A Problem for Libertarianism

The Jargon
Lets get it out the way, shall we?

Negative rights place obligations on others to abstain from doing something.  The most common example of a negative right is freedom of speech. My (negative) right to freedom of speech places an obligation on others (in most cases, the guvamint) to abstain from restricting my speech.

Positive rights place obligations on others to do something.  For example, if I have a positive right to health care and shelter, that places obligations on others to provide it.

Self-Ownership (and Ownership) Thesis:  Our rights are grounded in ownership.  For example, my right to avoid harm without consent is grounded in the fact that I own my body and you're not the boss of me! My right to do with my property as I see fit is grounded in the fact that I own my property.   My (negative) right to not have my property taken away or used without my consent in grounded in the fact that I freakin' own it, man! It's mine! mine! mine!

Overview of Libertarianism
Just like many broad categories it's tough to pick out exactly what defines libertarianism.  Here are a couple of things that would describe most (but not all) libertarian positions:

(a) Individual rights are more important than community rights (some say there aren't any community rights) or social good. In short, appeals to social good cannot override individual rights.

(b) Strong emphasis on negative rights rather than positive rights.

(c) Strong commitment to (individual) property rights.

(d) Self-ownership as the genesis of rights; that is, your property rights (including over what happens to your own body) arise out of the fact that you own your property (including your own body).

(e) Commitment to state neutrality on conceptions of the good.  That is, the state should be neutral on what sort of life people should pursue.  People should be free to pursue whatever kind of life they want.

(f)  People should be able to do with their property whatever they please so long as they don't harm others (without consent).  Harming others is impermissible because it's a violation of their negative rights that arise from self-ownership.  That is, since you don't own other people, you can't cause them any harm without their consent.  It's important to add that harm is subjectively defined.  Other people don't get to tell me what counts as harm to me.  Only I decide if and how much something is harming me.

(g) Since rights are grounded in self-ownership they are not contingent upon considerations of social utility.  In short, even though it might bring about some overall social good to harm an individual or a small group of individual, you can't do this.  You can't because rights don't come and go based on utility.  They are grounded in ownership and so long as you own youself or your property, you have those rights. (More on this later).

(h) There is a conspicuous absence of positive rights and positive moral duties toward others.

The Problem for Libertarianism
The problem I'm going to discuss comes from "Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership" by Sobel.  I've added some of my own thoughts near the end.

Often libertarian reasoning is invoked by the wealthy to provide arguments against redistributive taxation policies.  "This is my money, I earned it with my body and/or mind so it's a violation of my (negative) rights for the guvamint to take it and give it to other people.  Mine! Mine! Mine!"

The core principle grounding who gets to decide how property is used, recall, is the self-ownership thesis.  You cannot take, use, or harm the person (i.e., body) or property of another. Ownership confers negative rights.  Libertarians always be like "you can't violate harm me cuz you don't own me! I own me! Even if you cause me a mild amount of discomfort, you've violated my rights.  Don't violate my rights!"

This is all fine and dandy until we look at the other side of what libertarians want to claim: unrestricted power to do with one's property as one wishes.  "It's mine! mine! mine! so you can't tell me what to do with it!"  This sounds fairly reasonable in many contexts.  Many of us would agree that in many cases it's undesirable for the guvamint or others to legislate how we can use our property and how we can live.

The problem is when you try to combine both desires.  To illustrate the problem consider the following situation.  You own a widget factory.  It's yours.  Ain't no guvamint gonna tell you what to do with it.  Being the kind-hearted libertarian that you are, you decide to produce widgets. Unfortunately, your factory emits a pollutant that will cause 1/1 000 000 000 people to get a minor skin rash.

By libertarianism's own logic, you may not produce your widgets because you are violating someone's negative rights.  You don't own their body so you can't impose the harm from the rash on the 1/1 000 000.  You don't have their consent to give them a rash, and so, you can't make widgets.

This is the libertarian problem:  They want near absolute freedom to do whatever they want to do with their own property and life but they also want absolute prohibitions on unconsented harm. In a highly interconnected world it's pretty much impossible to do anything that isn't going to minimally harm someone in some way.  So it looks like either the libertarian has to propose some sort of minimum allowable rights infractions or they're going to have to accept that their freedom to do wudever dafuk dey want is a lot more constrained than they might have thought.

There's an obvious solution.  Suppose it turns out that the widgets make a significant number of people better off.  Lets say, 10 000 people have their lives improved because of the new widgets.  Well, there's our solution: If enough people end up better off, then surely we can allow trivial unconsented harms.

Unfortunately, the libertarian can't take this route for a few reasons.  First, he is an absolutist.  You cannot cause harm without consent--no matter how small. Amongst other things, that would imply that you are deciding for someone else what constitutes a trivial harm. And even if you could cause unconsented harm it couldn't be justified by an appeal to social utility.  Attaching rights to social utility is exactly what libertarianism seeks to avoid.  You cannot "purchase" rights violations with social utility.  Rights don't depend on contingent social circumstances.  Rights are grounded in ownership.  So long as your ownership claim is secure, so are your rights.

It looks like the libertarian has to make one of three concessions if she wants to avoid pollution-type case like the one above: She can (a) bite the bullet and accept that trivial harms are strong constraints on freedom to do whatever one wants with one's property, (b) accept some minimum allowable threshold for rights violations, or (c) deny that rights are entirely grounded in self-ownership. Perhaps the approach most aligned with common sense is (b): the libertarian should stipulate a minimum level of harm below which property rights may be violated. This could be done one of two ways. The first way would be to appeal to a ratio between social utility and harm. Once the ratio reaches a certain amplitude, rights violations are permissible. The second way would be to stipulate a minimum level of harm below which rights violations are permissible—regardless of circumstances.

Justifying a Minimum Threshold

Sobel offers a version of the first solution. For the reasons I've mentioned above, this strategy fails right out of the gate (for libertarians) because rights become contingent upon considerations of social utility, exactly what the libertarian seeks to avoid. The degree of harm that's permitted is proportionate to the amount of social good created.

Prima facia, the second method seems less problematic until we consider that wherever the minimum threshold is set, it will have to be justified on some grounds. An arbitrary threshold will lack a principled justification. Unfortunately for the libertarian, it seems like any reasonable attempt to justify a minimum will probably refer to social utility¹. But, as we have seen, this is exactly what the libertarian seeks to avoid. Rights, argues the libertarian, are not contingent upon social utility. Doh! 

1A libertarian could argue that it's not considerations of social utility that justify the minimum but of a preference for positive freedom over negative rights. This fails for similar reasons: (1) a preference for positive freedom (i.e., if positive freedom can trump negative rights in some cases) will be self-defeating. If you can violate someone else's property rights to exercise your own, then they (and others) can do the same to you thereby minimizing the control you have over your own property which in turn diminishes your ability to use it. (2) It seems as though most arguments for why positive freedom should supersede a negative right will make an appeal to social utility. E.g., I polluted because I just feel like it vs I polluted because the product of my factory will save/improve thousands of lives. We are unlikely to be compelled by the former.   

