Abstract
The problem of error is an old argument for atheism that can be found in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. Although it is not widely discussed in the contemporary literature in the Philosophy of Religion, I resurrect it and give it a modern spin. By relying on empirical studies in moral psychology that demonstrate that moral judgments from human beings are generally susceptible to certain psychological biases, such as framing and order effects, I claim that if God is responsible for making human beings such that we have these biases, this means that God is not a perfect being. The findings in empirical moral psychology create a problem for the existence of God, traditionally conceived.
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Notes
The problem of error perhaps also can fall within the general category of being a specific kind of dysteleological argument. However, today, the dysteleological argument primarily focuses on biological properties in light of evolutionary theory and adaptiveness (Gould 1980; Dawkins 1986). On the other hand, the problem of error falls more in the domain of psychology rather than biology, and it need not necessarily be couched in light of evolutionary theory and adaptiveness. Hence, regardless if the problem of error can be categorized as a specific kind of dysteleological argument, in the text, I say that as a specific kind of contention, the problem of error has been lost since the Early Modern Era. Also, the problem of error may be viewed as being a novel instance of the problem of evil. Yet, as a specific kind of contention of the problem of evil, it has been lost since the Early Modern Era.
There are many harmful biases in moral psychology that we all will not be able to discuss here. Although I will show how order and framing effects play a pernicious role in moral cognition, other biases we generally have are for favoring ingroup rather than outgroup members and having an evolved nepotism. While some biases may be seen as initially more harmful than others, I focus on order and framing effects since they are better able to handle numerous objections described below. Furthermore, I need not focus on the perceivably most harmful psychological biases since all that is required for my argument for atheism is to show that there is some degree of harmful biases that cannot be accounted for by a perfect God.
Order effects can be considered to be a subset of framing effects.
They did find that philosophers appeared to be more susceptible to order effects than the folk, but this finding was only marginally significant rather than statistically significant.
The above discussed psychological biases are not understood to be psychological heuristics, although other biases are tied to certain heuristics. Heuristics are fast and frugal means of reasoning that may not find the best solution at all times to an issue but may find solutions that are good enough given one’s aims. Heuristics are generally understood to be beneficial in that they are evolutionary adaptations.
We can conclude that Hick’s line of thought is problematic since it falsely predicts that philosopher’s at the top research institutes who are most advanced in moral education and making consistent moral judgments generally should be less susceptible to order effects. As an aside, members in certain other fields also initially may be thought to be better than the folk or better than average at avoiding the biases, such as psychologists or medical doctors, although as a class, there is comparatively less of such an expectation since they generally lack the rigorous and unique training of moral philosophers for consistent moral decision-making across an entire moral world view. However, there may be at least some expectation that the likes of psychologists and medical doctors might do better than average because, for example, psychologists are aware of cognitive biases, so they generally might be better able to watch out for them. Also medical doctors make moral decisions on a regular basis, such as decisions about life and death, telling patients the truth, and getting informed consent from patients when necessary. Given the constant practice of making such decisions on a regular basis, they may acquire an expertise of not being susceptible to framing effects in their relevant field. However, studies show that practicing psychologists (Fagley et al. 1999) and medical doctors (McNeil et al. 1982; Perneger and Agoritsas 2011) are just as generally susceptible to such biases as non-practitioners.
I will address the response from skeptical theism in the next section.
Descartes relatedly claims that humans are imperfect and occupy a space between God and nothingness (1641, Meditation 4).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Eric Silverman, Dan Linford, and Matt Homan for their advice on this paper.
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Park, J.J. The Problem of Error: The Moral Psychology Argument for Atheism. Erkenn 83, 501–516 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9900-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-017-9900-8