This dissertation attempts to reconcile the apparent inconsistency between a strong view of divine sovereignty and human moral responsibility. God's absolute sovereignty over his creatures entails that human beings cannot do otherwise than they do. If so, then it would seem to follow that human beings cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. The notion that God has Middle Knowledge is often defended as a way out of this apparent inconsistency. It is argued, however, that counterfactuals of freedom have (...) no truth value. Thus, it is admitted that God's sovereignty is not compatible with human beings having indeterministic freedom. Nevertheless, two considerations motivate an attempt to find a plausible compatibilist theory of moral responsibility. First, a strong case can be made that moral responsibility does not require alternative possibilities. Second, it is unlikely that indeterminism can ground moral responsibility due to the arbitrariness of indeterministic actions. Building on the work of Susan Wolf, John Martin Fischer, and Eleonore Stump, a compatibilist theory of moral responsibility is offered based on a teleological view of human agency. If an agent has a will that is designed to pursue the good as the intellect represents it, and her will is not directly manipulated, then she is morally responsible for her actions as long as her intellect is functioning properly, she knows the difference between right and wrong, and she has values that developed naturally through cognitive interaction with the world. This "Teleological Compatibilism" is immune from the standard objections raised against other compatibilist theories of responsibility. Given the plausibility of this compatibilist account, divine sovereignty and human responsibility can be shown to be consistent. (shrink)

Theists believe that God is eternal, but they differ as to just what God's eternality means . The traditional, historic view of most Christian philosophers is that eternality means that God is timeless. He is ‘outside’ of time and not subject to any kind of temporal change. Indeed, God is the creator of time. Lets call this view divine timelessness.

In a recent issue of Faith and Philosophy, Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe seek to respond to the so-called “Problem of Heavenly Freedom,” the problem ofexplaining how the redeemed in heaven can be free yet incapable of sinning. In the course of offering their solution, they argue that compatibilism is inadequateas a solution because it (1) undermines the free will defense against the logical problem of evil, and (2) exacerbates the problem of evil by making God the “author of sin.” (...) In this paper, I respond to these charges and argue that compatibilism can offer a satisfactory explanation for the sinlessness of the redeemed in heaven. I also raise some problems for Pawl’s and Timpe’s incompatibilist solution. (shrink)

When it comes to contemporary philosophical problems, metaphysical idealism-or Berkeleyan immaterialism-is not taken seriously by most philosophers, not to mention the typical Christian layperson. This state of affairs deserves some attempt at rectification, since Idealism has considerable explanatory power as a metaphysical thesis and provides numerous practical and theoretical benefits. Such thinkers as George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards believed that Idealism is especially amenable to a Christian perspective, both because it provides a plausible way of conceptualizing the world from a (...) theistic standpoint and because it effectively addresses skeptical challenges to the Christian faith. The contributors to this volume explore a variety of ways in which the case can be made for this claim, including potential solutions to philosophical problems related to the nature of time, the ontology of physical objects, the mind-body problem, and the nature of science. (shrink)

Problems in Epistemology and Metaphysics takes a pro and con approach to two central philosophical topics. Each chapter begins with a question: Can We Have Knowledge? How are Beliefs Justified? What is the mind? Contemporary philosophers with opposing viewpoints are then paired together to argue their position and raise problems with conflicting standpoints. Alongside an up-to-date introduction to a core philosophical stance, each contributor provides a critical response to their opponent and clear explanation of their view. Discussion questions are included (...) at the end of each chapter to guide further discussion. With chapters covering core questions surrounding religious beliefs, scientific knowledge, truth, being and reality, this is a comprehensive introduction to debates lying at the heart of what we know, how we know it and the nature of the world we live in. (shrink)

Molinism entails that God cannot actualize just any possible world because God has no control over what counterfactuals of freedom (CFs) are true. This fact confronts the Molinist with a dilemma. If God has a plan for the course of history logically antecedent to his cognizance of the true CFs, then God would have been implausibly lucky if any actualizable world corresponded to his plan. If, on the other hand, God did not have a plan for the course of history (...) antecedent to his cognizance of the true CFs, then Molinism is incommensurate with a meticulous view of providence. (shrink)

