Stratton vs. Skydive Phil & Alex Malpass: Did They Really Debunk the Argument from Reason?

Recently, Victor Reppert informed me that Skydive Phil hosted philosophers Alex Malpass and Dan Linford for a lengthy discussion of the Argument from Reason. My own Free-Thinking Argument (FTA) eventually became a significant part of that conversation.

Interestingly, although the discussion devoted considerable attention to C. S. Lewis and his famous exchange with Elizabeth Anscombe, the three participants never mentioned Victor Reppert or his substantial contributions to this very subject. Given Victor's extensive scholarship on the Argument from Reason—including his book C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea—I found that omission rather remarkable.

Moreover, I believe their treatment of the Lewis–Anscombe encounter deserves closer historical scrutiny. But that is a discussion for another day. My purpose here is not to revisit that famous exchange or defend every formulation of Lewis's argument. Rather, I want to examine what Alex, Dan, and Phil said about my own Free-Thinking Argument—and determine whether their criticisms actually succeed.

I was particularly interested because I have debated Alex Malpass on this very argument. Indeed, during our previous discussion on the Unbeleivable(?) YouTube channel, I went out of my way to express my respect for Alex as a philosopher. I have also publicly thanked him for his previous objections because wrestling with them forced me to sharpen earlier formulations of the Free-Thinking Argument.

That is how philosophy ought to work.

If someone exposes a problem in my argument, I want to know about it. If my argument is bad, I want to stop believing it. If an objection requires me to modify the argument, I want to modify it.

After all, the entire point of the Free-Thinking Argument concerns epistemic responsibility—our responsibility to think carefully as we attempt to discover truth.

So there is a recurring theme I want to keep before us throughout this discussion:

Ironically, gentlemen, we are discussing my argument about epistemic responsibility and carefulness. So let's be careful.

Unfortunately, much of the criticism offered against my argument in this discussion wasn't careful at all and attacks positions I do not hold.

Let's reason together.

The Free-Thinking Argument Is Not Simply “the Argument from Reason”

There is a family of arguments that travels under the heading Argument from Reason.

C. S. Lewis famously distinguished between a thought being caused and a conclusion being accepted because one apprehends rational grounds for it. Other philosophers have developed arguments concerning intentionality, mental causation, logical relations, semantic content, epistemic normativity, and whether naturalism can adequately account for genuine rational inference. See the forthcoming volume The Argument from Reason and Rational Agents.

My Free-Thinking Argument overlaps with this family of arguments, but it asks a more specific question:

What must be true of a rational agent for that agent to bear genuine responsibility for the manner in which he reasons—especially about metaphysical reality?

My concern is not that deterministic machinery could never output a true proposition. Of course it could. A calculator can output 4 when asked for 2 + 2. A computer can instantiate a sequence corresponding to a valid inference. A machine will outperform me at chess.

That is not the issue.

The issue concerns the epistemic position of the rational agent attempting to discover metaphysical truth.

The Carefulness Condition

Here is the crucial question:

Could I have exercised greater epistemic care than I actually exercised?

This is the question of alternative possibilities aimed at the manner in which one thinks.

Suppose exhaustive determinism is true. Given precisely the same antecedent conditions, I could not have reasoned any more carefully than I was determined to reason. I could not have investigated an objection I was determined to ignore. I could not have bracketed a bias I was determined to retain. I could not have reconsidered a conclusion I was determined not to reconsider.

Indeed, every effort to become more careful would itself be sufficiently determined by antecedent conditions beyond my ultimate control. In fact, this would not be my effort at all, but merely subjective experiences that make it seem as if I'm the one making the effort while deliberating. But nothing would be farther from the truth.

This is what I mean by the carefulness condition (thank you, Kelly Fitzsimmons Burton).

Now, please be careful and notice that I am not claiming libertarian freedom guarantees rationality. It obviously doesn't. Someone might possess libertarian freedom and still choose to be lazy, reason carelessly, misunderstand evidence, overlook a defeater, or reach a false conclusion.

Rather, I argue that the relevant libertarian control is necessary for the kind of epistemic carefulness required for genuine rational responsibility—especially when philosophizing about metaphysical reality.

Libertarian freedom is not sufficient for rationality. It is necessary for the kind of specific rational responsibility at issue in my argument.

When it comes to our metaphysical beliefs—beliefs about ultimate reality, God, the soul, determinism, freedom, and the fundamental nature of existence—the question of rational responsibility becomes especially important.

Dan's Computer Is Revealing

Early in the discussion, Dan says:

“It's possible to make a computer reason poorly but if you … sort of force a computer to reason correctly … then it's going to be making a sequence of inferences and that sequence of inferences are going to line up with the sequence of states inside of the computer.”

That is an extremely helpful observation.

My response: "Exactly! 100%! Amen to that!"

If we force a computer to produce the correct conclusion, the interesting epistemic question concerns whatever is responsible for producing that alignment.

The relevant questions are raised: Who designed the architecture? Who wrote the program? Why should we trust it?

The computer does not become epistemically responsible simply because its causal sequence corresponds to an inferential sequence.

