PHIL1003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Intelligent Designer, Intelligent Design, Vestigiality
7/06/18
• Reformulation of teleological argument
o P1 - Machines are produced by an intelligent designer
o P2 - Many natural parts of the universe resemble machines, so
o C1 - probably the universe (or at least many of its natural parts) was
produced by an intelligent designer
o C2 - the intelligent designer is God
• Paley’s Design Argument (17-1805)
o Paley’s analogy does not so much draw its conclusion by direct
comparison of a machine (watch) with biological objects (human eye)
▪ Nor does he construe the universe as a whole to be like a machine
o His analogy compares arguments
• Paley’s Structure
o Argument by Logical Analogy
▪ Primary Subject = Argument P, Analogue Subject = Argument A
• P1 – Argument A is cogent (clear, logical & convincing)
• P2 – Argument P is similar to Argument A
• C – Argument P is cogent (1,2)
▪ The two arguments that Paley compares are cases of inference to
the best explanation
o The general form that Paley compares: Inference to the Best Explanation
▪ P1 – X is intricate and well-suited to a particular function
▪ P2 – there is a plausible explanation of this fact, (not weakened by
various counter-considerations), namely that it Is the product of
an intelligent designer
▪ P3 – there are no other rival explanations that are as good: in
particular, the random natural forces’ explanation is highly
implausible
▪ C – the watch (X) is a product of an intelligent designer (1, 2, 3)
▪ C2 – the intelligent designer is an all PKL God
o Through this argument where X = living, complex beings, e.g. humans, we
must be the product of intelligent design
▪ Therefore the intelligent designer must be God
• Counter-considerations to Paley’s Argument
o Paley considers many, and argues that they do not weaken the force of the
teleological hypothesis
▪ (1Analogue) We have never seen a watch made from scratch or
known of anyone capable of creating one
▪ (1Primary) We have never witnessed the making of a living object
▪ (2A) The watch sometimes goes wrong, or seldom goes right
▪ (2P) Living things or their parts sometimes have malfunctions
(sickness, disease, death)
▪ (3A) We discover some parts in the watch that appear to have an
unknown or no function
▪ (3P) Some biological parts that appear this way, e.g. vestigial
organs
▪ (4A) The watch has to have some internal configuration or another
– one out of many possible combinations of material form, being
an object of this world
▪ (4P) Any living thing must have some internal configuration
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