I aim to assess an objection to Daniel Howard-Snyder’s conception of propositional faith. I summarize his paper, provide an objection, and show that the objection fails. I defend Howard-Snyder by drawing an important distinction between the two propositional attitudes, hope and faith.
I. A Summary
1. The View on Hand
In his account, Howard-Snyder states that propositional faith is a psychological attitude used in our language with the locution “S has faith that p”, where p stands in for any given proposition. In order for a propositional attitude to be faith, it must fulfill three criteria:
(1) One must have a positive evaluation of p.
(2) One must have a positive conative orientation toward p.
(3) One must have a positive cognitive stance toward p.
There are a number of ways to fulfill (1)-(3), so Howard-Snyder sketches the following chart:
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A positive evaluation of p |
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A positive conative orientation toward p |
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A positive cognitive stance toward p |
(1) can be fulfilled by “considering p’s truth to be good or desirable”; and (2) is fulfilled by caring that p is true. Two examples of this care are: (2a) “wanting p to be the case” and (2b) “wanting it to be the case that one wants p”. There are also many ways to fulfill the third condition. Here are a few:
(3a) Believing p,
(3b) Accepting p, or
(3c) Assuming p.
From these conditions, one can fill in Howard-Snyder’s chart like this:
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A positive evaluation of p |
Considering p’s truth to be good or desirable. |
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A positive conative orientation toward p |
Either wanting p to be the case or wanting it to be the case that one wants p. |
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A positive cognitive stance toward p |
Either (i) believing p, (ii) accepting p, or (iii) assuming p. |
This, in essence, is his account of propositional faith. Faith is a complex propositional attitude consisting of three conditions. Each condition can be fulfilled in a number of ways.
2. Examples
Throughout Propositional Faith, Howard-Snyder calls on examples to demonstrate faith without the cognitive stance of belief or acceptance. However, the examples will be used differently in this paper; namely, to provide a number of examples of propositional faith. Here are a few:
A. Howard-Snyder has faith that he’ll successfully hike from Mexico to Canada.
It is not the case that Howard-Snyder believes or accepts his proposition (or its negation). Yet, the assumption that it is true pushes him forward. This example fulfills the three criteria above:
(1) Howard-Snyder considers a successful hike from Mexico to Canada to be desirable.
(2) He wants a successful hike to be the case.
(3) He assumes that he’ll successfully hike from Mexico to Canada.
B. Captain Morgan has faith that there is help ahead.
It is not the case that Captain Morgan believes there to be help ahead; yet he acts on the assumption that there is. Moreover, the other criteria are fulfilled:
(1) Captain Morgan considers that there is help ahead to be a good thing.
(2) He wants for there to be help ahead.
(3) He assumes that there is help ahead.
C. Eliotwright has faith that Christian theism is the case.
Eliotwright does not believe that Christian theism is the case, it is an assumption that he makes. Again, the example satisfies our criteria:
(1) Eliotwright considers Christian theism to be a good thing.
(2) He wants Christian theism to be the case.
(3) He assumes Christian theism to be the case.
These examples show that propositional faith does not require a strong cognitive stance toward p; something as weak as an assumption works for his view. All three of our cases fulfill (3) with an assuming cognitive stance. They do not work as examples of (3a) or (3b). Nonetheless, they will operate well for our purposes.
3. Resilience
There is a potential objection, however, which leads Howard-Snyder to establish the resilience condition. He states:
You satisfy faith’s demand for some measure of resilience and tenacity in the face of counter-evidence even though your cognitive stance is properly responsive to new counter-evidence. That’s one way the resilience faith requires can be instantiated, but it is not the only way; nor is it necessary. For the resilience of one’s faith can be manifested instead by one’s being disposed to behave in certain ways upon discovering new counter-evidence.
A common line of thought would suggest that one maintains the same cognitive stance toward p in order to still have faith, but Howard-Snyder does not grant this. When one has new counter-evidence put toward them (and they are epistemologically responsible), one will change one’s cognitive stance (ie. from strong belief to weak belief, weak belief to acceptance, acceptance to assumption, etc…). This form of resilience is not necessary, however. So, Howard-Snyder suggests another way of fulfilling the resilience condition; namely, that one continues behaving as if the proposition is true, in face of counter-evidence. So, he grants at least two sufficient ways of fulfilling the resilience condition:
(1) One’s cognitive stance adjusts to the counter-evidence, but still fulfills the third condition, or
(2) One continues behaving as if p is true, even though the counter-evidence suggests otherwise.
II. The Confusion Between Propositional Hope and Propositional Faith
1. The Problem
A possible reaction to Howard-Snyder’s account of faith is this: He is simply mistaking propositional hope for propositional faith. Hope and faith are not the same thing, yet on Howard-Snyder’s account, they operate identically. Here is a version of the argument in Standard Formulation:
Objection From Hope
(1) If Howard-Snyder is right, then hope=faith.