Now, a physicalist might claim that certain physical systems do more than merely correlate inputs and outputs. Indeed, some physicalists claim that physical processes alone might account for genuine beliefs, intentionality, and rational inference.

But that is precisely what needs to be argued and demonstrated—not merely asserted.

Pointing to a computer that produces logically correct outputs does not establish that the computer genuinely possesses beliefs, understands propositions, apprehends the normative force of reasons, or exercises rational responsibility. Producing an output that corresponds to a valid inference is not obviously the same thing as a rational agent understanding why the conclusion follows from the premises). And that distinction is central to my argument.

Bottom line: Correct output is not identical to rational agency.

This distinction is reminiscent of philosopher John Searle's famous Chinese Room thought experiment. Searle argued that a system might manipulate symbols according to formal rules and produce perfectly appropriate responses without thereby understanding what those symbols mean. In other words, syntax is not sufficient for semantics.

The relevance to Dan's computer analogy should be obvious. Even if a computer produces outputs corresponding to valid logical inferences, that fact alone does not establish that it understands the propositions involved, apprehends reasons as reasons, or bears epistemic responsibility for its conclusions.

This highlights the very distinction Dan's analogy seems to overlook: successfully simulating the formal structure of reasoning is not obviously equivalent to genuinely understanding and responsibly evaluating reasons.

The Central Question

This gives us a question that will recur throughout this article:

If processes you are not even aware of are ultimately responsible for determining which metaphysical conclusions seem rationally compelling to you, why should you trust those processes to reliably track metaphysical truth?

Notice what I am not arguing.

I am not arguing: “Your belief was caused, therefore it is false.”

That would be far too quick.

Nor am I arguing: “Your belief was determined, therefore it must be irrational.”

A deterministic process could generate a true proposition. It could even produce a sequence of conclusions corresponding to valid inferences. The question is whether the thinker possesses justification for trusting the processes that sufficiently determine his metaphysical reasoning.

That distinction becomes critically important when Alex turns specifically to my argument.

I Do Not Add Libertarian Freedom as a Fourth Ingredient of Knowledge

Near the end of the discussion, Alex summarizes my position this way:

“His implausible assumption seems to me is that libertarian free will is a component of rationality. Or another way to think about it is that he thinks that knowing something is a justified, true, freely chosen belief.”

He then says there is no reason to insert that sort of fourth clause into the definition of knowledge.

No.

That is not my view. This is one of the worst attacks against a straw man I've ever seen. Hopefully this fight against a caricature is unintentional, but at best, Alex is violating the carefulness condition once again.

Indeed, not only is Alex failing to be careful, he should know better because I have debated this exact topic with Alex on the Unbelievable? YouTube channel. In that exchange, I told him how I defined my terms.

I do NOT define knowledge as: Justified + True + Belief + Libertarian Freedom.

In fact, when Alex and I debated this argument, I explicitly told him:

“I tend to use the common definition of justified true belief…”

I immediately connected reliability to justification: if the relevant source is unreliable, the problem is that one lacks justification.

So my argument is not: J + T + B + LFW.

Rather, setting Gettier-style issues aside for present purposes, knowledge minimally requires justified true belief.

My argument is that naturalistic determinism provides the thinker with an undercutting defeater for the justification of his metaphysical beliefs. That is a completely different argument. And Alex seemed to previously recognize that the argument concerned a defeater.

During our debate, Alex himself summarized my position in terms of antecedent conditions determining belief and said:

“That is a kind of defeater in his view…”

He then described my control condition in terms of having the power and opportunity to think differently and “be a bit more careful.” (Watch him articulate my argument nicely here.)

So when Alex now tells another audience that I want to bolt libertarian freedom onto the traditional analysis of knowledge as a fourth condition, something has gone seriously wrong in the reconstruction.

Whatever explains this new mischaracterization, it does not accurately represent the position he previously engaged and explained. This is either a lack of carefulness or something nefarious. Since I am committed to think the best about my opponents, I refuse to consider the latter.

Ironically, gentlemen, we are discussing my argument about epistemic responsibility and carefulness. So let's be careful.

Determinism Itself Is Not the Entire Problem

This point becomes even clearer from another part of my debate with Alex.

I explicitly offered a hypothetical scenario in which God sufficiently determines human beliefs. I said that if a maximally great and perfectly trustworthy God who desires human beings to know truth simply determined everyone to get metaphysics right, then determination would not itself eliminate justification.

Think about what follows. My argument cannot possibly be: A belief is determined. Therefore, it is unjustified.

I gave Alex a counterexample to that claim myself!

The relevant question is this: What is doing the determining, and what reason do I have to trust it?

Interestingly, in the discussion with Alex and Skydive Phil, Phil raises J. B. S. Haldane's objection that even if God exists, God could determine us to think whatever He wishes. Alex responds that merely having an agent directing our thoughts does not, by itself, establish their reliability. Dan Linford then presses the point further, arguing that even a benevolent God might have reasons to permit inaccurate beliefs or misleading inferences (56:21–59:39).

I agree! 

Merely appealing to a supernatural agent does not automatically establish the trustworthiness of our reasoning. Perhaps the agent is trustworthy. Perhaps not. We must consider the nature and intentions of the determining source—and whether we have adequate justification for trusting it.

Indeed, this concern is intimately connected to another argument I have developed—the Deity of Deception argument against exhaustive divine determinism (EDD).

But here's the thing: Alex Malpass has read the paper I coauthored with J. P. Moreland entitled “An Explanation and Defense of the Free-Thinking Argument.” The Deity of Deception argument is included in that article.

Here's the point: merely replacing blind physical forces with a supernatural mind does not automatically solve the epistemic problem. The determining source must be trustworthy. In the case of EDD, the problem becomes especially serious if God sufficiently determines radically incompatible and false theological beliefs.

After all, if that were the case, how could we trust our theological reasoning if God is ultimately responsible for sufficiently determining both the true and false theological conclusions people affirm?

That is one reason I reject exhaustive divine determinism (EDD).

But notice the broader principle. The causal source of our beliefs matters epistemically. This is why the Free-Thinking Argument examines the candidate sources of our metaphysical reasoning.

I Do Not Directly Choose My Beliefs

The most persistent misunderstanding in the video concerns doxastic voluntarism.

Alex says that my view is apparently something like this:

“Your brain presents you with some options and you the kind of sovereign free soul decides to pick the option…”

He says that without the “last vetoing final free step,” I supposedly think one lacks responsibility. He then characterizes this as nearly a “homunculus view”—a little man inside the brain making the final choice.

Once again, that is NOT my position. As a professional philosopher Alex should know better. As a philosopher who has specifically engaged me in an academic debate, Alex should know better.

To reiterate what I mentioned above, Alex is either not being careful, or something much worse. I will assume the best.

To be clear: I do not believe that the brain generates a menu:

A. Physicalism

B. Substance dualism

C. Idealism

And then a little man inside my skull presses the libertarian button marked “B.”

I have spilled much ink defending indirect doxastic voluntarism. That means I cannot simply willy nilly decide right now: “Beginning in five seconds, I shall sincerely believe that 1 + 1 = 3.”

Dan spends considerable time attacking precisely that sort of direct belief choice.

But that is NOT my argument or my view!

What power do I have? What can I do?

I can decide which arguments to read. I can decide whether to investigate the strongest objections to my position. I can choose to slow down. I can reread a difficult paragraph a few more times. I can check and double check whether I have accurately represented an opponent. I can recognize that I desperately want some proposition to be true and then do my best to bracket that desire for the sake of truth.

But wait, there's more . . .

I can also ask whether my intuitions are trustworthy. I can seek out, discuss, and debate scholars who disagree with me. I can revisit a premise. I can reconsider the weight I had previously assigned to specific evidence. I can admit that an objection is stronger than I originally thought. I can exercise greater or lesser epistemic care.

These free actions can indirectly influence the beliefs I eventually form.

That is what philosophers and epistemologists refer to as indirect doxastic voluntarism.

Here is the simplest formulation:

I do not directly choose WHAT I believe. I choose HOW I reason.

Alex Already Understood This

This is where my previous debate with Alex becomes especially important.

During that debate, Alex initially described my position in something like the same way he does now—as though I thought libertarian freedom allows me simply to refrain from inferring one proposition and infer another instead.

I corrected him.

I explained that I was talking about questions such as:

• Can you bracket your biases?

• Can you recognize your emotional attachment to a worldview?

• Can you take thoughts captive?

• Can you be more careful?

And later in that very discussion, Alex himself summarized the position rather well.

He described my view as having the power and opportunity to “think differently and be a bit more careful,” rather than lazily following prejudices and intuitions, and as stopping to “take your thinking captive” and steer the ship differently.

Exactly!

That is far closer to my actual argument.

So I confess that it is quite difficult to understand why the new discussion on Sky Dive Phil's video repeatedly returns to the picture of a sovereign soul directly picking its final belief. Alex previously correctly articulated the carefulness condition. He understood that my argument concerned the manner in which an agent reasons, not a final act of selecting a belief from a menu.

Whatever explains his present reconstruction, it is not an accurate representation of the position he previously engaged. That's vitally important because the entire point of my argument concerns epistemic responsibility and carefulness when forming our metaphysical beliefs.

So let's be careful.

There Is No Little Man Inside My Brain

Alex described my view as nearly homuncular—as though I imagine a little man inside my brain choosing among beliefs. But this confuses substance dualism with a homunculus theory.

Let me be clear: I do not believe there are two little Tims: Tim the organism, and Mini-Tim sitting in a cerebral control room.

J. P. Moreland, Joshua Farris, Eric Hernandez, and I (among many others) defend a view according to which the human person is an immaterial substantial self who is embodied and who uses a physical brain. There is not a person inside the person.

The soul is not inside the person. The soul is the person.

Or, more colorfully: There is no little man inside my brain. I'm the man—and I have a brain.

