All articles are in pdf format.
Hasker at the Bridge of Death
Glenn PeoplesThis paper is a critique of William Hasker's Emergent dualism when it comes to the question of whether or not - and how - the mind can survive the death of the body. (Published in Philosophia Christi 10:2 (2008), 393-409)
Rawls, Rationality and Religion
Glenn PeoplesA paper presented to the 2006 conference of the Australasian Association of Philosophers, addressing the question of whether or not religious beliefs are such that they are excluded by a Rawlsian constraint on the type of beliefs that we can presuppose in public life. Do they enjoy public justification? That depends on whether or not they are true, I argue, among other things.
Faith in Public: A Response to Greg Dawes
Glenn PeoplesAn article I had published in the Journal of Religion and Society in 2005, responding to the claim that in contemporary academia we ought to hold a "presumption of naturalism."
A New Euthyphro
Glenn PeoplesPlato's Euthyphro is widely thought to contain a knock down argument against theologically grounded ethics - widely thought, that is, outside of the field of philosophy of religion. The so-called Euthyphro dilemma is said to show that moral rightness cannot possibly consist in what God wills, but much of its success lies in the way the author was able to paint Euthyphro as the loser. Had Euthyphro been better informed and quicker on his feet, he would have won hands down - as he does in this revised version of the Euthyphro dialogue. A bit of philosophical fun - with a point. (Published in Think: Philosophy for Everyone 9:25 (2010).
Is There an Echo in Here? Critiques of God Based Ethics
Glenn PeoplesThe field of moral philosophy has an Achilles' heel, namely the way it treats theological grounded accounts of ethics. The same old objections keep appearing repeatedly, completely ignoring the able responses that have been offered from those who actually specialise in philosophy of religion. Here I survey some of these objections and point out that there's an echo in here.
Wolterstorff on Divine Commands
Glenn PeoplesNicholas Wolterstorff has said that divine command ethics are in part illuminated by an analogy between human commands and God's commands. However, he has also argued that, given the way that human commands function in bringing about moral obligations, they really cannot illuminate the way that God creates moral obligations in the way that a divine command theorist needs them to. As such, this analogy that is supposed to illuminate divine commands, says Wolterstorff, is not really available after all. In this short piece I respond to this line of argument and show that Professor Wolterstorff has misconstrued divine command ethics and the way that it sees the human creation of divine command ethics, and that the analogy between human and divine commands only fails if divine command ethics is false, which surely cannot be assumed from the outset.
