University of Notre Dame
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1985
Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  •  95
    Commentary: Practical Wisdom and Theory
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 21 (3): 404-408. 2012.
    This paper is an ethical reflection on the real-life case of "Angela", a highly intelligent but severely anorexic young woman who wishes to refuse all but palliative treatment. It is part of CQHE's "Ethics Committees and Consultants at Work" series, in response to the essay, "Starving for Perfection."
  •  199
    Temporal Wholes and the Problem of Evil
    Religious Studies 29 (3). 1993.
    I borrow an idea from the fiction of C. S. Lewis that future outcomes may affect the value of past events. I explain and defend this idea via the concept of a "temporal whole", and then show its promise as a part of a theodicy, and its resonance with Christian theism in general.
  •  234
    Review: Sabina Lovibond, Ethical Formation (Harvard, 2002) (review)
    Mind 113 (449): 189-192. 2004.
    A critical review of Sabina Lovibond's book Ethical Formation (2004).
  •  224
    Naturalistic Ethics and the Argument from Evil
    Faith and Philosophy 8 (3): 368-379. 1991.
    Philosophical naturalism is a cluster of views and impulses typically taken to include atheism, physicalism, radical empiricism or naturalized epistemology, and some sort of relativism, subjectivism or nihilism about morality. I argue that a problem arises when the naturalist offers the argument from evil for atheism. Since the argument from evil is a moral argument, it cannot be effectively deployed by anyone who holds the denatured ethical theories that the naturalist typically holds. In the c…Read more