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This chapter defends an externalist analysis of justification, focusing on its proper function requirement. It identifies three ways a popular evidentialist view needs improvement, and argues that the proper function analysis captures the recommended improvements. It then highlights some virtues of the analysis, including the fact that because it has no reliability requirement, it is an externalist position that avoids the usual objections to reliabilist accounts of justification. The chapter concludes by responding to several objections.

In an earlier chapter, the author argues that naturalists can justifiably accept realism about material objects only if the methods of science justify belief in intrinsic modal properties. One suggestion as to how they might do this is as follows: beliefs attributing intrinsic modal properties to material objects are justified because their truth provides a good explanation for the existence of proper functions in nature. This examines this suggestion and argues that, except in the case of objects that are the products of design, proper functions are not empirically detectable.

Alvin Plantinga's moderate foundationalism is rooted philosophically in Thomas Reid's common‐sense realism, while its theological background is found in the emphasis within Reformed theology upon faith as knowledge mediated through the sensus divinitatis. Plantinga offers a theory of warrant (as opposed to justification) that assumes externalism and is predicated on the concept of proper function (and so a designer). This theory can be combined with a realist view of concept acquisition through the process of divine illumination. Plantinga's specific account of warranted Christian belief combines the function of the sensus with the internal instigation of the Holy Spirit upon the reading of Scripture. While the theory can also be used to provide an account of prima facie warrant for non‐Christian belief systems (e.g. Mormonism), further work can be done to fine‐tune the theory and make it specific to Christian belief.

In Warrant and Proper Function and in Knowledge of God, Alvin Plantinga provides an intelligent design argument for the existence of God. Plantina's key premise is that “naturalism” cannot account for the proper functions of natural traits, but God as intelligent designer can. His argument for this premise relies on a thought experiment involving a Hitler-like madman and his henchmen. This chapter criticizes Platinga's thought experiment through careful attention to both intelligent design and natural selection as sources of functions and standards for normal functioning.

Among objections to Christian belief, we can distinguish between de facto objections and de jure objections, i.e., between those that claim that Christian belief is false (de facto objections) and those that claim that Christian belief, whether or not true, is at any rate unjustifiable, or rationally unjustified, or irrational, or not intellectually respectable, or in some other way rationally unacceptable (de jure objections). In this chapter, I ask whether there is a viable de jure objection to Christian belief formulated in terms of rationality, i.e., I ask whether the objection that Christian belief is not rational is a strong one. In order to assess this sort of objection, we must be clear on what is meant by the term “rational,” and so I distinguish several senses of that term: (1) Aristotelian rationality, (2) rationality as proper function, (3) rationality as within or conforming to the deliverances of reason, (4) means–end rationality, (5) deontological rationality, and (6) William Alston's practical rationality. I conclude that there is no viable de jure objection to Christian belief in terms of any of these senses of rationality, with a possible exception of the second – rationality as proper function. In the next chapter (Ch. 5), I begin to explore this remaining possibility and take up the question of the relation between proper function, warrant, and de jure objections to Christian belief.

This chapter focuses on intentionality, specifically, on how mental states acquire their intentional contents (their ‘aboutness’). In previous chapters it was noted that the affect expressions and STBPs of human neonates are interpreted as or function as assistance/attention soliciting devices by preadapted caregivers. Given this, the chapter focuses on theories of function and biosemantics (a naturalistic theory of intentionality). Both theories adopted are due to Millikan (1984, 2004); the first relates to Proper Function and, the second, to natural, intentional and linguistic signs. Her theory explains how one sign type can emerge from another through a bootstrapping process. The analyses demonstrate that representations are defined by the way they function, not just in the head, but in wider cognitive systems which include representation-producing devices, objects in the environment and representation-consuming devices.

Knowledge is (strongly) warranted (strong) true belief. For the internalist, a belief being warranted is it being justified (in the sense of the belief being rendered inductively probable by other beliefs and ultimately by basic beliefs), where the justification does not proceed through or otherwise depend on a false belief. For the main kind of externalist, the reliabilist, a belief being warranted is it being produced by a type of process that normally produces true beliefs. For Plantinga, the central element in a belief being warranted is it being produced by a properly functioning cognitive process; but I argue that his account reduces to a reliabilist account. Knowledge is only more worth having than strong true belief if warrant is intrinsically valuable (i.e. valuable in itself, in addition to the fact that it has led to truth). Internalist warrant is intrinsically valuable, but externalist warrant is not. .

This chapter examines the role that is played in the debate on what is and what is not the adequate theory of function, by the claim that “function” is an inherently normative concept. It explores exactly how the theories that claim to be able to account for the normativity of function go about doing this. This chapter shows that the proponents of proper function (PF) -type theories do not treat their preferred concept of “function” as being inherently normative. It suggests that systems-with-a-design (SD) theory's central notion of “type fixation” be given a stronger naturalistic footing.

This chapter seeks to clarify how we can be responsible for inherited sins or virtues. “Augustinian compatibilism” contends that we are responsible for our beliefs and loves, and (in)actions motivated by them, when we are properly functioning. Because we are social creatures, dependent, and not simply self-made, we are responsible for aspects of our identities that have been given to us. We may be more responsible for what we choose, but we can be at least minimally responsible for what we do not voluntarily control, but nevertheless believe or desire, when we are not malfunctioning (for instance: we are reason-responsive). This claim is developed by considering how we should think about responsibility and blame in cases of autism, antisocial personality disorder, kleptomania, and schizophrenia. I argue that disease does not necessarily excuse us from responsibility or blame. Indeed, when one is infected with immoral beliefs and loves, that indicts.