Paley’s Principle:

William Paley objects to David Hume’s sceptical arguments against miracle testimony by asserting what looks like a methodological principle of argumentation: only reject shared testimony from multiple credible sources if a reasonable alternative explanation for the testimony is available. Call this Paley’s Principle. Other writers, from Plutarch to Richard Dawkins, have either supported Paley directly in this claim or offered similar thoughts about the importance of alternative explanations. I explore the kind of norm or obligation that Paley’s Principle could express, and discuss some empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of alternative explanations in changing people’s minds. A defensible element of Paley’s claim is more a matter of how we treat interlocutors than of how we treat evidence; but the two overlap when the evidence cited in an argument is testimonial.