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 […]
Entries Tagged as 'William Paley'
Published: Theological Utilitarianism, Supervenience, and Intrinsic Value
April 14th, 2023 Comments Off on Published: Theological Utilitarianism, Supervenience, and Intrinsic Value
Tags: Erik Wielenberg · George Berkeley · God and Morality · Intrinsic Value · supervenience · Theological Utilitarianism · Theological Voluntarism · William Paley
Divine Command Theory and Utilitarianism forgotten bedfellows? Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (part two)
January 18th, 2018 1 Comment
In my last post, I explained the position of Theological Utilitarianism as expounded in William Paley’s The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. I pointed out The Principles was first published in 1785, four years before Jeremy Bentham published An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. In this post, I want to look at the influence Theological Utilitarianism had […]
Tags: Abraham Tucker · Christian History · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · Jeremy Bentham · John Brown · John Gay · John Locke · John Stuart Mill · Utilitarianism · William Paley
Divine Command Theory and Utilitarianism forgotten bedfellows? Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (part one)
January 16th, 2018 Comments Off on Divine Command Theory and Utilitarianism forgotten bedfellows? Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (part one)
This post is adapted from a short essay I wrote on William Paley’s Ethics In a widely used textbook, James Rachels refers to “revolution in ethics” which occurred in the 18-19th centuries. Referring to upheavals such as the American Revolution, French Revolution, Rachel’s contends that people began to think differently about Ethics. There arose “A […]
Tags: Christian Hist · Divine Command Theory · Utilitarianism · William Paley
Contemporary Philosophy of Religion and NCEA Religious Studies: Part one
October 17th, 2017 Comments Off on Contemporary Philosophy of Religion and NCEA Religious Studies: Part one
This is a talk I gave to the New Zealand Association of Philosophy Teachers annual conference at St Cutherberts College in September this year. Several people have asked me to make this talk available. I have broken my talk up into four parts. Part One introduces what philosophy of religion. In part two I will […]
Tags: Anselm · Augustine · Bentham · David Hume · James Rachels · Jeremy Bentham · John Locke · Philosophy of Religion · Utilitarianism · William Paley
Comparing the Old & New Teleological Arguments
October 20th, 2011 78 Comments
The “New Teleological Argument” is a theistic argument which attempts to show that theism is more probable than the postulate of an “atheistic single universe”[i]. There are number of reasons why this argument is termed the “New” teleological argument. Chief among these reasons is that its explanandum i.e. the incredible fine tuning of the laws […]
Tags: Apologetics · Design Arguments · Evolution · Fine-Tuning · Natural Theology · Philosophy of Religion · Robin Collins · Teleological Arguments · The Likelihood Principle · William Paley
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.
