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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Reply to <strong>Haldane</strong> 165<br />
of the proper function of an organ of an animal or plant. I said that it was<br />
often useful for a biologist, who is wondering about hypotheses of biological<br />
mechanism, to think in an ‘as if ’ way of purpose since natural selection sees<br />
to it that organs are by <strong>and</strong> large conducive to the survival of the organism.<br />
Alternatively, function may be defined in terms of ‘what something (e.g. an<br />
organ) is selected for’ (see p. 169, n. 7). There is no reference to actual<br />
purposive design or Aristotelian function.<br />
Dogs do not have as acute vision as we do. A much larger part of the cortex<br />
of a dog is devoted to processing the sense of smell than is the case with<br />
humans. So perhaps in a way it is part of the function of a dog’s vision to be<br />
weak: it leaves room in the cortex for the sense of smell that is so important<br />
in doggy existence. Still, this is stretching even the biologist’s ‘as if ’ notion of<br />
a function a bit far.<br />
These remarks are just hints towards a possible appreciation of some of<br />
the difficulties in the way of an Aristotelian notion of ‘function’. Perhaps in<br />
the end they are quibbles which <strong>Haldane</strong> may be able to accommodate to<br />
his notions.<br />
Suppose that you are suffering from a violent toothache. Does this seem<br />
like a privation of good <strong>and</strong> not something positively horrible? Perhaps the<br />
pain is good as a means – it alerts one to the necessity of not chewing on<br />
the tooth. (Before dentists nothing much could indeed be done! So it is not<br />
all that easy to state what avoiding or remedial action natural selection has in<br />
this case operated to promote.) One might wonder why an omnipotent God<br />
could not have fixed the laws of nature <strong>and</strong> even the course of evolution so<br />
that more pleasant signalling systems might have existed.<br />
Mice obviously do not like being eaten by cats. However according to<br />
<strong>Haldane</strong> God does not create this evil. What he did was create an interacting<br />
system of cats <strong>and</strong> mice in which the well-being of the cats is secured at the<br />
expense of the mice (see p. 139). ‘Where there is a bad there is a good<br />
involving the realization of the powers <strong>and</strong> liabilities of interacting systems’,<br />
says <strong>Haldane</strong>. Well, given the laws of nature maximized self-realization could<br />
perhaps come about in this way. But could not God have created a universe<br />
with different laws, non-metabolizing non-competitive spirits, all engaged in<br />
satisfying non-competitive activities such as pure mathematics or the production<br />
of poetry? Perhaps <strong>Haldane</strong> could concede that this might be a good<br />
<strong>and</strong> even better universe than ours (with its cats <strong>and</strong> mice, etc.) but go on to<br />
say that provided the cat <strong>and</strong> mouse universe is good on balance why not<br />
create it also? In the spirit of Leibniz we could say that the more universes the<br />
better, so long as none are on balance bad.<br />
If one accepted this, one need not indeed suppose that evil is always a mere<br />
privation of good. A positive balance of good <strong>and</strong> bad would be enough.<br />
One’s reluctance to accept this is due to the thought that if God is able to