What is the common consent argument?
-A bit of history and a brief intro
What are some other recent attempts to save the common consent argument? A brief view of Kelly [2011a] and Zagzebski [2012])
The best version of the argument supports the proposition, not that a god exists, but that some version of animism is probably true.
What is animism?
Animism is a religious tradition (held primarily by hunter[1]gatherer societies) committed to a belief in nature spirits, such as mountain spirits
Why is animism as minority position a good candidate for common consent arguments?
The reason for this surprising result is that any argument from common consent must be heedful of the way in which the agreement in question has been generated. Proselytizing theistic traditions typically generate agreement by a process of cultural diffusion. Although this can mean that such traditions become very popular, this also means that the agreement concerning the doctrines of such traditions might not be taken to be particularly strong evidence for the truth of their doctrines. In contrast, when agreement between separate knowledge communities has been generated (or sustained for very prolonged periods) independently of any knowledge of others, this is good prima facie evidence for the truth of the agreed-upon claim(s). Thus, while it is true that animists are in the overwhelming minority, separate animistic communities have nevertheless come to agree about important religious propositions while in a state of extreme historical and geographical isolation from one another.
Why a focus on animism? (philosophy of religion limitations)
Political beliefs appear to depend on various other theories that one might hold about economics, about social justice, about future trends, about well-being, etc. If one of these other theories changes, our vote might follow suit. In contrast, the belief about sour milk is relatively stable under various changes of higher-level theory. Importantly, observations concerning the kinds of entities that exist (even when such entities lie beyond what our ordinary unaided perception can detect) are relatively stable intersubjectively and this stability is seen even through changes of high-level theory [Hacking 1983: 199]. Therefore, if we want to take agreement as evidence for the truth of particular religious claims, it should be taken as evidence for the existential claims of religions, such as that gods, ghosts, spirits, or forces such as qi exist.
#higher_level_theory On the question of gods, the agreement numbers not in the thousands, or millions, but billions. However, the evidential value of agreement plummets once the agreement can be traced to recent waves of cultural diffusion in the form of proselytization or other social and political influences. Such agreements, generated in this way, are not obviously truth-tracking. In contrast, when those who are agreeing are unaware of their shared belief, this is much more compelling evidence that the common belief might be caused by reliable cognitive faculties
On the contrary, over the course of multiple generations, wars were fought and taxes were levied against unbelievers. Marriages were forbidden without conversion, and orphans were adopted and schooled by righteous clerics. Entire continents were colonized. Missionaries of various traditions canvassed the globe, converting infidels with zeal. Countless minds were changed. The product of this effort has been agreement in theism, but it is not evidentially salient. As Tom Kelly artfully puts the point: ‘The intellectual case for Islam would not be any stronger today if birthrates in Muslim countries had been twice as high in past decades as they actually were’ [2011b: 205–6].
Would be good if:
Linda Zagzebski, a contemporary defender of the common consent argument for the existence of God, accepts that widespread agreement about God is prima facie reason to believe that God exists, but that independent agreement would count as even stronger evidence: ‘If millions of people believe in God’ she says, ‘because they all acquired the belief by testimony from a small number of sources, the vast number of believers does not count as much as the same number of beliefs acquired independently’ [2012: 185].
Why care about independet agreement?
-comment Arif Ahmed and Hume
kelly's suggestion ‘The friend of the [common consent] argument’ says Tom Kelly, ‘should argue, not that widespread belief in God renders such belief reasonable all things considered, but rather that widespread belief in God is a significant piece of evidence in favour of the truth of that belief’ [2011a: 144].
So, it seems that one problem with the traditional common consent argument is that its second (suppressed) premise does not make the crucial distinction between mere agreement and independent agreement**?**
We also have reason to think that agreement— even independent agreement—is defeasible evidence which gives, at best, probabilistic support to the agreed-upon proposition. With these two cautions in mind, we may modify the problematic missing premise.
a.* Whatever near enough everyone, in near enough every isolated community, in near enough every historical era, believes independently from the beliefs of outsiders is probably true.
Although this premise is still open to various objections, it is far more plausible than (a). If this is a better way to understand the second premise of the argument, then we have some direction to take with regard to modifying the first premise. The first premise will state, not some fact about the overall distribution of religious belief, but instead a fact about the common ground shared by isolated religious communities, whose respective doctrinal commitments have been, as much as possible, isolated from any communication or cultural diffusion from outsiders.
