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Erik J. Wielenberg [38]Erik Joseph Wielenberg [3]
  1. Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism.Erik Joseph Wielenberg - 2014 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Erik J. Wielenberg draws on recent work in analytic philosophy and empirical moral psychology to defend non-theistic robust normative realism, according to which there are objective ethical features of the universe that do not depend on God for their existence. He goes on to develop an empirically-grounded account of human moral knowledge.
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  2. On the evolutionary debunking of morality.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2010 - Ethics 120 (3):441-464.
    Evolutionary debunkers of morality hold this thesis: If S’s moral belief that P can be given an evolutionary explanation, then S’s moral belief that P is not knowledge. In this paper, I debunk a variety of arguments for this thesis. I first sketch a possible evolutionary explanation for some human moral beliefs. Next, I explain how, given a reliabilist approach to warrant, my account implies that humans possess moral knowledge. Finally, I examine the debunking arguments of Michael Ruse, Sharon Street, (...)
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  3.  99
    Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2005 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Suppose there is no God. This might imply that human life is meaningless, that there are no moral obligations and hence people can do whatever they want, and that the notions of virtue and vice and good and evil have no place. Erik J. Wielenberg believes this view to be mistaken and in this book he explains why. He argues that even if God does not exist, human life can have meaning, we do have moral obligations, and virtue is possible. (...)
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  4. In Defense of Non-Natural, Non-Theistic Moral Realism.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2009 - Faith and Philosophy 26 (1):23-41.
    Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind. After explaining my view, I defend it against a variety of objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland.
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  5. Ethics and Evolutionary Theory.Erik Joseph Wielenberg - 2016 - Analysis 76 (4):502-515.
  6. (1 other version)Sceptical Theism and Divine Lies.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2010 - Religious Studies 46 (4):509-523.
    In this paper I develop a novel challenge for sceptical theists. I present a line of reasoning that appeals to sceptical theism to support scepticism about divine assertions. I claim that this reasoning is at least as plausible as one popular sceptical theistic strategy for responding to evidential arguments from evil. Thus, I seek to impale sceptical theists on the horns of a dilemma: concede that either (a) sceptical theism implies scepticism about divine assertions, or (b) the sceptical theistic strategy (...)
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  7. Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2005 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 59 (3):179-182.
     
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  8. Omnipotence Again.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2000 - Faith and Philosophy 17 (1):26-47.
    One of the cornerstones of western theology is the doctrine of divine omnipotence. God is traditionally conceived of as an omnipotent or all-powerful being. However, satisfactory analyses of omnipotence are notoriously elusive. In this paper, I first consider some simple attempts to analyze omnipotence, showing how each fails. I then consider two more sophisticated accounts of omnipotence. The first of these is presented by Edward Wierenga; the second by Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso. I argue that both of these accounts (...)
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  9. The parent–child analogy and the limits of skeptical theism.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2015 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 78 (3):301-314.
    I draw on the literature on skeptical theism to develop an argument against Christian theism based on the widespread existence of suffering that appears to its sufferer to be gratuitous and is combined with the sense that God has abandoned one or never existed in the first place. While the core idea of the argument is hardly novel, key elements of the argument are importantly different from other influential arguments against Christian theism. After explaining that argument, I make the case (...)
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  10.  55
    A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?William Lane Craig & Erik J. Wielenberg - 2020 - New York, NY: Routledge. Edited by Erik J. Wielenberg & Adam Lloyd Johnson.
    In 2018, William Lane Craig and Erik J. Wielenberg participated in a debate at North Carolina State University, addressing the question: "God and Morality: What is the best account of objective moral values and duties?" Craig argued that theism provides a sound foundation for objective morality whereas atheism does not. Wielenberg countered that morality can be objective even if there is no God. This book includes the full debate, as well as endnotes with extended discussions that were not included in (...)
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  11.  42
    Saving Character.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2006 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (4):461-491.
    In his recent book Lack of Character, John Doris argues that people typically lack character (understood in a particular way). Such a claim, if correct, would have devastating implications for moral philosophy and for various human moral projects (e.g. character development). I seek to defend character against Doris's challenging attack. To accomplish this, I draw on Socrates, Aristotle, and Kant to identify some of the central components of virtuous character. Next, I examine in detail some of the central experiments in (...)
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  12. A morally unsurpassable God must create the best.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2004 - Religious Studies 40 (1):43-62.
    I present a novel argument for the position that a morally unsurpassable God must create the best world that He has the power to create. I show that grace-based considerations of the sort proposed by Robert Adams neither refute my argument nor establish that a morally unsurpassable God need not create the best. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of my argument for the ‘no-best-world’ response to the problem of evil. (Published Online February 17 2004).
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  13.  82
    Reply to Craig, Murphy, McNabb, and Johnson.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2018 - Philosophia Christi 20 (2):365-375.
    In Robust Ethics, I defend a nontheistic version of moral realism according to which moral properties are sui generis, not reducible to other kinds of properties (e.g., natural properties or supernatural properties) and objective morality requires no foundation external to itself. I seek to provide a plausible account of the metaphysics and epistemology of the robust brand of moral realism I favor that draws on both analytic philosophy and contemporary empirical moral psychology. In this paper, I respond to some objections (...)
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  14.  81
    Euthyphro and Moral Realism: A Reply to Harrison.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2016 - Sophia 55 (3):437-449.
    Gerald Harrison identifies two Euthyphro-related concerns for divine command theories and makes the case that to the extent that these concerns make trouble for divine command theories they also make trouble for non-naturalistic moral realism and naturalistic moral realism. He also offers responses to the two concerns on behalf of divine command theorists. I show here that the parity thesis does not hold for the most commonly discussed version of divine command theory. I further argue that his responses to the (...)
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  15. Introduction.Yujin Nagasawa & Erik J. Wielenberg - 2008 - In Yujin Nagasawa & Erik Wielenberg (eds.), New waves in philosophy of religion. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
  16.  18
    (1 other version)God and the reach of reason: C.S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2007 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    C. S. Lewis is one of the most beloved Christian apologists of the twentieth century; David Hume and Bertrand Russell are among Christianity’s most important critics. This book puts these three intellectual giants in conversation with one another on various important questions: the existence of God, suffering, morality, reason, joy, miracles, and faith. Alongside irreconcilable differences, surprising areas of agreement emerge. Curious readers will find penetrating insights in the reasoned dialogue of these three great thinkers.
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  17. Atheism and Morality.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2013 - In Stephen Bullivant & Michael Ruse (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 89.
    This essay addresses two popular worries about morality in an atheistic context. The first is a psychological or sociological one: the worry that unbelief makes one more disposed to act immorally than one would be if one had theistic beliefs and, consequently, widespread atheism produces societal dysfunction. This essay argues that the relationship between atheism and human moral beliefs and behaviour is complex, and that highly secularized societies can also be deeply moral societies. The second worry is philosophical in nature: (...)
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  18. Difference-Making and Easy Knowledge: Reply to Comesaña and Sartorio.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2015 - Logos and Episteme 6 (1):141-146.
    Juan Comesaña and Carolina Sartorio have recently proposed a diagnosis of what goes wrong in apparently illegitimate cases of ‘bootstrapping’ one’s way toexcessively easy knowledge. They argue that in such cases the bootstrapper bases at least one of her beliefs on evidence that does not evidentially support the proposition believed. I explicate the principle that underlies Comesaña and Sartorio’s diagnosis of such cases and show that their account of what goes wrong in such cases is mistaken.
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  19.  57
    How to Be an Alethically Rational Naturalist.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2002 - Synthese 131 (1):81-98.
    Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that naturalism is self-defeating. Plantinga's argument is, at its heart, an argument from analogy. Plantinga presents various epistemic situations and claims of each that (i) a person in such a situation has an undefeated defeater for each of his beliefs, and (ii) a reflective naturalist is in a relevantly similar situation. I present various epistemic situations and claim of each that a person in such a situation does not have an undefeated defeater for each of (...)
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  20. An Inconsistency in Craig’s Defence of the Moral Argument.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2012 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (4):49--58.
    I argue that William Craig’s defence of the moral argument is internally inconsistent. In the course of defending the moral argument, Craig criticizes non-theistic moral realism on the grounds that it posits the existence of certain logically necessary connections but fails to provide an adequate account of why such connections hold. Another component of Craig’s defence of the moral argument is an endorsement of a particular version of the divine command theory. Craig’s version of DCT posits certain logically necessary connections (...)
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  21. Mark Murphy. God and Moral Law: On the Theistic Explanation of Morality. Oxford University Press, 2011.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2014 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (1):199--203.
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  22.  53
    The Psychopath Challenge to Divine Command Theory: Reply to Flannagan.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2024 - Sophia 63 (1):35-42.
    Erik Wielenberg has presented an objection to divine command theory (DCT) alleging that DCT has the troubling implication that psychopaths have no moral obligations. Matthew Flannagan has replied to Wielenberg’s argument. Here, I defend the view that, despite Flannagan’s reply, the psychopath objection presents a serious problem for the versions of DCT defended by its most prominent contemporary advocates — Robert Adams, C. Stephen Evans, and William Lane Craig.
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  23.  87
    Craig’s God Cannot Create a Temporal Universe.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2021 - Philosophia Christi 23 (2):329-340.
    William Lane Craig’s inuential kalam cosmological argument concludes that the universe has a cause of its beginning. Craig provides some supplementary reasoning to suggest that the first cause is God—a God that exists timelessly without the universe and temporally with the universe. I argue that Craig’s hypothesis about the nature of the first cause is impossible. In particular, it cannot be the case that God timelessly wills to create the universe and the universe begins to exist.
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  24.  99
    The Moral Argument for God’s Existence; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Godless Morality.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2019 - The Philosophers' Magazine 86:93-98.
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  25.  67
    Debunking Arguments in Ethics, written by Hanno Sauer.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2020 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10 (2):178-183.
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  26.  97
    Homosexual Sex and the One-Flesh Union.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2015 - Roczniki Filozoficzne 63 (3):107-117.
    I critically examine Alexander Pruss’s conception of the one-body union described in Genesis 2:24. Pruss appeals to his conception of the one-body union to advance two arguments for the conclusion that homosexual sex is morally wrong. I propose an alternative conception of the one- body union that implies that heterosexual and homosexual couples alike can participate in the one-body union; I take that implication of my account to be a significant advantage over Pruss’s account.
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  27. Discussion note: The failure of brown's new supervenience argument.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2011 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5:3-3.
     
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  28. Evil and atheistic moral realism.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2019 - In W. Paul Franks (ed.), Explaining Evil: Four Views. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
     
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  29.  52
    Fiona Ellis, God, Value, and Nature: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014, 220 pp., $99.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2015 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 78 (1):131-135.
    In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that just about everyone agrees that the highest good is eudaimonia while disagreeing with one another about what eudaimonia is. A similar situation exists among many contemporary philosophers: they agree that naturalism is true while disagreeing with one another about what naturalism is. By their lights, the claim that a given entity exists is worth taking seriously only if the entity in question is compatible with naturalism ; otherwise, the entity is queer or spooky (...)
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  30.  81
    Many are culled but few are chosen.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2000 - Religious Studies 36 (1):81-93.
    In his recent book "Divine Providence: The Molinist Account," Thomas Flint suggests that necessarily, a world is culled iff it is chosen. I argue that there is good reason to think that this thesis is false. I further argue that the thesis is inconsistent with certain other claims that many theists will want to endorse and hence that many theists will want to reject Flint's claim. I next consider Flint's reasons for endorsing the thesis and argue that his reasons are (...)
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  31.  40
    Metz’s Case Against Supernaturalism.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8 (2):27--34.
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  32.  92
    Pleasure, pain, and moral character and development.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2002 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 83 (3):282-299.
    I distinguish two kinds of pleasures – value–based pleasures, which can be explained in terms of the values of those who experience them, and brute pleasures, which cannot be so explained. I apply this distinction to three related projects. First, I critically examine a recent discussion of moral character by Colin McGinn, arguing that McGinn offers a distorted view of good character. Second, I try to elucidate certain remarks Aristotle makes about the relationships between pleasure and courage and pleasure and (...)
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  33.  37
    The Nature of Moral Virtue.Erik Joseph Wielenberg - 2000 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    The dissertation is centered around the Moral Virtuosity Project . The central task of the dissertation is to examine what other philosophers have had to say on this topic and ultimately to successfully complete this project. ;Chapter One is concerned exclusively with Aristotle's attempt to complete the Moral Virtuosity Project. I defend the view that Aristotle holds that each moral virtue is a disposition toward proper practical reasoning, action, and emotion within a certain sphere. I critically examine Aristotle's argument for (...)
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  34. The new paradox of the stone revisited.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2001 - Faith and Philosophy 18 (2):261-268.
    Alfred Mele and M.P. Smith have presented a puzzle about omnipotence which they call “the new paradox of the stone.” They have also proposed a solution to this puzzle. I briefly present their puzzle and their proposed solution and argue that their proposed solution is unsatisfactory. I further argue that if their suggested solution to the original paradox of the stone succeeds, a similar solution also solves the new paradox of the stone.
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  35.  35
    Loyal Rue. Nature is Enough: Religious Naturalism and the Meaning of Life.Erik J. Wielenberg - 2014 - Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 1 (1):134.
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  36.  54
    Greene, Joshua. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap between Us and Them.New York: Penguin, 2013. Pp. 422. $29.95. [REVIEW]Erik J. Wielenberg - 2014 - Ethics 124 (4):910-916.
  37.  17
    Book Reviews Davison , Scott A. On the Intrinsic Value of Everything New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012. Pp. 150. $80.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). [REVIEW]Erik J. Wielenberg - 2012 - Ethics 123 (1):141-146.
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