Intrinsic Defeaters and the Plantinga-Quinn Debate

I've worked up some notes on a strand of the debate between Alvin Plantinga and Phillip Quinn in the 80s and 90s. My aim is to get clearer on their discussion of Plantinga's notion of an intrinsic defeater. As such, I focus on that strand of their exchanges, and not so much on their exchanges on modern and classical foundationalism.

Plantinga[1]: Belief in God is properly basic, i.e., it's rational or justified or warranted wholly apart from supporting arguments. For there is parity between universally accepted properly basic beliefs (e.g., perceptual beliefs and memory beliefs) on the one hand, and basic theistic beliefs on the other. Both sorts of beliefs are naturally and spontaneously "triggered" in a wide variety of circumstances. So, for example, one will naturally and spontaneously form the following beliefs under certain familiar circumstances:

-I see a tree. (upon having a perceptual experience as of a tree)
-I had breakfast this morning. (upon trying to recall what one had for breakfast)
-That person is angry. (upon looking at a particular person's face)

Similarly, one might naturally and spontaneously form the following theistic beliefs under certain familiar circumstances (at least they're familiar to certain sorts of theists):

-God is speaking to me. (upon reading the Bible)
-God has created all this. (upon looking at the starry heavens)
-God disapproves of what I have done. (upon doing something cheap, or wrong, or wicked)
-God forgives me. (upon asking God for forgiveness for the cheap, wrong, or wicked thing)
-God is to be thanked and praised. (when life is sweet and satisfying)

Those who deny that theistic beliefs can be properly basic are adherents of Clifford-style evidentialism, which in turn is grounded in either classical or modern foundationalism. But while such versions of foundationalism entail that belief in God cannot be properly basic, they are self-referentially incoherent: the classical and modern foundationalist theses themselves fail their own criteria of proper basicality; nor can they be properly deductively or inductively inferred from the beliefs they countenance as properly basic. Therefore, Clifford-style evidentialism is unmotivated; as such, it can't serve as a principled basis for ruling out theistic beliefs as being properly basic.

Quinn[2]: Even if belief in God is properly basic for some people (provincial aunt Mabel and pre-critical little brother Timmy), it's not properly basic for contemporary, intellectually sophisticated adult theists. For any basic justification or warrant such beliefs may have enjoyed has been defeated by their knowledge of contemporary objections to/defeaters for theism (the problem of evil, naturalistic accounts of theistic belief, etc.). Thus, to retain justified or warranted belief in God, sophisticated contemporary adult theists require good replies to such criticisms -- defeater-defeaters for the original defeaters for theistic belief. But then their theistic belief is at least partly based on propositional evidence, in which case it is no longer properly basic.

Plantinga[3]: Not necessarily. For this assumes that all defeaters are extrinsic defeaters -- other arguments or evidence. But in addition to extrinsic defeaters, there are also intrinsic defeaters. "When a basic belief P has more by way of warrant than a potential defeater q of p, then p is an intrinsic defeater of q -- an intrinsic defeater-defeater, we might say."[4]

Two examples:
(i) The purloined letter case: Suppose I have means, motive, and opportunity to steal an embarrassing letter that was in fact stolen from the office of my department chair. There is also very strong evidence against me (e.g., I've been known to steal in the past; a trustworthy colleague says he saw someone who looks like me enter the Dean's Office on the day of the incident, etc.). However, I have a clear and vivid memory of being alone in the woods all day on the day of the incident. In this case, I'm rational to retain my belief that I didn't steal the letter because of my memory, even without propositional evidence and argument that could defeat the reasons brought against me; My belief that I was alone in the woods all day on the day of the incident is thus an intrinsic defeater-defeater of the claim that I stole the letter.

(ii) The Moses and the burning bush case: Suppose Moses has an overwhelming and vivid perceptual, auditory, and (no doubt) mystical experience as of Yahweh speaking to him from a bush that appears to burn, and yet is not consumed. Now suppose Freud strolled by and explained to Moses how his belief about Yahweh is the result of neurotic wish fulfillment. In this case, Moses is rational in retaining his belief about Yahweh, even if he were at a loss as to how to show Freud that his experience was veridical and not illusory. Moses' basic belief about Yahweh is thus an intrinsic defeater-defeater of Freud's criticism.

Thus, properly basic beliefs enjoy a degree of warrant that's independent of propositional evidence and argument. And if the degree of warrant of a properly basic belief is greater than that of one of its potential defeaters, then it is an intrinsic defeater of that defeater: it remains properly basic and warranted even in the absence of a propositional argument against that defeater.

Similarly, if belief in God is properly basic for a given theistic believer, and the degree of basic warrant their belief enjoys is greater than that of a given objection to their belief, then their theistic belief is an intrinsic defeater of that defeater; it retains its properly basic status even apart from an argument offered in reply to the criticism to their belief. And if this applies to the contemporary intellectually sophisticated adult theist as well, then they, too, can have properly basic theistic belief.

Quinn[5]: First: while it's certainly true that at least some types of properly basic beliefs have the property of being intrinsic defeater-defeaters for certain sorts of defeaters, it doesn't follow that such types of properly basic beliefs have this property essentially. Rather, properly basic beliefs must meet certain conditions if they are to be intrinsic defeater-defeaters. For example:

(a) Such beliefs must be sufficiently clear (e.g., fuzzy memories, perceptions in dim lighting, etc., have a lower degree of warrant, and thus can be defeated by good evidence).

(b) One must not have decent evidence that the source of such a belief is unreliable (e.g., you have good evidence from your doctor that you have a certain sort of memory disorder that affects the reliability of the sort of belief at issue).

