Here are some of the arguments that have been submitted to the Clinic so far, along with the replies that were sent to the people who brought them in. By the way, all the arguments and replies you'll find below appear by permission of the folks who originally submitted the arguments. Without such permission, submissions and replies are kept strictly confidential.
Argument I
Name: Auctor Ignotus
Location: Greeley, CO, USA
Argument Being Submitted:
Argument 1
No living person has ever experienced what comes after death.
What comes after death is totally unlike what has come before.
One can only conceive of those things which one has experienced
before or are made up of elements that have been experienced before.
One cannot conceive of that which has neither been experienced,
nor is anything like that which has come before. A living person can
have no concept of what comes after death.
Argument 2
No living person can have a concept of what comes after death unless
what comes after death is something already experienced or made up
of elements which one has already experienced. There is no reason to
believe that death is not something already experienced or made up of
elements which one has already experienced. Therefore, there is no
reason to believe that a living person can have no concept of what
comes after death.
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REPLY:
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Dear William B. Anonymous,
Wow! An antinomy--or the very next best thing! Neat! Your first
argument gives us reason to believe that no living person can have a
concept of what comes after death, and the second one purports to show
that no such reason can possibly exist! If the first one's sound,* the
second one's not, and if the second one's sound,* the first one's not.
But now can we at least say that both arguments are valid?* I'm not
so sure about that. The first one is, and indeed, I think it's got an
unnecessary premise in it--one that could be eliminated without making
the argument that results from its elimination itself invalid. The
following, I think, is all you need to say to do what you want to do
with your first conclusion:
No living person has ever experienced what comes after death, and
what comes after death is totally unlike anything that comes before.
No one can conceive of a thing unless it is either something that
he or she has experienced or else something that is in at least some
respect like something he or she has experienced. Therefore, no
living person can have a concept of what comes after death.
What I've eliminated here is the one of your premises that runs:
One can only conceive of those things which one has experienced
before or are made up of elements that have been experienced before.
and even in the argument that results, if the premises were true, the
conclusion would have to be true.
But now what about your second argument? Unless I'm misreading this
argument, it's an argument of the following form (where p and q could be
any statements at all):
p is true unless q is true.
There's no reason [for you] to believe that q is true.
Therefore, there's no reason [for you] to believe that p is.
But now consider the following case:
My name is "Tom" unless it's not.
You have no reason to believe that my name isn't "Tom"
Therefore, you have no reason to believe that it is.
In this case, the premises are obviously true, and the conclusion is
false, so it looks as if arguments of this form aren't, appearances to
the contrary notwithstanding, valid after all.
As for the question of the soundness of your first argument, well,
I don't know. There are those who might have doubts about all three of
its essential premises--Plato, for example. Even if this argument is
valid, it's certainly not _obviously_ sound.
Cheers,
The Argument Doctor
____________
*The words "sound" and "valid" here have the sense they are given
in the discussion, available elsewhere on this site, of "Arguments
and Their Evaluation."
Argument II
Name: Sedona Maniak
Location: takeaguess
Argument Being Submitted:
In a letter to the editor of the _Mirror_, issue dated Sept. 20, I
believe there is a piece of reasoning in need of treatment. First you
will have to tell me whether you believe that this bit is reasoning at
all.... I will print the necessary pieces verbatim, but obtaining a
copy of the article will help the good doctor with context.
"How can you have a moral society with separation of church and state
as a national policy? Is this not a move toward secularism? How can
there be morality without a God? Is this not a contradiction in
itself?"
1. We live in a nation with a separation of church and state.
2. There cannot be morality without God.
3. With a separation of church and state a moral society cannot
exist.
If you agree that this is the authorŐs intended argument, if he
intended an argument at all, this would make my response (yet another
letter to the editor) carry even more weight.
Thanks,
Sedona
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REPLY:
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Sedona,
I haven't yet had a chance to see the letter you're writing about, so
I'm operating without the help of context. Still, I think I'd read this
argument just a little differently--to wit, as follows:
1. The idea of morality without a God is a contradiction in terms.
2. Therefore, there can be no such thing as morality without a God.
3. In our society, church and state are separated from one another
as a matter of national policy.
