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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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52A paradox for significant freedomInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 54 (3): 175-184. 2003.
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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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31O’Connor’s Permissive MultiversePhilosophia Christi 12 (2): 297-307. 2010.I distinguish restrictive and permissive multiverse solutions to the problems of evil and no best world. Restrictive multiverses do not admit a single instance of gratuitous evil and they are not improvable. I show that restrictive multiverses unacceptably entail that all modal distinctions collapse. I consider Timothy O’Connor’s permissive multiverse. I show that a perfect creator minimizes aggregative suffering in permissive multiverses only if the actual universe is not included in any actual…Read more
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30Chance, Epistemic Probability, and Saving Lives: Reply to BradleyJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5 (1). 2010.No abstract.
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19Arthur Ron Miller, 1949-2006Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 80 (2). 2006.
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12What Norms or Values Define Excellent Philosophy of Religion?Philosophy of Religion: Big Questions. 2018.
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9Review of Intuitions as Evidence, by Joel Pust (review)Essays in Philosophy 5 (1): 120-123. 2004.
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3Unrestricted Actualization and Perfect Worlds: Reply to LangtryOxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 9. 2019.
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2Rule Utilitarianism and the Right to DieIn James M. Humber & Robert F. Almeder (eds.), Biomedical Ethics Review: Is There a Duty to die?, Springer. 2000.
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Evidential arguments from evilIn Graham Oppy (ed.), Arguing About Gods, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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God and Moral Law: On the Theistic Explanation of Morality (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 5 1-8. 2012.
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Utility Pumps and the Value of Partial ComplianceIn Imperceptible Harms and Benefits, Springer. 2000.
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Skeptical Theism and Undercutting DefeatersIn Trent Dougherty & Justin P. McBrayer (eds.), New Essays on Skeptical Theism, Oxford University Press. pp. 115-131. 2014.
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Theistic Modal Realism?In Jonathan L. Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion Volume 3, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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Best Worlds and MultiversesIn KIaas Kraay (ed.), God and the Multiverse: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives, Routledge. 2014.
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Rollbacks, Endorsements, and IndeterminismIn Mike Almeida & Mark H. Bernstein (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd Edition. pp. 484-498. 2010.
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Replies to Commentaries: On Discovering God in the PluriverseIn Kirk Lougheed (ed.), Four Views on the Axiology of Theism: What Difference Does God Make?, Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 50-58. 2020.
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 |