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1367Omnipotence AgainFaith and Philosophy 17 (1): 26-47. 2000.One of the cornerstones of western theology is the doctrine of divine omnipotence. God is traditionally conceived of as an omnipotent or all-powerful being. However, satisfactory analyses of omnipotence are notoriously elusive. In this paper, I first consider some simple attempts to analyze omnipotence, showing how each fails. I then consider two more sophisticated accounts of omnipotence. The first of these is presented by Edward Wierenga; the second by Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso. I argue…Read more
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44The Psychopath Challenge to Divine Command Theory: Reply to FlannaganSophia 63 (1): 35-42. 2024.Erik Wielenberg has presented an objection to divine command theory (DCT) alleging that DCT has the troubling implication that psychopaths have no moral obligations. Matthew Flannagan has replied to Wielenberg’s argument. Here, I defend the view that, despite Flannagan’s reply, the psychopath objection presents a serious problem for the versions of DCT defended by its most prominent contemporary advocates — Robert Adams, C. Stephen Evans, and William Lane Craig.
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Evil and atheistic moral realismIn W. Paul Franks (ed.), Explaining Evil: Four Views, Bloomsbury Academic. 2019.
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71Craig’s God Cannot Create a Temporal UniversePhilosophia Christi 23 (2): 329-340. 2021.William Lane Craig’s inuential kalam cosmological argument concludes that the universe has a cause of its beginning. Craig provides some supplementary reasoning to suggest that the first cause is God—a God that exists timelessly without the universe and temporally with the universe. I argue that Craig’s hypothesis about the nature of the first cause is impossible. In particular, it cannot be the case that God timelessly wills to create the universe and the universe begins to exist.
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44In 2018, William Lane Craig and Erik J. Wielenberg participated in a debate at North Carolina State University, addressing the question: "God and Morality: What is the best account of objective moral values and duties?" Craig argued that theism provides a sound foundation for objective morality whereas atheism does not. Wielenberg countered that morality can be objective even if there is no God. This book includes the full debate, as well as endnotes with extended discussions that were not inclu…Read more
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125Divine Commands Are Unnecessary for Moral ObligationJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21 (1). 2022.Divine command theory is experiencing something of a renaissance, inspired in large part by Robert Adams’s 1999 masterpiece Finite and Infinite Goods. I argue here that divine commands are not always necessary for actions to be morally obligatory. I make the case that the DCT-ist’s own commitments put pressure on her to concede the existence of some moral obligations that in no way depend on divine commands. Focusing on Robert Adams’s theistic framework for ethics, I argue that Adams’s views abo…Read more
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78Reply to Craig, Murphy, McNabb, and JohnsonPhilosophia Christi 20 (2): 365-375. 2018.In Robust Ethics, I defend a nontheistic version of moral realism according to which moral properties are sui generis, not reducible to other kinds of properties (e.g., natural properties or supernatural properties) and objective morality requires no foundation external to itself. I seek to provide a plausible account of the metaphysics and epistemology of the robust brand of moral realism I favor that draws on both analytic philosophy and contemporary empirical moral psychology. In this paper, …Read more
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56Debunking Arguments in Ethics, written by Hanno SauerInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10 (2): 178-183. 2020.
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230Divine Command Theory and PsychopathyReligious Studies. forthcoming.I advance a novel challenge for Divine Command Theory based on the existence of psychopaths. The challenge, in a nutshell, is that Divine Command Theory has the implausible implication that psychopaths have no moral obligations and hence their evil acts, no matter how evil, are morally permissible. After explaining this argument, I respond to three objections to it and then critically examine the prospect that Divine Command Theorists might bite the bullet and accept that psychopaths can do no w…Read more
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93The Moral Argument for God’s Existence; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Godless MoralityThe Philosophers' Magazine 86 93-98. 2019.
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Egoism and Eudaimonia-Maximization in the Nicomachean EthicsIn David Sedley (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Xxvi: Summer 2004, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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33Metz’s Case Against SupernaturalismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (2): 27--34. 2016.
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1Value and Virtue in a Godless UniverseInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 59 (3): 179-182. 2005.
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29The Nature of Moral VirtueDissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst. 2000.The dissertation is centered around the Moral Virtuosity Project . The central task of the dissertation is to examine what other philosophers have had to say on this topic and ultimately to successfully complete this project. ;Chapter One is concerned exclusively with Aristotle's attempt to complete the Moral Virtuosity Project. I defend the view that Aristotle holds that each moral virtue is a disposition toward proper practical reasoning, action, and emotion within a certain sphere. I critical…Read more
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128The new paradox of the stone revisitedFaith and Philosophy 18 (2): 261-268. 2001.Alfred Mele and M.P. Smith have presented a puzzle about omnipotence which they call “the new paradox of the stone.” They have also proposed a solution to this puzzle. I briefly present their puzzle and their proposed solution and argue that their proposed solution is unsatisfactory. I further argue that if their suggested solution to the original paradox of the stone succeeds, a similar solution also solves the new paradox of the stone
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836On the evolutionary debunking of moralityEthics 120 (3): 441-464. 2010.Evolutionary debunkers of morality hold this thesis: If S’s moral belief that P can be given an evolutionary explanation, then S’s moral belief that P is not knowledge. In this paper, I debunk a variety of arguments for this thesis. I first sketch a possible evolutionary explanation for some human moral beliefs. Next, I explain how, given a reliabilist approach to warrant, my account implies that humans possess moral knowledge. Finally, I examine the debunking arguments of Michael Ruse, Shar…Read more
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90Homosexual Sex and the One-Flesh UnionRoczniki Filozoficzne 63 (3): 107-117. 2015.I critically examine Alexander Pruss’s conception of the one-body union described in Genesis 2:24. Pruss appeals to his conception of the one-body union to advance two arguments for the conclusion that homosexual sex is morally wrong. I propose an alternative conception of the one- body union that implies that heterosexual and homosexual couples alike can participate in the one-body union; I take that implication of my account to be a significant advantage over Pruss’s account.
