A certain popular writer speaks of a God delusion. This prompts the query whether there might be a 'No God' delusion. Is it perhaps the case that atheism is a delusion? Bruce Charlton, M. D. , returns an affirmative answer in Is Atheism Literally a Delusion? In this post I will try to understand his basic argument and see if I should accept it. The following is my reconstruction of the core of Charlton's argument:
1. A delusion is a false but powerfully held belief the holding of which is harmful to the believer.
"In psychiatry a delusion is a false but powerful belief held with strong conviction. More than this, a delusional belief is one having harmful consequences to the individual."
2. The practical criterion of falsehood is harmfulness.
3. Harmful beliefs are those that are maladaptive, those the holding of which is damaging to the believer.
4. "In strict biological terms a maladaptive trait or behaviour is one that reduces relative reproductive success."
5. It is an empirical fact that adherents of the three main monotheistic religions tend to have more children than secular people.
Therefore
6. "Atheism is a highly maladaptive trait." "Atheism is a reproductively-damaging belief system, and this is enough to classify it – objectively – as maladaptive, hence a delusion." "In a nutshell my argument is that if it is accepted that devout Monotheism objectively leads to a more adaptive overall outcome than convinced Atheism (and this is the consensus of modern research), then Monotheism should be regarded are true-er than Atheism. I personally find this argument so convincing that it led me from cradle-Atheism to a personal belief in Monotheism followed later by conversion to Christianity.
Critique. Charlton's argument raises fascinating questions about the nature of truth (What is it for a belief to be true?), the criteria of truth (How do we judge whether or not a given belief is true?), and the relation of truth and human flourishing. The first question is ontological: what IS truth? The second is epistemological: How do we know truth? The third is axiological: Is believing/knowing the truth a value? Is believing/knowing the truth good for us? Is the true the good by way of belief as William James said? Or could it be that there is a 'disconnect' between truth and human flourishing as Nietzsche suggests? The ontological, epistemological, and axiological questions are distinct and it seems to me that theories that conflate one or more of them lead to trouble.
Suppose one answers the ontological question along the lines of:
D1. Belief B is true if and only if B benefits (in the long run) the one who holds it.
One can and should ask whether (D1) is true. But if one asks this question, one is presumably not asking whether believing that D1 benefits those who hold it. One is asking whether (D1) is true in a quite different sense, a sense approximated to in
D2. Belief B is true if and only if B corresponds to the way things are.
Now consider atheism. It may well be that atheism does not benefit (whether biologically or psychologically-socially) those who hold it. It actually harms them, as the evidence Charlton adduces suggests. It would then not be true in the pragmatic sense of (D1). But it might nonetheless be true in the correspondence sense of (D2).
Now here is my question for Charlton. He tells us that the above argument convinced him to abandon his "cradle-Atheism" for a "personal belief in Monotheism." But all his argument shows is that it is better for us to hold theistic beliefs than atheistic ones. I grant that. But unless he can show that pragmatic and correspondence truth coincide, the soundness of his argument is consistent with there being no God. How would Dr Charlton deal with a patient of his, a sincere atheist, who says, "I fully agree that I would be better off believing in God if only I could bring myself to believe in him; but the evidence seems to me to point toward his nonexistence. The mere fact that I and others would be benefited by theistic belief does not show that it is true."
Comments
25 responses to “Is There a ‘No God’ Delusion?”
This is just the problem I had with the argument when I read it. The fact that psychiatry defines a delusion as a harmful belief presupposes that people are generally better off when their beliefs correspond to reality, i.e. they will get along in reality better when they think about it accurately. (Full disclosure: my wife is a psychiatrist but I haven’t asked her about this.) But it is certainly conceivable that it is more beneficial to believe falsehoods. Social Darwinians tell us that disinterested “love” is really just a mask for adaptive traits which benefit the herd and so preserve a wide genepool. If I really believed this then there would be no true ethical grounds for exhibiting these traits in my own behavior, since what is good for the herd is by no means necessarily good for me personally, and facts about the origins of adaptive traits cannot bring with them the duty to act in conformity with them. Furthermore I would have no grounds for believing that my wife, parents, or children, etc. really loved me and in fact I would have to believe that they did not. The bonds of family and friendship would be destroyed. If what the Darwinians say is true, therefore, it is more beneficial for the majority of humans not to believe it.