Second: from the fact that

1. some basic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

it doesn't follow that

2. Some theistic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

or even

3. Possibly, some theistic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

(3) may well be acceptable, though, on the grounds that the scenario seems at least possible and, prima facie, it seems as though it would be an intrinsic defeater-defeater for Freud's objection if it were to obtain. Unfortunately, justifying (3) is insufficient in this context. For this only provides reason to think that there is at least one possible world at which belief in God is properly basic for an intellectually sophisticated theist. But what is metaphysically possible doesn't even entail what is epistemically possible (i.e., what could be true of the actual world, given what we already know of it), let alone what is actual.

What about (2)? It'll prove helpful to distinguish several interpretations of (2) before evaluating it (ordered from strongest to weakest):

(2a) For most theists, some thestic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

(2b) For some theists, some theistic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

(2c) It's epistemically possible (i.e., it could turn out, for all we know, that the actual world is such that) for most theists, some thestic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

(2d) It's epistemically possible (i.e., it could turn out, for all we know, that the actual world is such that) for some theists, some thestic beliefs are intrinsic defeater-defeaters.

Which construal of (2) is Plantinga arguing for in his exchange with Quinn? Of course, the one that's of most interest to the typical Christian theist is (2a). For they care (or at any rate, they ought to care) about whether their faith is at least minimally rational. So if they lack both arguments for their faith and adequate responses to criticisms against their faith (or even knowledge that someone, somewhere, has adequate arguments for their faith and adequate responses to such criticisms), Plantinga's arguments will be cold comfort for the vast majority of them if the only conclusion warranted by his arguments is something weaker than (2a). In fact, in the last paragraph of his reply to Quinn, he offers a qualified endorsement of (2a): "I am therefore inclined to believe that belief in God is properly basic for most theists - even intellectually sophisticated adult theists." (The Foundations of Theism, p. 312. Italics mine.)

However, as Quinn argues in his rejoinder, Plantinga offers nothing in their exchange that could adequately support (2b), let alone (2a). To see this, recall Plantinga's two paradigm cases of intrinsic defeaters:

(i) The purloined letter case
(ii) The Moses and the burning bush case

In case (i), we have a clear, fresh memory that serves as an intrinsic defeater-defeater of evidence that one stole a letter out of the department chair’s office. Such a belief has a lot by way of psychological force, vivacity, and warrant. In case (ii) Moses has an overwhelming experience as of God speaking to him from a bush that appears to burn, and is yet not consumed by the flame. It, likewise, has a lot by way of psychological force, vivacity, and warrant. Thus, if you were to be the subject in either scenario, and you met conditions (a) and (b) mentioned earlier (clear, fresh, vivid experiences in normal conditions, and you had no decent evidence that your cognitive faculties are unreliable with respect to forming the relevant sort of belief), then such beliefs have such a high degree of force, vivacity, and warrant for you that they will overwhelm the force of virtually any argument one could offer.

The same is true of the uncontroversially properly basic beliefs Plantinga mentioned in the earlier paper, viz.:

-I see a tree. (upon having a perceptual experience as of a tree)
-I had breakfast this morning. (upon trying to recall what one had for breakfast)
-That person is angry. (upon looking at a particular person's face)

For these are clearly analogous to cases (i) and (ii) in terms of warrant, force, and vivacity. In effect, Plantinga has given a list of examples of (what epistemologists call) Moorean facts. As such, their force, vivacity, and warrant will trump just about any philosophical argument against them, even if one is unable to refute them.

However, the crucial issue is whether Plantinga's examples of the humdrum variety of properly basic theistic beliefs -- the sorts of cases that are applicable to the typical Christian believer (and not just Moses and, perhaps, a handful of other fortunate souls) -- are comparable to cases (i) and (ii) in terms of degree of warrant, force, and vivacity.

Well, are they? To help answer this question, let's review Plantinga's examples of what he takes to be the typical, humdrum triggering conditions of properly basic theistic belief for most theists:

-God is speaking to me. (upon reading the Bible)
-God has created all this. (upon looking at the starry heavens)
-God disapproves of what I have done. (upon doing something cheap, or wrong, or wicked)
-God forgives me. (upon asking God for forgiveness for the cheap, wrong, or wicked thing)
-God is to be thanked and praised. (when life is sweet and satisfying)

Reflecting on such cases as these in his own Christian life, Quinn finds that they don't have anywhere near the degree of force, vivacity, and warrant of, for example, that involved in the Moses and the Burning Bush case; i.e., they don't seem to be anything remotely like Moorean facts for him. And of course, very many Christians likewise testify of having, at most, "gentle nudges" with respect to the sorts of triggering conditions of belief Plantinga mentions. But if so, then the relatively weak force, vivacity, and warrant such beliefs enjoy will not be sufficient to function as intrinsic defeaters for the objections to the faith that intellectually sophisticated adult theists are aware of. As such, it's not at all clear that Plantinga has even justified (2c); a fortiori he has not justified (2a). And if that's right, then it looks as though Plantinga has failed to deflect Quinn's charge: even if belief in God could be properly basic for parochial or pre-critical theists, it's not properly basic for intellectually sophisticated contemporary adult theists.

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[1] Plantinga, Alvin. "Is Belief in God Properly Basic", Nous 15:1 (1981), pp. 41-51.

[2] Quinn, Phillip. "In Search of the Foundations of Theism", Faith and Philosophy 2:4 (1985), pp. 469-486.

[3] Plantinga, "The Foundations of Theism: A Reply", Faith and Philosophy 3:3 (1986), pp. 298-313.

[4] Ibid., p. 311.

[5] Quinn, "The Foundations of Theism Again: A Rejoinder to Plantinga", in Zagzebski, Linda, ed. Rational Faith: Catholic Responses to Reformed Epistemology (University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), pp. 14-47.