Michael Huemer has argued for the justification principle known as phenomenal conservativism by employing a transcendental argument that claims all attempts to reject phenomenal conservativism ultimately are doomed to self-defeat. My contribution presents two independent arguments against the self-defeat argument for phenomenal conservativism after briefly presenting Huemer’s account of phenomenal conservativism and the justification for the self-defeat argument. My first argument suggests some ways that philosophers may reject Huemer’s premise that all justified beliefs are formed on the basis of seemings. (...) In the second argument I contend that phenomenal conservativism is not a well-motivated account of internal justification, which is a further reason to reject the self-defeat argument. Consequently, the self-defeat argument fails to show that rejecting phenomenal conservativism inevitably leads one to a self-defeating position. (shrink)

Michael Bergmann has argued that internalist accounts of justification face an insoluble dilemma. This paper begins with an explanation of Bergmann’s dilemma. Next, I review some recent attempts to answer the dilemma, which I argue are insufficient to overcome it. The solution I propose presents an internalist account of justification through direct acquaintance. My thesis is that direct acquaintance can provide subjective epistemic assurance without falling prey to the quagmire of difficulties that Bergmann alleges all internalist accounts of justification cannot (...) surmount. (shrink)

In a recent article, Erik Wielenberg has argued that positive skeptical theism fails to circumvent his new argument from apparent gratuitous evil. Wielenberg’s new argument focuses on apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment, and he argues that negative skeptical theistic responses fail to respond to the challenge posed by these apparent gratuitous evils due to the parent–child analogy often invoked by theists. The greatest challenge to his view, he admits, is positive skeptical theism. To stave off this potential problem with his (...) argument, he maintains that positive skeptical theism entails divine deception, which creates insuperable problems for traditional theism. This essay shows that Wielenberg is mistaken. Although positive skeptical theism claims that we should expect the appearance of gratuitous evil given Christian theism, this does not entail divine deception. I maintain that God is not a deceiver on positive skeptical theism because God does not meet two requirements to be a deceiver: God does not intend to cause people to believe any false propositions and God does not provide evidence for someone to justifiably believe a false proposition. Consequently, Wielenberg’s new argument from evil fails and positive skeptical theism remains a viable response to the evidential argument from evil. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive, systematic theory of moral responsibility. The authors explore the conditions under which individuals are morally responsible for actions, omissions, consequences, and emotions. The leading idea in the book is that moral responsibility is based on 'guidance control'. This control has two components: the mechanism that issues in the relevant behavior must be the agent's own mechanism, and it must be appropriately responsive to reasons. The book develops an account of both components. The authors go on (...) to offer a sustained defense of the thesis that moral responsibility is compatible with causal determinism. (shrink)

While there is no shortage of philosophical literature discussing knowledge by acquaintance, there is a surprising dearth of work about theories of epistemic justification based on direct acquaintance. This paper explores a basic framework for a thoroughly general account of epistemic justification by acquaintance. I argue that this approach to epistemic justification satisfies two importance aspects of justification. After sketching how the acquaintance approach can meet both objective and subjective aspects for epistemic justification, I will outline how this general account (...) of justification by acquaintance can be applied to the analysis of justification for many types of beliefs. Finally, some of the objections to the acquaintance approach will be considered and answered. (shrink)

This is a selection of essays on moral responsibility that represent the major components of John Martin Fischer's overall approach to freedom of the will and moral responsibility. The collection exhibits the overall structure of Fischer's view and shows how the various elements fit together to form a comprehensive framework for analyzing free will and moral responsibility. The topics include deliberation and practical reasoning, freedom of the will, freedom of action, various notions of control, and moral accountability. The (...) essays seek to provide a foundation for our practices of holding each other (and ourselves) morally and legally accountable for our behavior. A crucial move is the distinction between two kinds of control. According to Fischer, "regulative control" involves freedom to choose and do otherwise ("alternative possibilities"), whereas "guidance control" does not. Fischer contends that guidance control is all the freedom we need to be morally responsible agents. Further, he contends that such control is fully compatible with causal determinism. Additionally, Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to alternative possibilities in order for there to be a legitimate point to practical reasoning. Fischer's overall framework contains an argument for the contention that guidance control, and not regulative control, is associated with moral responsibility, a sketch of a comprehensive theory of moral responsibility (that ties together responsibility for actions, omissions, consequences, and character), and an account of the value of moral responsibility. On this account, the value of exhibiting freedom (of the relevant sort) and thus being morally responsible for one's behavior is a species of the value of artistic self-expression. (shrink)