4. [Society and the state are the very same thing.]*
5. [Where church is separated from society, society is secular, i.e.,
without a God.]*
6. Therefore our [secular] society cannot be a moral one.
In other words, I suspect that the conclusion here is not just that
a moral society cannot exist where there is a separation of church and
state. I think it must be that _our_ society is not a moral one. I also
think you've missed a couple of tacit premises and overlooked the fact
that an argument is offered here in support of the thesis that there
can be no such thing as morality without a God (which, of course, makes
the entire argument a sorites). But there are still other possibilities.
It could be, for instance, that the argument was actually intended as an
argument for bringing about an end to the constitutional separation of
church and state in the United States. From what you've given me to go
on, it's not all that easy to tell.
In the argument I've sketched above, I have no problem at all with
the passage from (1) to (2)--though I do have my doubts about the
_truth_ of premise (1). Still, if one grants (1), one must grant (2) as
well. Premise (3) is untroublesome, or could be made so by altering
it to take note of the fact that it's a constitutional provision that
we're talking about here and not just of a "matter of national policy."
This leaves us then with three big questions--besides the question of
the truth of premise (1):
1. Is premise (4) true?
2. Is premise (5) true?
3. And in any case, does (6) _follow_ from statements (2)-(5)?
First, as regards premises (4) and (5): these can hardly be said to
be uncontroversial claims. On its face, (4) seems false, and (5) would
be debated by many. But now even if these claims could be defended, and
even if premise (1) could be shown to be true, there's the question of
whether the truth of these claims guarantees--or even makes it very
likely--that the _conclusion_ of this argument is true. As to this, I
think that everything depends on what is being declared contradictory
in premise (1) and therefore an impossibility in statement (2). If the
idea is that morality cannot exist _if there is no God_, then the
argument seems to me to be plainly invalid, for from the fact--if
indeed it is a fact--that God is nowhere to be found _in our society_,
it hardly follows that He does not exist. The conclusion would _follow_
from the premises* only if the idea is that a society cannot be a moral
society if there is no God _in it_.
I hope this helps, and I also hope it doesn't come too late. I'm
afraid I didn't even see this message until this morning. The Clinic is
in desperate need of a larger staff.
See you soon,
TKT (aka The Argument Doctor)
____________
*Tacit premise.
**Or in other words: have to be true if they are.
Argument III
Name: Brooke Larsen
Location: Greeley, CO, USA
Argument Being Submitted:
This is one that came up in my philosophy class. I mostly want to know
if it can ever be made into a valid argument if it is not one already.
Is it sound?
If abortion is the killing of innocent people,
And the killing of innocent people is a holocaust,
Then abortion is a holocaust.
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REPLY:
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Brooke,
Thanks for your submission to the Argument Clinic! Here's my reply:
Strictly, what you're asking about here is just a (conditional) claim,
and not an argument at all, but there's an argument that corresponds to
it, namely this one:
Abortion is the killing of innocent people.
The killing of innocent people is a holocaust.
Therefore, abortion is a holocaust.
There can be little doubt that this argument is valid just as it stands.
After all, _all_ arguments of the form:
Every A is a B.
Every B is a C.
Therefore, every A is a C.
are valid, and it'd be hard to deny that the argument set forth above is
an argument of that form:
Every abortion involves the killing of an innocent person.
Every killing of an innocent person is a holocaust.
Therefore, every abortion is a holocaust.
But now is the argument sound? That's another question altogether, and
one that's at the very heart of a good portion of the abortion controversy.
Many people would accept the first premise as true, but no one who
denies that a fetus is a person can consistently hold that abortion
involves the killing of innocent _people_, and of course many of the
people who think there is nothing wrong with abortion take that position
precisely because they _don't_ think that a fetus _is_ a person.
As for the second premise: just what does the term "holocaust" _mean_
in this context? Its literal meaning, as you may know, is this: a
sacrifice to God or the gods that's burned up entirely instead of just
being cooked to a turn for the purpose of being served up at the feast.
Its use here must surely therefore be metaphorical, but how is the
metaphor to be understood? Till know that, we're hardly in a position
to start discussing the truth or falsity of the second premise.
