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55Ideal 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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48On 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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30Chance, Epistemic Probability, and Saving Lives: Reply to BradleyJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5 (1). 2010.No abstract.
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30O’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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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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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.
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Evidential arguments from evilIn Graham Robert Oppy (ed.), Arguing About Gods, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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 |