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681Undermining the axiological solution to divine hiddennessInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 86 (1): 3-15. 2019.Lougheed argues that a possible solution to the problem of divine hiddenness is that God hides in order to increase the axiological value of the world. In a world where God exists, the goods associated with theism necessarily obtain. But Lougheed also claims that in such a world it’s possible to experience the goods of atheism, even if they don’t actually obtain. This is what makes a world with a hidden God more valuable than a world where God is unhidden, and also more valuable than an atheisti…Read more
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456Introduction: Puzzles Concerning Epistemic AutonomyIn Jonathan Matheson & Kirk Lougheed (eds.), Epistemic Autonomy, Routledge. pp. 1-17. 2021.In this introduction we explore a number of puzzles that arise concerning epistemic autonomy, and introduce the sections and chapters of the book. There are four broad types of puzzles to be explored, corresponding to the four sections of the book. The first set of puzzles concerns the nature of epistemic autonomy. Here, questions arise such as what is epistemic autonomy? Is epistemic autonomy valuable? What are we epistemically autonomous about? The second set of puzzles concern epistemic pater…Read more
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350On the Axiology of a Hidden GodEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10 (4): 79-95. 2018.The axiological question in the philosophy of religion is the question of what impact, if any, God’s existence does make to the axiological value of our world. It has recently been argued that we should prefer a theistic world where God is hidden to an atheistic world or a theistic world where God isn’t hidden. This is because in a hidden theistic world all of the theistic goods obtain in addition to the experience of atheistic goods. I complete this line of argument by showing that theistic goo…Read more
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303The Goals of Philosophy of Religion: A Reply to Ireneusz ZieminskiEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (1): 187-199. 2019.In a recent article, Ireneusz Zieminski argues that the main goals of philosophy of religion are to define religion; assess the truth value of religion and; assess the rationality of a religious way of life. Zieminski shows that each of these goals are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Hence, philosophy of religion leads to scepticism. He concludes that the conceptual tools philosophers of religion employ are best suited to study specific religious traditions, rather than religion more b…Read more
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279The Epistemic Benefits of Diversifying the Philosophy of ReligionEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1): 77-94. 2022.There have been recent calls to expand contemporary analytic philosophy of religion beyond the oft implicitly assumed Christian tradition. Instead of exploring moral reasons to expand the discipline, I argue that there are strong epistemic reasons to favour diversifying the philosophy of religion. Increasing diversity is likely to increase disagreement, and there are epistemic benefits to be gained from the existence of disagreement. I argue that such considerations quite clearly apply to the ph…Read more
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161African Philosophy of Religion and Western MonotheismCambridge University Press. 2024.The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglec…Read more
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118Anti-NatalismInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.Anti-Natalism Anti-natalism is the extremely provocative view that it is either always or usually impermissible to procreate. Some find the view so offensive that they do not think it should be discussed. Others think their strongly intuitive disagreement with it is enough in itself to reject all arguments for anti-natalism. In the first twenty years … Continue reading Anti-Natalism →
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96Religious Disagreement, Religious Experience, and the Evil God HypothesisEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 12 (1): 173-190. 2020.Conciliationism is the view that says when an agent who believes P becomes aware of an epistemic peer who believes not-P, that she encounters a defeater for her belief that P. Strong versions of conciliationism pose a sceptical threat to many, if not most, religious beliefs since religion is rife with peer disagreement. Elsewhere I argue that one way for a religious believer to avoid sceptical challenges posed by strong conciliationism is by appealing to the evidential import of religious experi…Read more
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90Epistemic Autonomy (edited book)Routledge. 2021.This is the first book dedicated to the topic of epistemic autonomy. It features original essays from leading scholars that promise to significantly shape future debates in this emerging area of epistemology. While the nature of and value of autonomy has long been discussed in ethics and social and political philosophy, it remains an underexplored area of epistemology. The essays in this collection take up several interesting questions and approaches related to epistemic autonomy. Topics include…Read more
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71The axiological solution to divine hiddennessRatio 31 (3): 331-341. 2017.Philosophers have recently wondered whether the value impact of the existence of God on the world would be positive, negative, or neutral. Thus far discussions have distinguished between the value God's impact would have overall, in certain respects, and/or for particular individuals. A commonality amongst the various positions that have been taken up is to focus on the goods and drawbacks associated with both theism and atheism. Goods associated with atheism include things like privacy, indepen…Read more
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57Divine Creation, Modal Collapse, and the Theistic MultiverseSophia 53 (4): 435-446. 2014.Either a ‘best world’ scenario is true or a ‘no best world’ scenario is true. In a ‘best world’ scenario, God actualizes a world that is unsurpassable. In a ‘no best world’ scenario, for any possible world God actualizes, God could have actualized a better world. A ‘no best world’ scenario precludes theism, so the theist should endorse a ‘best world’ scenario. However, a ‘best world’ scenario leads to the highly counter-intuitive conclusion of modal collapse: the position that nothing could have…Read more
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56The axiology of theism: Problems and prospectsPhilosophy Compass 17 (5). 2022.Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 5, May 2022.
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50Anti-Theism, Pro-Theism, and Gratuitous EvilPhilosophia Christi 21 (2): 355-369. 2019.Ebrahim Azadegan recently argues that personal anti-theism, the view that it’s rational for a particular individual to prefer that God not exist, is a form of gratuitous evil. He justifies this evil by arguing that the anti-theist is uniquely positioned to bargain, implore, and plea to God. I argue that Azadegan faces a paradox. Once the anti-theist recognizes that God plus anti-theism makes the world better, she should convert to pro-theism. But then there can be no reflective anti-theists who …Read more
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48The Epistemic Value of Deep DisagreementsInformal Logic 38 (2): 263-292. 2018.In the epistemology of disagreement literature an underdeveloped argument defending the claim that an agent need not conciliate when she becomes aware of epistemic peer disagreement is based on the idea that there are epistemic benefits to be gained from disagreement. Such benefits are unobtainable if an agent conciliates in the face of peer disagreement. I argue that there are good reasons to embrace this line of argument at least in inquiry-related contexts. In argumentation theory a deep disa…Read more
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46The Epistemic Benefits of DisagreementSpringer Verlag. 2019.This book presents an original discussion and analysis of epistemic peer disagreement. It reviews a wide range of cases from the literature, and extends the definition of epistemic peerhood with respect to the current one, to account for the actual variability found in real-world examples. The book offers a number of arguments supporting the variability in the nature and in the range of disagreements, and outlines the main benefits of disagreement among peers i.e. what the author calls the benef…Read more
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45The Axiology of TheismInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2019.The Axiology of Theism The existential question about God asks whether God exists, but the axiology of theism addresses the question of what value-impact, if any, God’s existence does have on our world and its inhabitants. There are two prominent answers to the axiological question about God. Pro-theism is the view that God’s … Continue reading The Axiology of Theism →
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38Is Religious Experience a Solution to the Problem of Religious Disagreement?Logos and Episteme 9 (2): 173-197. 2018.Many religious believers do not appear to take the existence of epistemic peer disagreement as a serious challenge to the rationality of their religious beliefs. They seem to think they have different evidence for their religious beliefs and hence aren’t really epistemic peers with their opponents. One underexplored potential evidential asymmetry in religious disagreements is based on investigations of religious experience attempting to offer relevant evidence for religious claims in objective a…Read more
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35The Epistemic Benefits of Worldview DisagreementSocial Epistemology 35 (1): 85-98. 2021.In my recent book, The Epistemic Benefits of Disagreement, I develop a defense of non-conciliationism, but one that only applies in research contexts: Epistemic benefits are more likely in the offi...