Logically yours,
The Argument Doctor
PS: If the original argument hadn't been valid, there'd be no way to make
_it_ valid. The best you could do is find some _other_ argument that's a
valid argument for the same conclusion. Think about it.
Argument IV
Name: Erik Horton
Location: Rochester, NY, USA
Argument Being Submitted:
Premise 1: The Sixties counterculture focused on personal liberation
and gratification, which led to personal irresponsibility
in many cases.
Premise 2: The Sixties counterculture created a decreased concern for
industriousness.
Premise 3: The Sexual Revolution led to increased divorce rates,
illegitimacy, and female-headed families.
Conclusion: The Cultural Revolution of the sixties caused poverty to
raise to higher levels because of the degredation of
individual morals.
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REPLY:
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Dear Mr. Horton,
Your argument is valid only if, in addition to the stated premises, it
contains either the following three unstated premises or other unstated
premises from which these follow:
Unstated Premise A: Wherever at least some of the following occur, there
has been a degradation of individual morals: a rise in the
level of personal irresponsibility, a decreased concern for
industriousness, an increase in the divorce rate, an increase
in illegitimacy, an increase in the number of female-headed
families.
Unstated Premise B: Anything that produces a degradation of individual
morals causes an increase in the level of poverty.
Unstated Premise C: The Sexual Revolution and the creation of the
Sixties counterculture were integral parts of the Cultural
Revolution of the Sixties.
After all, the three claims you make in your _stated_ premises could all be
true and the conclusion of your argument could still be false if any or all of
the claims contained in these unstated premises were false. This means that you
can expect criticism, from those disinclined to accept your conclusion, of
either one or more of your three _stated_ premises or of one or the other of
the first two of the unstated premises above. Premise (C) is hardly likely to
be controversial, but I'd say that (A), (B), (1), (2), and (3) all _are_.
Therefore, if you really want to make your case, you should do what you can to
defend those five claims -- (1), (2), (3) below and (A) and (B) above. I would
suggest, by the way, that (B) is especially vulnerable to attack.
Sincerely,
The Argument Doctor
Argument V
Name: Greg Roebuck
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Argument Being Submitted:
God is commonly defined as omnipotent, omniscient and ultimately benevolent.
Taking this property of omniscience, it follows that: For any proposition (P),
(P) is true if and only if (if God existed, then God would believe (P)). This
is true for all propositions and therefore true for the proposition 'God
exists'. If we substitute 'God exists' for (P) then: God exists if and only if
(if God existed, then God would believe that God exists). The proposition in
brackets is necessarily true, however as it is a bi-conditional statement,
the first part must also be true. Therefore, God exists. Q.E.D. P.S. Please
don't respond saying 'existence isn't a predicate' because this argument,
while breaking down when 'God exists' is substituted, works perfectly for
something like 'Bob exists', or 'the world exists'.
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REPLY:
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Dear Mr. Roebuck,
This is really a very ingenious argument, but I remain unconvinced.
Here's why.
It seems to me that what's entailed by God's omniscience isn't what
you suggest is entailed by it, but only this, that for any
proposition p, p would be true _if God existed_ if and only if if God
existed, then God would believe p.
Surely, if God existed, He'd believe everything that'd be true if
He did, but not everything that _is_ true whether or not He does. For
suppose (just for the sake of the argument) that the atheist is right
and that God doesn't exist. Surely you don't want to have to grant
that if God doesn't exist, then if He did, He'd believe that He
doesn't. (There are, by the way, all sorts of things that would be
true if God existed that aren't true if He doesn't, and any of those
would make an equally good example in this connection.)
No: the idea of divine omniscience only suggests that every
proposition that _would_ be true if God existed is a proposition that
God would believe if He existed (and conversely, of course, since
presumably God's nature ensures that if He exists, he not only knows
everything, but doesn't have any erroneous beliefs either: i.e.,
doesn't believe anything that's false -- i.e., that He doesn't know
to be true).
But if this is right, then substituting "the proposition that God
exists" for "p" in the proposition that's entailed by God's
omniscience only yields:
That God exists would be true if God existed if and only if
_if_ God existed, then God would believe that God exists.
and all that can be inferred from the truth of the right hand side of
this biconditional together with the truth of the biconditional
itself is that
It would be true that God exists if God existed.
or in other words:
God would exist if He existed.
from which it hardly follows that He does....
