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238Martin on MiraclesPhilo 10 (1): 27-34. 2007.Michael Martin introduces a non-Humean conception of miracles according to which miracles are events that need not violate a law of nature and are brought about by the exercise of a possibly non-theistic, supernatural power. Call those m-miracles. I consider Martin’s argument that the occurrence of an m-miracle would not confirm the existence of God. Martin presents an interesting argument, but it does not establish that m-miracles would not confirm the existence God. I argue that, on the contra…Read more
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198Chance, epistemic probability and saving lives: Reply to BradleyJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 2010 (1): 1-1. 2009.No abstract.
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88The paradoxes of Feldman's neo-utilitarianismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (4). 1992.This Article does not have an abstract
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57Ideal worlds and the transworld untrustworthyReligious Studies 40 (1): 113-123. 2004.The celebrated free-will defence was designed to show that the ideal-world thesis presents no challenge to theism. The ideal-world thesis states that, in any world in which God exists, He can actualize a world containing moral good and no moral evil. I consider an intriguing two-stage argument that Michael Bergmann advances for the free-will defence, and show that the argument provides atheologians with no reason to abandon the ideal-world thesis. I show next that the existence of worlds in whic…Read more
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50On Infinitely Improving WorldsPhilo 8 (1): 38-46. 2005.William Rowe argues that an essentially perfectly good being could not actualize a world unless there is no better world it could actualize instead. According to Rowe’s Argument from Improvability, if there is an infinite series of ever-improving and actualizable worlds then a perfect being could actualize exactly none of them. I argue that there is no reason to believe Rowe’s argument is sound. It therefore presents no important objection to theism.
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66Freedom, God, and worldsOxford University Press. 2012.Michael J. Almeida presents a bold new defence of the existence of God. He argues that entrenched principles in philosophical theology which have served as basic assumptions in apriori, atheological arguments are in fact philosophical dogmas. Almeida argues that not only are such principles false - they are necessarily false.
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351Rowe's Argument from ImprovabilityPhilosophical Papers 35 (1): 1-25. 2006.William Rowe has argued that if there is an infinite sequence of improving worlds then an essentially perfectly good being must actualize some world in the sequence and must not actualize any world in the sequence. Since that is impossible, there exist no perfectly good beings. I show that Rowe's argument assumes that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent. Since we are given no reason to believe that the concept of a maximally great being is incoherent we have no reason to believe…Read more
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54A paradox for significant freedomInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 54 (3): 175-184. 2003.
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209Too much (and not enough) of a good thing: How agent neutral principles fail in prisoner's dilemmasPhilosophical Studies 94 (3): 309-328. 1999.
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920Reply to Trakakis and NagasawaArs Disputandi 5 5-11. 2005.Nick Trakakis and Yujin Nagasawa criticise the argument in Almeida and Oppy . According to Trakakis and Nagasawa, we are mistaken in our claim that the sceptical theist response to evidential arguments from evil is unacceptable because it would undermine ordinary moral reasoning. In their view, there is no good reason to think that sceptical theism leads to an objectionable form of moral scepticism. We disagree. In this paper, we explain why we think that the argument of Nagasawa and Trakakis fa…Read more
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185T. Ryan Byerly: The mechanics of divine foreknowledge and providence: a time-ordering account: Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, 2014, 131 pages, $100 (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 77 (3): 255-259. 2015.One major aim of the book is to articulate a view of the mechanics of infallible divine foreknowledge that avoids commitment to causal determinism, explains how infallible foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom, and explains how God’s divine providence is compatible with human freedom and indeterministic events. The modest epistemic goal is to articulate a view that enjoys a not very low epistemic status. But even with such modest goals, I think the view cannot credibly be said to offer …Read more
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210On Vague EschatologyFaith and Philosophy 25 (4): 359-375. 2008.Ted Sider’s Proportionality of Justice condition requires that any two moral agents instantiating nearly the same moral state be treated in nearly the same way. I provide a countermodel in supervaluation semantics to the proportionality of justice condition. It is possible that moral agents S and S' are in nearly the same moral state, S' is beyond all redemption and S is not. It is consistent with perfect justice then that moral agents that are not beyond redemption go determinately to heaven an…Read more
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256Refuting Van Inwagen's 'refutation': Evidentialism againInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1). 1998.
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162Opportunistic carnivorismJournal of Applied Philosophy 17 (2). 2000.Some carnivores defend the position that the opportunistic consumption of meat is morally permissible even under the assumption that it is morally wrong to act in ways that ause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings. Ordering and consuming chicken once a week, they argue, will not increase the numbers of chickens suffering or slaughtered, since the system of purchasing and farming chickens is not sufficiently fine‐tuned to register differences at margin. We argue that, insensitivity of the ma…Read more
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31A Frightening Love: Recasting the Problem of Evil by Gleeson Andrew (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (3): 607-610. 2013.No abstract
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69The enlargement of life: Moral imagination at work – John Kekes (review)Philosophical Quarterly 58 (231). 2008.
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190Rowe's argument from freedomInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 53 (2): 83-91. 2003.
The Ohio State University
Alumnus
San Antonio, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Metaphysics |
20th Century Analytic Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Language |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |