Robert Bass' Important New Paper on Divine Command Theory...

 ...which is also the winner of the 2022 APA Journal of Value Inquiry Prize, is now out, Here's the abstract to whet your appetite:

Recent divine command theorists make a serious and impressive case that a sophisticated divine command theory has significant metaethical advantages and can adequately meet traditional objections, such as the Euthyphro problem. I survey the attempt sympathetically with a view to explaining how the divine command theory can deal with traditional objections while delivering on metaethical desiderata, such as providing an account of ethical objectivity. I argue, however, that to the extent that a divine command theory succeeds, an ideal observer theory can do equally well. Once the divine command theory is rendered immune to Euthyphro-related objections, we will have all the machinery needed to show that an ideal observer theory can provide the same metaethical advantages, without supposing the existence of a divine commander. Other things being equal, ontological simplicity favors the ideal observer theory.

More of Bass' work in philosophy of religion and in ethics can be found here and here.

Happy reading! 

Steinhart's New Defense of Atheistic Platonism

Excited to see that Eric Steinhart's book, Atheistic Platonism: A Manifesto is now out with Palgrave MacMillan. Here's the blurb to whet your appetite:

Atheistic Platonism is an alternative to both theism and nihilistic atheism. It shows how any jobs allegedly done by God are better done by impersonal Platonic objects. Without Platonic objects, atheism degenerates into an illogical nihilism.  Atheistic Platonism instead provides reality with foundations that are eternal, necessary, rational, beautiful, and utterly mindless. It argues for a plenitude of mathematical objects, and an infinite plurality of possible universes. It provides mindless rational grounds for objective values, and for objective moral laws for the persons who evolve in universes. It defines a meaningful way of life, which facilitates self-improvement. Atheistic Platonists argue for computational theories of life after death. Atheistic Platonism includes a rich system of spiritual symbols. It values transformational practices and ecstatic experiences. Where atheisms based on materialism fail, atheisms based on Platonism succeed.

Happy reading!

Li & Saad's New Critique of the Multiverse Theodicy

  Li, H. & Saad, B., (2024) “The Multiverse Theodicy Meets Population Ethics”,  Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy  10: 56. doi: ...