Divine Command Theory and the Free Will Defense: A Tension

A common line of reasoning in response to the problem of evil is (very roughly) that free will is an exceedingly great good, but God can't give us this good without thereby preventing the possibility of our misusing it and causing evil in the world. My concern here is not whether the free will defense is a successful defeater for the problem of evil, but rather whether it fits well with a popular theistic view of meta-ethics, viz., divine command theory. 

To see the worry, start with a crude version of divine command theory, according to which all moral properties, including both moral values and moral duties, are grounded in God's decrees. On such a view, God can confer moral value or moral worth on anything he likes by mere decree, in which case free will isn't intrinsically valuable, in which case God's ability to bring about the greatest goods isn't dependent upon creating creatures with free will, in which case the free will defense looks to be in big trouble.

One might reply that the problem raised above can be avoided by appealing to a more sophisticated version of divine command theory, such as the modified version developed and defended by Robert Adams and others. However, it's not at all clear that this will be of help to the theist in addressing our worry. For while it's true that moral value or moral worth doesn't depend upon God's will on this latter sort of view, it does depend upon God's nature, such that something has moral worth or moral goodness just to the extent that it resembles God's nature. But the problem is that God doesn't have the kind of free will in play in the free will defense. This is because God is essentially morally perfect, in which case there is no possible world at which God freely does something morally wrong. But if that's right, then the kind of free will attributed to humans in the free will defense doesn't resemble the kind of agency had by God. In fact, Adams-style modified divine command theory seems to have the implication that creatures with a kind of will incapable of performing morally wrong actions have greater moral value or worth than creatures that are capable of performing them. And if that's right, then the free will defense looks to be in just as much trouble when conjoined with modified divine command theory as it does when paired with the crude version.

New Paper on Modal Fictionalism and the Ontological Argument

Ted Parent offers a powerful critique of the modal ontological argument in his paper, "The Modal Ontological Argument Meets Modal Fictionalism", Analytic Philosophy (forthcoming). Here is the abstract:

This paper attacks the modal ontological argument, as advocated by Plantinga among others. Whereas other criticisms in the literature reject one of its premises, the present line is that the argument is invalid. This becomes apparent once we run the argument assuming fictionalism about possible worlds. Broadly speaking, the problem is that if one defines “x” as something that exists, it does not follow that there is anything satisfying the definition. Yet unlike non-modal ontological arguments, the modal argument commits this “existential fallacy” not in relation to the definition of ‘God’. Rather, it occurs in relation to the modal facts quantified over within a Kripkean modal logic. In brief, we can describe the modal facts by whichever logic we prefer—yet it does not follow that there are genuine modal facts, as opposed to mere facts-according-to-the-fiction. A broader consequence of the discussion is that the existential fallacy is an issue for many projects in “armchair metaphysics.”

The penultimate draft can be found here.

Review of Klaas Kraay (ed.), God and the Multiverse: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives

Scott Shalkowski reviews the book for NDPR.

Review of Bergmann and Brewer (eds.), Reason and Faith: Themes from Richard Swinburne

Max Baker-Hytch reviews the book for NDPR.

Levey's Important New Paper on PSR

Levey Samuel. "The Paradox of Sufficient Reason", The Philosophical Review 125:3 (July 2016), pp. 397-430.

Here's the abstract:

It can be shown by means of a paradox that, given the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), there is no conjunction of all contingent truths. The question is, or ought to be, how to interpret that result: Quid sibi velit? A celebrated argument against PSR due to Peter van Inwagen and Jonathan Bennett in effect interprets the result to mean that PSR entails that there are no contingent truths. But reflection on parallels in philosophy of mathematics shows it can equally be interpreted either as a proof that there are “too many” contingent truths to combine in a single conjunction or as a proof that the concept contingent truth is indefinitely extensible and there is no such thing as “all contingent truths.” Either interpretation would reconcile PSR with contingent truth, but the natural rationales of those interpretations are at odds. This essay argues that the second interpretation is a more satisfactory explanation of why, if PSR is true, there should be no conjunction of all contingent truths. This sheds new light on the nature of the explanatory demand embedded in PSR and uncovers a number of surprising implications for the commitments of rationalism.

Required reading.

Podcast Interview: Silvia Jonas, Ineffability and its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion, and Philosophy

...at New Books in Philosophy.

Three New Objections to the Fine-Tuning Argument

Rough draft:

First objection: Nothing can create concrete objects ex nihilo. So the posterior probability of the fine-tuning of the universe of concrete objects on the hypothesis that the god of classical theism both (i) designed it and (ii) ultimately created it ex nihilo is nil. But according to classical theism, for any world W containing concrete objects, God ultimately created the concrete objects in W ex nihilo. Therefore, classical theism entails that God ultimately creates ex nihilo any world containing concrete objects he designs. Therefore, the posterior probability of fine-tuning on the hypothesis of classical theism is nil.

Second objection: The evidence for fine-tuning confirms both demiurgism and panentheism over theism, and in this way is good evidence against theism. This is because the intuitive and empirical evidence against creation ex nihilo creates a strong drag on theism’s prior probability not suffered by demiurgism and panentheism, and so they lap the former in terms of posterior probability. A fortiori, the posterior probability of the inclusive disjunction of demiurgism and panentheism is considerably higher than that of theism given the evidence of fine-tuning.

Third objection: There are final causes in God's nature that are ontologically prior to his intelligent agency. For example, God's intellect and will work together to perform various functions, such as designing and creating things.  God's life is also meaningful and purposeful according to classical theism. On classical theism, therefore, final causes are built into God's nature without a prior cause. But if that's right, then classical theism entails the existence of final causes at the metaphysical ground floor that God cannot create. And if that's right, then theism entails that non-conscious teleology is a more fundamental feature of reality than teleology caused by intelligence. And if that's right, then we'd expect base-level teleology in the universe that's not caused by God on the hypothesis of theism. Therefore, absent a further reason for thinking cosmic fine-tuning isn't expected unless caused by a divine fine-tuner, cosmic fine-tuning doesn't confirm theism vis-a-vis naturalism.