Question I suggested to a friend that atheists and theists were rather similar, in that they take a position on god's existence ahead of time and argue it dogmatically, whereas philosophers are willing to evaluate the arguments and to tentatively adopt the one that they prefer for whatever reason. It's not to say that philosophers can't have a deep faith in a god or a lack thereof, but they don't see their work as defending that belief in the face of any possible objection. But if this is true, and I think it is, how about someone who refuses to budge from what seem like moral truisms? Must a philosopher, in order to maintain integrity, put every principle on the chopping block: that if it's wrong for you to do something, all else equal, it's wrong for me to do it, or that causing people pain is wrong? Must a philosopher at least be open to the possibility that these notions are fundamentally flawed?

Accepted:
June 3, 2010

Comments

We should distinguish one's views about a given topic and how one holds them. Theism and atheism are rival views about the existence of God or gods. One can hold either view dogmatically or in an open-minded way. So neither theists nor atheists, as such, need be dogmatic. Typically, being open-minded is linked with a recognition of one's own fallibility -- the possibility of being mistaken. Recognition of fallibility does not requires suspending belief. But it does mean accepting beliefs defeasibly and being prepared to revise one's beliefs in light of undermining evidence. Being a fallibilist means being willing to question one's beliefs. While one might be willing and able to question any given belief, it's probably not possible to questions all of one's beliefs simultaneously. One must rely on some beliefs, albeit defeasibly, while questioning other beliefs. To borrow a metaphor from Otto Neurath and popularized by Quine, as believers we are like sailors on a ship at sea who must overhaul the boat and can repair any plank but only by standing on others.

I posted a reply simultaneously with David's excellent one: it is perhaps just about worth leaving these two remarks here.

(1) An atheist certainly need not "take a position on god's existence ahead of time and argue it dogmatically". Someone can reject theism because they come to think that we have no good reason to accept the theistic hypothesis, and very good reasons to reject it. In fact, that is a common enough intellectual trajectory for people brought up in some religion: their eventual atheism is (at least by their lights) the result of weighing up the arguments, pro and con. Such an atheist might be misguided in her assessment of the weight of the arguments, but is hardly being dogmatic. (Nor indeed need every theist count as dogmatic, either.)

(2) "Must a philosopher, in order to maintain integrity, put every principle on the chopping block?" Well, certainly we should stand willing to revise cherished views, if that's where the preponderance of evidence and argument takes us. But that doesn't just apply to philosophers; it applies to all of us in so far as we care about getting things right. And, as Aristotle might caution us, it doesn't mean that the prior opinion of "the many or the wise" is to be overthrown lightly.

I agree with the two other replies, that neither theists nor atheists need be dogmatic. I would, however, like to offer a brief word on behalf of certain convictions that one seems to know (with or without argument) and such convictions are beyond negotiation. For example, I think all of us know that it is morally wrong (I am going to use a grotesque example) to skin and salt babies. However, I can imagine a utilitarian argument justifying this under extreme (though perhaps quite implausable) conditions. In such a case, I think a person might well retain her moral integrity by simply holding her position that such an act is wrong and not justified, even if she can think of no good objection to the utilitarian argument. By analogy, I think we can imagine the following: a person has had what she takes to be a compelling, even miraculous experience of God. I happen to think that there are good versions of arguments from religious experience (see work by Jerome Gellman, William Alston), but let's imagine that the person who had this experience is in her first philosophy class with an atheist professor who argues on forceful grounds that Hume has established that it is never reasonable to believe in miracles. I can imagine this person not being able to find a rejoinder to Hume, but still retaining her belief (based on first-person experience) that she had an experience of the divine.