Epistemic Indirect Realism is the position that justification for contingent propositions about the extra-mental world requires an inference based on a subjective, experiential mental state. One objection against EIR is that it runs contrary to common sense and practice; in essence, ordinary people do not form beliefs about things in the external world on the basis of experiential mental states. This objection implies EIR is contrary to ordinary experience, impractical, and leads to scepticism. In this paper, I will defend EIR (...) against this objection by distinguishing EIR based on conceptual awareness and non-conceptual awareness. In particular, I will argue that direct acquaintance provides sufficient awareness that can explain how ordinary folks are capable of forming justified beliefs about the external world in a way consistent with EIR. Overall, I present a framework for showing that EIR can satisfy ordinary epistemic practices without betraying human nature or over-intellectualizing the required epistemic standards for possessing a justified belief. (shrink)

Some have put forward a normative principle that it is immoral and highly disrespectful to create free, rational creatures (like human beings) without their prior consent. (See, for instance, Monaghan in Int J Philos Relig 88(2):181–195, 2020) If true, this principle constitutes a new argument against the existence of God since it is logically impossible to acquire the consent of someone before they are created. Thus, God’s existence is taken to be incompatible with creating any persons. I shall examine this (...) normative claim and show that it is not plausible. In the first place, it fails to meet three criteria that are commonplace to the “logical problem of evil.” In the second place, the principle has clear counterexamples that show many plausible exceptions that could justify God in creating persons. (shrink)

Arguments in natural theology have recently increased in their number and level of sophistication. However, there has not been much analysis of the ways in which these arguments should be evaluated as good, taken collectively or individually. After providing an overview of some proposed goals and good-making criteria for arguments in natural theology, we provide an analysis that stands as a corrective to some of the ill-formed standards that are currently in circulation. Specifically, our analysis focuses on the relation between (...) the veracity of the premises and their relation to the conclusion of an argument. In addition to providing a clearer account of what makes an argument good, an upshot of our account is that there remain positive contributions for "weak" arguments, especially within cumulative case arguments in ramified natural theology. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett has argued that consciousness can be satisfactorily accounted for in terms of physical entities and processes. In some of his most recent publications, he has made this case by casting doubts on purely conceptual thought experiments and proposing his own thought experiments to "pump" the intuition that consciousness can be physical. In this paper, I will summarize Dennett's recent defenses of physicalism, followed by a careful critique of his position. The critique presses two flaws in Dennett's defense of (...) physicalism. First, I will rebut his case against the traditional conceptual arguments against physicalism. Second, I will present some empirical grounds for thinking that a crucial move in the argument against physicalism is well-supported. For someone, like Dennett, who finds conceptual arguments dubious, the empirical findings make it exceptionally difficult to deny the anti-physicalist argument. (shrink)

This paper defends a Bayesian approach to confirming a miracle against Jordan Howard Sobel’s recent novel interpretation of Hume’s criticisms. In his book, ’Logic and Theism’, Sobel offers an intriguing and original way to apply Hume’s criticisms against the possibility of having sufficient evidence to confirm a miracle. The key idea behind Sobel’s approach is to employ infinitesimal probabilities to neutralize the cumulative effects of positive evidence for any miracle. This paper aims to undermine Sobel’s use of infinitesimal probabilities to (...) block a Bayesian approach to confirming a miracle. (shrink)

In numerous works, Alvin Plantinga argues that classical foundationalism is a failed theory of knowledge because of its self-referential incoherence. Plantinga's argument, however, fails to demonstrate that classical foundationalism is self-refuting. To bring this to light, I will review the form of Plantinga's argument in comparison with other examples of self-refutation. Upon closer inspection, it will be clear that classical foundationalism is not self-refuting, as Plantinga claims. Furthermore, I will expose another flaw in Plantinga's argument against classical foundationalism, which shows (...) at best that Plantinga's argument cannot be reconstructed to demonstrate that classical foundationalism is improbable. While Plantinga's argument may highlight a challenge for classical foundationalism, his argument does not establish the falsity ofclassical foundationalism, nor does it offer any other overriding reason to reject it. Thus, Plantinga's criticisms of classical foundationalism by themselves are not sufficient to rule out the theory's viability. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (3) 2007: pp. 245-251. (shrink)