Of course the brain matters (just as a piano matters to the pianist). Brain damage can impair cognition (just as piano damage can prevent the pianist from playing beautiful music). Drugs can influence cognition. Sleep deprivation can influence cognition. Subconscious processes matter.

None of that entails that the person is reducible to those processes or that those processes sufficiently determine every act of rational deliberation. Nor does the mere existence of subconscious processing show that rational agents lack any meaningful control over the manner in which they reason.

The question is not whether subconscious processes exist. Of course they do. The question is whether those processes ultimately determine the entire course of my reasoning—or whether I, as a rational agent, possess genuine control over how carefully I respond to them.

“Nothing Determines” My Reasoning?

Dan then reconstructs my view by saying that sometimes, according to Stratton, beliefs arise and “nothing determines them.” He argues that libertarian freedom requires a “rupture” in both the causal and inferential series.

But that leaves out an entire metaphysical category: Agent causation.

My options are not merely:

• Antecedent physical conditions determine my reasoning.

• Nothing determines anything, and thoughts randomly appear.

The alternative I defend is:

• The rational agent exercises genuine causal control over the manner in which he reasons.

So I would respond:

No, Dan. It is not that “nothing” determines how I fly the ship of reason.

I do.

Of course that sentence requires philosophical unpacking. But agent causation is not simply a mysterious synonym for randomness. Those are two different concepts that ought not be conflated.

Bottom line: The rational agent is the source. The buck stops with the agent.

That is precisely how I defined libertarian freedom when Alex and I debated.

If Dan wants to use the word “rupture,” I am happy to appropriate it—with an important correction. I do not need a rupture between reasons and conclusions. I need a rupture in the chain of sufficient determination running from epistemically untrustworthy antecedent conditions through the entire process of metaphysical reasoning.

That chain must not exhaustively explain the rational agent's exercise of epistemic care.

With my pilot analogy in mind, the pilot does not create a rupture in the flight path merely because the airplane is not flying itself. The pilot explains the course of the flight.

“The Right Reasons”

Alex then says:

“What matters is whether your beliefs are correlated with the right reasons…”

He suggests that if the reasons for A are better than the reasons for B, freely choosing B would simply be irrational. If one were compelled to follow the better reasons, one would simply be “compelled to be rational.”

But there is an enormous question hiding inside the phrase “the right reasons.” How does Alex know which reasons are the right reasons?

That is exactly where the metaphysical problem gets interesting.

Alex believes that he examines arguments and reaches his own metaphysical conclusions (sounds like libertarian freedom to me). I examine arguments and reach different conclusions. Other sophisticated philosophers reach still others.

So, we cannot simply say: “The rational philosopher follows the better reasons.”

Of course! The rational philosopher follows the better reasons if he correctly identifies which reasons are better.

But here's the relevant question that Alex, Phil, and Dan miss: what makes his assessment trustworthy?

That is the epistemological question.

And there is another important ambiguity lurking here: What does it mean for the “right reasons” to lead someone to a belief?

If Alex merely means that a causal process reliably correlates certain inputs with correct outputs, then we are back to Dan's computer once again.

A computer can be forced to instantiate the correct inferential pattern without that fact alone establishing that it apprehends anything as a reason. But if Alex means that the rational agent apprehends reasons as reasons—understands their evidential force, compares them with competing considerations, considers potential defeaters, and forms a conclusion because of their rational force—then he has already packed a great deal of rational agency into the phrase “the right reasons.”

That is precisely what requires explanation.

Now, perhaps Alex believes a sufficiently sophisticated physical system can genuinely realize all of these rational capacities. If so, then that is a position he is entitled to defend.

However, he cannot merely establish it by pointing to a causal sequence that corresponds to a valid inference. A causal sequence corresponding to a rational inference is not obviously identical to a rational agent reasoning because he recognizes the force of the reasons.

So my response is this:

Alex, how do you know that you have correctly determined which reasons are actully better?

That is the very thing my argument is asking you to explain.

We Are the Scales

Perhaps this analogy helps.

When I step onto a bathroom scale and it reads 195 pounds, there is an objective fact about my weight that the instrument is attempting to measure.

Metaphysical propositions do not enter our minds with numerical labels attached:

“Argument A = 8.7 epistemic units.”

“Argument B = 4.3 epistemic units.”

We are active agents who have to personally assess them. So perhaps the better analogy is this:

We are the scales.

Reasons and propositions do not come with numbers attached telling us exactly how much epistemic weight they possess. As active rational agents, we have to weigh them. The question raised is this: are we properly calibrated?

I can be a poorly calibrated scale. My subjective wants and desires can put a thumb on the scale. My biases can distort the measurement. I can rush. I can refuse to consider counterevidence. I can seek only arguments confirming what I already believe.

Or I can recognize those dangers, bracket my desires, investigate objections, reconsider my intuitions, check my inferences, and attempt to weigh the evidence more carefully.

I do not determine the objective evidential value of a proposition any more than a bathroom scale determines my actual weight. But I am the "instrument" doing the weighing.

