Talk:Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense

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Good article nominee
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"Wide Acceptance" is unfounded

The statement "Plantinga's defense has received wide acceptance among contemporary philosophers" is evidenced from a single, heavily-biased source and this needs to recognized. While I doubt there has been any scientific poll taken anywhere, it is likely that most philosophers do not hold it to be a successful refutation to the problem of evil, given the ease of which I can find refutations from well known philosophers on the subject. Here are 6 I found in 5 minutes from the merely the first page of Google results. See:

  1. Philosophy Professor Hugh LaFollette's “Plantinga on the Free Will Defense” [pdf]. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Spring, 1980, 123-32. (http://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/Plantinga_on_the_Free_Will_Defense.pdf)
  2. Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Raymond D. Bradley's "The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved (2007)": http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html
  3. Philosophy Professor Nelson C. Pike's "Plantinga on the free will defense: A reply". Journal of Philosophy 63 (4):93-104. (http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Pike-Plantinga-on-the-Free-Will-Defense-a-Reply.pdf)
  4. Michael Bergmann's "Might-Counterfactuals, Transworld Untrustworthiness, and Plantinga's Free Will Defense", Faith and Philosophy 16:3 (1999), 336-351.
  5. Daniel Howard-Snyder and John Hawthorne, "Transworld Sanctity and Plantinga's Free Will Defense", Int'l. Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1998), 1-21.
  6. The chapter on Plantinga on the logical problem of evil in James F. Sennett's book on Plantinga's Philosophy, viz., Modality, Probability, and Rationality

