PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
William Paley was a lifelong supporter of the Design Argument. In his lifetime, the Design Argument was demolished by David Hume (see below), but, after Hume's death, Paley returned to the Design Argument with the publication of his book, Natural Theology, in 1802.
Paley's book contains one of the most famous and memorable versions of the Design Argument, the "Analogy of the Watch on the Heath". Paley explains it like this: |
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.
BUT SUPPOSE I HAD FOUND A WATCH UPON THE GROUND, AND IT SHOULD BE INQUIRED HOW THE WATCH HAPPENED TO BE IN THAT PLACE; I SHOULD HARDLY THINK OF THE ANSWER I HAD BEFORE GIVEN, THAT FOR ANYTHING I KNEW, THE WATCH MIGHT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE...
Paley's second premise is that there are other things that we do try to explain in terms of design. We don't imagine for a moment they could have come about through unintended natural forces. A pocket watch is the example Paley gives, but more recently the "Junkyard Tornado" analogy uses a Boeing-747 jet.
But in what way is the watch different from the stone? |
THERE MUST HAVE EXISTED, AT SOME TIME, AND AT SOME PLACE OR OTHER, AN ARTIFICER OR ARTIFICERS, WHO FORMED [THE WATCH] FOR THE PURPOSE WHICH WE FIND IT ACTUALLY TO ANSWER; WHO COMPREHENDED ITS CONSTRUCTION, AND DESIGNED ITS USE...
EVERY INDICATION OF CONTRIVANCE, EVERY MANIFESTATION OF DESIGN, WHICH EXISTED IN THE WATCH, EXISTS IN THE WORKS OF NATURE; WITH THE DIFFERENCE, ON THE SIDE OF NATURE, OF BEING GREATER OR MORE, AND THAT IN A DEGREE WHICH EXCEEDS ALL COMPUTATION."
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an extraordinary degree of care, an anxiety for its preservation, due, if we may so speak, to its value and its tenderness
For Paley, the fact that eyes are safely tucked away inside the sockets of skulls is evidence that God not only designs intricate things, but also cares for them and wishes to keep them safe. This feature of Paley's argument rejects the common challenge, that the Design Argument leads only to the remote God of Deism rather than the loving God of Christianity.
Paley is also familiar with the dysteleological argument. Some eyes don't work very well, some people are born blind or develop cataracts or short-sightedness or glaucoma. Some people are colour-blind and everyone (except octopuses!) has a "blind spot" where the optical nerve passes through the retina. Paley has a response: |
It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to show with what design it was made
Whatever is done, God could have done without the intervention of instruments or means: but it is in the construction of instruments, in the choice and adaptation of means, that a creative intelligence is seen
What Paley means is that God could, if he wanted, enable everyone to see "by a miracle" and not bother with eyes at all. But God wants to display his "creative intelligence" so that humans can understand him better. God creates laws of nature and then works within those laws.
Paley's God is a bit like Shakespeare writing a sonnet: he's made the poem difficult for himself by limiting himself to 14 lines of iambic pentameter, but the achievement is all the greater for it. |
Paley also proposes a design qua regularity argument as well as the argument based on the watch. Paley was inspired Newton's laws of motion and gravity which were formulated in 1687. Newton's physics suggested that the universe worked like clockwork in predictable patterns. Paley argues that life is possible on Earth because the orbits of planets are so regular. He focuses on gravity and suggests that gravity needs to be consistent within narrow boundaries to produce planets with stable orbits round the sun. He argues that this regularity has been directed by some higher power: God.
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YES
Paley sets out an argument that even Richard Dawkins admits is "as elegant as it is mistaken". He incorporates the latest scientific thinking on gravity, planetary orbits and anatomy to show two types of design: qua purpose and qua regularity. He anticipates the entire 20th century revival of the Design Argument with Intelligent Design (purpose) and fine-tuning (regularity).
The watch analogy draws our attention to design that we otherwise take for granted. Since we're surrounded by complex patterns in nature (indeed, we are complex patterns in nature) we easily overlook them. The job of religious philosophers is to get us to notice how strange the world is and awaken our curiosity about it. This is what Paley does.
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NO
Paley's arguments were refuted by David Hume long before Natural Theology was published - and Paley knew it. Anthony Flew complains about religious believers who won't allow their beliefs to be falsified and Paley seems to be like this: if proven wrong, he just repeats himself. He sets a poor example for future religious philosophers to follow.
There's a difference between being curious and being credulous. When Jesus' face turns up on a taco shell or a cloud drifts into the shape of a duck, a reasonable person does not infer the guiding hand of a supernatural being. Fifty years after Paley's book, evolution became a scientific attempt to explain patterns in nature. Paley is looking for purpose and intention where there isn't any.
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