1 of 1- DanielCC
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WLC and Natural Law Theory
To start I should say that I both admire William Lane Craig and am not a Natural Law Theorist myself. I will also add that I do not endorse free-standing Abstract Objects of the kind which seem to haunt the nightmares of Protestant philosophers of Religion. With all these provisos in place his discussion of Natural Law in his latest Q&A is truly pitiful.
Nominalism and Natural Law
His interlocutor points out that marriage has an intrinsic structure which is not a social construct.. He then claims that as a Natural Law theorist he holds that 'the moral law is grounded in what it is to be human' and then points out that WLC is a Nominalist due to his worries over Platonism, and thus seems oddly placed to appeal to essences which are after all a species of universal.
WLC replies that his talk about the 'essence' of marriage was only intended to be shorthand for the way marriage necessarily is (one wonders what sort of object he would claim marriage to be if pressed - not a relation since those too are universals) – yet this is arguably what to have an essence means anyway i.e. for a being to have certain properties necessarily such as it wouldn’t exist without them. His next part is a wonderful instance of a No True Scotsman Fallacy preceded by the wife-beating question, 'as a theist, you don’t think that the natural law is some non-spatiotemporal, immaterial, causally effete, abstract object with which God finds Himself confronted?' - now even were WLC talking with one of the Platonists it would be an instance of sheer straw-manning to attribute this position to them: the Natural Law theorist claims these factors about human relations are grounded in the universal Human nature however that universal is to be construed. Then we get to the Scotsman: WLC asks 'isn’t it better to say that the natural law finds it source in God and His will or commands? For example, we can affirm that God has necessarily decreed that human beings are to be treated as ends in themselves rather merely as means to ends.' This is equivalent to saying 'Isn't it better to say atheism means God does not intervene after the initial moment of creation'. On WLC's suggestion the words 'Natural Law' simply become another semantic label for Divine Command Theory.
Last edited by DanielCC (8/31/2015 2:53 pm)
- Dennis
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
I've always wanted to make such an objection to Craig, the only problem is, I have read none of his works when it comes to abstract object, and take a look at this
DR. CRAIG: This was, I think, the most interesting part of the conference for me. I was well acquainted with van Inwagen’s work and had interacted with it. But Bridges’ I didn’t know well. What I was surprised to learn as a result of reading not only him but especially a couple of articles by Armand Maurer and Jeffrey Brower that he shared with me is that although Bridges calls his Thomist view “moderate realism” it is not realism at all.[2] Thomas [Aquinas] is a nominalist about abstract objects. Thomas is on my side! He is an anti-realist. He does not believe that universals or other abstract objects exist. He thinks they are just in the mind and don't have any sort of real existence at all. This is very different than the traditional Aristotelian view that Thomas normally would adopt because Aquinas was very dependent upon Aristotle’s philosophy. Most interpreters think that Aristotle believed that universals are real and that they exist in things so that in a horse there is the essence of being a horse, for example. But Aquinas doesn’t take that view. Aquinas is an anti-realist about these things. I said to Bridges, “You are really, really misleading your readers by calling your view ‘moderate realism’ because that was a view which was defended by certain medieval persons who held to this more Aristotelian view that there are immanent abstract objects – in things. They are not in a transcendent Platonic realm off in some fairyland. They are in the world. But Aquinas does not believe that. He is an anti-realist about abstract objects.” So, as you can imagine, I was very encouraged by this and very glad to find that informed Thomists are actually on the side of the angels about this.
I don't know what to say about this.
Last edited by Dennis (8/31/2015 6:44 pm)
- DanielCC
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
WLC's main criticism of Constituent Realism is the same as that given be Inwagen, that he doesn't understand what it means for something to be in a particular with 'in' taken in a non-spatial way. Maverick Philosopher tore Inwagen apart on this score but I think it’s worth adding that WLC wouldn’t accept such weak ‘I don’t understand X’ arguments in other cases. For instance J.H. Sobel once claimed that if God existed in all possible worlds then God must be an abstract object for abstract objects were the only other beings he knew of which existed in all possible worlds; WLC parallels this 'If properties exist in things then they must be spatially extended for all the other things which exist in things that I know of are spatially extended'.
Dennis wrote:
I've always wanted to make such an objection to Craig, the only problem is, I have read none of his works when it comes to abstract object, and take a look at this
DR. CRAIG: This was, I think, the most interesting part of the conference for me. I was well acquainted with van Inwagen’s work and had interacted with it. But Bridges’ I didn’t know well. What I was surprised to learn as a result of reading not only him but especially a couple of articles by Armand Maurer and Jeffrey Brower that he shared with me is that although Bridges calls his Thomist view “moderate realism” it is not realism at all.[2] Thomas [Aquinas] is a nominalist about abstract objects. Thomas is on my side! He is an anti-realist. He does not believe that universals or other abstract objects exist. He thinks they are just in the mind and don't have any sort of real existence at all. This is very different than the traditional Aristotelian view that Thomas normally would adopt because Aquinas was very dependent upon Aristotle’s philosophy. Most interpreters think that Aristotle believed that universals are real and that they exist in things so that in a horse there is the essence of being a horse, for example. But Aquinas doesn’t take that view. Aquinas is an anti-realist about these things. I said to Bridges, “You are really, really misleading your readers by calling your view ‘moderate realism’ because that was a view which was defended by certain medieval persons who held to this more Aristotelian view that there are immanent abstract objects – in things. They are not in a transcendent Platonic realm off in some fairyland. They are in the world. But Aquinas does not believe that. He is an anti-realist about abstract objects.” So, as you can imagine, I was very encouraged by this and very glad to find that informed Thomists are actually on the side of the angels about this.
I don't know what to say about this.