I certainly believe in God, and also think that there are strong metaphysical arguments for his existence, but this one seems flawed to me.
Thanks very much for this analysis.
When I wrote that this argument convinced me to abandon my “cradle-Atheism” for a “personal belief in Monotheism” – I meant this as a report on my biography – not evidence in favour of the strength of the argument. It might be evidence of my own feebleness as a reasoner!
However, it was why I published this piece – because I thought that what worked for me might work for others.
Bill asks whether I could “show that pragmatic and correspondence truth coincide” – the answer is no. Indeed I am pretty sure that they do not coincide except contingently. For example, I believe that a society _could_ probably be constructed in which atheists out-reproduced monotheists, at least for a while.
On the other hand, having been shocked out of a lazy strategy of rubbishing monotheism as delusional, I was then in a position to develop a general monotheistic faith, then a specifically Christian faith, explore denominations and begin to worship etc.; which then put me into a stance where I could discover, read, ponder and be convinced by Aquinas’s First Way metaphysical proof of the existence of God. I would guess this sort of multi-step process is the usual one. A single argument cannot get anyone all the way.
However, my argument was meant to shock atheists such as my former self into reconsideration of the assumption that monotheism is a delusion. The idea that another person or group is deluded is bandied about frequently. Given that such arguments are not really about correspondence theories of truth, I wanted to point out that it is actually very rare to find a clear example when a belief that is clearly delusional produces a clearly positive and adaptive outcome.
For example, Michael Sullivan’s example is not clear or compelling (I mean the example to which he refers – obviously in the limited space of a blog comment he can do more than indicate a well known example.) Indeed, I am not aware of any really good examples of an ‘adaptive delusion’ – a belief which is certainly false (by the correspondence type argument that it contradicts known reality) – which is yet adaptive.
(I mean that the false belief should be adaptive when the necessary scientific controls are applied – obviously _any_ belief that is common in the population of a very rapidly growing nation like Gaza or Ethiopia would be associated with higher fertility than the beliefs in shrinking places like Russia).
My general understanding is that correspondence truths are consistent – that consistency is (in other words) the ultimate humanly-attainable measure of truth (which means that the ability to apprehend truth is limited by our mental capability, time, honesty, freedom from error etc.)
Truth should be internally consistent and consistent with everything else (science is ‘merely’ a method of establishing consistency – consistency between predictions and observations). The idea that complex explanations should be preferred to simple ones is merely restating this – a simple idea is only self-consistent in a restricted domain, but is not consistent with the rest of reality.
Of course establishing that something is or is not consistent with something else is neither easy nor straightforward – and is indeed impossible for many human beings (for many reasons).
Pragmatic arguments are just piecemeal, perhaps tactical arguments for truth – which take a very restricted set of assumptions and work within them (pretty uncritically). In this case I was taking a set of assumptions common among some atheists and trying to point out that the usual arguments were incoherent according to these assumptions.
For example, most atheists are utilitarians (more or less) – that is the bottom line of morality – the goals of maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering. By this morality, it makes no sense to be an atheist – since the evidence is broadly that atheism is inferior to monotheism in utilitarian terms.
If atheists take a stance against monotheism on correspondence-with-reality grounds, then they destroy their own moral system. Also they destroy science, and they destroy art – amongst other things. (i.e. atheism destrys the transcendntal goods – I got this from reading Charles Murray’s Human Accomplishment, and it made a big impact on me.)
Sorry, I’ve rambled on a bit here…
Bruce G Charlton
For my own part, I think Charlton’s argument mostly helps to illustrate the problem with regarding religious belief as ‘harmful’, even by (perhaps especially by) an atheist. From my recollection, that popular writer Bill speaks of goes out of his way to avoid making the claim that God does not exist. Positive arguments about God’s non-existence being outside of science’s scope, and also would immediately be a belief to be defended – and a large part of the joy of this type of skepticism is being on the questioning side exclusively.