So when Alex or Dan says that a rational person simply follows whichever reasons weigh more heavily, the crucial epistemic question has already been skipped: Who is doing the weighing, how is the scale calibrated, and what reason does the scale have to trust its own reading?

And the carefulness condition adds another question:

Could the scale have been more carefully calibrated than antecedent conditions sufficiently determined it to be?

That is where the disagreement between libertarian and compatibilist accounts of rational responsibility becomes especially important.

Professional Disagreement Matters

This becomes especially pressing in metaphysics.

When Alex and I debated on the Unbelievable(?) show, I explicitly appealed to the fact that highly trained philosophers can examine the same evidence and arguments and arrive at incompatible metaphysical conclusions.

I argued that, if these differences are sufficiently determined by mindless antecedent conditions, those conditions look remarkably clumsy at consistently producing metaphysical truth.

Later I made the same point concerning trained metaphysicians and the lack of broad agreement on many metaphysical questions.

Suppose one deterministic natural process produces a physicalist. Another produces a substance dualist. Another produces an idealist. Another produces a panpsychist. One produces a theist. Another produces an atheist. One produces a compatibilist. Another produces a libertarian.

Each subjectively experiences himself as assessing evidence.

Each believes some reasons carry greater weight than others.

Each thinks his scale is giving the correct reading.

Of course, disagreement does not automatically show that every participant is unjustified. Nor does disagreement alone establish that our cognitive faculties are generally unreliable. But it does, however, raise an important question about our confidence in the processes producing these divergent metaphysical conclusions.

Simply explaining why the scales give different readings does not tell us which scale is accurately calibrated.

That distinction is critical:

A causal explanation of why two thinkers disagree is not yet an epistemic explanation of why one thinker should trust his own conclusion.

Dan Seems to Walk Straight Into the Argument

Near the end of the discussion, Dan says something remarkable.

He suggests that, even when the reasons we consciously represent to ourselves seem balanced, there may be:

“Some process that's going on inside of you that you may not even be aware of. And that's what actually gets you to choose one or the other.”

But now we have arrived directly at my question!

Dan, if processes you're not even aware of are ultimately responsible for determining which metaphysical conclusions seem rationally compelling to you, why should you trust those processes to reliably track metaphysical truth?

A few minutes earlier, Dan described rational deliberation in strikingly active terms:

“Let's really think this through. Let's really weigh… both sides and let's come to a rational conclusion on the basis of the arguments and the evidence.”

Excellent!

That sounds exactly like someone actively flying the ship of reason.

But later we are told that some process of which Dan may be entirely unaware is what actually gets him to choose one conclusion rather than another.

So which is doing the relevant explanatory work?

Is Dan the active agent determining how carefully he pilots the ship, or is Dan merely a passive passenger as unconscious antecedent processes sufficiently determine where the ship goes while Dan subjectively (and incorrectly) experiences himself as the pilot?

Is Dan the active agent, or is he just a passive delusional Dan?

Again: Experiencing subjective sensations of deliberation is not identical to controlling deliberation.

And that distinction leads to a thought experiment.

Determined Dan

Consider the following scenario:

Suppose some neurological condition sufficiently determines Dan to believe that 1 + 1 = 3 for the rest of his life.

I put two apples next to another two apples. I provide mathematical proofs. I answer every objection.

Nothing matters.

Dan continues to believe 1 + 1 = 3 because the antecedent condition sufficiently determines the entire course of his experience and sensations of reasoning.

Dan might still experience the subjective sensations of deliberating. He might subjectively experience arguments as persuasive. Responses might be generated. He might insist that he is following the evidence.

But no rational consideration could ever change his mind.

In that scenario, what would it mean to tell Dan: “You need to reconsider this more carefully”?

The precise degree of reconsideration would itself be determined.

Now, on the other hand, suppose human beings ordinarily possess libertarian freedom when their cognitive faculties are functioning properly.

Now suppose something goes seriously wrong in Dan's brain—some neurological disorder or malfunction. As a result, Dan loses the relevant freedom and rational control he would ordinarily possess.

He still subjectively experiences himself as thinking, weighing evidence, and drawing conclusions, but the neurological condition is now sufficiently determining the course of his experience and sensations of reasoning—including his final conclusion that libertarian freedom does not exist for anyone at any time.

Every argument he hears is processed in whatever way is necessary to preserve that conclusion.

From the inside, Dan subjectively experiences himself as weighing the evidence.

Indeed, he has direct access to the subjective experience of deliberating, sensations of considering reasons, and seemingly exercising rational control. But here's the question: how would he know the difference?

In our thought experiment, those experiences are misleading.

The neurological condition is sufficiently determining the exact manner in which Dan experiences deliberation, including the manner in which the evidence is weighed and the metaphysical conclusions he ultimately experiences himself affirming.

Although Dan experiences himself as actively flying the ship of reason, the truth is that he has lost the relevant control. He is merely a passive passenger tied up in the back seat of a causal process that is happening to him.

Being subjectively convinced that you are open to reason is not the same thing as actually being open to reason. This is why my argument concerns rational responsibility and control.

Of course, a compatibilist might respond that a neurological malfunction is not analogous to a properly functioning deterministic cognitive system.

