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222Skeptical theism and moral obligationInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 65 (2). 2009.Skeptical theism claims that the probability of a perfect God’s existence isn’t at all reduced by our failure to see how such a God could allow the horrific suffering that occurs in our world. Given our finite grasp of the realm of value, skeptical theists argue, it shouldn’t surprise us that we fail to see the reasons that justify God in allowing such suffering, and thus our failure to see those reasons is no evidence against God’s existence or perfection. Critics object that skeptical theism i…Read more
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932Ordinary Morality Implies AtheismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (2). 2009.I present a "moral argument" for the nonexistence of God. Theism, I argue, can’t accommodate an ordinary and fundamental moral obligation acknowledged by many people, including many theists. My argument turns on a principle that a number of philosophers already accept as a constraint on God’s treatment of human beings. I defend the principle against objections from those inclined to reject it
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12Closing the ‘Is’-‘Ought’ GapCanadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (3): 349-365. 1998.In a dense and fascinating article of some ten years ago, Toomas Karmo adds his voice to the chorus of philosophers who deny the possibility of soundly deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is.’ According to Karmo, no derivation containing an ethical conclusion and only non-ethical premises can possibly be sound, where ‘sound’ describes a deductively valid derivation all of whose premises are true. He also suggests that the only valid derivations of ‘ought’ from ‘is’ will be trivial ones. His argument has, to …Read more
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404A Dilemma for SkepticsTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 29 (1): 23-34. 2010.Some of the most enduring skeptical arguments invoke stories of deception -- the evil demon, convincing dreams, an envatted brain, the Matrix -- in order to show that we have no first-order knowledge of the external world. I confront such arguments with a dilemma: either (1) they establish no more than the logical possibility of error, in which case they fail to threaten fallible knowledge, the only kind of knowledge of the external world most of us think we have anyway; or (2) they defeat thems…Read more
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4902Atheism and the Basis of MoralityIn A. W. Musschenga & Anton van Harskamp (eds.), What Makes Us Moral?, Springer. pp. 257-269. 2013.People in many parts of the world link morality with God and see good ethical values as an important benefit of theistic belief. A recent survey showed that Americans, for example, distrust atheists more than any other group listed in the survey, this distrust stemming mainly from the conviction that only believers in God can be counted on to respect morality. I argue against this widespread tendency to see theism as the friend of morality. I argue that our most serious moral obligations -- the …Read more
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259Stop Asking Why There’s AnythingErkenntnis 77 (1): 51-63. 2012.Why is there anything, rather than nothing at all? This question often serves as a debating tactic used by theists to attack naturalism. Many people apparently regard the question—couched in such stark, general terms—as too profound for natural science to answer. It is unanswerable by science, I argue, not because it’s profound or because science is superficial but because the question, as it stands, is ill-posed and hence has no answer in the first place. In any form in which it is well-posed, …Read more
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25Our Errant Epistemic AimPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (4): 869-876. 1995.Often the first issue addressed by a theory of justified belief is the aim, goal, purpose, or objective of epistemic justification. What, in short, is the point of epistemic justification? Or, to put it a bit differently, why value justification: why is it worth having or pursuing? Prominent epistemologists, including both externalists and internalists, have proposed the following answer: the ultimate aim of epistemic justification is to maximize true belief and minimize false belief. This answe…Read more
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108Cornea and ClosureFaith and Philosophy 24 (1): 83-86. 2007.Could our observations of apparently pointless evil ever justify the conclusion that God does not exist? Not according to Stephen Wykstra, who several years ago announced the “Condition of Reasonable Epistemic Access,” or “CORNEA,” a principle that has sustained critiques of atheistic arguments from evil ever since. Despite numerous criticisms aimed at CORNEA in recent years, the principle continues to be invoked and defended. We raise a new objection: CORNEA is false because it entails intolera…Read more
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74Anselmian atheismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (1). 2005.On the basis of Chapter 15 of Anselm's Proslogion, I develop an argument that confronts theology with a trilemma: atheism, utter mysticism, or radical anti-Anselmianism. The argument establishes a disjunction of claims that Anselmians in particular, but not only they, will find disturbing: (a) God does not exist, (b) no human being can have even the slightest conception of God, or (c) the Anselmian requirement of maximal greatness in God is wrong. My own view, for which I argue briefly, is that …Read more
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32Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious ExperiencePhilosophical Review 102 (3): 430. 1993.
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4Linda Martin Alcoff, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 16 (6): 385-387. 1996.
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147Closing the ‘Is’-‘Ought’ GapCanadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (3): 349-366. 1998.In a dense and fascinating article of some ten years ago, Toomas Karmo adds his voice to the chorus of philosophers who deny the possibility of soundly deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is.’ According to Karmo, no derivation containing an ethical conclusion and only non-ethical premises can possibly be sound, where ‘sound’ describes a deductively valid derivation all of whose premises are true. He also suggests that the only valid derivations of ‘ought’ from ‘is’ will be trivial ones. His argument has, to …Read more
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827The impossibility of local skepticismPhilosophia 34 (4): 453-464. 2006.According to global skepticism, we know nothing. According to local skepticism, we know nothing in some particular area or domain of discourse. Unlike their global counterparts, local skeptics think they can contain our invincible ignorance within limited bounds. I argue that they are mistaken. Local skepticism, particularly the kinds that most often get defended, cannot stay local: if there are domains whose truths we cannot know, then there must be claims outside those domains that we cannot k…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |