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3 - Fine-Tuning for Life and Design

from Part I - Setting the Stage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2021

Simon Friederich
Simon Friederich
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
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Summary

One of the most popular responses to the fine-tuning considerations is to suggest that parameters might have been set to life-friendly values by some cosmic designer or God. I discuss two important objections against this response: first, that we cannot infer anything from life-friendly parameters because we could not possibly have found ourselves in a lifeless universe (the anthropic objection) and, second, that there is no specific conception of the designer according to which the inference to a designer would be plausible: anthropomorphic conceptions of the designer are no longer credible; and on non-anthropomorphic conceptions, the designer’s preferences are inscrutable. I reject the first objection and endorse the second.

Keywords

fine-tuning for lifedesignertraditional theismintuitive religionanthropic objection
Type
Chapter
Information
Multiverse Theories
A Philosophical Perspective
 , pp. 37 - 50
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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