A Proposal Libertarians Will Hate
I've been thinking about  a way out for the libertarian that is consistent with their commitments, except they probably won't like it.  Too bad.  I'm the boss of me!  I'm working on developing a view that allows shared ownership rights.  If the community is a partial owner in all things, including the individuals who make it up then libertarian reasoning allows appeals to community interests (because rights are grounded in ownership).  If community interests can be involved then we can return to something like the ratio view above but this time it will be consistent with libertarian logic.  

Very briefly, here's how I think it might be accomplished: the libertarian obsession with focus on individuals as the fundamental unit of analysis is empirically dubious.  We are not just individuals.  Our identity is also as a part of a group.  Biologically, psychologically, historically, and socially we are a part of a larger whole.  

There's an obvious objection here.  Yes, we are parts of groups and groups might even be "real" things but ownership requires agency and only individuals have agency.  Perhaps, but most of us already accept that groups can own things.  This idea isn't crazy.  For example, families, couples, and shareholders can all have shared ownership in property.   The proponent of the agency view would have to show why families can't own things.  Maybe they're right.  I'm not sure.

Anyhow, for my theory to work, I need to develop a concept of identity that is dualistic: we are individuals but we are also parts of a whole.  Both individuals and groups have ownership claims to the bodies that make them up. If the community ownership claim can be established via a dual identity theory, then libertarians can appeal to social good to resolve pollution-type cases because communities have rights in what happens to individuals (and their property) via their shared ownership claims.

I think this dual identity/ownership theory can also explain many of our intuitive judgments.  For example, the reason you can just simply use me for your own purposes or steal my things is because they are mine.  But we also think it's OK to use the property of others to produce a certain degree of social good.  It's OK to use your stuff because you are also a part of a whole.  You are part of that whole that benefits.

Anyway, like I said, it's a work in progress.  It may go nowhere and I've already thought of a couple obstacles.  Meh, we'll see. 

The Problem of Evil and Replies: Van Inwagen

"If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things

most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should

pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They

have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that

purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it, and many of them seem

to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other

food. If a tenth part of the pains which have been expended in finding

benevolent adaptions in all nature, had been employed in collecting

evidence to blacken the character of the Creator, what scope for comment

would not have been found in the entire existence of the lower animals,

divided, with scarcely an exception, into devourers and devoured, and a

prey to a thousand ills from which they are denied the faculties necessary

for protecting themselves! If we are not obliged to believe the animal

creation to be the work of a demon, it is because we need not suppose it to

have been made by a Being of infinite power."


John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Religion (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and
Dyer, 1875), pp. 58-59

Introduction and Context
Up until now we've looked at arguments for the existence of God (gods?) including the Cosmological Argument and the Argument from Design (Aka Teleological Argument).   If the argument from design is the most intuitively compelling argument for the existence God(s), then the problem of evil is the most intuitively compelling argument against the existence of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic conception of God.

Lets take a look at the argument from evil in its most basic form:
(P1)  There's some seriously evil sh*t that happens in our world.
(P2)  If there is a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect he would not allow such evil to occur.
(C)  But since (P1), it follows (by modus tollens) that there is no God (or at least not one who is omnipotent and morally perfect).

Now lets explain how this argument works.  Think of an evil act.  If you're having trouble, pick up the nearest newspaper.  Now, suppose there is a God that is omnipotent and morally perfect.  Why does the God let this evil act happen?  Here are four possible replies:

Option 1:  He doesn't know.  Ok, but this response is implausible for major evil acts.  Surely, if we can learn about major evil events that occur around the world or in our communities, God can too.  And finally, God is also supposed to be all knowing, so this blocks off this reply.

Option 2:  He knows but was unable to stop it.  This would contradict the attribute of omnipotence. Omnipotence means God can do anything that doesn't entail a logical contradiction.  So, this reply isn't going to work.

Option 3:  He knows but was unwilling to stop it.  This seems to contract moral perfection.  If you had the power to stop a crime without any harm to yourself, but didn't, we'd say your actions were morally lacking--at the very least.

Option 4:  He knows about the evil but is unwilling to stop it because of some reason.  Maybe there is a good reason for which God allows evil to exist.  This is the option most replies to the problem of evil take.

Two Sub-Strategies to Replying to the Problem of Evil
Since option 4 is the only plausible choice which avoids overt contradiction, Van Inwagen begins his argument here.  God allows evil because he has some good reason(s) for allowing it to exist.  How are we going to explain these reasons?

Option A
Now here comes the tricky part...who needs the Quickee Mart?  The tricky part is going to be coming up with those reasons.  I mean, what mere mortal would have the audacity to claim to know the reasons of an omnipotent, infinite, morally perfect being.  And even if he does have the audacity, how could we possibly verify his claim?  History and modern times give us no shortage of people claiming to know the will of God.  On what grounds should we believe one over the other?  

Reply
One common reply is that we can look to the bible.  

Counter-Reply 
There are going to be quite a few problems with this.  First of all, which bible?  The torah? the new testament? the koran?  And each of those has their own version.  On what grounds do we choose between them.

Suppose we know which book, but there is some seriously objectionable stuff in those book, not to mention overt contradictions.  (1) God overtly sanctions genocide, yet forbids us to kill.  (2)  In what is suppose to be the moral guide for mankind, you'd think there'd a condemnation of slavery.  Nope.  Only instructions for how to be a good slave owner or a good slave. (3)  If a woman is raped she is to be either stoned to death or married for 50 pieces of silver to her rapist.  

Reply: 
Yes, there are some bad things in the bible, so we just shouldn't do those things.

Counter-reply:
By what standard are you picking and choosing what we should or should not follow?  If it is what aligns with our modern moral code, then what do we need the bible for? 

Option B
We can avoid the tricky part and abstain from making the claim that we can know God's reasons.  But this creates a problem: if we don't know God's reasons, with what reasons are we going to justify option 4?  That is, if we accept that God has reasons for evil in the world, it's not very satisfying to just throw our hands up (in the air and wave them like we just don't care) and say..."He's got reeeeeally good reasons--trust me! but we can't know those reasons."  This is an argument from faith which does not satisfactorily address the concerns raised in the problem of evil.  The response might work for some people who already believe in God, but it's not going to work with everyone. 

Further Criteria for an Adequate Response
Whichever of these two options are chosen, it is not sufficient to say that evil exists because God is able to bring about some good from the evils.  Recall that God is omnipotent.  If this is true then maybe he could have brought about the good without having the evil.  And allowing the evil when it wasn't necessary would conflict with the notion of God's moral perfection.  For this reason, any logically sufficient defense must show that there was no other logically possible way for God to bring about the greater good that was a consequence of the evil.  

Enter the freewill defense...

The Freewill Defense Version 1.0
Here's the freewill defense in its basic form:

God made the world and it was very good.  An indispensable part of the goodness he chose was the existence of rational beings:  self-aware beings capable of abstract thought and love and having the power of free choice between contemplated alternative courses of action.  This last feature of rational beings, free choice or freewill, is a good.  But even an omnipotent being is unable to control the exercise of free choice, for a choice that was controlled would ipso facto not be free.  In other words, if I have a free choice between x and y, even God cannot ensure that I choose x.  To ask God to give me a free choice between x and y and to see to it that I choose x instead of y is to ask God to bring about the intrinsically impossible; it is like asking him to create a round square, a material body that has no shape, or an invisible object that casts shadows.  Having this power of free choice, some or all humans misuse it and produce a certain amount of evil.  But freewill is a sufficiently great good that its existence outweighs the evils that result from its abuses.

In short, the argument goes something like this:  
(P1)  In order to make the "goodest" possible world, God included in it freewill.  That is, a world without freewill wouldn't be as good as a world without it.
(P2)  Freewill implies that God cannot directly influence what choices we make--that would entail a logical contradiction.  Freewill can only be freewill if it can't be messed with.
(P3)  Some people misuse their freewill and make decisions that cause evil or are evil.  And God can't do a (gosh-darn?) thing about it (i.e., because of (P2)).
(P4)  Even though (P3), the world is still a better place than it would be without freewill (i.e., (P1)).
(C)   Therefore, there is no contraction between evil in the world and God's omnipotence and moral perfection.

Objection 1:  Math
The math of good vs evil in the world we live in doesn't add up.  In our world, the quantity of evil that is a result of freewill is greater than the quantity of good that results from having freewill.  There'd be more good in the world if God just directed us make the right decisions instead of leaving it up to us.

Reply: Objection Assumes Consequentialism w/o argument.  
The objection assumes that what is good is the measure of what is right without providing a supporting argument.  But what is good and what is morally right are two different things.  By having freewill there are more morally right things about the world than morally wrong things. 

Counter Reply:  Ok, fine.  Net goodness and moral rightness are not the same, but the moral math still doesn't work out:  The total amount actions/events that have more wrong-making properties are greater than the total of events/actions that have right-making properties.

At this point the traditional freewill defender has to contract the fact that there's more moral evil than moral good in the world, which might be difficult to defend, especially when you take into account the objection 2.

Objection 2:  Natural Evil
Not all evil is the result of human decisions.  In fact, it could be argued, that a large portion of human suffering is a consequence of natural disasters (Recent tsunamis in Japan and Thailand, Volcanos, Droughts, Hurricane Katrina and others, etc..)  Also, natural disasters seem to strike and adversely affect those that are the worst off.  And it's not only humans that are affected by natural disasters.  It's thousands of animals all capable of suffering.  The given the total amount of needless suffering in the world, the traditional defense starts to look implausible.

Reply 1
The majority of human suffering caused by natural disasters is a consequence of poor exercise of freewill.  Most areas that are prone to natural disasters have been so for centuries.  Maybe God's like, "guys! how many freakin' hurricanes do I have to send through Oklahoma until you understand you shouldn't live there?  And all you fools in California.  Seriously?  You're going to voluntarily live on a major fault line?  How many more earthquakes do I have to make until you figure out not to live there?"

Counter-reply 1a:  Why doesn't God want us to live in Oklahoma?  That just seems kind of petty.  He knows we live there, why keep sending hurricanes and causing death and suffering?  How important could it be that we not live in Oklahoma?

Counter-reply 1b: There is a strong positive correlation between poverty and religiosity.  Also, globally, the poor tend to occupy areas most prone to natural disasters.  How does it make sense that the people that tend to be the most religious are being most affected by natural disasters.  Not only that, but it is the poor who suffer the most in natural disasters.

Counter-reply 1c:  Even if we grant that suffering caused by natural disasters is a consequence of not intelligently using freewill, this still doesn't explain non-human suffering caused by natural disasters.

Reply 2:  God doesn't cause natural disasters.

Counter-reply 2a:  Ok, but he couldn't stop them if he's omnipotent?

Counter-reply 2b:  Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Van Inwagen's Response to the Problem of Evil
Van Inwagen concedes that Freewill Defense Version 1.0 cannot address these objections when we weigh the total amount of evil in the world (man-made + natural disasters) vs the total amount of good. So, how best to respond? 

Van Inwagen formulates the following response:

(P1)  The tale of Genesis is loosely an historical tale.  God guided the course of evolution to create a special group of humans with rationality, abstract thought, and disinterested love. Also freewill.

(P2)*  God gave us freewill because it is the only way to have disinterested love.

(P3)  The first humans lived in some sort of union with God--a harmony of perfect love.  Because of this, we had something like paranormal powers which allowed us to avoid natural disaster, disease, and pretty much anything bad.

(P4)  Somehow this wasn't good enough for our ancestors and some dumbasses went and f*cked sh*t up.  The world became a place of horrors:  Our poor exercise of freewill led to our susceptibility to natural disasters, gruesome wars, random violence, torture, rape, and so on... 

(P5)  God "set in motion a rescue operation" to restore humanity to union with himself.  This rescue operation was to allow so much evil in the world that eventually people will realize what it means to be separated from God.  The only way for humanity to understand how bad it is without being in union with God is to make the world a really really evil place.

(P6)  From (P5) it follows that if God prevented evil, this would interfere with the ability of humanity to realize how much they need to be united in love with God.  And humanity would forever be condemned to a world of evil.  But God doesn't let all evil happen.  In fact he shields us (especially middle class white Americans) from evil.  If he did not "every human society would be on a moral level of Nazi Germany."

(C)   The only way to be unified with God is through disinterested love which requires freewill.  Therefore, God's moral perfection and omnipotence do not conflict with the existence of evil in the world because if there weren't the amount of evil there is in the world, humanity would never be forced recognize how horrible it is to be apart from God.

Needless to say, this response is going to be tough for an agnostic or atheist to accept.  However, supposing there is a God here are a few possible objections. 

Objection 1: Part of Van Iwagen's response is to say that living apart from God entails "being the playthings of chance."  That is, in our current state of affairs evil things happen to people who don't deserve it.  But it seems that this uncoupling of moral merit and reward and punishment runs counter to the idea that God is just.

Reply:  Van Iwagen's reply here will probably be that living in a world with no justice is a consequence of our separation with God:  it's one more evil thing about our world.  

Counter-reply:  Ok, but how is this fair to the devote person who is intent on unifying him/herself with God.  Why should they be randomly punished for the poor behavior of others.  Isn't this a tremendous disincentive to being good?

Objection 2: Doesn't God know how much evil is necessary to bring about reconciliation? By getting the levels wrong, there seems to be a lot of unnecessary suffering going on. Consider all the people that lived and died without reconciliation. Is this because they didn't experience enough evil in their lives? Because if it is the evil that brings about this realization, then God got the level wrong for that generation.