The Molinist doctrine that God has middle knowledge requires that God knows the truth-values of counterfactuals of freedom, propositions about what free agents would do in hypothetical circumstances. A well-known objection to middle knowledge, the grounding objection, contends that counterfactuals of freedom have no truth-value because there is no fact to the matter as to what an agent with libertarian freedom would do in counterfactual circumstances. Molinists, however, have offered responses to the grounding objection that they believe are adequate for (...) maintaining the coherence of middle knowledge. I argue that these responses to the grounding objection are not adequate, and that what I call the ‘generic grounding objection’ still poses a serious challenge to middle knowledge. (shrink)

Scott Davison has raised some challenges to my case against the commensurability of meticulous providence and what I call Scheme-B Molinism, the view that God formulates his plan for the course of history consequent to his cognizance of the true counterfactuals of freedom. In this rejoinder, I attempt to clarify certain points of my argument and respond to his criticisms by showing that he has not dealt adequately with the relevant biblical texts or alleviated the worry that the Molinist view (...) of providence reduces God to just “choosing which movie to play.”. (shrink)

George Berkeley is famous for the metaphysical principle esse is percipi or percipere. Many Berkeleyan idealists take this principle to be incompatible with Platonic realism about abstract objects, and thus opt either for nominalism or divine conceptualism on which they are construed as divine ideas. In this paper, I argue that Berkeleyan idealism is consistent with a Platonic realism in which abstracta exist outside the divine mind. This allows the Berkeleyan to expand Berkeley’s principle to read: esse is percipi or (...) percipere or abstractum. (shrink)

Adam Omelianchuk argues that my defense of the distinction between woman’s equality in being and subordinate role fails. I respond that his case misses the point of certain aspects of my argument, that it begs the main question, and that it depends upon an unclear notion of metaphysical equality/inferiority.

In this paper, I present an argument to show that the doctrine of divine temporality (the view that God is in time, but everlastingly eternal) is incoherent. The doctrine of divine temporality entails that God has traversed an actually infinite series of moments in order to reach the present. But I show that an actually infinite series of moments cannot be traversed. Hence, God could not have traversed his infinite past to reach the present. Therefore, the doctrine of divine temporality (...) is necessarily false. I defend this argument against various responses and objections. (shrink)

Critics of the doctrine of eternal punishment may charge that this doctrine constitutes a horrendous evil unworthy of a perfectly good and loving God in that those experiencing eternal torment have lives not worth living. I respond to the problem of hell as a horrendous evil by arguing, first, that it is not clear that eternal torment constitutes a horrendous evil; and, second, that by adding to the traditional doctrine of hell the Christian belief in human sinfulness and our just (...) desert of eternal punishment, God’s existence is compatible with the existence of persons who have lives not worth living. (shrink)

Jerry Walls has attempted to make the case that no orthodox Christian should embrace compatibilism. We responded to his arguments, challenging four key premises. In his most recent response, Walls argues that none of our rebuttals to these premises succeed. Here we clarify aspects of our previous arguments and show that Walls has not in fact undermined our defense of Christian compatibilism.

Contributors: Steven M. Cahn, James W. Nickel, J. L. Cowan, Paul W. Taylor, Michael D. Bayles, William A. Nunn III, Alan H. Goldman, Paul Woodruff, Robert A. Shiver, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Robert Simon, George Sher, Robert Amdur, Robert K. Fullinwider, Bernard R. Boxhill, Lisa H. Newton, Anita L. Allen, Celia Wolf-Devine, Sidney Hook, Richaed Waaserstrom, Thomas E. Hill, Jr., John Kekes.

Review of: Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker ; Refiguring Revolutions: Aesthetics and Politics from the English Revolution to the Romantic Revolution, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1998; Kevin Sharpe, Re-Mapping Early Modern England, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000; Kevin Sharpe, Reading Revolutions: The Politics of Reading in Early Modern England, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2000.

Cowan's review shows that a short-term memory limit of four items is consistent with a wide range of phenomena in the field. However, he does not explain that limit, whereas an existing theory does offer an explanation for capacity limitations. Furthermore, processing capacity limits cannot be reduced to storage limits as Cowan claims.