Fair enough.

I am not arguing that every determined cognitive process is malfunctioning or that every determined belief is false. The thought experiment establishes a narrower point: The subjective experience of careful deliberation does not, by itself, establish that the agent possesses the relevant rational control. And that raises the further question of what kind of control is necessary for rational responsibility.

None of this implies that libertarian freedom is sufficient for rationality. It obviously is not. Libertarian freedom does not guarantee properly functioning cognitive faculties, nor does it guarantee that a person will reason carefully, consider all the relevant evidence, or reach the correct conclusion.

My claim is different. It is simply that the relevant libertarian control is necessary for the kind of rational responsibility at issue in the FTA—not that it guarantees rationality.

Put differently:

Libertarian freedom is not my sufficient condition for rationality. It is a necessary condition of the carefulness required for rational responsibility (justification) regarding metaphysical knowledge.

That distinction matters because pointing to a malfunctioning brain does nothing to refute my argument.

Of course, as I noted above, neurological dysfunction can compromise rational agency. That is precisely why properly functioning cognitive faculties matter. The question is whether, when those faculties are functioning properly, the rational agent possesses genuine control over how carefully he actively reasons—or whether the entire process is nevertheless sufficiently determined by antecedent conditions beyond his control.

Compatibilists Have Their Own Account of Responsibility

Alex makes a more serious objection near the end.

He says that determinists have their own account of epistemic responsibility and compares the issue to competing theories of time. For example, a philosopher who is an ardent B-theorist of time does not simply deny change; the B-theorist offers a different account of change. Likewise, Alex says, determinists offer their own account of epistemic responsibility.

That is a fair dialectical challenge, and I gladly accept the challenge.

To be clear: I cannot simply define “responsibility” as “libertarian responsibility” and declare victory. So let us examine what epistemic responsibility seems to require.

Suppose a philosopher badly misrepresents an opponent's argument because he did not read carefully enough. We naturally say:

“He should have been more careful.”

Fine. If determinism is true, however, then given the antecedent conditions, that philosopher exercised exactly the degree of epistemic care he was determined to exercise.

The following questions are raised:

• Could he have exercised greater epistemic care than he was determined to exercise?

• Could he have reconsidered an objection he was determined not to reconsider?

• Could he have bracketed a desire he was determined not to bracket?

• Could he have checked a journal article he was determined not to check?

• Could he have recognized a mistake he was determined not to recognize?

If the answer is no, then merely applying the label “compatibilist responsibility” does not resolve the substantive problem.

Now, a sophisticated compatibilist may respond that epistemic responsibility does not require the categorical ability to do otherwise under precisely the same antecedent conditions. Instead, they might say that it only requires the capacity to respond appropriately to reasons across different possible circumstances.

If the agent had encountered stronger evidence, perhaps he would have revised his belief. If he had noticed a defeater, perhaps he would have reconsidered his conclusion.

That is a serious proposal, but my question concerns whether such counterfactual reasons-responsiveness is sufficient for the kind of ultimate rational responsibility specially regarding metaphysical knowledge at issue in the Free-Thinking Argument.

If every exercise of epistemic care is sufficiently determined by antecedent conditions, in what sense is the agent ultimately responsible for exercising that degree of care rather than another?

The compatibilist can certainly offer an account of why the agent responded as he did.

But explaining why the agent responded in a particular manner is not yet the same thing as establishing that the agent possessed the ultimate control necessary to bear responsibility for that manner of reasoning.

Of course, the compatibilist (who claims that rational control is compatible with determinism) will challenge whether such ultimate control is necessary. And that is precisely where our disagreement lies.

Does rational responsibility require genuine sourcehood over the manner in which one reasons, or is determined reasons-responsiveness enough? That is what must be argued. Simply labeling a process “compatibilistically free” does not settle the question.

In fact, it begs the question.

What About Evolution?

Alex eventually appeals to plausible accounts from cognitive science concerning how brain processes evolve.

This deserves careful treatment.

Evolution plausibly helps explain why organisms possess cognitive mechanisms useful for survival in the physical world. Of course. I have no interest in denying that. Accurately identifying predators, food, cliffs, mates, and other features of the ordinary environment has obvious survival value.

But the Free-Thinking Argument is deliberately focused on metaphysical beliefs.

What exactly is the reproductive advantage of accurately determining whether substance dualism or physicalism is true? Whether universals exist? Whether abstract objects exist? Whether time is fundamentally A-theoretic or B-theoretic? Whether causal determinism is true? Whether libertarian freedom exists? Whether God exists?

In fact, when it comes to sexual reproduction and propagating one's DNA, belief in the God Jesus revealed significantly keeps people's clothes on and hinders the propagation of DNA.

If one's metaphysical beliefs entail that God created human sexual relationships to be the following model: ONE man, with ONE woman, becoming ONE flesh for ONE lifetime (as Jesus explains in Matthew 19:4–6 and Mark 10:6–9), then this belief has a powerful impact on whether one will be sexually promiscuous or not. If one chooses to live according to his or her metaphysical beliefs about ultimate reality, then one has good reason to keep their pants on and not reproduce outside of marriage.