Objection 3 (same counter-reply 1b): Why is it the religious poor who suffer the most? These people are typically the most religious. Also, the regions in the US and in the world where there are the most natural disasters is where the more religious people live.

Objection 4: Is this really the only way? Why doesn't God appear before everyone and say “hey guys, I'm here and you're wrong about no god and you're wrong about what god is...now here's what I want you to do...”  And anytime you turn away from God, He brings a dead puppy to you and says "now look what you've done!"

One last note:  
It's important to point out that if we accept the problem of evil argument, it doesn't follow that there is no God period. What follows is that there is no God as traditionally conceived by the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions...Maybe the Greeks had it right after all: the gods aren't perfect either!

Summa Theologica and The Five Ways: Proofs for the Existence of God, The Cosmological Argument

Introduction and Context:
Up until Aquinas in the 13th Century, the church's (where academia existed) doctrine was neo-Platonic.  That is, it followed the philosophy of Plato.  Why does this matter?  Recall that beginning with Plato and Aristotle, a major debate can be traced through the history of philosophy:  Is knowledge accessed internally through a priori introspection or is knowledge arrived at through empirical investigation of the world?

Aquinas is important because he revived the aristotelian tradition.  Prior to Aquinas, the most important Western proofs for God were a priori.  It was thought that to prove the existence of God, all one had to do was to rationally reflect on the concept, and through rational deduction you will arrive at a proof. Aquinas, although not an opponent of these proofs, thought you could also turn to the external world for a proof.

It should be noted that many of these proofs existed in various forms prior to Aquinas and can be found in early Islamic philosophy as well as in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.

The First Three of The Five Ways
The first 3 ways are all versions of what's known as the cosmological argument which I will focus on here:  The cosmological argument is an argument form that moves from empirical facts about the universe to the conclusion that a god/gods exist.  What sets cosmological arguments apart from many other arguments for the existence of a god/gods is that it attempts to draw on empirical evidence: this is in contrast to other argument types that are either a priori proofs (non-empirical) or proofs that rely on appeals to faith.  In the next post, I will discuss the fifth way which is known as the argument from design--but as presented by Paley.  Since the fourth way is generally not considered very important philosophically, we will overlook it.

The strength of the cosmological argument is still discussed in contemporary philosophy religion.  In this post, I will outline the specific argument made in each of the three ways, suggest some objections that are particular to each, then, by looking at Hume and others, I will discuss some objections that apply to all three versions.

The First Way:  The First Mover
This argument is essentially that, since things cannot move themselves, there must be a prime mover.   This argument is interpreted two ways.

Lay Interpretation
Imagine a long line of dominos.  The line cannot go back infinitely.  There has to be a first domino that initiates the first movement that causes the cascade of movement.

Formalized, the lay interpretation goes something like this:
(P1)  Nothing can move itself.
(P2)  Whatever is in motion, must have been put into motion by something else.
(P3)  The chain of causation implied in (P1) cannot go on for infinity.
(C1)  Therefore, there must be a prime mover that starts the initial cascade of events; we call the prime mover "God".

A problem (from a historical point of view) with the lay interpretation is that it ignores the technical meanings of the concept of motion that Aquinas employed.  When we impose our modern everyday use of "motion" onto Aquinas' argument, the argument is very easily defeated.  (P1) and (P2) are false. Animals and humans can put themselves into motion.  (P2) only works for inanimate objects--and even then, given modern theories of fundamental physics--it is dubious.

Also, on this interpretation of movement (as physical movement), there is a further reason that (P1) (and by inference (P2)) is false.  Aquinas was operating within the framework of a pre-Einsteinian model of physics in which movement is a property of objects.  But according to general relativity, movement is not a property of a thing but a relation between an object and an observer.  One of the key insights of Einsteinian physics--contra pre-Einsteinian physics--is that there is no "fixed point" in space in respect to which an object moves.  Since the argument relies on a theoretical notion of movement that is false, the whole argument fails (in this form).

The Historical/Philosophical interpretation
The stronger interpretation of the prime mover argument interprets it using the technical meaning of 'movement' that Aquinas intended.  To understand what this is, we need to make a quick detour into Aristotelian physics and metaphysics.

Detour
By motion Aristotle was referring to changes from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality.  This type of motion applies to animate and inanimate objects alike.  Consider that a lump of clay has the potential to become a clay pot (and a lot of other clay things).  In order for this potential to become actual, something (in this case, a potter) has to act on the lump of clay.  Similarly, for the universe to have moved from a state of high potential energy (pre-big bang) to one of actuality (being the universe we know of), the stuff that was the potential universe had to be acted on in order to become actual.

Another example is that someone can have the potential to be a great musician but things have to happen for that potentiality to be actualized.  And finally, in the case of human beings, the embryo is a potential human being and moves to the actualized state when it becomes a full human.

In sum, the idea of motion that Aquinas is referring to is one of movement from a potential state to an actual state--and not necessarily one of physical movement.  Also, in the argument, actualization is referring specifically to existance; that is, nothing that could potentially exist can come into actual existence without some other thing acting on that thing (in its potential state).  The key idea here is that things do not contain in themselves the power to move from potential existence to actual existence. 

Back to the 1st Way
Ok, so how does this other interpretation change things?  Well, now the argument will now go something like this:

(P1)  Nothing that potentially exists can actualize itself (i.e., move itself from a state of potentiality to actuality).
(P2)  Given (P1), it follows that whatever is actualized must have been actualized by something else.
(P3)  The regressive causal chain of actualization can't go back infinitely.
(C)   Therefore, there must be some thing that was the original actualizer; we know this thing as God.

(Request: can someone make me a T-shirt that says "original actualizer" on it?)

I'll talk about the objections after going through the other 2 ways since most of the same objections apply.

The Second Way:  The First Cause 
Ok, again, to really get a grasp on Aquinas' argument we need to go back to Aristotle.  Central to the second way is the notion of efficient cause.  Efficient cause refers to an external force whose effect is to bring something new into existence or to cause something to change into a new thing.

To make sense of this, lets consider some examples:  the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, the efficient cause(s) of my house is all the trades people who designed and built it, the efficient cause of you is your parents, the efficient cause of the internet is Al Gore, and the efficient cause of christmas gifts is a pack of elves in the north pole...Ok, maybe some of those aren't the best examples, but you get the point.

Formalized, this argument proceeds in a similar way to the first:
(P1)  Everything has an efficient cause.
(P2)  There does not exist any thing that is its own efficient cause.  This would be impossible because in order to bring itself into existence, it would have to exist before it existed.
(P3)  The chain of efficient causes cannot be infinite going back in time.
(C)  In order for there to be a chain of efficient causes and effects, there must have been a first efficient cause.  We call this cause God.