(2) If hope=faith, then S has faith that p if and only if S hopes that p.
(3) [/:.] If Howard-Snyder is right, then S has faith that p if and only if S hopes that p.
(4) It is not the case that S has faith that p if and only if S hopes that p.
(5) [/:.] It is not the case that hope=faith.
(3) /:. It is not the case that Howard-Snyder is right.
In section IV, I will be denying (3), showing that Howard-Snyder’s view does not imply the biconditional, and, consequently, does not imply the identity claim. But before this, it will be helpful to more fully understand the objection. It shows its intuitive strength primarily when applied to the examples.
2. The Problem Expanded
Propositional hope is a similarly complex propositional attitude to the attitude described by Howard-Snyder. It can be shown with the English locution “S hopes that p”. It is widely accepted that (i) it is not the case that, necessarily, if S hopes that p, then S has faith that p, and (ii) “S hopes that p” ≠ “S has faith that p”. In other words, one can hope that p without having faith that p, and hope is not equivalent to faith. It seems to follow from (i) and (ii) that one cannot swap “hope that” and “has faith that” for one another in any given sentence; more clearly, “hope that” and “has faith that” do not operate biconditionally.
Our problem arises, though, because in all of Howard-Snyder’s examples it seems to be possible to substitute “has faith that” for “hopes that”, and no meaning is lost. Observe:
A*. Howard-Snyder hopes that he’ll successfully hike from Mexico to Canada.
B*. Captain Morgan hopes that there is help ahead.
C*. Eliotwright hopes that Christian theism is the case.
Very well then, in A*–C*, “hopes that” functions similarly (maybe even identically) to “has faith that”, and (I presume) A*–C* retain the same truth value as before (true). Does the hope spoken of fulfill our criteria, though? It seems that, yes. Even still, A fourth example is helpful.
3. Propositional Hope and Fulfilling the Criteria
It will not do to find an example of propositional faith that both fulfills the criteria and can have “hope that” substituted in. This has already been shown above. What is needed here is an example of a real world statement of propositional hope fulfilling the three criteria (along with the resilience condition), then seeing if “has faith that” can be substituted in. We must find whether Howard-Snyder’s account implies that: “S has faith that p” if and only if “S hopes that p”. If such a case exists, the objector will have considerable evidence that Howard-Snyder confuses the attitudes. Here is such an example from my own life:
With no sign of stopping, the rain relentlessly falls outside. A group of elementary school kids sit at the window, chins resting in their hands. They long for a dry playground. Everyone has finished their homework, and have grown bored of the riddles given to them by their after-school counselor (Me). Still, one hour remains before their parents will be pulling in front of the care center to pick them up. Only one option remains to salvage their young spirits: dodgeball in the gym. There are problems, though. The classroom we’ve been assigned is across a bridge from every other group in the after-school program, and there is no way of telling whether the gym is being occupied by another group.
Ewen stands up, and in his characteristically sharp voice says, “Let’s go to the gym!”
I respond, “Good idea, Ewen. Let’s get a-movin’.”
Sophia, being too smart for her own good, looks at me, saying, “But Zach, we’ll have to walk all the way there only to have other groups be there! Then we’ll have to walk back in the rain! It’s a total waste of time.”
I think for a moment, consider the situation, “Well, I sure hope that the gym is open, cause we’re goin. Get your rain jackets, everyone!”
Ewen opens the door and we step outside to brave the rain.
Once across the bridge, we pass by a classroom, one that usually has a fellow group of after school children…. It is empty. Even still, we push on toward the gym, in hopes that it will be open.
Here, then, we have an example of propositional hope. It is best to set it up like the other three examples, for clarity:
D. Ewen and I hope that the gym is open.
It is not the case that we believe the gym to be open; we have no reason to think that it is and we have no reason to think that it is not. Yet we act on the assumption that it is. Even more, it seems that Howard-Snyder’s three criteria are satisfied:
(1) Ewen and I consider the gym being open to be a good thing.
(2) Ewen and I want it to be the case that the gym is open.
(3) Ewen and I assume that the gym is open.
Also, we show resilience in the face of a piece of counter-evidence to p. We see that a classroom is empty, and there are only a couple of other places that the group could be, other than the gym or their assigned room. So, the resilience condition is fulfilled in our continuation toward the gym.
The most important aspect of this example, though, is that one can successfully interchange “have faith that” with “hope that” and not lose meaning.
D*. Ewen and I have faith that the gym is open.
So, it appears that when we have propositional hope (i) we have a propositional attitude that (ii) satisfies Howard-Snyder’s three criteria for propositional faith and the resilience condition, and (iii) we can use “have faith that” interchangeably with it. This may be worrisome for Howard-Snyder.
