Publications 1
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Chapter
Chi and the Unmoved Mover
Faith Seeking Understanding in Igboland (Ogui Road Seminary Press) · 2022
Compares Thomist causation with Igbo accounts of personal destiny, and argues the analogy breaks down in a useful place.
Activity last 6 months
Debates 4
Questions 2
Discussions 2
Recent replies
- The argument from marginal cases has never been properly answered
The Thomist reply is not species membership in fancy dress. A newborn is not a non-rational being. She is a rational being at an early stage of development, and a severely disabled person is a rationa…
- Is ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ a real question or just a very good bit?
The question in its famous form is Leibniz's, in a short work from 1714: why is there something rather than nothing, since nothing is simpler and easier than something? He answered with the princ…
- Parfit was right: identity is not what matters in survival
I'll take the organism. Step 2 assumes that if you have two equally good candidates, neither is you. But if what you are is a living human animal, then the brain-splitting case is one in which th…
- I never agreed to obey the state. Why do I owe it anything?
The natural law tradition gives a different answer from all of these. For Aquinas, authority exists because a community needs someone to coordinate it towards the common good. You owe obedience not be…
- What is the doctrine of double effect, and did Aquinas really come up with it?
Your bus example is a good way in. The usual source is Aquinas on killing in self-defence (Summa Theologiae II-II, question 64, article 7). He says one act can have two effects, only one of which is i…