Feynman, the Onion of Scientific Discovery and Ultimate Laws of Nature

What if there were no ultimate laws of nature or even no ultimate description of reality? What if science would continue to make the kind of progress it seems to have been making without ever reaching a fundamental level of explanation?

The Constitution of a Christian Country

Looking back to the founding of the United States, is it right to say that the Constitution is the Constitution of a Christian country?  The answer has to be: “yes and no.” 

The Moral Underpinnings of Democracy and its Degree-Affected Variant

Motivated by some ideas that percolated around in the New Left, this essay argues that the core justification of democracy is not that it maximizes utility (which it often does pretty well) or even that it recognizes equality of citizenship (which is essential to any just political order), but instead that it is the best projection into the sphere of social decision making of the values of individual autonomy and liberty. It follows that democracy keyed to the stake that each voter has in the outcome will sometimes realize democratic values more fully than does one citizen one vote.

Probabilities, Atheism, Agnosticism, & Hope

What should we say of a person who assigns a low, but non-zero, probability for the existence of God, or a high, but non-one probability? Are they agnostics? Can one responsibly hope that God exists while believing the probability is very low?

An Equities Sensitive Defense for the Battered Woman Who Kills

This is a draft of a paper, many years old, arguing that victims of continuing abuse should sometimes benefit from a readjustment of the reasonableness elements when tried for killing (or feloniously assaulting) their abusers.

Intrinsic Value of an Eternal God – Nihilism, Perfectionism, Weird Deities, and Guilty Pleasures

The thesis for this piece is that it would be good for there to be an eternal God. This will not seem controversial enough to merit cloudspace for most believers, and unbelievers may think it equal in interest to how many angels could dance on the head of a pin if angels there were. The question of the intrinsic value of eternal persons is, admittedly, largely a conceptual etude. It is, however, I think of some interest that the proposition can be established with relatively little machinery. It is, in fact, a fairly easy theorem of intrinsic value theory, and depends on almost nothing in the way of theology. For example it ignores any good thing that God might do for human beings.

Devil Worship and Theories of Reference

The Yazidi, recent targets of genocide in its most atrocious form, have sometimes been accused of devil worship by fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. Of course forced conversion and murder are not be any less moral enormities if their targets are devil worshipers than if they are Episcopalians. A libelous accusation of devil worship is, however, something religious people of most persuasions find at least offensive, and the Yazidi are no exception.

Because a little modestly technical philosophy is helpful in analyzing the accusation of devil worship, and is illustrative of turns of argument applicable in many other settings, I am going to take a closer look at the issue than its plausibility and the moral standing of the accusers warrant.