Monday 15 October 2007

Shopping for an Efficient Cause (Part 1)

I am continuing my series of posts on Thomas Reid. Let us recap Reid’s Shop Argument:
Reason, says the sceptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. Why, sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception?—they came both out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another?
This argument can be broken down into three steps:
1. Reason and the senses both come from the same shop. (premise)
2. That two things come from the same shop implies they are equally reliable. (premise)
3. Reason and the sense are equally reliable. (From 1 and 2)
Given that reason and the senses are equally reliable, the sceptic who privileges reason above the senses is guilty of an unwarranted epistemological prejudice.

One way in which the sceptic can resist the Shop Argument would be to reject the first step; namely, that reason and the senses come from the same shop. But how are we to understand the ‘same shop’ metaphor? Reid never explicitly spells out what he means when he says two things come from the same shop, though he does explicitly equate it with two things being “made by the same artist”. Thus, at least one way to understand the same shop metaphor is in terms of efficient causes. That is, two things are from the same shop if they share the same efficient cause (for example, God). By implication, things with different efficient causes can be described as coming from different shops, having been made by different artists.

Given the above reading of what it means for two things to come from the same shop, the sceptic prima facie seems able to construct a refutation of the first step of the Shop Argument. In Essays on the Active Powers, Reid asserts that human beings are the efficient cause of their actions. In this claim he stands in contradistinction from Malebranche (who held that only God is an efficient cause) and Hume (who denied efficient causes altogether). Reid insists that humans are the efficient cause of their actions in order to preserve, among other things, the idea of moral responsibility. While Reid does not explore the epistemic implication of this thesis I believe it is safe to assume on Reid’s behalf that we are the efficient causes of our rational judgements as well. That is, just as being responsible moral agents requires that we be free to choose among moral alternatives, being responsible epistemic agents implies that we are free to weigh and discriminate between rational arguments. In sum, we cannot be held responsible as rational agents if God (or some other external entity) is the efficient cause of our rational deliberations. I will refer to the idea that we are the efficient cause of our rational judgements as epistemic-agent causation (or EAC).

If being responsible epistemic agents entails that we are the efficient cause of our rational judgements, then the notion that the external world exerts some sort of influence on our empirical beliefs requires that we are not the efficient cause of our sensory receptions. This is not to deny the Reidian notion that our rational powers are active when we judge that we see a chair. Rather, it is to recognise that if Reid is to maintain that our beliefs have empirical content at all, he must distinguish between an active faculty of rational judgment and a passive faculty of sensory receptions. In brief, I cannot be the efficient cause of the fact that I see a red flower in front of me if I am to preserve the idea that there is an external world that gives rise to my perceptions. I will refer to the notion that we are not the efficient cause of our sensory receptions as the passive receptivity thesis (or PRT).

If we concede both EAC and PRT, then we are free to construct the following reply to the first step of the Shop Argument:
1. That two effects have different efficient causes implies they come from a different shop. (premise)
2. Human beings are the efficient cause of their rational judgements. (EAC)
3. Human beings are not the efficient cause of our sensory receptions. (PRT)
4. Sensory receptions and rational judgements have different efficient causes (From 2 and 3)
5. The sensory and rational faculties do not come from the same shop (From 1 and 4)
If the sensory and rational faculties do not come from the same shop, as the above anti-Shop Argument argues, then Reid has been denied a premise he needs for his Shop Argument to work. In my next post on this topic I will look a possible objection to 1-5.

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