Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
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100 J.J. <strong>Haldane</strong><br />
Now, however, I want to go further <strong>and</strong> argue that there are grounds<br />
for not regarding action <strong>and</strong> psychological explanation more generally as a<br />
species of causal explanation in the sense required by the physicalist argument.<br />
Assuming the law-like nature of efficient causation, <strong>and</strong> the claim that<br />
giving reasons is giving efficient causes, it ought to be the case that there are<br />
psychological laws connecting psychological states to one another <strong>and</strong> (as<br />
reasons) to actions. As Paul Churchl<strong>and</strong> has been concerned to emphasize,<br />
there are indeed well established psychological generalizations of an apparently<br />
law-like form – what he calls the ‘explanatory laws of folk psychology’.<br />
Consider the following examples:<br />
<strong>and</strong><br />
(1) For any subject x <strong>and</strong> any propositional content p: if x fears that p then<br />
x desires that it not be the case that p,<br />
(2) For any subject x <strong>and</strong> any propositional contents p <strong>and</strong> q: if x believes<br />
that p, <strong>and</strong> believes that if p then q, then barring confusion, distraction,<br />
etc., x believes that q.<br />
Notice first that while (1) is an unrestricted generalization it is patently<br />
false, <strong>and</strong> when one tries to accommodate counter-examples, cases where<br />
someone fears that p but does not desire that not p, by introducing a ceteris<br />
paribus clause, or, as in (2) by various exclusions, it quickly becomes apparent<br />
that the character of other things being equal <strong>and</strong> that of relevant exclusion<br />
conditions cannot be fully specified. No genuine, universal psychological<br />
generalizations – that is to say ‘laws’ – can be specified. Furthermore, such<br />
reason/action generalizations as seem to approximate to law-like status are,<br />
if true, a priori. Consider:<br />
(3) For any subject x <strong>and</strong> any action type A: if x believes that A is logically<br />
impossible then x cannot sincerely try to A.<br />
Unlike an empirical causal law, hypothesized on the basis of observed<br />
sequences, this principle identifies a relation between elements in a rational<br />
order – ‘the sphere of reasons’. This comes out in the fact that such principles<br />
constrain the application of psychological concepts. If we had good reason to<br />
maintain that someone believed that a course of action was logically impossible,<br />
then we rationally could not describe him or her as sincerely trying to<br />
effect it. Anything that supported attributing the belief would ipso facto be<br />
reason for not attributing the attempt, <strong>and</strong> vice versa.<br />
How then do action explanations work, if not by citing antecedent (efficient)<br />
causal factors? Part of my general approach has been to resist reductions,