But let's analyze the other side of that same coin:

The problem is that false metaphysical beliefs can sometimes contribute to evolutionarily advantageous behavior.

Consider a hypothetical community (or consider worldviews such as Mormonism and Islam) whose members share a false metaphysical worldview (I'm sure Alex Phil, and Dan agree that both Mormonism and Islam are false) but whose beliefs motivate strong family bonds, cooperation, mutual assistance, and high reproductive success.

Those behaviors would confer substantial reproductive advantages even though the metaphysical worldview motivating them was false. Natural selection would not necessarily eliminate the false metaphysical beliefs merely because they failed to correspond to reality. From the standpoint of reproductive fitness, the behavior can succeed even when the metaphysics does not.

The point is conceptual and epistemological: A false metaphysical belief can motivate behavior that successfully propagates DNA. Natural selection selects for reproductive success, not for passing a graduate seminar in metaphysics.

This is why merely appealing to evolution does not answer my challenge. A belief's contributing to survival and reproduction does not entail that the belief is true. Indeed, radically incompatible metaphysical beliefs might each generate behaviors that are reproductively advantageous in different environments.

Now, a naturalist might assert that evolution produces broadly reliable cognitive faculties because accurate representations of the world are often useful for survival. Those faculties may then be recruited for abstract reasoning, mathematics, philosophy, and metaphysics.

Fair enough. That is a hypothesis deserving examination.

But it does not automatically establish that cognitive faculties selected for reproductive fitness reliably track distant metaphysical truth. A cognitive system can be highly reliable in one domain without being equally reliable in every other domain.

And widespread disagreement among highly trained philosophers and epistemic peers becomes relevant again. If evolution plus deterministic processes generate radically incompatible metaphysical verdicts among our best-trained thinkers, simply saying “but evolution” does not identify which verdict is trustworthy.

After all:

Evolution might explain why the scale exists. It does not, all by itself, establish that the scale is accurately weighing metaphysical reality.

You have given me a causal story for why the scale exists. You have not yet given me an epistemic reason to trust its reading about metaphysical reality.

Do I Not Know How Arguments Work?

There is one other comment from Alex Malpass that deserves a response.

At one point, while discussing the structure of my argument, Alex suggests that I apparently do not understand how arguments work. That is a rather remarkable criticism—especially because it appears to confuse two different arguments.

The Free-Thinking Argument is a deductive argument that logically reaches three deductive conclusions.

The abductive inference I subsequently make to the Christian worldview is not another premise smuggled into the FTA. It only comes after the deductive argument has reached its logical conclusions.

In other words, I first argue deductively toward three conclusions concerning rational responsibility, libertarian freedom, and the conditions necessary for trustworthy metaphysical reasoning.

Then I ask a separate explanatory question:

Given those conclusions, what worldview best explains why creatures like us possess the relevant rational powers?

That second question invites an inference to the best explanation. It is abductive.

An abductive move offered after a deductive argument cannot retroactively make a valid deductive inference invalid.

Of course, someone may dispute the premises of the deductive argument. Someone may also argue that the subsequent explanatory inference is weak. Those are legitimate objections. But they are different objections.

In fact, this distinction was already explicit in my previous debate with Alex. Near the end of our debate, after he seemed to move far away from his original position, I granted that atheism and libertarian freedom are logically compatible, at least in a strict sense.

I specifically said that atheism does not entail naturalistic determinism. But then I immediately identified what I called “the next step”:

What worldview makes the most sense of the fact that we are libertarian free thinkers who possess the power to attain truth about metaphysical reality?

I argued that this is much more at home within Christianity than within atheism—and I explicitly described that as an “entirely different conversation.”

That is precisely the distinction Alex now seems to overlook.

Is he simply not being careful? Or is he intentionally deceptive? Again, I'll assume the best, but these constant mistakes are glaring.

To be clear, the FTA asks whether the relevant kind of rational responsibility and epistemic carefulness can survive naturalistic determinism. Once that argument is on the table, I then ask a separate question:

Which worldview provides the better explanation of rational agents who possess libertarian freedom and the ability to carefully infer truth and gain knowledge about metaphysical reality?

On one picture, our rational capacities ultimately arise from “mindless stuff” (as Joshua Rasmussen has nicely put it)—physical processes that know nothing about metaphysics and do not care whether we form true metaphysical beliefs.

And yes, Alex, I attributed those two words to Josh again. That one's for you! 😉

On the Christian picture, ultimate reality is grounded in the God of truth (John 14:6), who intentionally creates rational persons in his image (Genesis 1:26), gives them cognitive faculties capable of reason (Isaiah 1:18; James 3:17) attaining metaphysical truth that "sets them free" (John 8:32), and desires human beings to “come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Thus, if Christianity is true, we have a positive reason to expect that God would create beings capable of knowing important truths about metaphysical reality—including truths about God himself.

Indeed, the Christian worldview teaches that human beings are created on purpose and for the specific purpose for a love relationship with God, and that such a relationship involves knowing the truth.