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114Atheism and MoralityIn Stephen Bullivant & Michael Ruse (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 89. 2013.This essay addresses two popular worries about morality in an atheistic context. The first is a psychological or sociological one: the worry that unbelief makes one more disposed to act immorally than one would be if one had theistic beliefs and, consequently, widespread atheism produces societal dysfunction. This essay argues that the relationship between atheism and human moral beliefs and behaviour is complex, and that highly secularized societies can also be deeply moral societies. The secon…Read more
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34Saving CharacterEthical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (4): 461-491. 2006.In his recent book Lack of Character, John Doris argues that people typically lack character (understood in a particular way). Such a claim, if correct, would have devastating implications for moral philosophy and for various human moral projects (e.g. character development). I seek to defend character against Doris's challenging attack. To accomplish this, I draw on Socrates, Aristotle, and Kant to identify some of the central components of virtuous character. Next, I examine in detail some of …Read more
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450Mark Murphy. God and Moral Law: On the Theistic Explanation of Morality. Oxford University Press, 2011European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (1): 199--203. 2014.
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44God and the Reach of Reason: C. S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand RussellCambridge University Press. 2007.C. S. Lewis is one of the most beloved Christian apologists of the twentieth century; David Hume and Bertrand Russell are among Christianity's most important critics. This book puts these three intellectual giants in conversation with one another to shed light on some of life's most difficult yet important questions. It examines their views on a variety of topics, including the existence of God, suffering, morality, reason, joy, miracles, and faith. Along with irreconcilable differences and poin…Read more
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7414Dawkins’s Gambit, Hume’s Aroma, and God’s SimplicityPhilosophia Christi 11 (1): 113-127. 2009.I examine the central atheistic argument of Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion (“Dawkins’s Gambit”) and illustrate its failure. I further show that Dawkins’s Gambit is a fragment of a more comprehensive critique of theism found in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Among the failings of Dawkins’s Gambit is that it is directed against a version of the God Hypothesis that few traditional monotheists hold. Hume’s critique is more challenging in that it targets versions of the …Read more
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112The parent–child analogy and the limits of skeptical theismInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 78 (3): 301-314. 2015.I draw on the literature on skeptical theism to develop an argument against Christian theism based on the widespread existence of suffering that appears to its sufferer to be gratuitous and is combined with the sense that God has abandoned one or never existed in the first place. While the core idea of the argument is hardly novel, key elements of the argument are importantly different from other influential arguments against Christian theism. After explaining that argument, I make the case that…Read more
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265Sceptical Theism and Divine LiesReligious Studies 46 (4): 509-523. 2010.In this paper I develop a novel challenge for sceptical theists. I present a line of reasoning that appeals to sceptical theism to support scepticism about divine assertions. I claim that this reasoning is at least as plausible as one popular sceptical theistic strategy for responding to evidential arguments from evil. Thus, I seek to impale sceptical theists on the horns of a dilemma: concede that either (a) sceptical theism implies scepticism about divine assertions, or (b) the sceptical …Read more
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51Pleasure as a sign of moral virtue in the nicomachean ethicsJournal of Value Inquiry 34 (4): 439-449. 2000.
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47How to Be an Alethically Rational NaturalistSynthese 131 (1): 81-98. 2002.Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that naturalism is self-defeating. Plantinga's argument is, at its heart, an argument from analogy. Plantinga presents various epistemic situations and claims of each that (i) a person in such a situation has an undefeated defeater for each of his beliefs, and (ii) a reflective naturalist is in a relevantly similar situation. I present various epistemic situations and claim of each that a person in such a situation does not have an undefeated defeater for each…Read more
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74Euthyphro and Moral Realism: A Reply to HarrisonSophia 55 (3): 437-449. 2016.Gerald Harrison identifies two Euthyphro-related concerns for divine command theories and makes the case that to the extent that these concerns make trouble for divine command theories they also make trouble for non-naturalistic moral realism and naturalistic moral realism. He also offers responses to the two concerns on behalf of divine command theorists. I show here that the parity thesis does not hold for the most commonly discussed version of divine command theory. I further argue that his r…Read more
Greencastle, Indiana, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |