On Paley's little noticed Change to the Argument from Design

Consider the following "design inference pattern" (quoted from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):

• [A] Some things in nature (or nature itself, the cosmos) are design-like (exhibit a cognition-resonating, intention-shaped character R)
• [B] Design-like properties (R) are not producible by (unguided) natural means—i.e., any phenomenon exhibiting such Rs must be a product of intentional design.

Therefore 

• [C] Some things in nature (or nature itself, the cosmos) are products of intentional design. And of course, the capacity for intentional design requires agency of some type.

I call this the "modern" inference pattern. In commenting on [A], the authors, Del Ratzsch and Jeffrey Koperski, remark, this "premise...at least, is not particularly controversial even now." In what follows, I stipulate they are right about this, and I do not mean to challenge that claim here. But now consider, Newton's General Scholium (adapted from Motte's 1729 translation): “[D] All  natural things which we find are suited to different times and places [E] could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing." ("Tota rerum conditarum pro locis ac temporibus diversitas, ab ideis & voluntate entis necessario existentis solummodo oriri potuit.) Here I ignore (but recall) Newton's reasons for conjoining [D&E]. A striking contrast between [A] and [D] is that Newton insists all things (tota rereum) exhibit aptness to every time and place, whereas the moderns made do with merely some apparent design in nature. That Newton needs the universal quantifiers is no surprise given the rather strong modal claims he wants to end up with (recall).

But as it happens, while one of Newton's particular modal arguments is somewhat unusual, the claim that all of the parts of nature exhibits design is not so unusual. We can find the claim, for example, in the design arguments of the early seventeenth centurty Jesuit, Lessius, who I dicussed last week (see especially the arguments supporting the "fifth reason").And, more important, it is inscribed in (recall) one of my favorite design argument in Cicero, "all the parts of the universe have been so appointed that they could neither be better adapted for use nor be made more beautiful in appearance," (omnes mundi partes ita constitutae sunt ut neque ad usum meliores potuerint esse neque ad speciem pulchriores). In fact, Newton's teacher, Barrow, was fond of quoting Cicero's passage (see here). 

Given that we moderns like universal quantifiers alongside our universal laws, it kind of surprised me that in the "modern" inference pattern we make do with less than universal apparent design whereas a good Jesuit and a good Stoic (Cicero's Balbus) happily embrace the universalizing claim. I would not be surprised if some pre-modern inference patterns also rely on merely some design, but I have not found an example yet. 

But, while allowing for my selection bias, this made me wonder when and why the modern inference pattern (with "some" in [A]) became so standard. I wondered if Hume quietly inserted it into his Dialogues. But no, there we also find (Cleanthes) appealing to "The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature." (D2.5; of course, this is compatible with the claim that not all parts exhibit design.)

So, I tentatively suggest that William Paley is the main source of this feature of the "modern'' inference pattern. The reason I think this can be found at the heart and start of his watch analogy. He writes, "It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to shew with what design it was made: still less necessary, where the only question is, whether it were made with any design at all." William Paley (1802, Natural Theology: Or, Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Chapter 1, Paragraph 2.) It is quite obvious (given the role of analogy in Paley's argument from the watch to nature), that Paley inserts the thought to prevent a natural objection -- familiar, especially, from Diderot (who used birth-defects to great effect in attacking final causes) and from concerns over the problem of evil-- to allow that some parts of nature are "irregular," that is, that not all all parts of nature always exhibit design. Paley himself notes that the seasons are a mixture of apparent "necessity and chance," (Chapter 26, paragraph 3; the whole chapter engages with the problem of apparent defects.)

Paley clearly recognizes the old (Aristotelian?) insight that defects and imperfections are kind of intrinsic to teleological objects. If something has a proper end/functioning, it should, in principle, be able to misfire. Of course, somebody like Diderot rejects final causes, so he will be unmoved by such considerations altogether. But one may well wonder why earlier design arguments did not hedge their bets about apparent design, if "some apparent order" is sufficient to get the argument to a designer going. (Not all of them are invested in proving a necessary being.)

Perhaps the following helps explain. In most pre-modern design arguments variants of the principle of sufficient reason are doing non-trivial work in the background: nothing comes from nothing or some causal principle are all assumed or asserted along the way.  But while Paley asserts the uniformity of nature (see chapter 25) he does no such thing. For him the uniformity of nature is that the universe itself is a "system."* I don't mean to suggest that Paley thinks God intervenes in the workings of the universe through miracles. But he is quite eager to keep distance between Spinozism (even God is governed by necessity) and his own more Voluntarist approach. Of course, Clarke (and I suspect Newton) thought his branch of Voluntarism was compatible with the PSR, but Leibniz had shown that this too easily generates the suspicion of Spinozism--a charge hard to refute against an able and determined opponent without appearing inconsistent.

The previous paragraph is offered without much evidence. But in a footnote to chapter 25, paragraph 3, Paley quotes MacLaurin (who is writing in the wake of the intense debates) approvingly as follows:

If we suppose the matter of the system to be accumulated in the centre by its gravity, no mechanical principles, with the assistance of this power of gravity, could separate the vast mass into such parts as the fun and planets ; and, after carrying them to' their different distances, project them in their several directions, preserving still the equality of action and reaction, or the state of the centre of gravity of the system. Such an exquisite structure of things could only arise from the contrivance and powerful influences of an intelligent, free, and most potent agent. The fame powers, therefore, which, at present, govern the material universe, and conduct its various motions, are very different from those, which were necessary, to have produced it from nothing, or to have disposed it in the admirable form, in which it now proceeds.—Maclaurin's Account of Newton's Phil. p. 407,ed. 3.

Now it is important to note that unlike Newton, Clarke, and Maclaurin, Paley thinks astronomy "is not the best medium through which to prove the agency of an intelligent Creator" (Ch. 25, par. I; emphasis in original). It merely provides supporting evidence. Maclaurin's whole paragraph is indebted to Newton's General Scholium. The "mechanical principles" in the passage are a reference to Descartes and his (Spinozistic) followers. (Maclaurin treats Descartes as a Spinozist without Descartes fully realizing it.) Maclaurin thinks that if you are committed to a Spinozist plenum physics (and the PSR), there is no way you can generate the present configuration of the solar system with the particular variety we find there.+ (The argument exist in terse form in Newton's General Scholium and elaborated by Clarke in his 1705 Boyle lectures.) I am pretty confident that this train of argument was prompted by a now lost letter by Bentley to Newton.

Newton too had insisted that the laws that govern the present solar system are incompatible with a Spinozist cosmogony. But Maclaurin is more explicit that the present laws of nature are incompatible with the powers that both originate nature and that give it present order. But this bifurcation between, on the one hand, the origin and constitution of nature, and its present operation, on the other hand, seems to violate the PSR. And if you hold on to the PSR it seems the dividing line between the origin and order of nature and its present operation seems to be arbitrary (not to mention that it seems to make God less perfect than desirable.) If you incline to Deism you can resist this problem (and hold on to PSR), but if you want to avoid Deism and defend a Voluntarist theology (as Paley does) the PSR has to go.  

*To be sure he asserts this in order to assert the unity of divine being--so it's not impossible there is here, too, some kind of PSR.

+Kant takes up the challenge in the Universal Natural History.

 

Comments

[Lukas Wolf]

Could this perhaps be related to Boyle's Disquisition About Final Causes? Boyle places himself somewhat in the middle by saying that maybe not everything is a clear instance of design (e.g.: distant stars hardly seem useful for the lighting or heating of the human world), but he also rejects the Cartesian claim that we cannot see any design in the world. His solution is that, even if we cannot see the purpose of everything around us, we can at least see some clear instances of design.

Thus Boyle seems to be an advocate of the restricted [A]-claim, rather than the universal [D]-claim. I'm thinking specifically of the question he discusses in section II. From which he concludes that not everything is a good example of design, and we need to be careful in our claims. But some things are clearly designed. For instance:

"I think, that from the ends and uses of the parts of living bodies, the naturalist may draw arguments, provided he do it with due cautions [...] The inanimate bodies [...] will not easily warrant ratiocinations drawn from their supposed ends.
I think, the celestial bodies do abundantly declare God’s power and greatness, by the immensity of their bulk, and (if the earth stand still) the celerity of their motions [...] but yet I doubt, whether, from the bare contemplation of the heavens and their motions, it may be cogently inferred, at least so strongly as final causes, may be from the structure of animals, that either the sole, or the chief, end of them all, is to enlighten the earth, and bring benefits to the creatures that live upon it"

And if this is a correct assessment of Boyle's position, it follows that this was well-known to Clarke, Paley, etc., because Boyle's Disquisition was one of the key texts on design arguments for these people. Clarke, of course, goes on to make much stronger claims regarding design arguments. Perhaps Paley did not like the strong claims of Clarke or Derham, and therefore adopted a more hedged Boylean approach?

[Eric Schliesser]

Thank you for your comment, Lukas (if I may?),
Boyle is indeed skeptical about exception-less generalizations, so he would make a good source. (I have blogged a bit about his design arguments.) And like Paley, he thinks that celestial motions are not good starting points for design arguments if you want to show the existence of final causes. (Lessius saw this early.)

But the passages you cite are all about to what degree design is in the service of humans. But once Galileo makes his discoveries, it's clear that any design argument worth having will have to allow that God's providence can't only be focused on human ends. (This is very clear in Newton's General Scholium.) So, we need to distinguish between claims about design in nature and for whom it is functional. So, I don't think this is quite what's needed, but I agree it is suggestive.

[Margaret Atherton]

Footnote: Berkeley, is Siris, says"Natural productions, it is true, are not all equally perfect." (S 256) Part of the reason he thinks this is so is the familiar order of nature sometimes throws up volcanos kind of consideration, but he also says "things will be produced in a slow length of time, and arrive at different degrees of perfection."

[Eric Schliesser]

That's swell Margaret. Thank you. I have long wondered if and how much Siris was studied in the second half of the eighteenth century.