Eli Haitov

Andre Leo Rusavuk attempts to undermine Molinism by arguing that the doctrine of middle knowledge entails God’s subjection to circumstantial moral luck. According to Rusavuk, Molinism implies that God’s good actions and therefore the degree of His praiseworthiness depend upon the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, which are not under His control. I critique this argument by showing that when properly defined, the praiseworthiness of God cannot depend on contingent actions or circumstances but only upon His morally perfect nature. If God’s praiseworthiness were to depend on His actions, the conclusion that God’s praiseworthiness varies from world to world would arguably follow even if Molinism were false, suggesting that the objection does not target Molinism specifically but rather a mistaken view of what divine praiseworthiness is and how it is grounded.

This paper offers a new formulation of the “Hilbert's Hotel Argument” (HHA) which is superior to existing formulations because it (1) demonstrates that HH is logically impossible in the concrete world, (2) takes into account the need to consider the assumptions of HHA, and (3) offers a reply to an important objection concerning the validity of HHA. In addition, this paper contributes to the discussion by using the new HHA to defend a relevant difference between the past and the future by demonstrating that the HHA applies to the former but not to the latter. Finally, this paper demonstrates the significance of metaphysical arguments such as the HHA for physical cosmology.

According to strong emergentism, it is a brute fact that higher-level properties (e.g., consciousness, values, etc.) emerge given certain complex structures. In this paper, I will argue that since it is allegedly a brute fact that emergent properties emerge in certain complex systems, they should emerge in anything. Since they do not emerge in anything, they also do not emerge only in certain complex systems. I will apply this argument to consciousness as the primary target, to refute certain views within the philosophy of mind, according to which consciousness is an emergent property that arises only in certain complex aggregates, i.e., brains.