Here's a thought experiment based on an idea of John Spano, one of our grad students (I modified it in the first version below by adding that the decisions are "somewhat better"). Imagine you could get a microchip implanted in your brain. Whenever you needed to make a decision, it would tell you what decision you should make, and it would be guaranteed to make decisions somewhat better than you would. Likewise, when you needed to figure out something theoretical, it would figure it out for you, and again it would be guaranteed to be somewhat better than you at this. Would you do this?

If the value of rationality is purely instrumental, this is worthwhile. But a life based on the dictates of the microchip just doesn't seem to be a flourishing life. This is clearly true if the decisions the chip comes to are only somewhat better than the ones you would come to yourself. But I suspect that it is also true if the decisions are much better.

At the same time, maybe you should go for the microchip in the case of decisions that significantly affect the flourishing of others. If you are a doctor and a microchip would make better diagnoses and recommendations that you could, then it might be your duty to sacrifice your own intellectual flourishing to the medical good of others.

I find myself pulled to the following two claims:

1. If nothing lasting can come from human activity (think of Russell's description of everything returning "again to the nebula"), then no human life has much meaning.
2. If nothing lasting can come from human activity, some human lives (e.g., lives lived in loving service to others) still have much meaning.

If the conditionals in (1) and (2) are material, then there is an easy way to reconcile these two intuitions. For if they are material conditionals, then (1) and (2) together entail:

3. Something lasting can come from human activity.

This seems too facile. (Maybe only because I am not sufficiently convinced by my arguments here. But I also think that this interpretation ignores the anti-material marker "still" in (2).) But here is a more sophisticated hypothesis about these two intuitions. Suppose that God has designed our world so that only events that can have eternal significance are deeply morally significant. Then it is contingently true that:

4. Nothing that lacks eternal significance has deep moral significance.

5. If lives of loving service to others lacked eternal significance, they would still have deep moral significance

This hypothesis would explain why we are drawn to (1). We are drawn to (1) because we have a deep divinely implanted intuition that (4) is true, and (4) makes (1) very plausible. Moreover, the hypothesis can explain why we are drawn to (2), namely that with reflection we discover (5) to be true. (Contrary to what the name "subjunctive conditional" suggests, we do use the indicative mood for subjunctive conditionals sometimes.)

The hypothesis also explains why it is hard to find arguments for (1), why belief in (1) is more of a gut feeling than an argued position, but nonetheless a gut feeling that it is hard to get rid of.

Finally, the hypothesis is compatible with the possibility of there being non-theists like Russell who overcome their pull to (1). The intuition isn't irresistable. The only plausible story as to how (4) can be true is that, in fact, God makes all morally significant things have potential eternal effects. So a non-theist is likely to realize that (4) fits poorly with her overall view, and hence get rid of (4).

This hypothesis about (1) and (2) charitably does about as much justice as can be done to both intuitions simultaneously. This gives us not insignificant reason to think the hypothesis is true, and hence that there exists a God who makes morally significant events have potentially eternal effects.

Of course, one might come up with naturalistic explanations of the pull to (1) and (2). But I suspect that these naturalistic explanations will end up simply denying one of the two intuitions, and then explaining why we have this mistaken view. An explanation of our intuitions on which the intuitions are true is to be preferred for anti-sceptical reasons.

I will use "p→q" for the indicative conditional "if p, then q". I will use "p⊃q" for the material conditional "(not p) or q". I will say that "indicatives are material" providing that p→q and p⊃q are logically equivalent for all p and q, where a and b are logically equivalent if and only if it is necessary that (a if and only if b). I will say that p entails q provided that it is necessary that p⊃q.

Almost no philosopher thinks indicatives are material. There are very plausible counterexamples. For instance, suppose it is lightly raining in Seattle and Seattle is not having a drought. Let p be "Seattle is having heavy rain" and let q be "Seattle is having a drought". Then p⊃q, since p is false. But it seems quite wrong to say that if Seattle is having heavy rain, then Seattle is having a drought, so p→q doesn't seem to be true.

I am going to offer some arguments that indicatives are material. Say that → is non-hyperintensional provided p→q and p*→q* are logically equivalent whenever p and p* are logically equivalent and q and q* are logically equivalent. Consider the following two theses:

1. For any possible world w: (p at w) → (q at w) if and only if (p→q at w).
2. For any predicates F and G, from "Every F is a G" (where "x is an F" is more euphonious way of saying that x satisfies F) together with the assumption that c exists, it logically follows that if c is an F, then c is a G.

3. If (1) is true and → is non-hyperintensional, then indicatives are material.
4. If (2) is true and → is non-hyperintensional, then indicatives are material.

5. If (2) is true, then one has to assign the same truth value as the material conditional does to a number of paradoxical-sounding examples of indicative conditional sentences that are relevantly just like the standard alleged counterexamples to the thesis that all indicatives are material.

Argument for (5): Take my heavy rain and drought in Seattle case. Suppose that as it happens, there is no place where there presently is heavy rain. Let Fx say that x is having heavy rain. Let Gx say that x is having drought. Then all Fs are Gs. (If you think, with Aristotle, that "All Fs are Gs" requires there to be an F, then add the premise that on Venus somewhere right now there is a drought but a very, very brief heavy rain is currently occurring. I will leave out such modifications in the future.) Then by (2), we have to say that if F(Seattle), then G(Seattle):

6. If Seattle is having heavy rain, then Seattle is having drought.

We can also use (2) to manufacture a true-antecedent, true-consequent case. Suppose that it is raining in both Seattle and the Sahara. Then the following is a standard alleged counterexample of the true-antecedent, true-consequent sort:

7. If it's raining in Seattle, then it's raining in the Sahara.

8. If earth is a planet on which it is raining in Seattle, then earth is a planet on which it is raining in the Sahara.

Argument for (3): First we need a special case:

9. If p and q are non-contingent and → is non-hyperintensional, then p→q is logically equivalent to p⊃q.

10. 2+2=4→2+3=5. (necessary, necessary)
11. 2+2=5→2+3=6. (impossible, impossible)
12. 2+2=5→ (2+2=5 or 1+1=2 or both). (impossible, necessary)
13. 2+2=4→2+2=5. (necessary, impossible)

The argument for (3) is now easy. Observe that (p at w) and (q at w) are non-contingent, even if p and q are contingent. So,

14. (p at w) → (q at w) is logically equivalent to (p at w) ⊃ (q at w).

15. (p⊃q at w) is logically equivalent to (p at w) ⊃ (q at w).

16. (p→q at w) is logically equivalent to (p⊃q at w)

Argument for (4): The most intuitive form of the argument is to assume theism, and let Fx say that x is an omniscient being that knows that p, and let Gx say that x knows that q. Then as long as p⊃q, it will be the case that every F is a G (just think about the four possible truth-value combinations). Hence:

17. If God is an omniscient being that knows that p, then God knows that q.

If we don't want to suppose there is a God, let's suppose that numbers and sets exist necessarily. Let P be the singleton set whose only member is p. Let Q be the singleton set whose only members is q. Then, let Fx say that x is greater than zero and x equals the number of truths in P. Let Gx say that x is greater than zero and x equals the number of truths in Q. Then, if p⊃q, it is easy to see that all Fs are Gs, so:

18. If one is greater than zero and one equals the number of truths in P, then one is greater than zero and one equals the number of truths in Q.