for thinking that the reliability of cognitive faculties in an area dedicated to metaphysical beliefs that do not directly bear on an individual's survival need not reflect the state of the reliability of an individual's cognitive faculties across the board.

[seer]

I just remembered Seer that I never got back to your response to my comment in post 9.



I think my point was that evidence that belief in God is instinctive does not generate any more worry for the naturalistic evolutionist about the reliability of their cognitive faculties than what is already generated from reflection upon Plantinga's basic argument.

I hold that a person can rationally believe that certain areas of their cognitive faculties are unreliable. And a naturalistic evolutionist has good reason for thinking that the reliability of cognitive faculties in an area dedicated to metaphysical beliefs that do not directly bear on an individual's survival need not reflect the state of the reliability of an individual's cognitive faculties across the board.

Well Night, I think Plantinga's argument is stronger than some will admit. But why wouldn't it bring into question our general cognitive abilities - I think that is exactly what it does since false beliefs could have just as much survival value as true beliefs. .

[nightbringer]

But why wouldn't it bring into question our general cognitive abilities - I think that is exactly what it does since false beliefs could have just as much survival value as true beliefs. .

Well let's say you have a motion detector which beeps whenever something moves near you. Say that you don't know whether the device is overall reliable but you do know that the motion detector is probably unreliable when it comes to flying objects (you know that the device was designed for grounded objects, or the device emerged mostly with concern for grounded objects). Now, you go to test out the device but it's really dark out; with your naked eyes you can just about see birds flying above against the light of the moon but you can't see much else. Undeterred you turn the device on and wait for it to detect any movement. Soon you notice that even when you can spot a bird flying overhead, the device doesn't beep - it can't seem to detect them. With just this data at hand should you conclude that the device is wholly unreliable?

Surely not. You know that the device isn't likely to be reliable specifically when it comes to spotting birds, so the fact that the device hasn't in fact been reliable in spotting birds isn't much cause for concern when it comes to judging the overall reliability of the device.

In the same way the naturalist might believe that human cognitive faculties aren't likely to be reliable in the specific area of metaphysical belief formation. So when it turns out that human cognitive faculties aren't reliable in metaphysical belief formation (at least in the eyes of the naturalist), she needn't be much concerned about the overall reliability of human cognitive faculties. This stands just so long as she does have a good reason to suspect that specifically metaphysical belief formation will be unreliable, given naturalism and evolution. And I think she does.

While there might be a range of false beliefs about the natural world that are still either conducive or neutral in regards to adaptive behaviour I think there's a much wider range of false metaphysical beliefs which are conducive or neutral in regards to adaptive behaviour. As I said in my original post, it matters a lot more in regards to survival whether your beliefs are approximately true about the tiger attacking you, than they do about what might be the case about unseen ultimate reality. (Given the link between the development of philosophy and the development of lifestyles that allowed for periods of comfortable reflection, this shouldn't be surprising.)

Accepting a lack of reliability in metaphysical belief formation might still incur a cost to the naturalistic evolutionist, but I think it's one which is slightly distinct (or refined) from that argued for in Plantinga's basic argument (however good that argument might already be.)