The Third Way:  Possibility and Necessity; Aka The Way of Contingency
To understand this argument we need to familiarize ourselves with the concept of contingency.  In the context of the third way, contingency means that for something that currently exists it's also possible that it might never have existed or that it may cease to exist.  In other words, the thing's existence isn't necessary but contingent.

We can sort of simply the argument like this:  Everything in the universe that exists at some point didn't exist, might not have existed, and could cease to exist.  So, for everything in the universe, their existence isn't necessary...But things do exist! Something had to create those things.  Therefore, in order for those things to exist something whose existence is necessary has to exist.  In short, something had to start the ball rolling...and that thing's existence is necessary.  We call it God.

With this in mind, we can formalize the contingency argument like this (from SEP):

(P1)  A contingent being exists (he's talking about YOU!).
(P2)*  There there must be a cause or explanation for the contingent being's existence. (Aka, the principle of sufficient reason)
(P3)  The cause of or explanation for the contingent being's existence cannot be itself.
(P4)  The cause of or explanation for the contingent being's existence must be either other contingent beings (he's talking about your momma and papa!) or a non-contingent (i.e., necessary) being.
(P5)  Other contingent beings are not a sufficient cause or explanation of another contingent being's existence.
(C1)  Therefore, whatever explains the existence of a contingent being must also include a necessary being (i.e., non-contingent).
(MC)  Therefore, a necessary being exists (such that it cannot not exist).  This is God.

*Quick note on the principle of sufficient reason (PSR).  This is a generally (but non unanimously) agreed upon philosophical principle that for every fact (in this case, "x exists") there must be an intelligible cause or explanation.

Analysis
(P1) is fairly uncontroversial but it's not clear that its truth gets us all the way to the conclusion because just because some things are contingent doesn't mean that everything, including the universe, is.  What some contemporary advocates of this argument suggest instead is that (P1) should refer to the universe; that is, it should say that the existence of the universe is contingent.

This sounds pretty good from the point of view of the contingency argument.  We can ask, why is there a universe rather than no universe?  That we can ask this question seems to support the idea that the universe is contingent (since it's possible that it might not have existed).  But making this premise acceptable is going to require further argument--a simple assertion is not enough.  In reply, someone can simply assert the contrary: that the universe is not contingent.  Since both positions can be seen as arguing from a positions of ignorance, there doesn't seem to be any good reason for which we should accept one position over the other.

There is another problem that arises if we use the universe as the contingent being in (P1).  Recall that the cosmological argument is supposed to be a naturalistic argument; that is, it appeals to the known laws of nature to argue for the existence of God.  But it doesn't seem like there are any natural laws that we could appeal to in order to explain how God created a universe out of nothing.

As far as science is concerned, there are scientific theories that explain what the universe was like about a second before the big bang, but not prior to that.  Any account of what happened before that is going to have to appeal to non-natural (i.e., probably supernatural) explanations.  The problem here is that this defeats the whole purpose of the cosmological argument.

General Objections To All 3 Ways
The main problems are (a) supposing we accept the sub-conclusions (that there must be a first mover/cause/necessary being) it doesn't seem to follow (without further argument) that this thing is a divine entity with divine properties.  Another problem is that (b) it's possible to reject the premise that there can be no infinite regress.  The third problem is that (c) these arguments all seem to be cases of special pleading.  If everything requires a prior cause, why doesn't God need one?  That the "buck" stops at God seems totally arbitrary.  A fourth problem, related to the third, is that (d) instead of saying God is the end of the causal chain, why not just say it's the universe?  Saying that the universe has always existed, in one form or another, seems to many to be just as plausible as saying God always existed then created the universe out of nothing.

Further Objections:
Sample Size of One
This objection is a further elaboration of (d).  If we apply the cosmological argument to the universe, rather than to individuals, several problems arise, in addition to those mentioned in the section on the third way.  Russell and Hume argue that our notion of causation comes from our experience with particular classes of things.  However, there is only one universe, so we cannot apply our notions of causation to things that are a set unto themselves:  we have no prior experiences from which to infer causal laws about universes, only about things in universes.  Because we are in a position of ignorance in terms of whether universes require a cause,  Russell's position is to simply say "the universe is 'just there', and that's all."

A possible reply is that just because we haven't experienced other universes doesn't mean we can't make the inferences that it needs a cause.  The universe is contingent and therefore requires an explanation for its existence or a cause for its existence.

However, the problem here is that the reply only works if we assume the universe is contingent.  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this supposition.  Also, typically defenders of the "the universe is contingent camp" make this inference from the fact that objects in the universe are contingent.   But this is the fallacy of composition.  Just because the things that make up a whole have a particular property doesn't mean the "whole" has that property.

An example of the fallacy of composition would be: atoms are colorless, cats are made of atoms, therefore, cats are colorless.  So, just because things in the universe are contingent and necessarily caused, it doesn't follow that the universe itself is contingent and necessarily caused.

Necessity and Contingency:  It All Depends on your Point of View
Back in (P2) of the argument from necessity and contingency (the third way), we invoked the principle of sufficient reason to show why there had to be some necessary cause for things with contingent existence. The principle of sufficient reason is that if something is contingent then there must be an explanation of or cause of its existence.  Hume argues that the contingent things are sufficiently explained when we appeal to the fundamental parts that make them up.

Hume's argument is best understood through example.  Consider a table.  The table is made up of atoms.  The fact that we call that collection of atoms "table" is simply a psychological fact about how our mind works.  There's no real thing called "tables",  there are only different configurations of elementary particles, and our minds apply names to certain similar structures.   So, at its base, reality is just collections of fundamental particles.  We don't need to provide causal explanations for each fundamental particle.  They just exist.  So, the table exists because it's made of fundamental particles in a particular arrangement.

Notice how this is kind of like Russell's position except from the opposite point of view.  Russell said the universe just is a brute fact, not contingent, and doesn't require a causal explanation.  Hume's saying that contrary to the "contingent things" version of (P1), the parts of the universe are not contingent.  People are mistaken about what the parts are.  The parts of the universe are not people, tables, and chairs.  The parts of the universe are just fundamental particles and they don't require a causal explanation for their existence.  They just are!

The reply to this is that the principle of sufficient reason still requires an explanation for why the particles are arranged as they are and why they exist rather than don't exist.

A possible counter reply is that energy and the fundamental particles of matter don't require a causal explanation for their existence.  Sure, they change form from one to the other but the total combined amount of each never deviates from the laws of conservation of matter and energy.  Energy and matter transmutate but are never lost or destroyed.  Therefore, matter is contingent in regards to its form but necessary in regards to its existence.  And the contingent argument is all about existence, not about form, so the fact that there is no explanation for the form doesn't matter.

The Persistence of Mental Attitudes: Folk Psychological Concepts vs Eliminative Materialism

Introduction and Context
With eliminative materialism, we saw a reaction to dualism. Since folk psychological theories of mind got it so wrong (i.e., dualism), eliminative materialists argued we need to abandon everything related to folk psychology--including the concepts of belief and desire--and develop entirely new concepts that arise organically from modern scientific observations about the brain.  It simply doesn't make sense to try to force millennia old pre-scientific concepts onto the findings of modern brain science.  We should let the science develop from scratch--not impose old concepts onto its observations.  

