A Critique of Mark Linville's, "The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism"
Mark's chapter on this is to appear in the upcoming Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, eds, William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland. Common Sense Atheism charges that Linville commits the Genetic Fallacy. It's an interesting argument, one that cuts both ways and one that needs to be addressed, something Keith Parsons has weighed in on here, and also here. What do you think?
6 comments:
John, you beat me to the punch, I was reading a little of this yesterday and thought about posting a link to it.
From what one commenter said, Linville apparently addresses the genetic fallacy here. I haven't had the chance to read it yet, but it looks like this is his chapter in the Blackwell companion itself.
Yes, and there are other problems with the Moral Argument, too. I hope your readers don't think I have refuted the moral argument with my little response to Linville's shorter article. I will write a much larger response to Linville's chapter in BCNT when I find the time.
Great Luke, post a note here when you do so people can know of it.
Well, I just finished all 34 pages of Linville's chapter. The first half is beautifully constructed: well argued, with relevant arguments brought in and carefully considered. The second half.... not so much. "Personal dignity" seems like the kind of social construct his vulpine alpha-beta hypotheticals might have come up with, but he seems to want to treat it as independent rather than contingent. He casually dismisses most of the recent work on the philosophy of mind, but then claims that it supports the inadequacy of a naturalist perspective. (Even Chalmers would be surprised at that.) And in the last few pages he seems to completely ignore the robust evolutionary arguments that he developed in the first half.
Post a Comment