1. Mark March 18, 2010 at 10:41 am

   I generally feel that the main premises of such arguments are question-begging. In particular, the intrinsic property of contingency seems like a counterexample to premise (1).

   But maybe there’s a better response. Off the top of my head: Take P to be the property of “being the sort of thing capable of entering into causal relations.” Then P is intrinsic, I have P and I am capable of having a cause. Moreover, it seems like there can be a beginning of things with P. Therefore there is a cause of things that have P. But this would entail something is self-caused.

   Maybe Rasmussen’s paper blocks this response; I’m not sure.
2. Mark March 18, 2010 at 11:06 am

   Err, that should’ve read: “Therefore there is possibly a cause of things that have P. But this would entail something is possibly self-caused.”
3. Chris Hallquist March 18, 2010 at 2:40 pm

   What does question-begging mean here? I’ve noticed that some theistic apologists will throw off this phrase without any explanation when they can’t think of a better response to an argument–in such cases it seems to mean “clearly supports a conclusion that I don’t like.” So what do you mean here?
4. Mark March 18, 2010 at 3:25 pm

   I mean that these arguments typically involve buttressing fairly dubious conclusions via equally if not more dubious premises. I really don’t have an intuition that in some possible world W, something causes the beginning of contingent beings in W. I may have the intuition that given the first contingent beings in W there is another possible world V in which something causes those beings to exist, but that’s different and too weak to make the case. More generally, I find my intuitions regarding modal properties nested within elaborate modal conditionals incredibly muddy at best and frequently liable to counterexample (as above). Which is why I might agree Rasmussen’s principle is plausible for intrinsic properties like mass but not for ones like contingency.
5. Chris Hallquist March 18, 2010 at 4:39 pm

   OK. That’s a better way of putting it than saying the argument is “question begging.”
6. Josh April 1, 2010 at 4:04 pm

   Mark,

   I sympathize with your general worry with modal arguments. As a small push-back, consider that sometimes a modal principle can be intuitive (and perhaps well supported) even if its logically equivalent neighbors are not: for example, the argument you cite doesn’t have as a premise that “in some possible world W, something causes the beginning of contingent beings in W”; rather, that’s a consequence of (supposedly more intuitive) premises in that argument. Nevertheless, I think your general worry is important and could perhaps apply to the causal premise in the argument (which is why I’d recommend treating the principle as a defeasible explanation of known cases).

   I’d like to think more about your proposed counter-example (thanks for bringing it up!): i.e., being the sort of thing capable of entering into causal relations. Call that property Q. I’m not sure Q satisfies the stipulated definition of “intrinsic”, as I’m not sure one can grasp Q without thereby grasping a determinable relation of causation. What do you think?

   There is also a difficulty with the thesis that Q can begin to be exemplified. If Q can begin to be exemplified, then a Necessary Being is not possible (for if a Necessary Being is possible, then, assuming S5, in every world a Necessary Being is the first entity in the chain of things capable of entering into causal relations). But now suppose one is agnostic about whether or not a Necessary Being exists. Then assuming that person accepts S5, she should be agnostic about whether or not a Necessary Being is so much as possible. Once she sees that a Necessary Being would be impossible if Q could begin to be exemplified, this might well lead her to be agnostic about whether or not Q can be exemplified. So, by her lights, she won’t have a counterexample to the causal principle. All of this assumes that the feeling that Q can begin to be exemplified is due to a failure to see that Q cannot begin to be exemplified rather than a modal insight into the possibility of its beginning to be exemplified. Thus, it’s more like the feeling that Lois has when considering whether there’s a possible world in which Clark Kent is someone other than the Superman she just saw than it is like the feeling that there is a possible world containing a 200 story building.

   Now I admit this is murky territory. Someone could in principle use the same reasoning with respect to the premise that being contingent can begin to be exemplified. For, if one is agnostic about whether or not there is a Necessary Being, that agnosticism could lead one to then become agnostic about whether or not there could begin to be contingent things IF one finds the causal premise plausible. However, I suspect that most people who have come this far would find it independently plausible that there can begin to be contingent things. That thesis, unlike the one about Q, seems to me to be due to modal insight rather than a mere failure to see an impossibility. Of course, others may estimate things differently.

   Anyway just some thoughts as I continue to explore this.
7. Josh April 1, 2010 at 4:12 pm

   Just to clarify: by “failure to see an impossibility” I mean “inability to detect an impossibility.” I certainly don’t mean that one has made an epistemic mistake–failure–of any sort. It’s sometimes tempting to infer that something is possible based upon our inability to see that it’s impossible. What I’m suggesting is that an inability to see that something is impossible is importantly different from actually seeing that something is possible. The point: I’m not sure anyone actually sees that Q can begin to be exemplified.
8. Josh April 1, 2010 at 4:29 pm

   One more thing: On Prosblogion, Wes and I discussed this sort of argument, and he expressed similar concerns with modal premises. If you are interested, that exchange starts here: http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2009/04/more-reflection.html#comment-105284

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