Additionally, the idea that near enough everyone in near enough every nation accepts theism is also off-the-mark. In contemporary religious traditions of the Far East, such as Daoism and mainstream Theravāda Buddhism, there may exist some kinds of disembodied minds and supernatural forces, yet these religions do not obviously posit creator gods or powerful supernatural beings. So, if we are to reformulate the first premise, we must alter it such that it describes the surprising agreement found between historically isolated religious traditions. Such a fact cannot simply consist in a poll of world religious belief, since popular theistic traditions have generated widespread agreement about theism by way of proselytization (often of disempowered colonized peoples, many of whom previously had no commitments to high gods). Unfortunately, in a globalized and interconnected world, it is very difficult to find examples of truly isolated groups of religious believers. The best candidates would be hunter-gatherer societies that currently have (or have had until very recently) no contact with missionaries from foreign religious cultures.
‘Animism’ writes Peoples et al., ‘is the belief that all “natural” things, such as plants, animals, and even such phenomena as thunder, have intentionality (or a vital force) and can have influence on human lives’ [2016: 266]. This is, however, something of an overstatement. The animist does not accept that all natural things have intentionality, but only that some do [Harvey 2005: 33]. Animism, then, is better defined as the belief that some natural phenomena have spirits or an interior life akin to our own. There may be something that it is like to be a particular boulder, or mountain, or river. A
The animist pictures the natural world as sharing a common kind of interiority, cloaked in diverse exterior appearances. Thus, our relationship with an external nature is as social as our relationships within human communities. Isolated religious communities converge in their view that this picture is correct. So, using this anthropological data to reformulate the first premise of the common consent argument, and inserting the previously suppressed premise about independent agreement, we can reform the common consent argument like so:
One possible worry is this: if there exist major differences in the theoretical and mythological backdrops of each animist community, then presumably we cannot call this a kind of agreement at all. If a New Zealand animist takes some local mountain to be a non-human person, then presumably she will not be convinced by the claims of other animists elsewhere that their own mountain is. But that’s not quite right. Animism can be understood as fundamentally a relational epistemology, in which the individual’s identity just is the sum of her relations within her community, which will include relations with non-human persons [Bird-David 1999: 77–9]. If an animist from New Zealand were dropped into Montana, say, she would not necessarily disagree with the community in Montana that some bison were persons (despite never having seen such a beast before). It is, rather, the case that the New Zealander ‘wouldn’t know anyone around these parts’. One might remember the old adage: strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.
*Different animist traditions will no doubt have different commitments with regard to the ways in which the spirits are causally efficacious, and these differences will likely affect the plausibility of the tradition under scrutiny. Moreover, one might think that, since we have other non-intentional explanations available to explain natural phenomena, we need not appeal to agency in order to explain such phenomena. But these different kinds of explanations (intentional and mechanistic) are not necessarily in competition. Such explanations appear to sit at very different levels. For more discussion on this point, see Dawes [2009: 39–42].
*?
The religions of hunter-gatherer societies have been isolated from one another for long enough to discount the possibility of any recent horizontal cultural diffusion. However, an objection to my argument might say that animism has been inherited by each community separately, by way of vertical transmission. If that’s the case, then the agreement found between animistic communities might be the result of a common cultural transmission, and so the agreement about animism would have been caused by the very same kind of process as the agreement about theism
There is a common cause for the agreement surrounding animism, says the objector, but this cause is not the fact that animism is true; it is the fact that the now-isolated animist communities once shared a common ancestor
?
There is something to be said for this argument. Indeed, Peoples et al. conclude that the widespread distribution of animism is indeed the result of vertical transmission. However, I do not believe that such a finding, if indeed correct, is fatal to the claim that this agreement gives prima facie support to the claim that animism is true
The very fact that animistic beliefs have been retained across so many millennia is nearly miraculous. If animism has been inherited by each community from a common ancestor, and if each community has retained animism despite there existing some probability that the belief will be rejected, then this shows that animism has not been rejected by any of these isolated communities over what can only be described as an unimaginably long period (most likely, upwards of 120,000 years for the most isolated communities. To put that in context, this harks back to a period during which we still shared the Earth with our cousins, the Neanderthals and the Denisovans [Bae et al. 2017]). One explanation for this retention over such an extraordinarily long period of time might be that animism is approximately true
Evolutionary debunkings? HADD+ Tom
At the very least, this debunking argument against animism requires its proponent to accept stronger metaphysical commitments than would be needed to defeat theism on the same grounds. Why so? Simply because a typical theistic claim is that at least one mind exists without a body. This is a nomologically suspect belief. If one believes (as most philosophers do) that minds are either physical or supervene on the physical, then the theistic belief in disembodied minds is apparently just plain false, and the belief’s popularity requires some explanation. The HADD + ToM account is then a reasonable explanation for why human beings would often commit themselves to mistaken theistic beliefs. Such beliefs are clear-cut cases of overprediction of agency
But the animist’s claim is metaphysically much less ambitious than the theist’s. The animist does not necessarily say that there are any disembodied minds, but only that some minds are embodied in surprising places, such as rivers. If the charge is made that the animist overpredicts agency, this requires stronger metaphysical commitments than just a blanket physicalism. It requires that we restrict the class of mind-bearing objects more narrowly than is required to reject theism on the same ground. Indeed, if we accept that HADD is just ADD plus H, and if we accept that ADD is (generally speaking) reliable when it comes to detecting agency in the natural world, then the question of whether animist beliefs are caused by an off-track process can be quite reasonably disputed.4 Sure, the animist might take, say, a tree to be an agent, but arguably trees are more like human beings than gods are like human beings. so more stronger than theism.