— Preceding unsigned comment added by TrustworthyPerson (talk • contribs) 00:24, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is unlikely that most philosopher accept the defense, but we need someone with authority to come out and say precisely that! These sources are all primary sources, individual instances of people arguing against the defense, so we have no indication of what has been the impact of these papers. How were these papers received? What role have they played in the debate on the problem of evil? Has any of them shifted emphasis back from the evidential problem? Has anyone even responded to these papers or have they been largely ignored? The only way to answer these questions without engaging in too much
original research would be by appealing to secondary sources. On the other hand, feel free to narrate what any of these sources actually argue in an appropriate place in the body of the article. Vesal (talk) 22:26, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
You may not understand their impact, but I do, having degrees in philosophy and specifically having focused on the Philosophy of Religion. Either way, it is irrelevant whether they have been responded to. The point is, the problem of evil is still very much a problem to many philosophers and this needs to be recognized. A single statement from one theist philosopher saying that the defense adequately resolves the problem of evil is grossly misrepresentative of reality, and 6 independent sources clearly suggest this. TrustworthyPerson (talk) 04:12, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, you are the one who needs to understand Wikipedia's policies on
original research. And if you really think Graham Oppy or William Rowe are theist philosophers, I doubt you have a Ph.D. in this field... Vesal (talk) 17:20, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
Original research? Most of these sources come directly from peer-reviewed academic journals... The reason for your undo is "your sources do not explicitly and directly back up this narrative". The policy you link to: Synthesis of published material that advances a position
That's great, except the position as written in the article is that there are many philosophers who contend that it fails to adequately resolve the problem of evil. Looking at each of the sources, you can immediately see this is true.
• Pikes paper is a reply to a defense Plantinga wrote of Flew and Mackie's critique, in which he suggests Plantinga fails to adequately respond to it, and therefore agrees that the original argument ("The Free Will Defense") is not valid. "It is my suspicion, however, that, as stimulating and as rigorous as it is, this argument involves a mistake. It will be my purpose in this paper to examine Plantinga's argument in an effort to show that it fails to reveal an inadequacy in the argument against the existence of God advanced by Flew and Mackie."
• Bradley's title is clear enough, as is his paper: "But Plantinga's Defense, I show, is a failure. Not only is his argument formally flawed. It is made plausible only by virtue of his well-concealed failure to abide by his own definition of omnipotence."
• LaFollette's paper is clear from the first page: "However, I find myself unconvinced by Plantinga's arguments. My intuition is that there are successful responses to this problem-I just don't think Plantinga has provided them. His arguments are too vulnerable to potent criticisms."
• Bergmann's article takes an interesting approach - he argues that Plantinga's FWD is invalid as proposed but actually suggests an improvment that may make it more valid. Nevertheless, it is a reply to Plantinga's version; Bergmann would concur with the statement that "Plantinga's FWD does not adequately resolve the Problem of Evil". He writes: "I will argue that he fails to establish his intended conclusion because it is reasonable to refrain from believing TD [transworld depravity]." Interesting read.
• Howard-Snyder writes in his paper: "[We] aim to show that Plantinga's celebrated Free Will Defense fails. His argument that God and evil are compatible is neither "convincing" nor "fairly compelling," contrary to what Adams and Rowe attest; ... Of course, we are not the first to make such a claim."
• From Sennet's abstract on his Plantinga examination (also used in his book): "Central to my criticism is my identification of a distinction that Plantinga fails to appreciate--that between pure (or metaphysical) modality and epistemic modality. This failure affects the success of all of the examined projects. The flaw I identify affects his work on the ontological argument and Reformed epistemology to a greater extent than it does his work on the problem of evil. This is, in part, because the first two are attempts to argue for the justification of theistic belief, while the third is an attempt to block an objection to theistic belief. I conclude that Plantinga's defense of PT is not nearly as strong as he thinks it is--that, in fact, it fails completely in some important places." (emphasis added)
I should point out that two of the articles (Howard Snyder, Bradley) hint that Plantinga's FWD did shift the pre-existing views of many philosophers (theist and atheist alike) in that it seemed successful in resolving the problem of evil to them (assuming an incompatiblist view). You could even use these sources to back up Chad Meister's point. Nevertheless, both articles also argue that there is a large community of dissenters as well, and I (and others, see above) feel this needs to be stated. Otherwise, you are making a very one-sided claim which grossly misrepresents reality. At any rate, I'm confused why you think these sources are invalid, because clearly if you did actually read them you would see these are among the highest quality sources one could find (academic, peer-reviewed). Each one of them unquestionably disagrees with Plantinga's Free Will defense and clarifies that — though the defense is accepted by many philosophers — it is not universally so and there remains a large body of philosophers who disagree. We can go back and forth on this forever, but eventually this article will be locked and it will be reviewed and edited in a way that reflects the reality of that fact that my sources are valid and my edits useful. You seem to have a personal vendetta here, perhaps you refuse to believe that your own personal views could be wrong; I understand this, but please don't take it out on wikipedia. TrustworthyPerson (talk) 19:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your detailed response. Your latest version has a lot less of an original narrative. I won't revert, but I don't really approve of what we have done. Let's hear what other people think about this. I don't deny that these sources argue against Plantinga, but explicitly and directly really means explicitly and directly. If we say "many still contend that it fails to adequately resolve the problem of evil", then the source should say "many still contend that it fails to adequately resolve the problem of evil". Right now, we are clustering a bunch of sources together that collectively should back this up, but who determines how many hand-picked articles by a Wikipedia editor constitute "many"? I now also found the relevant Wikipedia guideline:
WP:RS/AC. It is perhaps expressing my concern more clearly? Vesal (talk) 20:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
As TrustworthyPerson demonstrates with aplomb, there are several academic peer-review sources available that criticize Plantinga's argument. It would, however, be a
secondary sources directly assessing whether Plantinga is widely accepted or not. The ones that have been presented so far (that is, Peterson et al. and Meister) say that his argument is widely accepted. Am I wrong? Gabbe (talk) 22:17, 12 September 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
I agree with you as a general principle; this is the optimal way of doing it. Howard-Snyder should pass as a secondary source in this regard ("Of course, we are not the first [to disagree with the FWD]"), but more will be added as well I'm sure. In the meantime, while we have 7 or 8 primary sources, we can assume that these are not the only dissenting opinions in existence and that there are indeed others. However, to merely state that Plantinga's FWD is "widely accepted" (without saying there are any dissenters) would be misleading, as it suggests to some people that almost no one disagrees. This can be reasonably assumed to be false, given the dearth of primary sources we have now. Thus — in this case — presenting a misleading statement about the over-acceptances of the FWD I feel is worse than the minor slap on the wrist we incur from using a few primary sources. I would be fine with removing (or moving to the criticisms section) the latter portion of that statement if we lessened the qualifier of the former part. Meister uses the term "Wide acceptance", whereas Howard-Snyder merely talks about a "shift" which is not nearly as strong, and I don't have access to Peterson so I'm not sure how he terms it. At any rate, with these 3 sources alone it's not clear, and the only one that mentions it's actually "widely accepted" (as opposed to merely a shift) is conveniently a Christian (this is important, because unlike in math or physics (or philosophy topics of a less personal nature), a great deal of confirmation bias is inevitably involved). Ultimately, I think we need to find more secondary sources on both sides before we can make s strong claim either way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TrustworthyPerson (talk • contribs) 19:10, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hiding affiliations is disingenuous

It has been suggested that the use of labels such as "Christian" and "theist" are pointless, while I disagree in some specific cases, I think it is at the very least important to know — as user Afasmit also points out — what connections any of the referenced philosophers have with Plantinga. William Alston is referenced here and is personally close with Plantinga; this needs to be known or the reference removed, because he is not a wholly unbiased source. TrustworthyPerson (talk) 06:51, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Just in case"

On behalf of the general audience, I have replaced the misleading and confusing expression "just in case", with its correct, and easily understood equivalent, "if, and only if" (also, in more technical writing, "if and only if"). The following explains the error:

Dr Lindsay B Yeates (talk) 22:05, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Free will?

God exists because free will. While the burden of proof might have been lessened for proving actual God through this "defence", now all you gotta do is PROVE FREE WILL (good luck with that) exists. Because that's what he is basing his "defence" on right? 130.243.214.22 (talk) 06:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, the argument is valid as he states it. The only misunderstood point is in the misguided vision of not remembering that the "free will" of evil choices, due to a misguided "moral value" can exist separate from evil generated from a biological birth defect actionable evil. As a moral community matures and grows the more good and more moral community evolves, the biological becomes the only exception which drives the "good " scientific community to find solutions for the various biological problems. This will be the driving force, for good in everyone, that the community eventually will evolve to. There will always be evil in our current world to some degree (just look at heaven and Satan) but Satan was eventually banished as the eventual good moral mankind can pursue on earth.
GSS — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:33B8:1A60:8D18:9F4F:CC77:5074 (talk) 15:03, 23 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Counter-arguments need brevity

Some parts of this article read (to me at least) more like arguments between editors than an effort to present Plantiga's argument to inform readers and convey (with brevity) the essentials of the key objections and responses. Propose that the latter sections should be condensed to convey essentials rather than present in-depth counter-arguments. KSci (talk) 04:37, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Square circle = beings with free will that would never choose evil?

I gotta ask... how is the jump from "square circle" to "beings with free will that would never choose evil" made? This is saying that there has never been or will ever be a being with free will that would never choose evil. Quite a double negative, I agree, but still an amazing BS of a claim. I would love to see that negative proven... If there ever was a being with free will that would never choose evil, which is entirely more plausible than the negative, then an omnipotent god CAN create such a being, or a multiple thereof. Furthermore, an omnicient god would know which sperm will fertilize the egg and become a being with free will that will choose evil, so he can just kill all such sperm and thus leave only those sperm that would end up becoming beings with free will that would never choose evil. Or am I missing something, here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ateista (talk • contribs) 09:46, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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