So if, as Charlton and other writers point out, religious belief is not “maladaptive”, not “harmful” – indeed, if such belief actually is responsible for or associated with quite a lot of “adaptive” or “positive”/”healthy” traits and behaviors – then a lot of the wind is taken out of those sails.
Then again, that seems to be the case anyway at this point. Still, I’m grateful to see both the argument and Bill’s reply here.
Dr. Charlton’s Argument from Delusion:
1) Let me begin with a terminological matter. Dr. Charlton uses the following definition of a ‘delusion’:
A. P is a delusional belief held by x if and only if (or ‘means that’)
(a) P is false;
(b) P is held with “strong conviction” by x;
(c) Holding P is harmful to x.
1.1) A above is an inadequate definition. Suppose x holds with extremely strong conviction the false belief that his boss has an affair with his wife and this belief is harmful because by so believing he is fired from his job. But, now, suppose that x has reasonable evidence for so believing (fill in the details here). As it happens the evidence x has is compatible with an alternative hypothesis, one which happens to be true, that his closest friend at work has an affair with his wife. However, for whatever reasons x thinks that his closest friend would not do such a thing. While x in this case has a strongly held, false, and harmful belief, he is not delusional. What is needed in additions is the following additional clause:
(d) There is fairly conclusive evidence against P and x has access to such evidence.
1.2) Clause (d) is relevant to Charlton’s argument from delusion because the inclusion of this clause requires Charlton to demonstrate that an atheist has access to *conclusive evidence* against the belief in the proposition that God does not exist. Can Charlton point toward such *conclusive evidence*?
2) Suppose we accept for the sake of the argument (and only for the sake of this argument) the pragmatic criterion of falsehood adopted by Charlton’s argument: namely, that a proposition is false if it presents some harm to those who believe it. Charlton’s next premise is that a harmful belief (such as the atheist’s belief in the proposition that God does not exist) is one that is maladaptive in the sense used in *evolutionary biology*.
2.1) But there are several problems with using the notion of maladaptiveness from evolutionary biology in order to demonstrate that certain *beliefs* are harmful to those who hold them. I shall mention two such problems:
(i) The notion of maladaptiveness in evolutionary biology applies to phenotypes which are certain traits caused by particular genotypes. Thus, strictly speaking it is *traits* or characteristics that are said to be adaptive or maladaptive. But beliefs are not traits. Therefore, it is not clear that Charlton is entitled to utilize the notion of maladaptiveness in his argument without some further premises that justify its use in the context of beliefs. I doubt that such an argument can be produced.
(ii) The proper range of application of the concept of a *maladaptive trait* is not to individuals within a species, but to the whole species. Thus, a trait T is said to be maladaptive regarding species S if (and only if?) it is detrimental to the survival of the species S. It makes no sense in evolutionary biology to apply the notion of a *maladaptive trait* to individuals within a species.
2.2) Charlton may still attempt to exploit the notion of a maladaptive trait on behalf of his argument from delusion as follows (provided of course he can first show how this notion can be properly extended to beliefs in addition to traits). Suppose Charlton makes the claim that the belief that God does not exist is maladaptive in the sense that if the whole human race were to adopt it, then reproduction would significantly decrease, thereby, reducing the likelihood of the survival of the human race as a whole.
2.3) There are two fundamental problems with the above move:
First, it simply does not follow from the fact that in the actual world in which various competing beliefs prevail (theistic beliefs, atheistic beliefs, and a whole range of other sorts of beliefs) and in which the reproduction rate of atheists is lower than other groups, that the same would hold in a counterfactual situation (possible world) in which everyone is an atheist.
Second, what if it turns out that the rate of reproduction outpaces the rate of food production and thereby having many children threatens the survival of the human race. Then, following Charlton’s line of reasoning, theistic beliefs should be viewed as maladaptive. Thus, these considerations demonstrate that the notion of likelihood or probability utilized in (2.2) above is a notion of conditional probability: i.e., conditional upon certain empirical circumstances that prevail. One cannot say that reproduction higher than a certain threshold has an absolute probability to enhance survivability compared to reproduction lower than a certain threshold. The threshold itself moves relative to certain empirical conditions.