One objection to skeptical theism is that it implies radical moral skepticism. Humans cannot make any moral judgments on this view because of their ignorance of the inaccessible divine knowledge that is called upon to explain the existence of apparently gratuitous evil. In answering this objection, I propose two important moves for skeptical theists. First, skeptical theists should be positive skeptical theists (the existence of God positively implies the appearance of gratuitous evil), rather than negative skeptical theists (the appearance of (...) gratuitous evil is probabilistically inscrutable given theism). Second, the skeptical theist can affirm a model of divine transcendence whereby the unknown divine moral knowledge is continuous with human moral knowledge. These two moves, I contend, assist in saving skeptical theism from accusations of radical moral skepticism. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has offered a novel approach to refuting external world skepticism in his influential book, Knowledge and Its Limits. The strategy employed by Williamson is to show that skeptics falsely attribute too much self-knowledge to the epistemic agent when they claim that one’s evidence is the same when in a “good case” as it would be in a similar “bad case.” Williamson argues that one’s evidence is not the same in a good case as it would be in a (...) bad case. My contention is that Williamson’s account fails. In order to make his case against skepticism, Williamson must attribute an overly strong conception of evidence to the skeptic, which can be avoided by appealing to a phenomenal concept of evidence. Thus, a different approach must be taken to avoid skeptical consequences. (shrink)

"Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another."--.

In response to the recent resurgence of idealism among a cluster of Christian theologians and philosophers, this article raises a difficulty for Christians to be idealists. Unlike traditional accounts of Christianity that must explain why God permits or allows evil, idealists face a different and more difficult problem—namely why does God willfully and directly produce experiences of evil. Because the metaphysics of idealism requires God to produce experiences of evil directly and willfully, it is difficult to reconcile it with the (...) essential goodness of God. The existence of matter, therefore, may play an important role in maintaining God’s innocence while allowing creatures to exercise free will. (shrink)

The problem of peer disagreement represents a growing challenge to justified religious belief. After surveying the state of the dialectic of the problem, I explore three ways for religious believers to remain steadfast in light of religious disagreement. The first two ways focus on the believer’s basing his religious beliefs on a direct awareness of the truth or evidence of his beliefs. The third way considers the virtue of faith as a means for resisting peer disagreement.

Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposing viewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’s explanation of his particular view; the second half allows them to directly respond to each other’s arguments, in a lively and engaging conversation Offers the reader (...) a one of a kind, interactive discussion Forms part of the acclaimed Great Debates in Philosophy series. (shrink)

The Metaphysics of Free Will provides a through statement of the major grounds for skepticism about the reality of free will and moral responsibility. The author identifies and explains the sort of control that is associated with personhood and accountability, and shows how it is consistent with causal determinism. In so doing, out view of ourselves as morally responsible agents is protected against the disturbing changes posed by science and religion.

Fischer here defends the contention that moral responsibility is associated with "deep control", which is "in-between" two untenable extreme positions: "superficial control" and "total control". He defends this "middle way" against the proponents of more--and less--robust notions of the freedom required for moral responsibility. Fischer offers a new solution to the Luck Problem, as well as providing a defense of the compatibility of causal determinism and moral responsibility.

"There are seven chapters, addressing philosophical issues pertaining to death, the badness of death, time and death, ideas on immortality, near death experiences, and extending life through medical technology. The book is shorter, and less elaborate, than Kagan's Death. And it goes into more depth about a selection of central issues related to death and immortality than May's book. It gives an original take on various basic puzzles pertaining to death, and integrates a discussion of these philosophical issues with an (...) analysis of near-death experiences, as well as an exploration of contemporary efforts to extend life by heroic medical means"--. (shrink)

Control-based models of moral responsibility typically employ a notion of "tracing," according to which moral responsibility requires an exercise of control either immediately prior to the behavior in question or at some suitable point prior to the behavior. Responsibility, on this view, requires tracing back to control. But various philosophers, including Manuel Vargas and Angela Smith, have presented cases in which the plausibility of tracing is challenged. In this paper we discuss the examples and we argue that they do not (...) in fact impugn an attractive and natural tracing component. Our discussion can function in part as a defense of a control-based account of moral responsibility, but also as simply a defense of tracing. (shrink)

Introduction : death, metaphysics, and morality / John Martin Fischer Death knocks / Woody Allen Rationality and the fear of death / Jeffrie G. Murphy Death / Thomas Nagel The Makropulos case : reflections on the tedium of immortality / Bernard Williams The evil of death / Harry S. Silverstein How to be dead and not care : a defense of Epicurus / Stephen E. Rosenbaum The dead / Palle Yourgrau The misfortunes of the dead / George Pitcher (...) Harm to others / Joel Feinberg Reasons and persons / Derek Parfit Why is death bad? / Anthony L. Brueckner and John Martin Fischer Death and the value of life / Jeff McMahan Annihilation / Steven Luper-Foy Epicurus and annihilation / Stephen E. Rosenbaum Some puzzles about the evil of death / Fred Feldman Well-being and time / J. David Velleman. (shrink)