To this claim, a critic might respond that, although the animist’s claims are less ambitious than the theist’s, they are quite ambitious nonetheless. It seems that any metaphysics of mind worth its salt will take a claim about, say, forest spirits to be as much an example of overprediction of agency as is any claim about immaterial gods. The animist is, then, a stronger opponent than the theist is, only in the sense that a puppy is a stronger opponent than a kitten. But I think that the problem is stickier than this.
?
If the criteria for consciousness that we adopt are liberal enough to cover less-contentious entities such as small mammals and highly intelligent aliens, then it seems that evolutionary debunking arguments appealing to such criteria will struggle to give any principled reason to exclude a substantial number of the denizens of the animist’s worldview
Theistic Debunking Arguments Thus, so long as we are willing to count animist communities as having their own traditions and authorities, it seems that the case that Zagzebski advances for rational religious belief will apply just as well to the case of animism.
Plantinga argues that, from such experiences of the awe-inspiring grandeur of nature, theistic beliefs are spontaneously produced as outputs. I cannot help but find it ironic that the kinds of inputs specified by Plantinga are precisely the kinds of imposing natural phenomena that the animist takes as the central objects of religious focus. The animist might have good reason to suspect that it is Plantinga’s sensus divinitatis that is malfunctioning if, when he observes the majestic thunder of a great waterfall, he comes to believe that an invisible person is very powerful, while failing to fear, respect, or greet the very waterfall thundering away at him
theistic debunking if true,If this argument were successful, then the agreement surrounding nature spirits in isolated hunter-gatherer societies could be explained as the result of a corrupted sensus divinitatis. The cognitive faculty by which the animists have acquired their belief is currently malfunctioning. It is impaired
There is an obvious theological problem that arises. Why would a non-deceiving god cause a malfunctioning cognitive mechanism to generate widespread independent agreement? Typically, malfunctioning cognitive mechanisms generate disagreement in their outputs. The man who drinks too much sees snakes, but two men who drink too much do not both see snakes—the other might see spiders, or fairies, or nothing at all. It is this disagreement between the men, and between sober others, that leads us to conclude that the beliefs of the drunkard are incorrect. We take it that their cognitive processes have been impaired, not enhanced, by excessive alcohol. Such widespread independent agreement in animism could easily be mistaken as good evidence for animism. Only a deceiver god would allow this kind of misleading malfunction to occur. God’s will might be inscrutable, but it is entirely unclear why a non-deceiving god would create a faculty that malfunctioned in a way that resembled proper functioning.
Another way to adress theistic debunkings: value laden and theory first epistemologies
Hendricks
Perry Hendricks agrees with me! Hendricks argues that surprising independent agreement about animism would indeed raise the posterior probability of animism. However, Hendricks says, I have failed to give any extra weight to the claims of animists, since the widespread rejection of animism across the globe is at least as strong evidence against it. According to Hendricks, the current widespread unpopularity of animism neutralizes any strength my argument might have given to the animist.
Although Hendricks does not present an argument for it, he goes so far as to say that he is “inclined to think [that the current unpopularity of animism] is far stronger evidence against animism than Smith’s evidence is for animism, and so we have good reason to reject animism, all things considered” (Hendricks 2022, p. 547). Of course, he is welcome to feel that way. But whatever his personal inclinations, the core of Hendrick’s argument is narrower and rather simple in form: “Sure,” thinks Hendricks, “you may have independent agreement, but I have the raw numbers!” Whereas I may have a rag-tag army of isolated animists, Hendricks has the full might of the non-animist mob behind him. So, this philosophical game was nothing but a tit-for-tat that ended in a draw.
