Austen McDougal

Work on the axiology of theism typically discusses God’s value in terms of the discrete values and disvalues contributed by God’s existence. In contrast, I motivate a novel approach to the question of God’s value along the lines of a fitting-response theory of value. However, the modes of value that are familiar from fitting response theories do not seem to do justice to the depth of that question. In order more fully to understand the ways in which God’s value is distinctive, we must look to certain responses that are uniquely fitting towards God—my discussion focuses on awe and prayer. Because such responses are neither positively nor negatively valenced, however, I argue that we should loosen our grip on a valenced notion of value and instead think more broadly about how God matters.

This paper begins by bringing love and hate into tension via the ideal that you ought to love your enemy. The trouble with loving your enemy is that they may seem to merit hate instead, especially in cases of serious injustice. I develop this simple thought into a challenge for loving your enemy: that you cannot be required to do what makes no sense to you. This challenge is not adequately met by extant explanations for why you ought to love your enemy within the Christian tradition and its heirs, which tend to give reasons that are either insufficient or else instrumentalize love. The second half of the paper presents a solution with a very different shape to the challenge. I argue that love may still be fitting even when your enemy fails to merit love, notwithstanding the contemporary orthodoxy about fittingness. What makes it fitting to love your enemy depends on the fact (if it is one) that you yourself have received unmerited love. You may thereby have reason to exclude the issue of merit from consideration; what is more, you have reason to love out of gratitude for the unmerited love that you yourself received.

Should punishment be abated for offenders suffering from amnesia? Philosophers have largely overlooked this question. Extant views cluster around a straightforward answer: deserving punishment depends on remembering one’s crime. However, arguments for that view rely on implausible assumptions; the view also implies that offenders could manipulate how much punishment they deserve. Instead, uneasiness about punishing amnesiacs should be traced to distinctive grounds for showing mercy. Amnesiacs who cannot access their past motives are unable to fully comprehend their own role in bringing punishment upon themselves and unable to situate their decisions within a satisfying narrative arc of their lives.

Consequentialist theories that directly assess multiple focal points face an important objection: that one right option may conflict with another. Robert Adams raises an instance of this objection regarding the possibility that the right act conflicts with the right motives. Whereas only partial responses have previously been given, assuming particular views of the relation between motives and acts, an exhaustive treatment is in order. Either motives psychologically determine acts, or they do not – and I defend direct consequentialism on each assumption. Crucially, if motives determine acts, this may be compatible with the ability to act otherwise, but there remains a defense for consequentialism even on these assumptions. What clears consequentialism of conflict is not necessarily that the apparently right act is unavailable, but rather that its outcome is suboptimal once we account for necessary motives. Even if the agent remains free to perform the act, the act costs too much.