Sweeping Contingency Under the Rug (Part 3)
Contingency in the Relationship Between Cognitive Faculties and Moral Beliefs
It is important to note that Wielenberg describes this making relationship between cognitive faculties and moral properties, the first part of his third-factor model, as a necessary relationship, that it obtains in all possible worlds.40 This is the key difference I want to note between the first and second part of his third-factor model. While he proposes that the first part, the making relationship between cognitive faculties and moral properties, is necessary, he proposes that the second part of his third-factor model, the relationship between cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs, is contingent.
Wielenberg used his third factor model to try and show why it is not a lucky coincidence that moral properties and moral beliefs correspond; they correspond because they both come from our cognitive faculties. He summarized his strategy as follows:
Thus, there is a necessary connection between the cognitive faculties and moral rights. Those very cognitive faculties also generate moral beliefs, including the relevant beliefs about rights. The connection between the cognitive faculties and beliefs about moral rights is causal. In this way, the relevant cognitive faculties are responsible for both moral rights and beliefs about those rights, and so the cognitive faculties explain the correlation between moral rights and beliefs about those rights.41
However, including this third-factor in his model does not successfully rebut the lucky coincidence objection because his model still includes contingency, that is, the contingency in the relationship between our cognitive faculties and our moral beliefs. This contingency still leaves his model open to the lucky coincidence objection because, as Wielenberg himself admitted, where there is contingency, there is luck.42
In Wielenberg’s third factor model, he claims our cognitive faculties both make moral properties be instantiated and generate our moral beliefs. He noted that “[i]f these claims are correct, then we have explained the ‘remarkable fact’ [that moral properties and moral beliefs correspond]… it seems to me that if we can explain why (i) x causes y and (ii) x entails z, then we have explained why y and z tend to go together.”43 Assuming for the sake of argument that the first part of his model is correct, that cognitive faculties necessarily make moral properties be instantiated, his model does not avoid the lucky coincidence objection because of the contingency found in the second part, the relationship between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs. His proposed correspondence between moral properties and moral beliefs breaks down because of this difference in causal necessity. There is no good reason to think that beings with cognitive faculties like ours would have the same moral beliefs we do. In addition, we can easily imagine beings with similar cognitive faculties as our own but with radically different types of moral beliefs.
As noted earlier, this point is amplified if one believes, as most atheists do, that our cognitive faculties and moral beliefs came about haphazardly through a random evolutionary process. Wielenberg does not take a position on whether all our moral beliefs can be explained in evolutionary terms but he is “sympathetic to the view that at least some of our moral beliefs can be given evolutionary explanations.”44 In particular, he sketched an evolutionary explanation of how we came to have our beliefs about moral rights.45
Consider the following refutation by analogy. If Wielenberg’s model works in the realm of moral knowledge, then it should also work in other realms of knowledge generated by our cognitive faculties, realms such as science and mathematics. Let us consider his third-factor in the context of Fermat’s Last Theorem.46 For the purpose of this analogy it is sufficient to note that Fermat’s Last Theorem is a mathematical theorem proposed by Pierre de Fermat in 1637. He claimed he had developed a proof of this theorem but such a proof was never found in any of his writings. Despite numerous attempts by mathematicians, there were no published successful proofs of this theorem until 1994. If we insert Fermat’s Last Theorem in Wielenberg’s third-factor model, the two parts of the model would be as follows:
Our cognitive faculties make the property of ‘being able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem’ be instantiated.
Our cognitive faculties cause us to believe we can prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.
We can easily imagine beings like us who have the cognitive faculties which make them able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, but who do not have the belief that they can. Similarly, we can easily imagine beings like us who have cognitive faculties which make them have moral properties such as rights and obligations (assuming the first part of Wielenberg’s model is correct), but who do not have the belief that they do. We do not even have to use our imagination because there are such people, that is, human beings who do not think they have moral rights and obligations. The reason that beings with cognitive faculties like ours may not have the belief that they have moral properties is that the causal connection between cognitive faculties and moral beliefs is contingent, not necessary.
Attempting to Avoid Contingency by Claiming That the Laws of Nature are Necessary
Wielenberg understands that, because his model still contains contingency, it remains vulnerable to the lucky coincidence objection. The issue under consideration is how lucky it is for our moral beliefs and objective moral facts to correspond. He noted that “because the basic ethical facts are necessary truths, if there is any luck in the correspondence between our psychological dispositions and moral reality, it must lie entirely on the psychological side of the equation.”47 Therefore, in a final attempt to remove all contingency, he spent the last few pages of his book asking his readers to entertain the idea that laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. If this were the case, he argued, then any being with cognitive faculties like ours would necessarily have moral beliefs similar to ours.48 Eliminating contingency is the only way to ultimately rebut the lucky coincidence objection.
He noted that the amount of lucky coincidence involved in having moral beliefs that correspond with objective moral facts depends on the answer to this question: “[T]o what extent do the actual laws of nature permit the emergence of species of beings that m-possess moral principles radically different from the moral principles we m-possess?”49 He began his answer to this question with the following hypothetical claim, which he calls Extreme Specificity (ES): “The actual laws of nature entail that any being capable of forming moral beliefs at all m-possess all and only the principles included in Moral Truth [all the necessarily true general moral principles, or brute ethical facts].”50 He argues that if the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary in this regard then “there is no luck at all involved in the fact that Bart [a hypothetical person he used as an example] m-possesses moral principles that correspond with moral reality rather than m-possessing radically different (and false) moral principles.”51
Wielenberg concluded that ES must be false and he admitted that “we simply lack the knowledge required to warrant a clear and confident answer” concerning ES, but he did suggest that “we may be relatively close to ES—or at least, closer to ES than some philosophers have suggested.”52 He understands that the closer we are to ES in real life, the smaller amount of luck is entailed by our having moral beliefs that correspond to objective moral facts and properties. He concluded his book by stating that “[a]s far as I can tell, a certain degree of agnosticism is called for with respect to just how lucky we are to have moral knowledge on a view like mine.”53
[40] Ibid., 36, 145, 156.
[41] Ibid., 145.
[42] Wielenberg agreed that contingency entails luck when he noted that “Where there is no contingency, there is no luck.” Ibid., 167.
[43] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 156.
[44] Ibid., 148.
[45] Ibid., 135–44.
[46] This particular refutation by analogy was developed by Dr. Greg Welty.
[47] Ibid., 167.
[48] Ibid., 166–75.
[49] Ibid., 167.
[50] Ibid., 168. Moral Truth is the set of all necessarily true general moral principles, which, as I have noted, are what he claims are BEFs.
[51] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 168.
[52] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 169.
[53] Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 175.
Adam Lloyd Johnson serves as a university campus missionary with Ratio Christi. He also teaches classes for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and spends one month each year living and teaching at Rhineland Theological Seminary in Wölmersen, Germany. Adam received his PhD in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Philosophy of Religion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2020.
Adam grew up in Nebraska and became a Christian as a teenager in 1994. He graduated from the University of Nebraska and then worked in the field of actuarial science for ten years in Lincoln, Nebraska. While in his twenties, he went through a crisis of faith: are there good reasons and evidence to believe God exists and that the Bible is really from Him? His search for answers led him to apologetics and propelled him into ministry with a passion to serve others by equipping Christians and encouraging non-Christians to trust in Christ. Adam served as a Southern Baptist pastor for eight years (2009-2017) but stepped down from the pastorate to serve others full-time in the area of apologetics. He’s been married to his wife Kristin since 1996, and they have four children – Caroline, Will, Xander, and Ray.
Adam has presented his work at the National Apologetics Conference, the Society of Christian Philosophers, the Evangelical Philosophical Society, the International Society of Christian Apologetics, the Canadian Centre for Scholarship and the Christian Faith, the American Academy of Religion, and the Evangelical Theological Society. His work has been published in the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics, Philosophia Christi, the Westminster Theological Journal, and the Canadian Journal for Scholarship and the Christian Faith. Adam has spoken at numerous churches and conferences in America and around the world – Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, Boston, Orlando, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. He is also the editor and co-author of the book A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties? published by Routledge and co-authored with William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Erik Wielenberg, and others.