A primary proposal of the Cowan target article is that capacity limits arise in working memory because only 4 chunks of information can be attended at one time. This implies a single, unitary attentional focus or resource; we instead propose that relatively independent attentional mech- anisms operate within different cognitive subsystems depending on the demands of the current stimuli and tasks.

In “Molinism, Meticulous Providence, and Luck,” Steven Cowan argues that the doctrine of meticulous providence creates a damaging dilemma for Molinists. I argue that Molinists can overcome this dilemma without giving up the doctrine of meticulous providence.

In a recent issue of Faith and Philosophy, Steven Cowan calls into question our success in responding to what we called the “Problem of Heavenly Free- dom” in our earlier “Incompatibilism, Sin, and Free Will in Heaven.” In this reply, we defend our view against Cowan’s criticisms.

Epistemic Sentimentalism is the view that emotional experiences such as fear and guilt are a source of immediate justification for evaluative beliefs. For example, guilt can sometimes immediately justify a subject’s belief that they have done something wrong. In this paper I focus on a family of objections to Epistemic Sentimentalism that all take as a premise the claim that emotions possess a normative property that is apparently antithetical to it: epistemic reason-responsiveness, i.e., emotions have evidential bases and justifications can (...) be demanded of them. I respond to these objections whilst granting that emotions are reason-responsive. This is not only dialectically significant vis-à-vis the prospects for Epistemic Sentimentalism, but also supports a broader claim about the compatibility of a mental item’s being reason-responsive and its being a generative source of epistemic justification. (shrink)

"This is one of the most interesting texts I have read for many years ... It is authoritative and clearly written. It provides a rich set of examples of teaching, and a reflective discourse." Professor George Brown "...succeeds in inspiring the reader by making the process of reflective learning interesting and thought provoking ... has a narrative drive which makes it a book too good to put down." Dr Mary Thorpe "...a delightful and unusual reflective journey...the whole book is driven (...) by a cycle of questions, examples, strategies and generalizations from the examples. In all, it is the clearest example of practise-what-you-preach that I have seen." Professor John Biggs This unusual, accessible and significant book begins each chapter by posing a question with which college and university teachers can be expected to identify; and then goes on to answer the question by presenting a series of examples; finally, each chapter closes with 'second thoughts', presenting a viewpoint somewhat distinct from that taken by John Cowan. This book will assist university teachers to plan and run innovative activities to enable their students to engage in effective reflective learning; it will help them adapt other teachers' work for use with their own students; and will give them a rationale for the place of reflective teaching and learning in higher education. (shrink)

This book reveals the sense in which our postmodern societies are characterized by the obscene absence of the intellectual. The modern intellectual--who had once been associated with humanism and enlightenment—has in our day been replaced by media stars, talking heads, and technical experts. At issue is the ongoing crisis of democracy, under the aegis of the société du spectacle and its vast networks of politically-induced idiocy, industrially-produced biocide, and militarily-provoked genocide. Spectacle fills the resulting moral and intellectual vacuum with electronic (...) technologies of control, punishment, and destruction. This postmodern tyranny reduces intelligence to mechanistic, positivist, and grammatological models of inquiry, while increasing the segmentation, fragmentation, and dissolution of human existence. The apotheosis of the spectacle explains the intellectual void that lies at the heart of our postmodern decadence; it also accounts for the need to recuperate the humanist values of enlightenment promoted by the modern intellectual tradition. (shrink)

The link between nature and the spiritual life has been a mainstay in Christianity going back to the beginning of Scripture. However, our modern context has veered toward a humancentric emphasis in the use of nature for spiritual purposes. This article seeks to recover a framework for connecting nature and the spiritual life by analyzing and applying the writings of the hymn-writer Isaac Watts. Influenced by the English Puritans and the eighteenth-century English naturalists, Watts leverages the empirical and the spiritual (...) to employ a theocentric natural theology in his hymnody, psalmody, and spiritual prose. Examining these writings of Watts, in turn, aid in recovering a faithful use of nature in spiritual formation within our modern Christian context. (shrink)

