Non-Evolutionary and Non-Theistic Accounts of Proper Function

It is important to note that non-theistic accounts of proper function do not have to hinge on evolution. I will now use two representative non-theistic and non-evolutionary accounts of proper function to illustrate how these sorts of accounts fail. The first account I will tackle is Ernest Sosa’s. Before I begin interacting with his account, it worth noting that it is not necessarily an account of proper function per se; rather it is an account of cognitive proper function. Sosa’s account states that, ‘S’s cognitive faculty, F, tracks the truth (and

functions properly) if and only if, (1) if P were true F would produce (in S) her belief P, and (2) if F were to produce (in S) the belief that P, P would be true.’18

According to Sosa’s account, as we explained in the previous chapter, one could have a faculty that appeared to be malfunctioning and yet it would in fact be properly functioning. Take again, the claim that religious beliefs are a result of cognitive

malfunction. If God existed necessarily but our belief about him came from an unintended malfunction (and nothing else), our belief produced would still meet Sosa’s truth-tracking criteria as ‘[a]fter all, any belief in a necessary truth will be automatically as safe as could be. Not easily will one hold such a belief while it is false, since not possibly could one hold

18 _{Ernest Sosa, ‘Proper Functionalism and Virtue Epistemology,’ in Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology:}

Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge, ed. Jonathan L. Kvanvig (MD: Rowman &

it while it was false.’19 _{This of course seems problematic. As discussed in Chapter two,}

because of issues related to this, Sosa proposes that the account would also need to include the claim that S would come to believe that ‘p’ in a virtuous way. Thus, Sosa might argue that one wouldn’t be functioning properly if one merely believed that God existed by way of this unintended cognitive process; rather, one would need that faculty to also be

cognitively virtuous.

I don’t think adding the virtue condition will save Sosa’s account of proper function as it forces him into a dilemma. Either he emphasizes that there needs to be a cognitive virtue (that is, as discussed in the last chapter, a faculty which has a way it should and shouldn’t function) which then pushes the question back as one would need to know what it means for this cognitive virtue to be functioning properly, or he could emphasize the original truth-tracking account. If he chooses the latter, in addition to the malfunction problem addressed above, a normative problem emerges. This is so as proper function invokes normative notions, such as ‘ought’ and ‘should,’ however, Sosa’s account (along with truth-tracking accounts in general) is merely a description of what conditions need to be in place in order for one to obtain knowledge. Thus, this account wouldn’t be going after what is at the heart of proper function, and this being so it isn’t a genuine account of what it means to have cognitive proper function. For all of these reasons, Sosa’s account doesn’t seem tenable.

Like Sosa, Michael Levin has also developed a non-evolutionary dependent

account of proper function. In developing Larry Wright’s account of proper function which seeks to focus on the explanation of things or relationships rather than the advantageous effects of faculties, Levin’s account goes as follows: F is a function of S if and only if “S is explained by its leading to F and is the efficient cause S’ of S is explained by its leading to

S.”20 In regard to this account, Plantinga points out:

God could have created Adam (or Eve) directly; if he had, the function of Adam’s heart would have been just what the function of our hearts is; namely to circulate the blood in a certain way. But (the second clause of) Levin’s conditions isn’t met

19 _{Ernest Sosa, ‘Tracking, Competence, and Knowledge,’ in The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, ed. Paul}

Moser (New York: Oxford Press), 275.

20 _{Michael Levin, ‘Plantinga on Functions and the Theory of Evolution,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy}

in this case: it is not the case that, under these conditions, the efficient cause of Adam (namely God) is explained by his ‘leading to’ Adam’s heart.21

If one could think of a counterexample where the efficient cause isn’t explained by its ‘leading to’ such and such, then Levin’s account does not work. Similar to the evolutionary accounts that were reviewed above, this account faces the trouble of the dreaded Hitler scenario. Plantinga states:

Take a given mutant m and his visual system S, which works in that unfortunate way. The existence of S is explained by its working in that way: working in that miserable way kept m (or m’s ancestors) from being killed by the Nazis. The efficient cause of S - whatever system it is, in human beings, that cause the existence of visual system -furthermore, is explained by its leading to S. In this case, then, the proposed necessary and sufficient condition is met; but it is not the function of m’s visual system to cause pain and display only a uniform green visual field with a few shadowy fires project on it.22

With this, I think Plantinga has established two counterexamples (Adam & Eve and Hitler) that have proven successful when analyzing naturalistic proper function accounts. I think the failure of these accounts might help vindicate the intuition that proper function needs a ‘proper functioner,’ and/or a design plan needs a designer.The failures of these accounts do not conclusively show that no such account could work but their failures taken together with this prima facie intuition, should leave one to tentatively hold that there are no good naturalistic accounts of proper function.

Having said this, however, for the purposes of this project, I will leave open the possibility of there being religions that don’t have a personal designer God (at least at the ultimate level), but nonetheless have other doctrines that might allow them to make sense of proper function in some relevant epistemic sense. This will be explored in more detail in the remaining chapters of this thesis.

21 _{Plantinga and Tooley, Knowledge of God, op. cit., 27-28.}