Version française: Dean Zimmerman défend l’affirmation œcuménique selon laquelle il est possible que toutes les personnes humaines survivent à la mort biologique du corps quelle que soit la théorie plausible de l’identité personnelle adoptée. Dans cet article, je présente certains principes à propos de la survie qui sont pertinents pour n’importe quelle théorie plausible de l’identité personnelle et pertinents pour une survie qui nous intéresserait. Appliqués à certains cas particuliers d’êtres humains, ces principes rendent l’affirmation œcuménique soit fausse, soit difficile (...) à croire rationnellement. -/- English version: Dean Zimmerman defends the ecumenical claim that it is possible for all human persons to survive the biological death of the body regardless of the plausible theory of personal identity adopted. In this paper, I present some principles about survival that are relevant to any plausible theory of personal identity and relevant to any survival of interest. When applied to some particular cases of human beings, these principles make the ecumenical claim either false or difficult to believe rationally. Keywords: Dean Zimmerman, Personal Identity, Survival. (shrink)

The Cognitive Science of Religion represents a contemporary attempt at a naturalistic explanation of religion. There is debate as to whether its account of how religious beliefs arise is reconcilable with the religious account, which holds that religious beliefs are caused by God. In my paper, I argue that these two accounts cannot be reconciled when it comes to the specific question of how Christian religious beliefs arise if one accepts an important theological doctrine of the supernaturality of Christian belief. (...) This doctrine implies that there can be no natural explanation for how Christian beliefs arise because they are a gift of divine grace. This leads to a conundrum for Christian theists: they can either reject the CSR account of how their religious beliefs arise, or they can reject the supernaturality of Christian belief. I argue that the latter is preferable. I then draw on the work of the theologian Denis Edwards to illustrate how one can drop this doctrine without abandoning some other fundamental tenets of Christian theology. (shrink)

In this paper, we embark on the complicated discussion about the nature of vice in Virtue Ethics through a twofold approach: first, by taking seriously the claim that virtues (and certain flavours of vices) are genuinely dispositional features possessed by agents, and secondly, by employing a pluralistic attitude borrowed from Battaly’s pluralism (2008). Through these lenses, we identify three varieties of viciousness: incontinence, indifference, and malevolence. The upshot is that the notion of vice is not as categorically homogeneous as that (...) of virtue: some states of viciousness consist in interference of present virtuous dispositions, or mimicking of absent vicious ones, whereas others can be considered genuine dispositions themselves. Furthermore, this set-up can provide an interesting, albeit highly idealized story as to how, through the interference in one’s environment, one gets acquainted with vice in various degrees. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-à-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. Finally, this approach can be illuminating vis-a-vis Virtue Ethics in general; e.g. we can employ it to discuss more productively Johnston’s (2003) objection to Hursthouse’s (1999) account of moral conduct. (shrink)

Augustine’s privation theory of evil maintains that something is evil in virtue of a privation, a lack of something which ought to be present in a particular nature. While it is not evil for a human to lack wings, it is indeed evil for a human to lack rationality according to the end of a rational nature. Much of the literature on the privation theory focuses on whether it can successfully defend against counterexamples of positive evils, such as pain. This (...) focus of the discussion is not surprising, given that the privation theory is a theory about the nature of evil. But it is also a theory that protects venerable theological concerns, namely, that God is the good creator of everything, and that everything is good. It is the purpose of this article to further this discussion on both fronts. I argue that the counterexample of pain still defeats the privation theory despite the most recent defense. What is more, I suggest, this is not theologically disastrous. The individual who rejects the privation theory is not obligated to reject the theological theses which motivate it. To show how a rejection of the privation theory is a live option, I offer an alternative view of evil that also maintains these theological theses and encompasses both privative and positive evils. (shrink)