3) What if it turns out as an empirical fact that the religion of “Mother-Earth Worshipers” have the highest reproductive rate, even higher than any of the theistic religions currently in vogue. Would Charlton entertain Mother-Earth Worshiping as a serious candidate for religious life? According to the argument from delusion it would follow that since theistic beliefs have a lower reproductive rate than Mother-Earth Worshiping, theism is a delusional belief and therefore on those grounds harmful to those who hold it. I am sure there is a functionally equivalent religion out there in the world to serve for Mother-Earth Worshiping. I wonder whether Charlton explored this possibility.
Addendum,
Let me add that the objections posed above are not intended to challenge Dr. Charlton’s theistic beliefs. They are exclusively intended to challenge the soundness of the argument from delusion he posed against atheists.
There is no such thing as an atheistic gene. Consequently, atheists do not give birth to atheists any more than historians give birth to historians or bus-drivers to bus-drivers.
Homosexuality is not a good evolutionary trait yet there are far more homosexuals in the world today than there have ever been in the past. Non-theistic China found it necessary to limit its birthrate because its people were just too successful at breeding.
Forget the formal logic. The argument fails on its own misrepresentation of evolutionary processes.
Samphire,
A deductive argument may be defective on three grounds: (i) it is invalid; (ii) one or more of the premises are false; (ii) both of the above.
You maintain that the delusion argument misrepresents evolutionary biology. Hence, you maintain that one or more of the premises pertaining to evolutionary processes are false. Why is it that you say: “Forget formal logic”? You just used it!
Of course, Dr. Charlton’s argument may be intended as an inductive argument. Then we still have some of the premises pertaining to evolutionary biology false.
Samphire,
You also make an unwarranted assumption by claiming that just because a country’s government is in principle atheistic–in this case, China–the majority of its citizens are as well. Seeing as the vast swath of mankind has throughout the ages subscribed to one religion or another, I find this assumption tenuous at best. You then go on to undermine your own argument by noting that it is the ATHEISTIC government’s policy to control birth rates.
Samphire,
I apologize for the above comment. Re-reading your post, I see now that you wrote “Non-theistic China” rather than atheistic China; what a failure to read clearly on my part! Again, apologies to you and to Dr. Vallicella for cluttering up his combox.
@Samphire: “There is no such thing as an atheistic gene. Consequently, atheists do not give birth to atheists any more than historians give birth to historians or bus-drivers to bus-drivers. ”
Intelligence and personality are both substantially inherited (think about identical twins – even those reared separately); and this means that most major behaviour traits (such as religiousness and atheism) tend to run in families for genetic reasons. On top of that there is cultural transmission.
@peterlupu. I don’t really accept your modification to the definition of a delusion. I was using a descriptive definition – which I believe pretty much captures the best actual usage of delusion in psychiatry. This is not quite the same as the official definition of a delusion.
There is indeed a class of delusions which are not accessible to conclusive proof – I call them ‘theory of mind delusions’ since they involve inferences about other minds, and they occur in the condition called delusional disorder which includes ‘Morbid Jealousy’ of the kind you describe in your first example.
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/delusions.html
Your first point I acknowledge in the comment preceding yours.
Your second point is not really relevant, since it applies to all living things (i.e. populations tend to increase until something stops them – disease, starvation, violence, predation etc). Natural selection is about differential reproduction. By normal reasoning in evolutionary theory, it can never be adaptive to reproduce at below replacement levels, unless there is some other factor enhancing the reproduction of genetic relatives (inclusive fitness) or perhaps some kind of enhacement of the group reproduction relative to other groups (group selection).
Third point about “Mother-Earth Worshipers”. I didn’t argue that the fastest reproducing group (which is probably the US Amish, over recent decades) has the truest religion. I don’t believe that.
I was merely arguing that atheists are probably the least fertile group, reproducing a long way below replacement levels – it was a point specifically directed against atheism, and I was using the kinds of arguments and evidence that atheists usually respect. I tried to be clear in stating the limitations of the argument – it is partial and tactical.
