Vigilancia de la seguridad de las vacunas

We should pause for a moment in order to highlight the fact that the view that religious ontological and epistemological beliefs are insulated, in practice, from empirical

evidence is highly contentious.208 _{Unfortunately, Leiter just assumes this view and fails to}

offer any substantive arguments in favor of his particular claim – even in spite of known counterexamples to his position. Leiter writes:

There are, for example, “intellectualist” traditions in religious thought – William Paley’s “natural theology” or neo-Thomist arguments come to mind – according to which religious beliefs (for example, belief in a creator, or as in American recently, belief in “an intelligent designer”) are, in fact, supported by the kinds of evidence adduced in the sciences, once that evidence is rightly

interpreted.209

First, we should note that when Leiter talks about “religious beliefs” here, he cites as an example the belief that God exists and the belief in an intelligent designer – both of which are examples of explicitly ontological claims. Second, we should also note that Leiter

208 _{Scholars have challenged Leiter on this point, e.g., Christopher Eberle (2014) and Michael Paulsen (2014).} 209 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 39}

tries to be charitable here, noting that “[i]t is doubtful, though, whether these intellectualist traditions capture the character of popular religious belief, the typical epistemic attitudes

of religious believers.”210

But even if we table the comparison to popular religious beliefs, Leiter argues that these “intellectualist traditions in religious thought might still be thought of as insulated

from evidence.”211 _{First, he notes that “it is dubious (to put the matter gently) that these} positions are really serious about following the evidence where it leads, as opposed to

manipulating it to fit preordained ends.”212 _{As noted above, Leiter just seems to assume}

that this is the case without citing any evidence or advancing a substantive argument – even though there are counterexamples to this claim. As Michael McConnell highlights:

But religious belief has been attested to by millions of seemingly intelligent and rational people over long periods of time, who report that they have experienced, in some way, transcendent reality. There is even, as Leiter admits, a “large literature in Anglophone philosophy devoted to defending the rationality of religious belief.” Leiter chooses to disregard this testimonial evidence, along with its philosophical defense, without so much as “address[ing] . . . in any detail”—really, at all—the arguments that are offered. Why? The only reason he supplies is that the “dominant sentiment among other philosophers” is that belief in God is “unsupported by reasons

210 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 39} 211 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 40} 212 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 40}

and evidence.” With all respect, there is no reason to think that members of

modern philosophy faculties have any special insights about God. 213

The irony here should not be lightly noted: Leiter’s claim that intellectualist traditions of religious thought are insulated from evidence is advanced without sufficient evidence and without regard for relevant evidence to the contrary.

Second, Leiter notes that “in the case of the sciences, beliefs based on evidence are also revisable in light of the evidence; but in the intellectualist traditions in religious thought just noted, it never turns out that the fundamental beliefs are revised in light of

new evidence.”214 _{Again, Leiter just seems to assume that this is the case without citing any}

evidence or advancing any substantive argument – even though there are counterexamples here as well. As Michael McConnell notes:

Developments in biology, physics, linguistics, archeology, and other disciplines have had profound impact on Biblical hermeneutics and theology in mainstream Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, and ‘practical reason’ has played a major role in natural law thinking since at least Thomas Aquinas. To be sure, some religious traditions are more insulated from scientific developments than others. The Navajo creation story, for example, is impervious to archeological and linguistic evidence that the tribe migrated to the Southwest from Canada only a few centuries before the arrival of Europeans, and fundamentalist Christian belief in the historicity of Noah’s flood and the literal six-day creation, depending on how these ideas are

213 _{Michael McConnell (2013), 789} 214 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 40}

understood, is much the same. But to say that ‘insulation from evidence’ is a defining characteristic of ‘all’ (or even most) religions is simply false. Religion is constantly changing, and constantly interacting with the culture and other

ways of understanding the world.215

Concerning these “intellectualist” religious traditions, Leiter simply concludes: “The whole exercise is one of post-hoc rationalization, as is no doubt obvious to those outside the

sectarian tradition.”216

As I see it, the sword cuts both ways: what seems obvious to those inside the sectarian tradition is not obvious to those outside the sectarian tradition either. As

McConnell notes, “no religious believer would recognize [Leiter’s] description.”217

McConnell writes:

Religious believers do not think they are “insulating” themselves from all the relevant “evidence.” They think they are considering evidence of a different, nonmaterial sort, in addition to the evidence of science, history, and the senses. It would be more accurate, and less loaded, to amend this second part of Leiter’s definition to say that religion is a system of belief in which

significant aspects are not based on science or common sense observations about the material world.218

215 _{Michael McConnell (2013), 787} 216 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 40}

217 _{Michael McConnell (2013), 786} 218 _{Michael McConnell (2013), 786-87}

If religious believers are insulated from the “only epistemically relevant considerations,”219 then it’s no surprise that Leiter reaches the conclusion that he does. McConnell continues:

In a footnote, Leiter acknowledges that “of course” there may be matters such as the “meaning of life” that “are insulated from evidence only in the sense that no scientific evidence would seem to bear on them.” But he immediately dismisses the importance of this observation on the ground that “[s]uch beliefs are not my concern here, mainly because they are not distinctive to religion.” What could he be thinking? His entire argument is built around the idea that religion is “a culpable form of unwarranted belief” precisely because of its “insulation from evidence.” If it turns out that religion’s “insulation from evidence” is attributable to the fact that “no scientific evidence bears” on many questions of a religious nature, then religious belief cannot be criticized on these grounds. There is no reason to apply the “ordinary epistemic standards” of science and material observation to questions on which they do not bear. If Leiter is confining his “concern” to beliefs on which “scientific evidence would seem to bear,” he is leaving out most of what is central to religion, including beliefs underlying almost all

claims of religious conscience, which are the subject of his book. 220

Overall, then, Leiter’s view just seems to be “a sectarian premise, predicated on a

questionable view about evidence”221 _{– but admittedly, so is the view that there are other}

219 _{Brian Leiter (2013), 57}

220 _{Michael McConnell (2013), 788} 221 _{Michael McConnell (2013), 786}

viable forms of evidence in addition to common sense and the sciences. Of course, Leiter is free to “confine himself to whatever categories of evidence may strike him as persuasive, but he cannot reasonably label as ‘culpable’ or ‘unwarranted’ the sincere conclusion of many persons, including thinkers of the first rank, that there are nonmaterial aspects of

reality supporting religious belief.”222

So, the otherwise obvious, additional evidence to those inside the sectarian tradition might not be so obvious to those outside the sectarian tradition such that those on the outside might be the ones lacking – not those on the inside. But even if Leiter is right that religious ontological and epistemological beliefs are, in practice, more insulated from empirical evidence – and those on the inside of sectarian traditions are wrong – it might not matter much to the original specialness question. McConnell argues that, “even for those who agree with Leiter as a matter of personal conviction that there is no persuasive evidence supporting the truth of religious belief, but agree with Madison and Washington that the truth of religion is not a subject on which the government should take a stand, Leiter’s conclusions do not follow, because they rest on the view that the state should treat

religious beliefs and arguments as lacking evidentiary warrant.”223 _{In short, McConnell}

argues that the truthfulness of religious beliefs – here, specifically ontological or epistemological religious beliefs – is just not an issue that the government should take a

222 _{Michael McConnell (2013): “A color-blind person might think the idea of color is bunk, because the}

evidence of his own eyes fails to reveal it, but that does not entitle him to assume that those who see color are engaged in a culpable form of unwarranted belief.” (788)

stand on. Instead, it is “better to proceed on the premise that people may reasonably

disagree about the truth or falsehood of religious claims.”224