An Argument From Evolutionary Naturalism An Argument from Personal Dignity References.

Mary Poppins is a magical film and a story of redemption that might be placed alongside the Parable of the Prodigal Son or A Christmas Carol. Mary may be the star of the film, but George Banks is its subject. If the world ever seemed wonderful and filled with surprises for George Banks as a child, it has since been supplanted by a world that is mechanical, predictable, and subject to the demands of business and of propriety. From Jack the (...) Giant Killer people learn that when pride has grown to gigantic proportions it ought to be killed; Cinderella teaches that the humble are exalted; Beauty and the Beast demonstrates the principle that loving the unlovable may result in the transformation from the beastly to the beautiful; and Mary Poppins reminds them that “There is no greater joy than that seen through the eyes of a child,” as Walt Disney observes in Saving Mr. Banks. (shrink)

The traditional doctrine of human dignity has fallen on hard times. It is said that that doctrine is “speciesist to the core” and “the moral effluvium of a discredited metaphysics.” Those of us who would defend the view that humans enjoy greater moral standing than nonhuman living things must answer the question, “What’s so special about humans?” In this paper, I argue that moral agency is a great-making property that confers special worth on its bearer.

If libertarianism is true, then there is a sense in which agents have it within their power to bring it about that some world is actual. Against recent arguments for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, I offer an account of power over the past which takes this implication of libertarianism into consideration. I argue that the resulting account is available to Ockhamists and that it is immune to recent criticisms of the notion of counterfactual power over the (...) past. But I contend that it is not an option for Molinists and that this fact leaves that position vulnerable to incompatibilist arguments. (shrink)