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34Disagreement, Deep Time, and Progress in PhilosophyInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 9 (4): 285-313. 2019.The epistemology of disagreement examines the question of how an agent ought to respond to awareness of epistemic peer disagreement about one of her beliefs. The literature on this topic, ironically enough, represents widespread disagreement about how we should respond to disagreement. I argue for the sceptical conclusion that the existence of widespread disagreement throughout the history of philosophy, and right up until the present day indicates that philosophers are highly unreliable at arri…Read more
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32On How (Not) to Argue for Preferring God’s Non-ExistenceDialogue 58 (4): 677-699. 2019.Considérons deux mondes épistémiquement possibles qui sont aussi similaires que possible, sauf que l’athéisme est vrai dans un monde et que le théisme est vrai dans l’autre monde. Quel monde est-il rationnel de préférer? J’examine la défense la plus forte de l’affirmation quelque peu contre-intuitive selon laquelle il est rationnel de préférer le monde athée. Je discute également de la conclusion opposée, à savoir qu’il est rationnel de préférer le monde théiste. Étonnamment, ma conclusion est q…Read more
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32Catherine Elgin on peerhood and the epistemic benefits of disagreementSynthese 198 (4): 3183-3202. 2019.Conciliationism is the view that an agent must revise her belief in a proposition when she becomes aware that there is an epistemic peer who disagrees with her about that proposition. If epistemic peers are anything less than strict cognitive and evidential equals, then even slight differences could explain away why the two parties disagree in the first place. But this strict notion of peerhood never obtains in many, if not most, of real-life cases disagreements between inquirers. One recent acc…Read more
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32Pro-Theism and the Added Value of Morally Good AgentsPhilosophia Christi 17 (1): 53-69. 2015.Pro-theism is the view that God’s existence would be good in that God’s existence increases the value of a world. Anti-theism is the view that God’s existence would decrease the value of a world. We develop and defend the morally good agent argument for pro-theism. The basic idea is that morally good agents tend to add value to states of affairs, and God, moral agent par excellence is no exception. Thus, we argue that the existence of God would be, on balance, a good thing and therefore somethin…Read more
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31On the Will Not to Believe and Axiological Atheism: a Reply to Cockayne and WarmanSophia 58 (4): 743-751. 2019.In a recent article in Sophia, Joshua Cockayne and Jack Warman defend a view they call supra-evidential atheistic fideism. This is the idea that considerations similar to William James’s defence of theistic belief can be used to justify atheistic belief. If an individual evaluates the evidence for atheism and theism as roughly the same, then she can rationally believe in atheism if her passions lean in that direction, provided the belief in atheism is forced, live and momentous. After outlining …Read more
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27Schellenberg’s Ultimism as the Proper Object of Non-Doxastic ReligionSophia 59 (2): 273-284. 2020.Carl-Johan Palmqvist recently examines a well-known form of non-doxastic religiosity called ultimism, which comes to us from J. L Schellenberg. He contends that traditional forms of religion are better candidates for non-doxastic religion for two reasons. First, their specificity makes them more likely to put one into contact with transcendental reality than ultimism. Second, religious experience can only be on traditional forms of religion, not on ultimism. I argue that Palmqvist’s rejection of…Read more
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27Religious Commitment and the Benefits of Cognitive Diversity: a Reply to TrakakisSophia 57 (3): 501-513. 2018.Metaphilosophical discussions about the philosophy of religion are increasingly common. In a recent article in Sophia, N.N. Trakakis advances the view that Christian Philosophy is closer to ideology than philosophy. This is because philosophy conducted in the Socratic tradition tends to emphasize values antithetical to religious faith such as independence of thought, rationality, empiricism, and doubt. A philosopher must be able to follow the arguments wherever they lead, something that the reli…Read more
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26Epistemic Paternalism, Open Group Inquiry, and Religious KnowledgeRes Philosophica 98 (2): 261-281. 2021.Epistemic paternalism occurs when a decision is made for an agent which helps them arrive at the truth, though they didn’t consent to that decision (and sometimes weren’t even aware of it). Common defenses of epistemic paternalism claim that it can help promote positive veritistic results. In other words, epistemic paternalism is often good for inquiry. I argue that there is often a better alternative available to epistemic paternalism in the form of what I call Open Group Inquiry. I then examin…Read more
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25Klaas J. Kraay, ed.: God and the Multiverse: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological PerspectivesFaith and Philosophy 32 (4): 480-484. 2015.
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24Intuitive Knowing as Spiritual Experience PHILLIP H. WIEBE New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; 226 pp.; $100.00 (review)Dialogue 56 (3): 605-606. 2017.
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23The Role of Idealized Cases in the Epistemology of DisagreementSouthwest Philosophy Review 33 (2): 251-270. 2017.
Kirk Lougheed
University of Pretoria
LCC International University
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University of PretoriaPost-doctoral fellow
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LCC International UniversityAssistant Professor
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
PhilPapers Editorships
African Philosophy: Ethics |