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is an established method for integrating values into technical design. It has been applied to different technologies and, more recently, to artificial intelligence (AI). We argue that AI poses a number of challenges specific to VSD that require a somewhat modified VSD approach. Machine learning (ML), in particular, poses two challenges. First, humans may not understand how an AI system learns certain things. This requires paying attention to values such as transparency, explicability, and accountability. Second, ML (...) may lead to AI systems adapting in ways that ‘disembody’ the values embedded in them. To address this, we propose a threefold modified VSD approach: 1) integrating a known set of VSD principles (AI4SG) as design norms from which more specific design requirements can be derived; 2) distinguishing between values that are promoted and respected by the design to ensure outcomes that not only do no harm but also contribute to good; and 3) extending the VSD process to encompass the whole life cycle of an AI technology in order to monitor unintended value consequences and redesign as needed. We illustrate our VSD for AI approach with an example use case of a SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing app. (shrink)

Background On a daily basis, healthcare professionals deal with various ethical issues and it can be difficult to determine how to act best. Clinical ethics support (CES) has been developed to provide support for healthcare professionals dealing with complex ethical issues. A long-term perspective of participating in inter-professional dialogue and reflective-based CES sessions is seemingly sparse in the literature. Research aim The aim was to describe experiences of impact of Inter-professional Ethics Communication in groups (IEC) based on Habermas’ theory of (...) communicative actions, after 6 months from the perspective of an inter-professional team. Research design A qualitative inductive approach was chosen, and individual interviews ( n = 13) were conducted. Interview data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Participants The participants, 10 females and two males, represented assistant nurses, registered nurses, physicians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, welfare officers and psychologists. Each had attended at least four IEC sessions. Ethical considerations The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå, Sweden, and it has been undertaken in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. Findings Overall, the descriptions expressed a perceived achievement of a deepened and integrated ethical awareness that increased the participants’ awareness of ethically difficult situations as well as their own ethical thinking, actions and approaches in daily work. Perspectives were shared and the team become more welded. They carried the memories of the reflections within them, which was perceived as supportive when encountered new ethically situations. Discussion Putting words to unarticulated thoughts may stimulate repeated reflections, leading to new insights and alternative thoughts. Conclusion The outcome of IEC sessions 6 months following the last session can be described as an incorporated knowledge that enables actions in ethically difficult situations based on an ethical awareness both at a ‘We-level’ and an ‘I-level’. (shrink)

In this Introduction we introduce the central themes of the Evaluative Perception volume. After identifying historical and recent contemporary work on this topic, we discuss some central questions under three headings: (1) Questions about the Existence and Nature of Evaluative Perception: Are there perceptual experiences of values? If so, what is their nature? Are experiences of values sui generis? Are values necessary for certain kinds of experience? (2) Questions about the Epistemology of Evaluative Perception: Can evaluative experiences ever justify evaluative (...) judgments? Are experiences of values necessary for certain kinds of justified evaluative judgments? (3) Questions about Value Theory and Evaluative Perception: Is the existence of evaluative experience supported or undermined by particular views in value theory? Are particular views in value theory supported or undermined by the existence of value experience? (shrink)

Adequate epistemic justification is best conceived as the appearance, over time, of knowledge to the subject. ‘Appearance’ is intended literally, not as a synonym for belief. It is argued through consideration of examples that this account gets the extension of ‘adequately justified belief’ at least roughly correct. A more theoretical reason is then offered to regard justification as the appearance of knowledge: If we have a knowledge norm for assertion, we do our best to comply with this norm when we (...) express as assertions only beliefs that appear to us to be knowledge. If we are doing our best, there is little point in further sanctions. So a norm of knowledge for assertion would lead to a secondary norm of justified belief as the appearance of knowledge, marking a point at which our assertions may be corrected but should not be blamed. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed the mass distribution and adoption of smart home systems and devices powered by artificial intelligence systems ranging from household appliances like fridges and toasters to more background systems such as air and water quality controllers. The pervasiveness of these sociotechnical systems makes analyzing their ethical implications necessary during the design phases of these devices to ensure not only sociotechnical resilience, but to design them for human values in mind and thus preserve meaningful human control over (...) them. This paper engages in a conceptual investigations of how meaningful human control over smart home devices can be attained through design. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach is proposed as a way of attaining this level of control. In the proposed framework, values are identified and defined, stakeholder groups are investigated and brought into the design process and the technical constraints of the technologies in question are considered. The paper concludes with some initial examples that illustrate a more adoptable way forward for both ethicists and engineers of smart home devices. (shrink)