Hendricks and Hiddenness Adopting Schellenberg’s approach, Hendricks develops what he calls “the problem of animistic hiddenness” which focuses specifically on non-believers in animism. There are some differences between the two arguments. Hendricks notes that since the omnibenevolence of nature spirits is not assumed, the notion of nonresistence is not at issue. And, cutting a fairly short story shorter, Hendricks concludes that the situation is basically the same for animism as it is for theism. If Schellenberg is right, there should not exist nonresistant nontheists if theism is true. And if Hendricks is right, there should not exist such a preponderance of non-animists if animism is true. If there were nature spirits, he argues, then “they are equally as likely to reveal themselves to past generations as they are to the current generation”. He then goes on to make the stronger claim that “it would be very surprising if belief in nature spirits was not widespread during any historical era”.
the first assumption is that raw numbers matter, at least when it comes to religious belief. So, the fact that there is overwhelming agreement about some religious proposition is at least prima facie evidence for that proposition. It does not ultimately matter, Hendricks seems to think, how any particular agreement is generated.
he second assumption that Hendricks appears to make has to do with the constancy of the behaviour of nature spirits (or non-human persons) over time. The behaviour of these religious entities should not radically change over time or place. As Hendricks writes: “they are equally as likely to reveal themselves to past generations as they are to the current generation”
The third assumption that Hendricks makes is that human beings are as capable of receiving this spiritual communication during all eras and in all places. So, whereas the constancy principle states that spirits should communicate with us at a constant rate, this principle holds that human beings are roughly equally receptive to this communication at all times and places. We can call this the receptiveness principle.
The fourth assumption is that animism is currently unpopular. Indeed, this was an assumption that Hendricks borrowed directly from me.
Animist beliefs were decimated during the age of discovery (and have continued to be discouraged ever since) by a (violent) process of colonization and by the oppression of traditional cultures, languages, and religions. The introduction of foreign germs also took a devastating toll on the colonized, whose societies suffered wave after wave of decline. The superior technology and science of the invaders was often taken as evidence (by indigenous peoples) for the truth of the invaders’ religious beliefs, despite the fact that the advanced body of technological and scientific knowledge had not been drawn from religion. For example, in Aotearoa New Zealand, indigenous Māori converted to Christianity en masse, often under the belief that the impressive medical skills of European settlers derived from magical processes associated with the cross. Interestingly, it is only since the so-called “Māori renaissance” beginning in the mid-1980s (a time during which Māori language and culture were reinvigorated) that animist commitments came to be both appreciated again and even effected by law (as in the 2017 Te Awa Tupua Bill).
I disagree that one can point to the raw numbers in this particular case, a case in which the raw numbers are clearly non-evidential, and claim any kind of victory. On the contrary, The arguments discussed in the section suggest that the ascendency of anti-animism is a historical quirk of fortune, which can be explained away quite easily.
the constancy principle There are, it seems to me, all sorts of reasons that we might expect animistic communications to be, in the current era, not forthcoming. A major reason for this could potentially be due to our own contemporary disregard for the good of the environment, and for our taking it as a mere resource for consumption. To give a very human parallel, it may be that nature spirits have decided to cut off all diplomatic ties with human societies. We have declared our position, we have assumed the role of aggressor, and in such a situation, animistic communication channels may presently be closed off to us. And if we (taking the natural environment to be impersonal and beyond moral concern) set ourselves in a non-communicative position with nature, I see good reason why nature herself may take the same position with regard to us. And while we largely remain committed to this stance, I see no reason why it should be nature who reaches out first to end the impasse. Hendricks anticipates this argument and gives his own view on the matter: The way that we (modern civilization) treat the environment threatens nature spirits (if any exist) with extinction. However, the best bet for nature spirits to avoid extinction would be to reveal themselves to us, and this remains true even if they distrust us—even if they distrust modern civilization, the threat of extinction would override their distrust and make it likely that they would reveal themselves (to save themselves). And so a distrust of modern civilization will not suffice to explain animistic hiddenness. (Hendricks 2022, p. 548)
As an aside, it is difficult to understand how to interpret Hendricks’ constancy principle in any way that is not cartoonishly anthropomorphic. He seems to take it that if nature spirits are so like us, they ought to communicate in exactly the same manner, as expressively, and as consistently, as we ourselves communicate with each other. But of course, that is not what we find. To my mind, this view of “nature’s voice” simply conflates human and non-human communication in a way that can only be an Aunt Sally: a caricature of non-human persons as like the imaginary tree who might shout “Oi, stop that!”