Bruce G Charlton
Dr. Charlton,
1) “I don’t really accept your modification to the definition of a delusion. I was using a descriptive definition – which I believe pretty much captures the best actual usage of delusion in psychiatry. This is not quite the same as the official definition of a delusion.”
Clause (d) or some suitable equivalent is necessary in order to distinguish delusion from mere false beliefs that happen to be harmful in some way or another to the one who holds it. It is too easy to concoct a story regarding any false belief so that it turns out to be harmful to those who hold it. Without clause (d) everyone who several hundred years ago believed in a flat earth were delusional, since it was harmful to so believe because they thereby thought that they could not get to India by way of certain routes, because navigations were imprecise, and so forth. If psychiatry employs a technical notion of delusion which fails to include something like clause (d), then two points need to be made: (i) such a definition is liable to turn quite a lot of people who are normal by any reasonable standards into delusional psychotics; and (ii) it is relatively easy to reject your argument by challenging this technical definition as inapplicable to the debate in question.
2)”Your second point is not really relevant, since it applies to all living things (i.e. populations tend to increase until something stops them – disease, starvation, violence, predation etc).”
I do not understand this response. In my second point, I made two uncontested objections regarding your use of the notion of (mal)adaptation in the sense of evolutionary biology:
(a) (mal)adaptation applies to traits, not to beliefs.
(b) (mal) adaptation applies to species and not to individuals.
Since the debate between theists and atheists concerns beliefs, not traits, any argument based upon (mal)adaptation is irrelevant as it stands. You have not addressed either one of these objections. Are you claiming that the points stated in (a) and (b) are not relevant to your use of the notion of (mal)adaptation in the evolutionary biology sense or do you deny that (a) and (b) are true? If it is the former, then once again you may be using the notion of ‘(mal)adaptation’ in some idiosyncratic sense and not in the sense in which it is used in evolutionary biology. If so, your argument cannot rely upon the credibility of evolutionary biology. It must rely upon whatever is the source of this notion. If, on the other hand, you maintain that (a) and (b) are false, then I would like you to site some evidence for that.
3)”I was merely arguing that atheists are probably the least fertile group, reproducing a long way below replacement levels – it was a point specifically directed against atheism, and I was using the kinds of arguments and evidence that atheists usually respect.”
3.1) Do you have any statistical evidence for the claim that “atheists are probably the least fertile group”?
3.2) Do you have any statistical evidence that atheists reproduce “a long way below replacement levels”? What is that level?
3.3) And even if all these claims were true, it still will not suffice to conclude anything whatsoever about the adaptive merit of atheist (or for that matter any other) beliefs. For in the actual world, the important fact is whether the whole human race reproduces at or above replacement levels, not whether some sub-group delineated relative to a set of beliefs does so.
3.4) Moreover, as I have noted in my previous post, probability estimates in this context must be states as conditional probabilities and cannot be stated in absolute terms. They are conditional on other empirical facts such as whether the food resources can sustain a certain reproductive growth and so forth. Hence, your argument is a probabilistic one and as such it depends upon background facts which need to be spelled out.
I should perhaps address the following claims Dr. Charlton made as a response to Samphire:
He says: “Intelligence and personality are both substantially inherited (think about identical twins – even those reared separately); and this means that most major behaviour traits (such as religiousness and atheism) tend to run in families for genetic reasons. On top of that there is cultural transmission.”
1) There is no agreement within psychology for the claim that both “intelligence and personality” are inherited traits; evidence that exists goes both ways. Even the data about identical twins can be explained without the genetic inheritance assumption. Moreover, the claim that personality traits are inherited as a general claim is very likely to be false: otherwise, we could predict with reasonable reliability that the children of criminals shall be criminals; the children of crooks shall be crooks; the children of politicians shall be politicians, etc. No such prediction are forthcoming in psychology and even the most ardent adherents of evolutionary psychology make no such claims.
2) Religious beliefs and atheistic beliefs are first and foremost *beliefs*. Whether or not they are or are systematically linked to
“behavior traits” depends entirely on what this last phrase means. If by ‘behavioral traits’ you mean behavioral dispositions, then the only way you can conflate beliefs with “behavioral traits” is if you adopt a behaviorist approach which conflates beliefs with behavioral dispositions. But, then, your argument is vulnerable to the numerous arguments against this sort of behaviorism.