Responses to Eliminative Materialism
There have been several responses to eliminative materialism:  The main one we're going to look at comes from Jerry Fodor, considered to be one of the most important living philosophers of science (and he doesn't even wear a labcoat!).

He uses 3 main arguments to make his case:
(A)  Beliefs and brain-states are independent levels of analysis;
(B)  Mental states should not be defined in terms of underlying physical structures instead they should be functionally defined.  Defining mental states functionally means
          (i)  they are not reducible to physical structures
          (ii) they can be instantiated by many different types of physical structures.
(C)  There is no theory that can explain and predict behavior better than one that uses the concepts of belief and desire.

Ok, lets check out Fodor's arguments...

Different Levels of Analysis
His argument goes something like this: folk psychology and neuroscience/cognitive science are giving an account of the phenomenon (behaviour) at different levels of analysis:  Just as we wouldn't study what characters are on a computer screen from the level of electrical impulses in computer's circuits, we shouldn't try to discover what beliefs are by looking at electro-chemical signals in the brain.  Doing so is too fine grained for the purpose of a behavior-of-organisms level of analysis.  

Another example would be geology.  We wouldn't study tectonic plate movements at the atomic level.  Furthermore, the concept of tectonic plates can't be reduced to one defining atomic structure.  Many non-fundamental sciences require independent (non-reducible) levels of analysis.  It follows that the concepts used in these sciences won't necessarily be reducible to particular atomic structures.

Folk concepts are at a much higher level of abstraction than neuroscience or some other fine-grained brain science.  So, just because we can't find one to one "matches" between the concept of beliefs and what's happening at the neurological level doesn't mean there's no such thing as beliefs, it only means that the distance between the levels of abstraction is too great for any meaningful matching to occur.

Functionalism:  How to Define Mental States
The Eliminativist Attack:  Non-Reducibility
One of the arguments eliminative materialists (EM) use against the concepts of folk psychology such as beliefs and desires, is that they can't be reduced to basic physics--or at least physical states--and therefore should be eliminated from a scientific theory of mind.  The idea is that, in science, things only exist if they can be reduced to physical phenomena.  But it seems that this can't be done with folk psychological concepts.

Before we see why reduction might not work for folk psychological concepts, lets revisit an example of reductionism that does work in science.  The classic example is that the concept "water" reduces to the physical structure "H20".  There is a one to one correspondence with the concept "water" and the physical structure "H20".  Any time someone refers to water, we can reduce that concept down to an underlying physical structure and that physical structure will always be the same.  If you use the concept "water" for something that doesn't have the physical structure "H20", then you are misusing the concept.

Now lets think about a belief.  Does a belief reduce down to a uniform physical structure that is the same across all brains?  Very unlikely given that everyone's brain is slightly different and the vast number of types of beliefs one can have.  What is it that every belief has in common in terms of the physical brain state that underlies it?  

When you have the beliefs "it's raining", "apples are crunchy", and "judo is a great sport" what could the underlying structure of all these beliefs have in common? Probably nothing.  

Given what we know about neuro-plasticity, there are many different ways the same belief, behavioral state, or cognitive process can be underpinned by a brain structure.  Water, on the other hand, will always reduce down to two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

Consider another example: pain.  Is there something common to the underlying physical structures of all types of pain that we can reduce the concept down to? Given that there are so many different types of pain (stubbing your toe, biting your tongue, burning your finger, heartbreak, etc...) it's hard to say that they can all be reduced down to one common element in the physical state of the brain--again, especially when you consider that everyone's brain is structurally a bit different and that we also attribute the concept "pain" to animals whose brain structures are different from out own.

Fodor's Response
Mental concepts such as beliefs and desires aren't defined in terms of their physical structures, they are defined in terms of their function.  Check it:  We don't say of mouse traps that they are defined in terms of a particular physical structure and anything that doesn't have this particular structure isn't a mouse trap.  A mouse trap can be made of plastic, wood, metal and it can have many different shapes. The technical term for this is, mouse traps are multiply realizable; that is, mouse traps can take many forms yet perform the same function. What makes a mouse trap a mouse trap is not it's particular structure or what it's made of, what makes a mouse trap a mouse trap is that it traps mice! (now say that 5 times fast).

The same goes for beliefs and desires.  What makes a belief that ice cream is a delicious treat a belief is its functional role in behavior.  Someone who has this belief is very likely to eat ice cream when it's presented to them.  The underlying physical structure of having this belief isn't important.

Consider another example: The belief that the assignment is due on Tuesday isn't a matter of having a particular brain state, it is a matter of how that belief functions.  Having that belief functions to make people complete their assignment by Tuesday.

Non-Reducibility
Just as the concept "mouse trap" can't be reduced down to a particular physical structure (a la water to H20), the same goes for the psychological concepts of belief and desire--they are non-reducible concepts.

To summarize so far, Fodor argues that the folk psychological concepts of belief and desire are independent, non-reducible, functionally defined, and multiply-realizable. (If your brain just exploded, that's ok.)

The Rumors of the Death of Folk Psychological Concepts Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
Fodor's third argument is that not only does eliminative materialism greatly exaggerates the folk psychology's short comings, but it ignores the fact that there is no theory that doesn't use the concepts of belief and desire that explains and predicts behavior as well as a theory that uses those concepts.

Suppose I call my friend and tell him to meet me at 8pm at a bar.  He shows up at 8.  Now, how the heck would you explain his behavior without appealing to the fact that he had a belief that I'd also be showing up at 8 to meet him. 

Talking about neurological states, or electro-chemical reactions in certain parts of the brain cannot explain why he showed up at 8.  You need the concept of belief to explain behavior.

Not only does the concept of belief explain behavior but it allows you to make very accurate predictions about behavior.  I also could have predicted in advance (after I sent the invitation) that he'd show up at 8.  Magic!  We successfully predict the behavior of others all the time using (implicitly) the concept of belief.  This is how everyone operates and they do so because the results are often correct.

So, the concepts of belief and desire have the hallmark properties of any good scientific theory: they allow tremendous explanatory and predictive power.  So, there eliminative materialists!  In your face! 

One Last Thing:  Ontology and a Dualism 2.0
The next thing Fodor argues is that since the concepts of belief and desire allow tremendous explanatory and predictive power, they must exist;  that is, they must refer to something real in the world.

So, it seems like in a way, we have a kind of property dualism:  there are mental objects called beliefs and desires that aren't reducible to physical stuff.  Of course, Fodor isn't saying that there are dis-embodied souls that have these properties, only that these mental properties exist...as properties of brains.