Interestingly this came up as a conversation topic a few weeks ago. Though I don't think WLC is correct in his treatment of Thomas (Brower has eccentric views about Classical philosophers and universals - he likes to claim that not only Thomas but also Augustine were Trope Nominalists) I do think many modern Thomists like Ed and Oderberg hold a more muscular view of universals as immanent in their particulars than did Thomas himself, possibly because of the influence of the New Essentialist movement on the later. Let’s call these two positions Strong Thomas and Weak Thomas:
Strong Thomas: Universals are immanent in their particulars and in the mind which grasps them via abstraction
Weak Thomas: Universals exist only in the mind (yet are not creations of the mind) that contemplates a group of given particulars.
Even with this I don’t think Thomas is on WLC’s ‘side’. Even if Weak Thomas or Craigian Nominalist Thomas were the correct interpretations it wouldn’t matter – Thomas would just have happened to have been wrong and his later disciples right.
EDIT: And here's that conversation
Last edited by DanielCC (8/31/2015 7:27 pm)
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Thread Starter- Karl3125
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
I think it’s worth adding that WLC wouldn’t accept such weak ‘I don’t understand X’ arguments in other cases.
Ironic. That's just the type of argument he used against constituent realism in his April 13th podcast:
It is just really, really difficult to understand what so-called “the” scholastic view is of these objects because it seems to be differently interpreted by folks.
It disappoints me that Craig didn't mention a single thinker in his response. Much unlike his debate presentations.
- DanielCC
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
I think it’s worth adding that WLC wouldn’t accept such weak ‘I don’t understand X’ arguments in other cases.
Ironic. That's just the type of argument he used against constituent realism in his April 13th podcast:
It is just really, really difficult to understand what so-called “the” scholastic view is of these objects because it seems to be differently interpreted by folks.
It disappoints me that Craig didn't mention a single thinker in his response. Much unlike his debate presentations.
One of the problems with WLC is that he thinks primarily in terms of 'Abstract Objects' and only secondly in terms of universals. One can tell most of the time when he speaks about them (abstracta) he's mainly thinking of mathematical particulars a la Quine. It makes me wonder what an earth his early philosophical education was like (of course I know he had a good one but he's keen on recounting how the 'dread of abstracta' came upon him only after hearing Morris read his 'Absolute Creationism' paper during a conference in the '80s - he gives he impression that before then they just fell in with Plantinga's ontology)
When his Cadbury Lectures DVD comes out I intend to write up a long post criticising his take on universals to be posted here and on the Reasonable Faith message boards.
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Thread Starter- Greg
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
One of the problems with WLC is that he thinks primarily in terms of 'Abstract Objects' and only secondly in terms of universals.
Yeah, and therefore he thinks that universals, even in particulars, will be causally inefficacious. But Strong Thomas doesn't think that they are causally inefficacious, at least in some sense (formal) of "cause."
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
On WLC's suggestion the words 'Natural Law' simply become another semantic label for Divine Command Theory.
Well, somewhat controversially, natural law theory is a kind of divine command theory, basically what Anscombe recommends. But the retort to Craig is that divine command theory minus something that looks like natural law theory in the traditional sense does not explain why any of God's commands would be binding or would provide reasons for action. You need some sort of theory of practical reasoning to do that, even if you believe it true that God has commanded X.
- DanielCC
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
On WLC's suggestion the words 'Natural Law' simply become another semantic label for Divine Command Theory.
Well, somewhat controversially, natural law theory is a kind of divine command theory, basically what Anscombe recommends. But the retort to Craig is that divine command theory minus something that looks like natural law theory in the traditional sense does not explain why any of God's commands would be binding or would provide reasons for action. You need some sort of theory of practical reasoning to do that, even if you believe it true that God has commanded X.
I remember having having a conversation with Scott that touched on that: he pointed out that Thomist ethics can be considered a Divine Command theory in as much as God's creating X kind of entity is equivalent to God's commanding it to be a certain way*. This is dependent on one accepting the Transcendentals of course. I suppose the difference here is that morality is only secondarily tied in with God e.g. the atheist Natural Law theorist can still endorse it of they accept the background philosophy of nature even if their reasons for keeping it atheistic are incoherent.
*WLC could have made this point in his debate with Richard Taylor since Taylor was both an Aristotelean Virtue Ethicist and a proponent of the cosmological argument.
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Thread Starter- Dennis
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
I think it’s worth adding that WLC wouldn’t accept such weak ‘I don’t understand X’ arguments in other cases.
Ironic. That's just the type of argument he used against constituent realism in his April 13th podcast:
It is just really, really difficult to understand what so-called “the” scholastic view is of these objects because it seems to be differently interpreted by folks.
It disappoints me that Craig didn't mention a single thinker in his response. Much unlike his debate presentations.
When his Cadbury Lectures DVD comes out I intend to write up a long post criticising his take on universals to be posted here and on the Reasonable Faith message boards.
That would be pleasing, I'm looking forward to it, I've planned to watch his Cadbury Lectures, maybe I'll be able to properly do it myself tomorrow.
- John West
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Re: WLC and Natural Law Theory
When his Cadbury Lectures DVD comes out I intend to write up a long post criticising his take on universals to be posted here and on the Reasonable Faith message boards.
Having just watched Craig's second lecture, his treatment of the indispensability argument is unfortunate. He starts by pointing out (correctly) that philosophers of mathematics have abandoned Quine's idiosyncratic version, and then goes on to spend the rest of the time talking about Balaguer's rendition of the most idiosyncratic part of Quine's version.
To be fair, it's likely because Craig's only concerned with abstract objects, not mathematical entities in general (ie. which would include property and relation universals as per Australian theories, like John Bigelow's and James Franklin's). More after I watch the rest.