This does not mean Christians are guaranteed to reason correctly. I argue with Christians far more than I argue with atheists.

Yes, Christians, just like atheists, can and often do reason carelessly. We can become attached to false beliefs. We can suppress evidence. We can misuse the very rational powers God has given us. But Christianity provides an explanatory framework in which rational agents capable of attaining metaphysical truth are not surprising, but expected.

So yes, atheism may be logically compatible with libertarian freedom (at least in a strict sense). That is not the issue. The explanatory question is this:

If creatures like us really are libertarian rational agents capable of carefully reasoning toward metaphysical truth, which worldview gives us greater reason to expect that fact?

That is an abductive argument.

It is not a premise in the deductive FTA.

And Alex had previously encountered this distinction because I stated it explicitly in our debate. If someone thinks one of the premises of the FTA is false, then identify the premise and explain why. If someone thinks the deductive inference is invalid, identify the formal error. And finally, if someone thinks my subsequent abductive case for Christian theism is weak, then challenge that explanatory inference.

Those are three different tasks.

So when Alex suggests that my later inference to the best explanation somehow reveals that I do not understand how arguments work, then ironically, the criticism, like a grenade he is attempting to throw at me, lands at his own feet.

Before criticizing the logical structure of an argument, one first has to distinguish the deductive argument from the subsequent abductive argument. And once again, this provides a fitting illustration of the very subject under discussion.

Ironically, gentlemen, we are discussing my argument about epistemic responsibility and carefulness. So let's be careful.

A Final Word About Tone

Alex concludes that “everything is wrong with Tim Stratton's argument” and jokes that he could continue describing what is wrong with it forever.

That is unfortunate.

Alex is an intelligent philosopher. I have said that publicly before, including when we debated. When he raises a good objection, I want to acknowledge it. Indeed, as I told him during our debate, some of his objections over the years have helped me sharpen the FTA. In fact, because of his interaction with my work, I am grateful to Alex.

But respect has to include representing an opponent's argument accurately.

In this discussion, however, Alex and Dan repeatedly fail to do so. Let us count the ways:

• I do not define knowledge as justified, true, freely chosen belief. (Alex)

• I do not defend direct belief-at-will. (Alex and Dan)

• I do not believe a little homunculus sits inside my brain picking propositions. (Alex)

• I do not think libertarian freedom guarantees or is sufficient for rationality. (A clarification relevant to Alex's criticism)

• I do not think rational agents exercise direct control over every subconscious process. (A clarification relevant to Alex's criticism)

• I do not think a determined belief is automatically false. (A clarification relevant to the broader discussion)

• I do not think causal sequences could never correspond to valid inference patterns. (A clarification relevant to Dan's computer analogy)

• And I certainly do not think metaphysical beliefs should simply pop into existence undetermined by anything. (Dan)

These are not minor details.

They are central to my specific argument.

Alex previously recognized the defeater structure, discussed the control condition, quoted the “be more careful” language, and described taking one's thinking captive and steering the reasoning process.

So before announcing that “everything” is wrong with the Free-Thinking Argument, we should first make sure we are talking about the actual Free-Thinking Argument.

Once again:

Ironically, gentlemen, we are discussing my argument about epistemic responsibility and carefulness. So let's be careful.

The Question Remains

After all of the discussion, I am still waiting for an adequate answer to the central epistemic challenge:

If your metaphysical beliefs are sufficiently determined by mindless stuff and processes that know nothing about metaphysics, care nothing about whether you know metaphysical truth, and produce radically incompatible metaphysical beliefs even among highly trained epistemic peers, what non-question-begging reason do you possess for trusting those processes to reliably track metaphysical reality?

And when Dan adds that processes of which we may not even be conscious are what actually get us to “choose” one conclusion rather than another, the question becomes even more urgent:

Dan, if processes you're not even aware of are ultimately responsible for determining which metaphysical conclusions seem rationally compelling to you, why should you trust those processes to reliably track metaphysical truth?

That is not an argument that determinism magically makes propositions false. It is an argument about justification, about defeaters, about rational responsibility, about carefulness, and about whether reasoning merely happens to us—or whether, as C. S. Lewis put it, reasoning is something we do.

Finally, the FreeThinking Argument is about whether rational agents can genuinely exercise the epistemic control necessary to responsibly pursue truth about ultimate reality.

Ironically, the title of the video featuring Skydive Phil, Alex Malpass, and Dan Linford is:

“CS Lewis humiliated. The argument from reason debunked.”

After examining their objections carefully, I do not think C. S. Lewis is the one who has been humiliated. But my goal is not to humiliate Alex, Dan, or Phil either. My goal, as always, is simply to discover truth.

So, if someone can demonstrate that my argument fails, I want to know about it. After all, I am convinced that I am open to reason. However, being subjectively convinced that I am open to reason is not the same thing as actually being open to reason and the proper Use of Reason (which is the title of Malpass's website).

So let's continue to reason together (Isaiah 1:18; James 3:17).

Dr. Tim Stratton