Objection:
There's a philosophy of science/epistemology objection to Fodor's ascription of ontological status to beliefs and desires.  Simply because a concept gives explanatory and predictive power isn't enough evidence for ontological status.  There is a wasteland of failed scientific concepts that at one time had good explanatory and predictive power given the empirical observations at that point in history.

One of the most famous examples is phlogiston theory.  Scientists of the day postulated an invisible substance called phlogiston to explain heat transfer.  It had excellent explanatory and predictive power until someone came up with an experiment that falsified the hypothesis.  So, the story goes, explanatory and predictive power aren't enough to justify ontological existence.

Objection 2: Vs Non-Reductionism
Property dualists want to say that mental properties arise out of the complexity of physical structures.  That is to say, over evolutionary time, when physical structures reached a certain level of complexity, mental properties arose.  

At the same time property dualists want to say that these properties aren't reducible to any particular structure.  How can you say on the one hand that mental properties arise out of particular physical structures yet mental properties aren't reducible to particular structures. It seems like the property dualist is having their cake and eating it too.

Gettier: The Challenge to the Traditional Conception of Knowledge

Introduction and Context
Gettier's "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" is considered to be one of--if not the most--important articles of 20th Century philosophy.  Pre-Gettier, the standard definition of knowledge (since at least Aristotle) was "justified true belief".  Pretty much everyone we've studied so far held this account of knowledge to be correct (with the exception of Goldman who wrote post-Gettier and was focused only on justification).  In his groundbreaking article, G-money provides several counter-examples to the long-standing traditional account.  Let check it aus...

The Traditional (JTB) Account of Knowledge
At its core the traditional account of knowledge has 3 necessary and sufficient conditions:

S knows that p if and only if
(a)  p is true,
(b)  S believes that p, and
(c)  S is justified in believing that p.

(Recall from the previous post that 'S' stands for 'any subject/person' and 'p' stands for 'any proposition/assertion that can be true or false, but not both.)

Gettier's Objective
Gettier's main objective is to show that the traditional conditions for knowledge in the JTB model aren't sufficient (aren't enough).  In other words, in some cases, meeting the 3 conditions isn't enough for something to count as knowledge--there need to be additional conditions.


The Set Up:  Why Gettier Cases Happen
Before looking at Gettier's actual examples, lets take a look at the general structure that will underpin his attack: Gettier cases (i.e. counter-examples to the JTB model) work against the traditional account of knowledge because of the interaction between 2 widely accepted epistemological principles.  So long as we accept both principles, we'll end up with Gettier counter-examples to the JTB model. 

The first principle is that (A) it's possible to have a justified belief that is false.  Most people accept this.  Often we have very good reasons for believing things that at some later point we learn to be false.  The only way to reject this is to say that the only justified beliefs you can have are ones that, under no possible circumstances, will ever turn out to be false.  Since all sorts of unexpected things can happen in life, this bar is too high for all but Descartes and his followers.


The second part of the set up involves an assent to logical inference.  That is, most of us believe that (B) some beliefs can be justified by prior beliefs.  A classic example would be 

If I have good evidence for the belief that (p) it's raining, then I can infer that (q) there are clouds.
Or If if have good evidence for the belief that (p) Jill drives a Ford, then I can infer (q) that Jill drives an American car.

In cases where I know p, I can also be justified in knowing q. In other words,  every time I have good reason to think p is true, I can legitimately infer that q will also be true.  So, if I'm justified in believing p, and q obviously follows from p, then it seems I am also justified in believing q. 

Let me repeat that cuz it's super important: If q clearly follows from p, and I'm justified in believing p, then it follows that I'm also justified in believing q.

The traditional account along with just about everyone, professional philosopher or not accepts that we can make legitimate inferences.  What the Gettier cases show is that accepting both (A) and (B) gets us into trouble if we also want to hold on to the tradition definition of knowledge. 

Case 1:  The Oasis
Suppose we're walking in the desert.  Up in the distance I see an oasis (this is the 'p').  I turn to you and say "there's an oasis over there."  Now, since (p) I see an oasis, I make the inference from believing that I see an oasis to (q) there is an oasis "over there."

(If I see something, then I reasonably infer that it exists).

As it turns out, I'm actually seeing a mirage not an oasis.  Now, here's the crazy part: just behind the dune I'm pointing at there is an actual oasis.  So our situation is that I've met all the criteria for the traditional definition but I don't seem to have knowledge!  Most people would say that I don't know there is an oasis over there.  Consider

(i)   I have a true belief (there really is an oasis "over there"--it's just not the one I think I'm seeing);
(ii)  I believe that there is an oasis "over there" (I inferred it from the fact that I see an oasis which is actually a mirage);
(iii) I'm justified in believing there is an oasis "over there" (I don't know that I'm seeing a mirage rather than an actual oasis)

In this case, it looks like I have a bonafide justified true belief but we probably don't want to say that I know that there is an oasis over there.  Oh! Snap!

Case 2:  The Job and the Coins
Suppose Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job.  Suppose also that Smith has strong evidence for the following proposition:

(d) Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. (This is the p)

Maybe Smith's evidence is that the owner of the company (who is also in charge of hiring) told him Jones would get the job.  Also, Smith, himself, counted the coins in Jones' pocket while they were in the waiting room.

The next assertion (e) follows logically from (d) (in philosophy we say "it is logically entailed by d")

(e)  The man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket. (This is the q.  We can say that e obviously follows from d)

I don't think anyone would disagree that if we have strong justification for believing that d is true then we can also be justified in believing that e is true.  Smith believes (e) and is justified in believing (e).

Now here's where it gets crazy again.  Suppose that contrary to all the evidence that Smith had for Jones getting the job, Smith himself ends up getting the job.  And, to top it off, Smith, unbeknownst to himself, (because he never bothered to count) also has ten coins in his pocket.  This means that (e) is true (the man who got the job--Smith--has 10 coins in his pocket) even though (d) (from which (e) was inferred) is false!

How does this affect the traditional theory of knowledge?  Well, it looks like

(i)    Smith has a true belief (e)
(ii)   Smith believes (e)
(iii)  Smith is justified in believing (e) is true.

Even though all the conditions are met for the traditional definition of knowledge, we probably don't want to say that Smith knows.  Why?  Are intuitions tell us that well, the belief is only true by accident and so it shouldn't count Smith was justified in believing (e) because it obviously follows from (d), but that's not why (e) turns out to be true! But the traditional theory only stipulate that the 3 conditions be met--it doesn't say anything about how.  So, this example seems to show that the traditional theory fails because we don't want to say that Smith really knew that the successful job applicant would have ten coins in his pocket.

Case 3:  The Ford and Mr. Brown
Suppose that for the last 5 years, every workday, Jones has picked up Smith in a Ford to go to work. Most of us would agree that Smith is justified is believing that

(f)  Jones owes a Ford.

Now suppose Smith has another friend named Mr. Brown.  At random Smith selects 3 place names and constructs the following propositions:

(g)  Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston;
(h)  Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona;
(i)   Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.