3) Given the above two points your conclusion “and this means that most major behaviour traits (such as religiousness and atheism) tend to run in families for genetic reasons” is unwarranted. Moreover, there is considerable empirical evidence to the contrary: at least in most of the Western World (for better or worst) children rebel against either the religious beliefs of their parents or the other way around. Otherwise, how would the ranks of atheists grow during the last couple of centuries.
Addendum to my Last post:
4) The best counter-example to your claim about inheritance and religious vs, non-religious beliefs and which I have quoted in my previous post is *you yourself*.
You used to be an atheist and now you are a theist. I suspect that this change of beliefs did not come about by a change in your lineage or a change in your genetic makeup (or even a change in your social environment). Rather I suspect that the change came about due to reflection upon your atheist beliefs, the evidence on their behalf, and additional considerations which you have brought to bear on the issues. Hence, your current theism is not due to inheritance and, therefore, it is fairly safe to assume that your previous atheism was not a matter of an inherited trait either.
@peterlupu.
Thanks for the attention, but I see that you are challenging a very large mass of scientific data and knowledge that I am assuming is correct. This is not something that could, or should, be sorted-out in a philosophy blog comment section. But you are perfectly correct in suggesting that if all my major factual assertions are wrong, then the argument does indeed fall to pieces!
Peter,
One of the excellent points you make is that Charlton’s argument needs a premise that connects beliefs and traits if it is to be rigorous. I noted that too when I studied his argument but didn’t comment on it above. What’s more, you deny that beliefs are traits. But you didn’t give a reason. Why aren’t beliefs traits? Now of course the CONTENT of a belief, the proposition, is not a trait of any individual or population of individuals. It is clear, I hope, that one must not confuse belief-states and their contents, despite the fact that in ordinary English ‘belief’ is ambiguous as between the two.
Now a belief-state is reasonably viewed as a trait of an individual if by ‘trait’ you just mean a property. No? Your believing that Phoenix is a city in Arizona is arguably a feature, characteristic, trait of you.
So please tell us why beliefs aren’t traits. Be pithy!
Peter,
Adaptive and maladaptive traits are traits of populations, not individuals. So if beliefs are traits, then they are traits of populations not individuals. So maybe your argument would be that beliefs cannot be traits since beliefs are beliefs of individuals, not of populations. (Talk of a population believing such-and-such is short-hand for saying that its members believe such-and-such.)
This is an addendum to my comment immediately preceding.
What exactly is a delusion?
Charlton writes, “In psychiatry a delusion is a false but powerful belief held with strong conviction. More than this, a delusional belief is one having harmful consequences to the individual.” (from his original article)
But Peter seems to be right that this leaves out something essential, namely, that the belief be held in the teeth of countervailing evidence. It is not enough that I have a false, strongly held, and harmful belief; I must also hold the belief despite strong evidence of its falsity. And after consulting some online psych glossaries, this does seem to be an accepted definition.
If we accept this definition, then I think it is clear that neither atheism nor theism are delusive belief-systems. And this for the reason that there is no strong or as Peter says “fairly conclusive” evidence that one or the other is wrong.
Bill,
Re: Distinction between beliefs and traits.
Let us be clear that the relevant notion of a trait in the present context is the one used in evolutionary biology, for this is the notion exploited by Dr. Charlton’s argument. A trait, or a phenotype, is a physical characteristic or behavioral disposition that can be observed throughout a species and is induced primarily by a genotype, or a genetic characteristic. In this sense, not every property that is true of an individual is a phenotype (or a trait): the fact that I have x number of teeth at such-and-such an age is a property of mine, but it is not a trait in the relevant sense.