III. I Hope That He’s Not Cheating
What we currently have is an argument that suggests that Howard-Snyder confuses propositional hope for propositional faith. Any potential response to this objection will have to go about it by denying that propositional hope and propositional faith are always interchangeable. To do this, one example needs to be given of either propositional hope or propositional faith that does not allow for the swap. Such an example would give us multiple insights into the nature of propositional hope.
1. The Example
Marylou has been married to Gus for 12 years. For the most part, their marriage has been smooth, undeterred by problems that are not the normal struggles of married life. However, of late, she has an itching suspicion that Gus has been having an affair. There are a number of reasons for this: Gus has been emotionally distant recently, he arrives home late from work almost every day, and he didn’t call on his last business trip with his colleague Anna.
She decides that she needs to confront him about her suspicions. But before doing this, Marylou has a long, emotional talk with her best friend. In the conversation, she explains why she thinks that she is right about Gus’s cheating. Her friend sits patiently, listening to Marylou’s position. Once Marylou has finished, her friend offers further evidence to believe that Gus is not faithful. She tells Marylou about a mysterious text-message she received the day before, saying, “I can’t meet tonight, my wife is expecting me home early”. With this new piece of evidence, Marylou comes to believe that Gus is cheating on her. However, as the conversation comes to a close, she utters the words, “I sure hope that he’s not cheating”.
2. Where Hope Comes Apart From Faith
There are multiple noteworthy features of the example provided. To begin, let us get the example more organized.
- Marylou hopes that he is not cheating.
Let us apply Howard-Snyder’s criteria to the propositional attitude.
(1) Marylou considers his not cheating to be a good thing.
(2) Marylou wants it to be the case that he is not cheating.
(3) But, she does not believe, accept, or assume that he is not cheating.
Where does this leave us? Three notes:
(i) Right away, (3) goes unsatisfied. Marylou does not believe (or accept, or assume) that she is wrong, in fact, she’s quite convinced that she is right. This means that she holds a cognitive stance contradictory to our proposition, which is not allowed under Howard-Snyder’s conception.
(ii) Likewise, she fails to fulfill the resilience condition. If Marylou werefaced with counter-evidence to her belief that he is cheating (perhaps she hires a private investigator to double-check, and the investigator finds that he has not cheated…), then she would surely both (i) swap her cognitive stance and believe that he is not cheating, and (ii) her behavior would no longer reflect her belief that he is cheating. In other words, if Marylou is acting rationally, she would not be resilient in any way when faced with strong counter-evidence to her belief .
(iii) What’s more, we cannot substitute “has faith that” in the example. She certainly does not have faith that he is not cheating, she only hopes that he is not cheating. As Howard-Snyder points out, faith needs a positive cognitive stance (which is clear from the examples provided above, as well). Therefore, we see a dissonance between “hope that” and “has faith that” in the example.
IV. Conclusion
1. The Objection Fails
When the objection to Howard-Snyder was presented, I offered two seemingly, widely accepted claims: (i) it is not the case that, necessarily, if S hopes that p, then S has faith that p, and (ii) “S hopes that p” ≠ “S has faith that p”. The “I Hope That He’s Not Cheating” (HTNC) example shows this to be the case. The biconditional claim S hopes that p ↔ S has faith that p necessarily involves the two following claims:
(1) If S hopes that p, then S has faith that p.
(2) If S has faith that p, then S hopes that p.
HTNC has shown that (1) is false, for it demonstrates that one can have propositional hope without having propositional faith. Consequently, the biconditional fails. Even more, this supports (ii). Numerical equivalence implies the biconditional; but HTNC proves that the biconditional fails, so hopeis not numerically equivalent to faith. These conclusions confirm that the objection from hope has two bad premises, so its conclusion (that Howard-Snyder is wrong) does not go through.
2. Where to Go
As has been shown, the objection fails to establish that hope and faith operate biconditionally in use. Moreover, I have established that Howard-Snyder’s account is compatible with (i) it is not the case that, necessarily, if S hopes that p, then S has faith that p, and (ii) S has faith that p ≠ S hopes that p.
What is notable about our current situation is this: hope appears to be a broader propositional attitude than faith. Two questions rise from this: (i) is this a mistaken appearance? If it is not mistaken, is this a common theme in propositional attitudes, or are hope and faith the exception? Obviously, these questions cannot be answered here, but it seems to be the natural follow up from the conclusions drawn.
Works Cited
Howard-Snyder, Daniel. “Propositional Faith: What It Is and What It Is Not,”American Philosophical Quarterly, 2013; reprinted in eds. Louis Pojman and Michael Rea, Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology (Cengage 2013, 6th edition), with an additional section entitled, “Reasons for the Common View”.
A Collection of Essays 