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116The Virtues of God and the Foundations of EthicsFaith and Philosophy 15 (4): 538-553. 1998.In this paper I give a theological foundation to a radical type of virtue ethics I call motivation-based. In motivation-based virtue theory all moral concepts are derivative from the concept of a good motive, the most basic component of a virtue, where what I mean by a motive is an emotion that initiates and directs action towards an end. Here I give a foundation to motivation-based virtue theory by making the motivations of one person in particular the ultimate foundation of all moral value, an…Read more
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267Morality and religionIn William J. Wainwright (ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of religion, Oxford University Press. 2005.Almost all religions contain a code of morality, and in spite of the factthat there are moral codes and philosophies that do not rely upon anyreligion, it has been traditionally argued that there are at least threeimportant ways in which morality needs religion: the goal of the morallife is unreachable without religious practice, religion is necessary toprovide moral motivation, and religion provides morality with itsfoundation and justification. These three ways in which morality may needreligi…Read more
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2The admirable life and the desirable lifeIn Timothy Chappell (ed.), Values and Virtues: Aristotelianism in Contemporary Ethics, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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28A New Foreknowledge DilemmaProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 63 (n/a): 139. 1989.
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1Ideal agents and ideal observers in epistemologyIn Stephen Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology Futures, Clarendon Press. 2006.
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676The Uniqueness of PersonsJournal of Religious Ethics 29 (3). 2001.Persons are thought to have a special kind of value, often called "dignity," which, according to Kant, makes them both infinitely valuable and irreplaceably valuable. The author aims to identify what makes a person a person in a way that can explain both aspects of dignity. She considers five definitions of "person": (1) an individual substance of a rational nature (Boethius), (2) a self-conscious being (Locke), (3) a being with the capacity to act for ends (Kant), (4) a being with the capacity …Read more
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3Foreknowledge and FreedomIn Philip Quinn & Charles Taliaferro (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Blackwell. 1997.
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20Reported Miracles (review)Philosophical Review 105 (4): 538-540. 1996.Joseph Houston’s book is a fine contribution to the philosophical investigation of the value of miracle reports for religious apologetics. It covers a wide range of arguments of interest to philosophers about the concept of miracles and the justifiability of belief in their occurrence, but it is also rich in theological and biblical sources. Houston’s reasoning throughout is careful and subtle, but neither technical nor excessively pedantic. So while the book is primarily intended for scholars, …Read more
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255Ethical and epistemic egoism and the ideal of autonomyEpisteme 4 (3): 252-263. 2007.In this paper I distinguish three degrees of epistemic egoism, each of which has an ethical analogue, and I argue that all three are incoherent. Since epistemic autonomy is frequently identified with one of these forms of epistemic egoism, it follows that epistemic autonomy as commonly understood is incoherent. I end with a brief discussion of the idea of moral autonomy and suggest that its component of epistemic autonomy in the realm of the moral is problematic
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1Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief and the Aquinas/Calvin Model.”Philosophical Books 43 117-123. 2002.
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71Virtues of the Mind, SelectionsIn Ernest Sosa (ed.), Epistemology: An Anthology, Blackwell. pp. 442. 2008.
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250Does Ethics Need God?Faith and Philosophy 4 (3): 294-303. 1987.This essay presents a moral argument for the rationality of theistic belief. If all I have to go on morally are my own moral intuitions and reasoning and those of others, I am rationally led to skepticism, both about the possibility of moral knowledge and about my moral effectiveness. This skepticism is extensive, amounting to moral despair. But such despair cannot be rational. It follows that the assumption of the argument must be false and I must be able to rely on more than my own human power…Read more
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207The Philosophy of Religion: An Historical IntroductionWiley-Blackwell. 2007.An accessible and engaging introduction to the philosophy of religion. Written with verve and clarity by a leading philosopher and contributor to the field Places key issues and debates in the philosophy of religion in their historical contexts, highlighting the conditions that led to the development of the field Addresses the core topics, among them the the existence of God, the problem of evil, death and the afterlife, and the problem of religious diversity Rich with argument, yet never obtrus…Read more
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Self-trust and the diversity of religionsIn Philip L. Quinn & Paul J. Weithman (eds.), Liberal Faith: Essays in Honor of Philip Quinn, University of Notre Dame Press. 2008.
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9God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time, by Alan G. Padgett (review)Philosophy in Review 13 (4): 179-181. 1993.
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405From Reliabilism to Virtue EpistemologyThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 5 173-179. 2000.In Virtues of the Mind I object to process reliabilism on the grounds that it does not explain the good of knowledge in addition to the good of true belief. In this paper I wish to develop this objection in more detail, and will then argue that this problem pushes us first in the direction of two offspring of process reliabilism—faculty reliabilism and proper functionalism, and, finally, to a true virtue epistemology.
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70Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment (review)Faith and Philosophy 6 (1): 103-110. 1989.
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1405Epistemic Value and the Primacy of What We Care AboutPhilosophical Papers 33 (3): 353-377. 2004.Abstract In this paper I argue that to understand the ethics of belief we need to put it in a context of what we care about. Epistemic values always arise from something we care about and they arise only from something we care about. It is caring that gives rise to the demand to be epistemically conscientious. The reason morality puts epistemic demands on us is that we care about morality. But there may be a (small) class of beliefs which it is not wrong to hold unconscientiously. I also argue t…Read more
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197Epistemic TrustPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 10 (2): 113-117. 2003.The value of epistemic trust has been neglected, as Townsley rightly observes, but I think a virtue epistemology of the kind I endorse is well suited to provide a framework for understanding it. The Cassandra of Greek legend illustrates the complex relationships among epistemic and non-epistemic goods, as well as the fragility of knowledge. I think her case leads us to a more radical conclusion than the one Townsley proposes.
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8Comprised of readings from ancient to modern times, this volume offers a comprehensive introduction to the central questions of the philosophy of religion. Provides a history of the philosophy of religion, from antiquity up to the twentieth century Each section is preceded by extensive commentary written by the editors, followed by readings that are arranged chronologically Designed to be accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students.
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3Virtue EpistemologyIn Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal, Routledge. 1998.
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63Must knowers be agentsIn Abrol Fairweather & Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (eds.), Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, Oxford University Press. pp. 142--57. 2001.
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3653The Search for the Source of Epistemic GoodMetaphilosophy 34 (1-2): 12-28. 2003.Knowledge has almost always been treated as good, better than mere true belief, but it is remarkably difficult to explain what it is about knowledge that makes it better. I call this “the value problem.” I have previously argued that most forms of reliabilism cannot handle the value problem. In this article I argue that the value problem is more general than a problem for reliabilism, infecting a host of different theories, including some that are internalist. An additional problem is that not a…Read more