It should be clear based upon the above characterization of a trait that not all beliefs can be traits. Most of our beliefs are acquired based upon empirical observations. My belief that tomorrow is Monday and that I have several books in my study cannot be traits induced by my genetic make-up. Are there any beliefs that are traits in the relevant sense? I doubt it:
(i) Beliefs have content while traits do not;
(ii) Beliefs are true or false; it is a category mistake to attribute truth or falsity to traits in the relevant sense. Traits can be had by a species or not had;
(iii) It makes sense to criticize someone for holding certain beliefs on normative grounds; e.g., for lack of suitable evidence, inconsistency, etc. However, it makes no sense to criticize someone on normative grounds for having a trait such as two hands, two eyes, blue eyes, etc.
These are some reasons that distinguish traits, in the relevant sense, from beliefs. Hence, I maintain, no beliefs can be traits.
The question of whether a delusion must be held in the teeth of contrary evidence is unclear in psychiatric practice.
For example, there are many trials of cognitive behavioural therapy (which is a kind of indirect persuasion method, a bit like the soft sell in advertising) that show it can be effective in treating delusions.
As I discuss in the book chapter I linked above, there are two main classes of delusions – bizarre delusions which occur in ‘crazy’ psychotic people, and which can be about almost anything, regardless of evidence; and theory of mind delusions which can occur in psychotic people but also sane people with otherwise intact reality testing. These beliefs cannot be refuted because they concern things not amenable to refutation: eg a belief that a spouse is unfaithful, that one is under surveillance by a secret gang, that one’s nose is ugly etc.
So the question of whether a belief can be refuted by contrary evidence turns out not to be very clear cut as a criterion of delusion.
***
I am assuming that a belief is, or can be , a trait in the sense that any specific behaviour is not a trait but specific behaviours are the product of general rules which are traits. Crudely, specific behaviours are the outcome of traits (rules) operating on the basis of inputs (environment).
Atheism is not randomly distributed or occurring, but is (to a significant extent) the product of some types of psychological traits in a particular social context. Atheists are (for example) differentially high in IQ and low in the personality trait of Agreeableness.
***
I suspect that secularization through modernity is to some significant extent an indirect, unintended (and harmful) result of meritocracy, i.e. selection of leaders on the basis of high IQ (or, more exactly, with high minimum IQ requirements).
Sub-replacement fertility (usually defined as an average of less than 2.1 children per woman) is associated with high IQ, and with atheism. This is especially the case with women – the most intelligent women have very few children – about 0.5 chidlren per smart woman – this has been known since Termans follow up studies of high IQ kids in California which began in the early-mid 20th century.
Devout, supernaturalist monotheism seems to be the only ‘environmental’ feature which is able to counteract the tendency of high IQ people towards sub-replacment fertility – Islamist Muslims, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Mormons, devout Evangelicals, Amish etc.
Of course, the effect of this type of religion is confounded by patriarchy – and it may be that patriarchy is part of (most of?) the effect of monotheism on fertility.
***
So, the association between atheism and low fertility may partly or wholly be confounded (explained by) factors such as IQ, non-patriarchy etc. But monotheism can certainly overcome high IQ – e.g. high status and intelligent Mormons such as Mitt Romney and Harry Reid usually have strikingly large families compared with their colleagues (five children each).
Patriarchy is a different case than IQ, since all of the highly fertile groups are patriarchal, and patriarchy seems to go with devoutness – it seems to be an intrinsic part of these religions.
I have identified at least five fundamental problems with Dr. Charlton’s argument from delusion:
1) Harmfulness to the individual as a criterion of falsity of propositions or beliefs. (The pragmatic criterion of falsity/truth):
Note: Bill has focused upon this problem in his original review post.
2) Conflating beliefs with traits as phenotypes:
Note: Unless we adopt a completely reductivist approach to propositional-attitudes such as beliefs, beliefs cannot be identified with traits construed as phenotypes. Moreover, even if one adopts such a reductivist approach, beliefs will not be directly reducible to any traits as phenotypes, but to certain brain processes which may be caused in part by interaction with the environment.
3) Category Mistake: Conflating something that is harmful to the individual with the notion of a maladaptive trait which applies only to species and refers to species-wide characteristics that are detrimental to the survival of the species.
Note: Dr. Charlton’s argument commits this category-mistake by beginning discussion of atheistic beliefs as harmful to the individual as a criterion of their truth/falsity and ending by discussing the maladaptive character of low reproductive success among atheists compared to theists.
