My paper, “Can a Divine Command Theory Vindicate the Objectivity of Morality?” was published in Philosophia Christi, vol 21. No 1 2025. A copy is now available online at my academia.edu page. The abstract is below. Abstract:Defenders of divine command metaethics (DCM) often argue that one of its key advantages is its ability to vindicate […]
Entries Tagged as 'Ethical Theory'
New publication Online: “Can a Divine Command Theory Vindicate the Objectivity of Morality?”
May 17th, 2026 No Comments
Tags: David Brink · Divine Command Theory · Elizabeth Tropman · Michael Huemer · Objectivism
Sinnott-Armstrong on God, Secularism and “reasons” to be moral. Part Three: Can Religious theories answer the question, “Why be moral?”
September 13th, 2025 1 Comment
In a previous post, I observed that Walter Sinnott-Armstrong concedes that secular accounts of moral obligation cannot vindicate the thesis that agents always have decisive (all-things-considered) reasons to avoid wrongdoing. To mitigate this problem, he argues: Is this limitation a problem for secular accounts of morality? I doubt that, too. If we demand this extreme […]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Dualism of Practical Reason · God and Morality · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · Why be Moral?
Sinnott-Armstrong on God, Secularism and “reasons” to be moral. Part two: Do unselfish reasons answer the question, “Why be moral?”
September 8th, 2025 Comments Off on Sinnott-Armstrong on God, Secularism and “reasons” to be moral. Part two: Do unselfish reasons answer the question, “Why be moral?”
*** Walter Sinnott-Armstrong discusses the following objection: “Harming others is sometimes in some people’s best interest, even considering probable costs. In those cases, some theists say that only a divine threat of Hell provides a reason to be moral. Since atheists and agnostics do not believe in God, they do not believe in divine retribution […]
Tags: Dualism of Practical Reason · Hell · Mark Murphy · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · Why be Moral?
Sinnott-Armstrong on God, Secularism and “reasons” to be moral. Part One:
September 3rd, 2025 Comments Off on Sinnott-Armstrong on God, Secularism and “reasons” to be moral. Part One:
In his book Morality Without God, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that a secular account of the nature of moral properties—namely, that wrongness is constituted by the property of harming others—is preferable to a theistic account, in which wrongness is identified with the property of being contrary to God’s commands Chapter 6 is entitled “Why be moral?” In […]
Tags: Dualism of Practical Reason · God and Morality · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · Why be Moral?
New publication: “Can a Divine Command Theory Vindicate the Objectivity of Morality?”
August 26th, 2025 Comments Off on New publication: “Can a Divine Command Theory Vindicate the Objectivity of Morality?”
My paper, “Can a Divine Command Theory Vindicate the Objectivity of Morality?” has been published in the latest issue of Philosophia Christi. Abstract:Defenders of divine command metaethics (DCM) often argue that one of its key advantages is its ability to vindicate the objectivity of moral judgments. Critics, however, contend that DCM is a subjectivist theory […]
Tags: David Brink · Divine Command Theory · Elizabeth Tropman · Michael Huemer · Objectivism
Published: Theological Utilitarianism, Supervenience, and Intrinsic Value
April 14th, 2023 Comments Off on Published: Theological Utilitarianism, Supervenience, and Intrinsic Value
My paper, “Theological Utilitarianism, Supervenience, and Intrinsic Value” has been published in a special issue of Religions, devoted to the topic God and Ethics. The abstract is as follows: Erik Wielenberg has argued that robust realism can account for the “common-sense moral belief” that “some things distinct from God are intrinsically good”. By contrast, theological stateism […]
Tags: Erik Wielenberg · George Berkeley · God and Morality · Intrinsic Value · supervenience · Theological Utilitarianism · Theological Voluntarism · William Paley
Is Theism Incompatible with the Pauline Principle? Comments on James Sterba’s Argument from Evil
November 3rd, 2022 Comments Off on Is Theism Incompatible with the Pauline Principle? Comments on James Sterba’s Argument from Evil
My paper, “Is Theism Incompatible with the Pauline Principle?” has been published in a special issue of Religions, devoted to the topic Do We Now Have A Logical Argument From Evil? The abstract is as follows: This paper criticises James Sterba’s use of the Pauline principle to formulate a logical version of the problem of […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Deontological Argument from Evil · Divine Command Theory · George Berkeley · James Sterba · John Mackie · Pauline Principle · Problem of Evil · Theological Utilitarianism · Utilitarianism
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
