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176Rowe's argument from freedomInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 53 (2): 83-91. 2003.
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246Is It Impossible to Be Moral?Dialogue 44 (1): 3-13. 2005.ABSTRACT: Recent work in moral theory includes an intriguing new argument that the vagueness of moral properties, together with two well-known and well-received metaethical principles, entails the incredible conclusion that it is impossible to be moral. I show that the argument equivocates between “it is true that A and B are morally indistinguishable” and “it is not false that A and B are morally indistinguishable.” As expected the argument is interesting but unsound. It is therefore not imposs…Read more
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59Critically Muddled: A Reply to CarrierPhilo 11 (1): 120-129. 2008.In a recent article in Philo I critique William Rowe’s new evidential argument from evil. Richard Carrier claims I advance an argument for theism in that article and proposes a counterexample to that argument. I show that Carrier’s counterexample fails for reasons that are fairly obvious. I then offer help. The best chance for a counterexample to the argument I offer comes from the possibility of cryptid creatures. But it is not difficult to show that counterexamples from cryptic creatures also …Read more
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100Deontic logic and the possibility of moral conflictErkenntnis 33 (1). 1990.Standard dyadic deontic logic (as well as standard deontic logic) has recently come under attack by moral philosophers who maintain that the axioms of standard dyadic deontic logic are biased against moral theories which generate moral conflicts. Since moral theories which generate conflicts are at least logically tenable, it is argued, standard dyadic deontic logic should be modified so that the set of logically possible moral theories includes those which generate such conflicts. I argue that …Read more
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76The New Evidential Argument DefeatedPhilo 7 (1): 22-35. 2004.In his most recent version of the evidential argument from evil, William Rowe argues that the observation of no outweighing goods for certain evils constitutes significant evidence against theism. I show that the new evidential argument cannot challenge theism unless it is also reasonable to believe that no good we know of justifies God in permitting any evil at all. Since the new evidential argument provides no reason at all to believe that God is not justified in permitting any existing evil, …Read more
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477Supervenience and property-identical divine-command theoryReligious Studies 40 (3): 323-333. 2004.Property-identical divine-command theory (PDCT) is the view that being obligatory is identical to being commanded by God in just the way that being water is identical to being H2O. If these identity statements are true, then they express necessary a posteriori truths. PDCT has been defended in Robert M. Adams (1987) and William Alston (1990). More recently Mark C. Murphy (2002) has argued that property-identical divine-command theory is inconsistent with two well-known and well-received theses: …Read more
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144On Evil's Vague NecessityIn Jonathan L. Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion: Volume 2, Oxford University Press Uk. 2009.
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57Fales, Evan. Divine Intervention: Metaphysical and Epistemological Puzzles (review)Review of Metaphysics 65 (4): 868-870. 2012.
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281A Posteriori AnselmianismTopoi 36 (4): 599-607. 2017.I argue that Anselmians ought to abandon traditional Anselmianism in favor of Moderate Anselmianism. Moderate Anselmianism advances the view that a being x = God iff for every essential property P of x, it is secondarily necessary that x has P, for most essential properties of x, it is not primarily necessary that x has P and the essential properties of x include omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness and necessary existence. Traditional Anselmians have no cogent response to most a priori at…Read more
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Evidential arguments from evilIn Graham Oppy (ed.), Arguing About Gods, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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206Martin 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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167Chance, epistemic probability and saving lives: Reply to BradleyJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 2010 (1): 1-1. 2009.No abstract.
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56Ideal 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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85The paradoxes of Feldman's neo-utilitarianismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (4). 1992.This Article does not have an abstract
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49On 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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65Freedom, 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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52A paradox for significant freedomInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 54 (3): 175-184. 2003.
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300Rowe'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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189Too 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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895Reply 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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178T. 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
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 |