4) Deficient definition of delusion:
Note: None of Dr. Charlton’s responses adequately addressed this objection. There are two possibilities:
(a) Dr. Charlton uses in his premises a technical definition of ‘delusion’. However, in his conclusion which charges the atheist with a delusional belief, he uses the standard definition. Hence, the argument is invalid on grounds of equivocation;
(b) Dr. Charlton uses the standard definition of delusion in his premises as well as the conclusion. But, then, he has not shown that atheistic beliefs are delusional because he failed to address the question of whether there is adequate evidence against atheistic beliefs that are readily available to the atheist. Hence, on this ground alone his argument is not sound.
5) Part-whole Fallacy: Inferring that low reproductive success within a sub-group (e.g., atheists) compared to other sub-groups entails low reproductive success for the whole group (e.g., human species).
Unless the above problems are adequately answered, Dr. Charlton’s argument from delusion is unconvincing and cannot be successful.
“Theistic Beliefs are Delusional”
I shall now present an argument that mimics Dr. Charlton’s argument except my argument will conclude that theistic beliefs are delusional.
1) Harmfulness to the individual is a criterion for falsity.
2) False beliefs that are harmful to the individual who holds them are delusional.
3) Harmful beliefs are maladaptive traits.
4) Reproductive growth that exceeds the growth of food supplies is a maladaptive trait because it will cause starvation, diseases, wars of annihilation over resources, and massive death among human populations which threatens the survival of the human race.
5) Theistic beliefs lead to high rate of reproductive success compared to non-theistic beliefs.
6) High rate of reproductive success will lead to population explosion.
Therefore,
7) Theistic beliefs are maladaptive traits.
Therefore,
8) Theistic beliefs are harmful to the individual.
Therefore,
9) Theistic beliefs are delusional.
Q.E.D
Peter,
You have explained yourself admirably well: in the strict biological sense of ‘trait,’ beliefs cannot be traits. You are right as far as I can see. This of course has an adverse effect on the cogency of Charlton’s argument.
Bruce,
You write, “I am assuming that a belief is, or can be , a trait in the sense that any specific behaviour is not a trait but specific behaviours are the product of general rules which are traits.” I don’t understand this. Are you assuming that a belief, such as the belief that there is no God, is a bit of behavior?
Bill,
Re: Your question to Dr. Charlton: “I don’t understand this. Are you assuming that a belief, such as the belief that there is no God, is a bit of behavior?”
No. I think that Dr. Charlton is thinking here more along the lines of construing beliefs as information processing rules ala AI which in turn cause behavior.
Alternatively, beliefs may be construed along behavioristic lines as dispositions to behave in certain ways, although then the term ‘rule’ is not very apt. So the AI alternative is the most charitable interpretation here.
This conversation has gone way off the rails! and I think I understand why.
peterlupu seems to think that I think that my argument is some kind of formal ‘proof’ that atheism is a delusion.
Let me be clear. I do _not_ think my argument is a formal deductive proof that atheism is a delusion – so please don’t keep treating the argument as if it is a formal proof.
I tried to make this clear in my article, but apparently it was not clear enough.
My argument was modelled on the kind of ‘pragmatic’ (William James-esque) _argument_ (argument, not proof) used in normal discussion among the intelligentsia, and especially the kind of argument used by atheists to show that theism is a delusion.
I said in the article: “This method of distinguishing truth is (roughly) philosophical Pragmatism, as pioneered by William James (1842-1910): the ‘truth’ is that which leads to the best overall outcome.” This is not _my_ view.
It was turning that style of argument against the position which normally uses it. When I wrote ‘proof’ in the title, it was supposed to be blatantly mischevious, naughty, designed to provoke…
It was also meant to be somewhat amusing, a ‘turning of the tables’ – although any wit it may have displayed seems rather deeply buried by now!
Dr Charlton says, “The conversation has gone off the rails . . . .” That’s funny, I would say it has been right on track. Honestly, I don’t see that he has engaged any of the criticisms. But I do want to thank him for his civil tone and for writing such a stimulating article. Working through his piece has clarified a few things in my mind.