Kant’s Solution to the Euthyphro Dilemma

Are our actions morally good because we approve of them or are they good independently of our approval? Are we projecting moral values onto the world or do we detect values that are already there? For many these questions don’t state a real alternative but a secular variant of the Euthyphro dilemma: If our actions are good because we approve of them moral goodness appears to be arbitrary. If they are good independently of our approval, it is unclear how we come to know their moral quality and how moral knowledge can be motivating. None of these options seems attractive; the source of moral goodness unclear. Despite the growing literature on Kant’s moral epistemology and moral epistemology the question remains open what Kant’s answer to this apparent dilemma is. The Kantian view I attempt to lay out in this paper is supposed to dissolve the secular version of the Euthyphro dilemma. In responding to this dilemma we need to get clear about the source or the origin of our moral knowledge: Voluntary approval or mind-independent moral facts? Projectivism or detectivism? Construction or given? I believe that all these ways of articulating the problem turn out, on closer inspection, to be false alternatives.     

Mengzi’s Externalist Solution to the Role Dilemma

The role dilemma raises a problem for role ethic interpretations of Confucianism. The dilemma arises from the conflict between the demands and obligations of Humaneness and the demands and obligations of roles one occupies. Favoring the demands of Humaneness (i.e. externalism) undermines a role ethic because roles and role-obligations no longer ground the ethic. However, favoring social role-obligations (i.e. internalism) permits immoral and unjust role-obligations and allows for uncharitable readings of Confucianism.

This paper examines how Mengzi resolves the dilemma. I argue that Mengzi’s account of human nature privileges the demands of Humaneness; social roles are central but defeasible in light of Humaneness. I briefly discuss a prominent articulation of Confucian role ethics as well as the role dilemma. Then, after considering the technical resources within the Mengzi, I argue that Mengzi espouses an externalism about roles. Finally, I explore the relationship between Mengzi’s externalism and role ethics.     

How Can Experts See the Invisible? Reply to Bilalić and Gobet

Experts in all fields are able to see what is invisible to others. Experts are also able to see what is visible to all—and this is explored by Bilalić and Gobet. We question the method of normalizing all subjects in an experimental condition, and asking experts to behave as if they were novices. We claim that method leads Bilalić and Gobet to a nonsequitur .     

Can Western Monotheism Avoid Substance Dualism?

The problem of divine agency and action is analogous to the problem of human agency and action: How is such agency possible in the absence of a dualistic causal interaction between disparate orders of being? This paper explores nondualistic accounts of divine agency that assert the following: (1) physical monism, (2) antireductionism, (3) physical realization, and (4) divine causal realism. I conclude that a robustly causal deity is incompatible with nonddualism's affirmation of physical monism. Specifically, I argue the incoherence of nondualistic strategies that advocate divine information transfer without energy transfer or the divine downward causation of physical events. Furthermore, I claim that the principle of explanatory exclusion makes any nondualistic, noninterventionist account of divine agency highly dubious. Finally, I suggest that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can avoid a causally inert deity only if they are willing to deny the current presumption of the causal closure of the physical.     

Correction to: In Search of the Trinity: A Dilemma for Parfit’s Conciliatory Project

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -     

In Search of the Trinity: A Dilemma for Parfit’s Conciliatory Project

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - I outline a dilemma for Derek Parfit’s project to vindicate moral realism. In On What Matters, Parfit argues that the best versions of three of the main...     

‘A Way Out’ and A Way In: Reply to Commentary

I express my appreciation for Michal Rieck's thoughtful and fully felt reading of my paper. I underline her points that the regression that an unobtrusive yet fully engaged analyst can allow, is not solely a phenomenon in work with more disturbed patients, and that the essence of this position is to be without separateness. I outline a process of the “flow of enactive engagement,” which fosters a narrative unfolding of the field of the treatment. I suggest that the flow of enactive engagement is a contemporary mutual form of enacted free association and that Rieck is correct in saying that from my perspective psychoanalytic cure need not involve the analyst's interpretation. The mutual enactment itself can be the interpretation.     

Can Essence Provide Knowledge of Metaphysical Necessity? A Reply to Jago

Philosophia - In this paper I argue against Mark Jago’s recent suggestion that ordinary knowers can move from knowledge of essence to knowledge of metaphysical necessity.     

Reply to Chrzan’s comments

1 This paper discusses the following works: Alvin Plantinga,The Nature of Necessity, Oxford University Press 1974, Chapter 9 Section 11; Keith Chrzan, ‘Plantinga on Atheistic Induction,’Sophia Vol 27 No. 2 (July 1988), 10–14; Bruce Langtry, ‘God, Evil and Probability,’,Sophia Vol 28 No. 1 (April 1989), 32–40; and Keith Chrzan, ‘Comment on Langtry's “God, Evil and Probability”,’Sophia Vol 32 No. 2 (July 1993), 54–58. The numbering of propositions throughout is the same as in my earlier paper. All page references to Chrzan are to his second paper.     

Can God Create Abstract Objects? A Reply to Peter van Inwagen

The Platonic theist Peter van Inwagen argues that God cannot create abstract objects. Thus, the quantifier ‘everything’ in traditional statements of the doctrine of creation should be appropriately restricted to things that can enter into causal relations and abstract objects cannot: ‘God is the creator of everything distinct from himself…that can enter into causal relations.’ I respond to van Inwagen arguing that he has provided no good reason for thinking abstract objects must be uncreated. And if this is the case, then there is no good reason to think that God cannot create abstract objects.