Moreover, since we are dealing with beings who are neither omnibenevolent nor omnipotent, we are ultimately in the dark about the true communicative capabilities of these beings. This is a point that I must credit an anonymous reviewer for making. Sure, we may need to assume that the prevalence of animism among hunter gatherers (for example) has something to do with successful communication. But this assumption does not tell us much about how hard it was to achieve this communication in the first place. In addition, given the widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, the beings in question may be considerably weaker than they ever have been in the past.
So, the manner in which communication is advanced may be different enough from human communication to go unnoticed, especially by groups who have not cultivated the necessary relationships. The communications of nature are carried out in her own voice. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that the problem is not on her side, but on ours. Perhaps the natural world has been as communicative and as constant as ever, but it is we humans that fail to hear. Let us now look at that line of argument.
The Receptiveness Principle
One reviewer suggests that it’s possible that we’re not able to connect with nature spirits because we lack the right technique, whereas our ancestors didn’t lack this technique. This is, of course, a possible explanation. But for this to challenge my argument, it needs to be likely, and we have no reason to think it is
But there are various reasons that we may think it likely that the receptiveness of human beings differs from age to age. This may not simply be a matter of lacking a skill, but of adopting an infected theoretical framework. In communities which raise their young to reject the idea that there are any nature spirits to communicate with, a harder time will be had communicating with such entities. The communication itself may be subtle enough to go unnoticed by modern communities, who have discarded their animist commitments.
But there are various reasons that we may think it likely that the receptiveness of human beings differs from age to age. This may not simply be a matter of lacking a skill, but of adopting an infected theoretical framework. In communities which raise their young to reject the idea that there are any nature spirits to communicate with, a harder time will be had communicating with such entities. The communication itself may be subtle enough to go unnoticed by modern communities, who have discarded their animist commitments. For such people, the true source of spiritual communication may be clouded. I am reminded of Plantinga’s laundry list of the sorts of experiences which are supposed to trigger an awareness of a divine being: “The marvelous, impressive beauty of the night sky; the timeless crash and roar of the surf that resonates deep within us; the majestic grandeur of the mountains . . . ; the ancient, brooding presence of the Australian outback; the thunder of a great waterfall” (Plantinga 2000, p. 174).
One factor not discussed by Hendricks is urbanization. I find it surprising that Hendricks says, in yet another footnote, “if nature spirits exist, then we would expect them to reveal themselves to distinct populations roughly equally, since such populations are roughly equally exposed to nature” (Hendricks 2022, p. 546). Is it as simple as that? Are we all “equally exposed” to nature? A growing proportion of humans live in urban centers and, indeed, that proportion is now the majority. This trend has continued ever since the industrial revolution and counters Hendricks’ claim that we are more or less equally exposed to the natural environment as ever. Even where rural populations persist, the landscape is far from a natural ecosphere of interdependent organisms and geographical features
And if the constancy principle fails, then we may need no rebuttal to the receptiveness principle at all, since the relative lack of communication would be explained by a lack of constancy in its rate. To sum up, the apparent silence may be actual silence, or it may be a cacophony of screams, which are simply falling on deaf ears.
Animistic Unpopularity The last of Hendricks’ assumptions that I wish to challenge is animistic unpopularity. Before proceeding, I want to reiterate that this assumption was one that I made in my paper. However, I am nowadays inclined to doubt the universality of this claim. In particular, there is a serious problem that arises with respect to childhood animism, which is a universal feature of human developmental psychology. This fact was first noted by Jean Piaget in his 1927 work The Child’s Conception of the World. Since that time, Piaget’s general claim (i.e., that children have innate animist tendencies in their thinking) has been repeatedly replicated in multiple studies (see, for example, Dennis and Russell (1940), Dennis (1943), Nurcombe (1970), and Madsen (1982)).
Indeed, consider Deborah Kelemen’s famous example of how children account for the existence of “pointy prehistoric rocks”. Kelemen showed that children invoke teleological explanations for the pointiness of the rocks e.g., “so that animals wouldn’t sit on them and smash them” or “so that animals could scratch on them if they got itchy” (Kelemen 2004). Both explanations are animist in Piaget’s sense. In the first case we seem to have a sly and wiley rock, mounting a clever defense against pesky animals. In the second case, we are invited to view the rock as part of the material culture of animals
Whereas I previously argued that there is surprising independent agreement across extremely isolated human communities, I now believe that the independent agreement in animism is virtually universal in human thought. It arises in every one of us from birth, and remains robust until puberty. This is a point that shares overlap with Stewart Guthrie’s account of anthropomorphism as an innate feature of human thought (Guthrie 1995).