Introduction: "meaning in life and death : our stories" -- John Martin Fischer and Anthony B rueckner, "Why is death bad?", Philosophical studies, vol. 50, no. 2 (September 1986) -- "Death, badness, and the impossibility of experience," Journal of ethics -- John Martin Fischer and Daniel Speak, "Death and the psychological conception of personal identity," Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. 24 -- "Earlier birth and later death : symmetry through thick and thin," Richard Feldman, Kris McDaniel, (...) Jason R. Raibley, eds., The good, the right, life and death (Aldershot : Ashgate Publishing, 2006) -- "Why immortality is not so bad," International journal of philosophical studies, vol. 2, no. 2 (September 1994) -- John Martin Fischer and Ruth Curl, "Philosophical models of immortality in science fiction," in George Slusser et. al., eds., Immortal engines : life extension and immortality in science fiction and fantasy (Athens, Ga. : University of Georgia Press, 1996) -- "Epicureanism about death and immortality," Journal of ethics, vol. 10, no. 4 -- "Stories," Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. 20 -- "Free will, death, and immortality : the role of narrative," Philosophical papers (Special issue : meaning in life) volume 34, number 3, November 2005 -- "Stories and the meaning of life," revised and expanded version of "A reply to Pereboom, Zimmerman, and Smith," part of a book symposium on John Martin Fischer, my way : essays on moral responsibility, philosophical books, vol. 47, no. 3. (shrink)

This unique text focuses on ethical puzzles and hypothetical problems to help students at all levels understand and refine their moral principles and see how they apply to various situations. An extensive, thoughtfully written introduction provides the theoretical background and lays out numerous moral puzzle cases that are analyzed and discussed throughout the text. Challenging follow-up articles argue a variety of stances on the ethical puzzles set forth in the introduction.

Our Fate is a collection of John Martin Fischer's previously published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The book contains a new introductory essay that places all of the chapters in the book into a cohesive framework. The introductory essay also provides some new views about the issues treated in the book, including a bold and original account of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally indeterministic world. The focus of the book is (...) a powerful traditional argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise. Fischer presents this argument and defends it against some of the most salient criticisms, especially Ockhamism.The incompatibilist's argument is driven by the fixity of the past, and, in particular, the fixity of God's prior beliefs about our current behavior. The author gives special attention to Ockhamism, which contends that God's prior beliefs are not "over-and-done-with" in the past, and are thus not subject to the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past. In the end, Fischer defends the argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise, but he further argues that this incompatibility need not entail the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human moral responsibility. Thus, through this collection of essays, Fischer develops a "semicompatibilist" view--the belief that God's foreknowledge is entirely compatible with human moral responsibility, even if God's foreknowledge rules out freedom to do otherwise. (shrink)

I offer an overview of the book, _Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life_, summarizing the main issues, arguments, and conclusions (Fischer 2020). I also present some new ideas and further developments of the material in the book. A big part of this essay is drawing connections between the specific issues treated in the book and those in other areas of philosophy, and in particular, the theory of agency and moral responsibility. I highlight some striking similarities of both structure and content (...) between the death/meaning in life literature and the free will/moral responsibility literature. (shrink)

(1994). Why immortality is not so bad. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 257-270.

Our aim in this paper is to put the concept of moral responsibility under a microscope. At the lowest level of magnification, it appears unified. But Gary Watson has taught us that if we zoom in, we will find that moral responsibility has two faces: attributability and accountability. Or, to describe the two faces in different terms, there is a difference between being responsible and holding responsible. It is one thing to talk about the connection the agent has with her (...) action; it is quite another to talk about the potential interaction the agent might have with her moral community. It turns out, though, that the faces of moral responsibility can themselves be viewed under an even higher level of magnification. If moral responsibility has two faces, then our aim in this paper is to examine their features. To do so reveals subtle distinctions in our concept of moral responsibility and its interaction with surrounding issues that, we argue, can help illuminate various debates in the literature. (shrink)

I address various critiques of the approach to moral responsibility sketched in previous work by Ravizza and Fischer. I especially focus on the key issues pertaining to manipulation.

In this paper, we aim to clarify and evaluate the contention that immortality would be necessarily boring . It will emerge that, just as there are various importantly different kinds of immortality, there are various distinct kinds of boredom. To evaluate the Necessary Boredom Thesis, we need to specify the kind of immortality and the kind of boredom. We argue against the thesis, on various specifications of “immortality” and “boredom.”.