Cordially,
The Argument Doctor
Argument VI
Name: Jane Drexler; Kim Banner
Location: Canton, OH, U.S.; Greeley, CO,
U.S.
Argument Being Submitted:
The following is an actual question given in a University of Washington
chemistry mid-term exam. The answer by one student was so "profound" that
the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of
course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well. Bonus
Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's
Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some
variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to
know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the
rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are
leaving. I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it
will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls
are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in
the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a
member of their faith, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one
of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one
religion, we can reliably project that all souls go to Hell. With birth
and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to
increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume
in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and
pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand
proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities: If
Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter
Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all
Hell breaks loose. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the
increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop
until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate
given to me by Teresa during my freshman year that, "it will be a cold
night in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact
that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I
am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The
corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows
that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore
extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine
being, which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God!"
(Allegedly this student received the only A.)
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REPLY:
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Jane and Kim,
This has to be one of my favorite jokes. What were you wondering about
it? (I assume you weren't merely trying to brighten my day by sending it
along.) Were you wondering if the reasoning here is any good?
Let's take a look -- since that's what the Argument Clinic is for. There
are actually two arguments here, one for the primary thesis (i.e, that
Hell is exothermic) and one for the corollary. First the argument for the
primary thesis....
The conclusion -- the thing being argued for -- is that Hell is
exothermic. That's the answer to the examination question ("Is Hell
exothermic or is it endothermic?") that's being defended.
As I see it, the argument goes like this:
1. Most religions (and that presumably means at least two, and more, if
there are more than three) state that if you are not a member of their
faith, you will go to Hell. (Premise)
2. Whatever a religion states must be true. (Unstated premise)
3. No one belongs to more than one religion. (Premise)
4. Each and every one of us fails to belong to at least one of the
religions that state that if one is not a member of their faith, one will
go to Hell. (Follows from statements 1 and 3)
5. Each and every one of us is going to go to Hell (at _some_ time or
other, presumably when we die). (Follows from 1, 2, and 4)
6. The number of people increases exponentially, and therefore so does
the number of deaths. (Premise; I take it that this is what is meant by
our bright young student when he says "[B]irth and death rates [are] as
they are")
7. When a person dies, he or she (i.e., his or her soul) goes either to
Heaven or to Hell. (Unstated premise)
8. The number of souls in Hell increases exponentially. (Follows from 5,
6, and 7)
9. Once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. (Premise; I realize I've
changed the order of the presentation, but that's of no particular
moment.)
10. No souls leave Hell. (Follows from 9)
11. In order for the temperature and pressure in a closed container
filled with a gas to remain constant over time, the volume of the
container must increase proportionately to the rate at which the amount
of the gas is increased. (Boyle's Law; functions here as a premise that
we're supposed to think of as having been proved elsewhere)
12. The souls in a place constitute a gas -- indeed are, presumably, the
molecules of that gas. (Unstated premise)
13. Hell is a closed container. (Unstated premise? Perhaps this is better
thought of as just another way of stating 10.)
14. [I]n order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same
(which is at least theoretically a possibility), the volume of Hell has
to expand proportionately as souls are added. (Follows from 11, 12, and
13 [or from 10, 11, and 12]. Note the subtlety of my maneuver: if we
think of 13 as really just 10, we make the analysis like a hotel that has
no 13th floor, thereby combining logic and superstition in a truly
delightful way!)
15. The only other possibilities are these: Hell is expanding at a slower
rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, or it is expanding at a
rate faster than that rate. (Follows from 14 and considerations having to
do with the logic of talk about rates of expansion)
16. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until
all Hell breaks loose. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the
increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop
until Hell freezes over. (Follows from Boyle's Law together with 12 and
13 [or 10 and 12], and a few other well-known scientific truths, though
the expressions "all Hell breaks loose" and "Hell freezes over" are,
perhaps, a bit on the colorful side)
17. The temperature and pressure in Hell are not constant. (Unstated
assumption; but really this is an assumption that's built into the very
question: is Hell exothermic or is it endothermic? In being asked this,
we're being asked, in effect, to suppose that it must be one or the
other)
18. Precisely one of the two possibilities stated in 15 above must be the
case. (Follows from 14, 15, and 17)
19. It will be (was) a (really) cold day in Hell before Teresa sleeps
(slept) with our bright young student. (Premise)
20. Our bright young student slept with Teresa last night. (Premise)
21. It was already (really) cold in Hell sometime before yesterday.
(Follows from 19 and 20)
22. At the very least, Hell _used to be_ hot. (Unstated premise)
23. Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. (Follows from 18, 21,
and 22) -- Q.E.D.
Note that since we know that Hell is already (really) cold, we can state
confidently that the temperature must be absolute zero -- i.e., zero
degrees Kelvin. Why? Because only _really_ cold (absolutely cold) is all
_that_ cold. (Am I serious about this? Is there anything serious about
this?)
Now for the corollary:
24. No souls are entering Hell at present. (Follows immediately from 23.
If even a single soul entered Hell, there'd be a little molecular motion
there, and that means a little heat, contrary to what we have shown.
25. Hell is extinct (Just another way of stating 24: Hell is now out of
business, a thing of the past, a dead parrot. [Presumably "being in
business" here means something like "_getting_ business," i.e.,
"receiving new souls"])
26. If anything was a going concern in the past is was either Heaven or
Hell; nothing else was ever a going concern. (Premise)
27. But now only Heaven is still in business. (This is plainly SUPPOSED
to follow from 25 and 26, but it doesn't; what follows is this: either
only Heaven is still in business, or neither Heaven nor Hell is now in
business. And recall that in 4 above, we showed that Heaven never gets
any customers. What's actually happening to souls now, now that Hell is a
thing of the past (as we have proved) is certainly a very difficult
question -- especially in light of what we assumed in step 7. Perhaps
that assumption was mistaken, or perhaps the religions that teach that
those who are not members of their faith go to Hell are...wrong? Wow.
_There's_ a thought.)
28. There can be no Heaven if there is no God. (Premise)
29. God exists. (Follows from 27 and 28)
30. Our bright young student is God if anybody is. (Premise)
31. Our bright young student is God. (Follows from 29 and 30)
32. When people encounter God, it's quite understandable that they shout
"Oh my God!" (Premise)
33. It's quite understandable that Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God!" last
night. (Follows from 20, 31, and 32. Question: is this the corollary we
were promised, or is this supposed to be merely a demonstrable
consequence of the corollary -- presumably step 24 -- taken together with
a few additional premises? I assume the latter, and that the promised
corollary is step 24.)
That's my analysis, and I'm sticking to it. My judgment concerning the
argument's strength? Well, since an argument is only as strong as its
weakest link, we have to say that while the argument for the main thesis
looks valid, it might well be unsound, and that that the rest is flawed
(see my comment on step 27). Of course we may be getting hit with heavy
irony -- dare we say out-and-out comedy -- towards the end here. Perhaps
we're supposed to realize along about step 27 that what we really have
here is an indirect proof of the fallibility of religious belief: a
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the idea that whatever a religion teaches must
be true. But even on that reading, the argument might be unsound.
Questions remain: is it really true for souls that once they're in Hell,
they're always in Hell? What about the Harrowing of Hell (cf., _inter
alia_, Dante's _Inferno_ on this particular question)? Do the souls in
Hell really constitute a gas to which Boyle's Law can be applied? And
finally, What about Teresa? Did she really sleep with this guy last
night? How do we know he isn't lying? And if she did, was she really
right when she said that it'd be a cold day in Hell before she would? The
reasoning in the argument for the main conclusion depends crucially on
the truth of "Teresa's postulate."
Finally, even if my criticism of step 27 could be shown to be baseless
(and I invite you to give that a shot) and that the reasoning is valid
throughout, there might still be further questions about the argument's
soundness: is it, for example, really at all likely that our bright young
student is God if anybody is? Isn't he maybe just full of...well, at
least himself?
All that having been said, this has still got to be one of my very
favorite jokes.
Best,
The Argument Doctor
aka Tom Trelogan