All of these (g, h, i) are entailed by (i.e., follow from) (f).

Wut?  Hold the phone...how do (g, h, i) follow from (f)?...

Aside:  Formal Logic
This particular examples requires a little bit of knowledge about formal logic.  Don't be scurd.  It's not as bad as you think.  At first it seems weird to say that g, h, i are all follow from (f), but they do, and I'll explain.

Consider the following example:

I have 2 legs.  It's true right?  Now consider this next proposition:

I have 2 legs or I have 2 horns.  Also true, right?  Why?

In an "or"-statement (called a "disjunction" in fancy philosophy-talk), so long as one part is true, the whole statement is true.  So, in this case, so long as it's true that I have 2 legs, it doesn't matter what I put on the other side of the "or" because the entire disjunction will still be true.  For example, I can say "either the earth is a sphere or unicorns that fart rainbows exist".  Because the first part of the disjunction is true, it doesn't matter if the second half is false (or true), the net result is the same; the entire disjunct is true.  In a disjunction, only one side needs to be true for the entire disjunction to be true.

Ok, that should be enough to get us through the rest of this Gettier case...

Case 3 Continued
Now where were we?  Oh, yes.  We were saying that the disjunctions (g, h, and i) all obviously follow from (f).  That is, if (f) is true, we can also infer that (g, h, and i) are also true because we know that one side of the disjunct is true (and that's all that's needed for the whole disjunction to be true).  So long as we know that "Jones owns a Ford," it doesn't matter one hoot what we add to it in an "or" statement.

Smith could have said "Jones owns a Ford or sharktopus will eat every UNLV student."  Since the "Jones owns a Ford" part is true, it doesn't matter about the truth of the sharktopus part--the entire disjunctive clause is still true as a whole.

The bottom line so far is that since Smith has strong evidence for (f), he can infer (g, h, i) and be justified in believing (g, h, i).   Finally, we should note that Smith has no idea where Brown is.  He just randomly picked places for (g, h, i).

Here comes the tricky part.  Who needs the quickee-mart?  Imagine two further conditions for our little situation.  First, it turns out that Jones doesn't own a Ford!  Unbeknownst to Smith, Jones sold his Ford yesterday and now drives a Prius.  Second, it turns out that Brown is actually in Barcelona (the place in h)!  It follows that (h) is true!  (But not for the reasons that Jones thinks it is).

If these two new conditions are true then
(i)  (h) is true (because Brown is in Barcelona not because Jones owns a Ford),
(ii)  Smith believes (h) is true (but for the wrong reason--because he believes Jones owns a Ford),
(iii) Smith is justified in believing that (h) is true (because he had good evidence to believe that (f) Jones owns a Ford and (h) follows from (f)).

Again we have an example where someone has met the 3 traditional criteria for knowledge, yet we would not want to say that Jones knows that (h) either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona.

Possible Objections
One attempt to rescue the traditional model is to add a fourth stipulation.  Notice that in Gettier's examples the problem seemed to be that an inference was being made from a false belief.  So, in Case 1, we inferred "there's an oasis over there" from the false belief "I see an oasis."  In case 2, we inferred that the man who got the job would have 10 coins in his pocket from the false belief that Jones, who has ten coins in his pocket, would get the job.  In case 3, we inferred that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona from the false belief that Jones owned a ford.  In order to correct that problem, it seems we should add a fourth condition to the traditional model of knowledge:

(iv)  S does not infer a truth from a falsehood.

Problem solved right?  HA!  This is philosophy!

Gettier Reply
Suppose I run an annual event and for planning purposes I need to know how many people attended this year so I can rent a room for next year.  I really only care if there were more or less than 40 people.  If it's more than 40 then I need to rent a big room, if it's less, then the standard room will do.  I ask one of my co-organizers how many people attended the event.  He says there were 78 people.

At this point it seems that I can legitimately make the inference from "there were 78 people" to "there were more than 40 people at the event"; i.e., I know there were more that 40 people.  As it turns out, my co-organizer got it wrong, in fact, there were only 77 people.  It still seems, however, that I am able to legitimately say that I know there were more than 40 people.

So?  Well, this example shows that, contra (iv), you can make an inference from a falsehood and still have that inferred belief count as knowledge.  Doh!

Counter-reply
But not so fast.  When you inferred that there were over 40 people based on the co-organizer's assertion about 78 people, there's an implied probability judgment.  You know that the probability of someone miscounting by about 35% is virtually impossible.  You know that even if they're off by a few, there will still be more than 40 people and so the number the co-organizer cites doesn't have to be exact for you to make the inference.  A proposition just has to have a high probability of being true.  So, we add a fifth condition:

(v)  p has to have a sufficiently high probability of truth.

Now we've got it! Right?

Getter Reply 2:  Lottery Paradox
Suppose a billion ticket lottery.  Of ticket number 0000000000 there's a 1 in a billion chance that it will win.  So, you say (reasonably) that you believe it won't win.  You can say the same of ticket 0000000001 that you believe it won't win either.  In fact, you can say of every ticket that you believe it won't win.  But if you bought a ticket and said I know this ticket won't win, people would say, no, you don't know that.  One of the tickets will win.  You have a very high probability belief that the ticket won't win, but you don't know that it won't win.  This proves that, contra (v), you don't need to have a sufficiently high probability of truth for knowledge.

Anyhow, this back and forth can go on for a while, but in the end, philosophers have given up on trying to rescue the traditional model from Gettier by using extra conditions.

Conclusion: Why the Gettier Problem Can't be Overcome
As I said near the beginning (in the set up section), the production of Gettier cases relies on the acceptance of two principles: (A) You can be justified in believing something that turns out to be false, and (B) the justification of some beliefs can be other justified beliefs (i.e., we can make logical inferences).

Lets Try (A)
Any solution to the Gettier problem will involve rejecting one of these principles.  Suppose, for example, to get out of the "oasis" problem, we reject (A).  But now, if we actually see a real oasis, we can't say we know there's an oasis because there's always a chance (no matter how small) that it is a mirage or that we are hallucinating.  

As the lottery paradox shows, it doesn't matter how small the chance is, we still can't say we know it's an oasis so long as there's an infinitesimal chance that we could be wrong.  Well, rejecting (A) isn't going to work...how about (B)?

Lets Try (B)
Suppose, in order to escape the Gettier problems we reject (B).  Recall, the problem arose because we made the inference from a false believe.  Well, now we're just going to ban inferences.  But if we do this, then if I actually do see a mirage I'm not allowed to make the inference that "there's a mirage over there"!  And if Jones actually does get the job, Smith can't make the inference that "the man who gets the job will have 10 coins in his pocket."  Well, that's gonna suck! 

Because no one (except very extreme skeptics a la Descartes) wants to abandon either (A) or (B) philosophers have given up trying to rescue the traditional model of knowledge. 

Holy crap!  Progress in philosophy! (If you count discarding a theory as progress).