Here's a brief introduction to the philosophical puzzle of free will.

Atheist critiques of religious belief tend to assume that this belief is of broadly the same kind as that treated by philosophers: a disposition to take as true the content of some propositional knowledge claim. I argue here that it is not. What is primarily meant by ‘belief’ in a religious context refers to something quite different, and while this kind of belief sometimes implies belief in the philosophers’ sense it doesn't always do so, and even when it does it is with significant qualifications. Similar considerations apply to other words, such as ‘truth’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘meaning’ itself. In each case atheists tend to impose on religious discourse a particular philosophical meaning rather different from that typically intended.

Libertarians frequently complain that when a government taxes some of its citizens in order to help others, it is forcing them to behave altruistically. And obviously, we are meant to think, that use of force is morally objectionable. But what exactly makes taxation objectionable? One answer that many libertarians supply is that forcing some people to benefit others is wrong because it involves forced labour. The underlying thought seems to be that there is something morally troubling about making some people work for others. In this article I scrutinize this thought. After describing two different kinds of taxation, I show how the libertarian argument about taxes depends on a distinction between posing a threat to other people and failing to help them. This brings us to the moral bedrock of the argument that taxation is forced labour, namely the idea that no one has a right to force you to do something unless you pose a threat to other people. The bulk of my article is devoted to showing (1) that this idea cannot deliver the conclusion that libertarians want because it conflicts with other things that libertarians believe; and (2) once you give up on that idea, it turns out that taxation to benefit others is not necessarily wrong by libertarian standards.

I argue, from premises accepted by every educated person, that there must have been a first human generation, contrary to what Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett have prominently claimed.

Many on both sides of the gun control debate are under the impression that the best way to settle it is by weighing outcomes in the context of a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. This article suggests that this way of thinking about the gun control debate is fundamentally mistaken. What matters is not the risk (or lack thereof) that guns pose to society, but simply whether guns are a reasonable means of self-defence when used to resist crimes. What this means is that even if we were to grant the claim that gun ownership decreases average safety, it wouldn't follow that restrictive gun control measures would be justified.

In this letter to the general public, received by Think some time ago, God complains that the growth of science has made it progressively more difficult to communicate with everyone as much as he would like. He then apologizes for not anticipating that scientific explanations would always be preferable to appeals to miracles in accounting for strange or unusual phenomena.

The evil God challenge argues that for every theodicy that justifies the existence of an omnibenevolent God in the face of evil, there is a mirror theodicy that can defend the existence of an omnimalevolent God in the face of good. People who invoke the evil God challenge further argue that because we find evil God theodicies to be implausible, we should find good God theodicies to be equally implausible. This article argues that in fact evil God theodicies are more reasonable than good God theodicies by expanding upon arguments offered by David Benatar regarding the nature of existence, and David Hume regarding the asymmetry in our sensations of pain and pleasure.

I argue that there is an important emotion for which we do not have a name.

In his fairly recent article in this journal, ‘The Evil-god Challenge – A Response’ (Think 40), Keith Ward attempts to nullify Stephen Law's evil-god challenge by presenting several arguments intended to demonstrate that an omniscient, omnipotent being cannot conceivably be evil. In this article, I critically respond to each of Ward's arguments to reach the conclusion that an omnipotent, omniscient being could indeed be evil. To achieve this, I claim that neither perfect empathy nor rationality entails benevolence, that the desire for suffering is not necessarily pathological, and that human desire for a good god does not entail that god is actually benevolent.

In this article, I argue that dreaming arguments are no cause for alarm.

Death's inevitability is not in question, but its mystery is one that is equally unavoidable and the questions we are likely to have about what then unanswerable. Traditionally we have tended to be concerned with what – if anything – might happen to us personally after we pass away, but that is not our question here. Rather we wish to contemplate what a knowledge of what will happen to the others in our lives may do to us while we are yet living. If we could know before we die the events that will befall our loved ones and/or our communities how might we react? Would that knowing be a comfort or a curse? Moreover, what might our contemplation on this query teach us about death more generally? Such is our concern in the discussion below.

Donald Trump promised to build a wall along the US–Mexico border and to make Mexico pay for it, but this seems to violate the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’ on which the United States was founded. Some democratic theorists propose even more radical principles of inclusion, such as that all those affected by or subject to a decision should have a say in it. But even a more moderate principle, requiring that those who pay must be represented, is sufficient to show that Trump's proposed border wall lacks democratic legitimacy.

Susan Stebbing's Thinking to Some Purpose is analysed along the lines of contemporary efforts in critical thinking, and some of the problematized media material of her time. It is concluded that what Stebbing recommends is difficult to achieve, but worth the effort.

In spite of the widespread recognition of critical thinking as an elementary aim of education, and an important tool for people to evaluate information and make reasonable decisions in their daily lives, to think critically is a difficult task. We are consciously and unconsciously biased, and our basic beliefs strongly influence the way we assess evidence, so our cognitive default condition seems to move us away from critical thinking. However, it is possible appropriately to exercise critical thinking to evaluate subjects to which we are emotionally attached, and the experience of the illusionist Harry Houdini investigating Spiritualism is a striking example of it. My objective here is to discuss how Houdini incorporated core elements of critical thinking, such as the ability to evaluate reasons, and the disposition to calibrate his beliefs accordingly, in his assessment of the claim that Spiritualist mediums could contact the spirits of dead people, as described in his book A Magician among the Spirits.

The traditional problem of other minds is epistemological. What justification can be given for thinking that the world is populated with other minds? More recently, some philosophers have argued for a second problem of other minds that is conceptual. How can we conceive of the point of view of another mind in relation to our own? This article retraces the logic of the epistemological and conceptual problems, and it argues for a third problem of other minds. This is the phenomenological problem which concerns the philosophical (rather than psychological) question of experience. How is another mind experienced as another mind? The article offers dialectical and motivational justification for regarding these as three distinct problems. First, it argues that while the phenomenological problem cannot be reduced to the other problems, it is logically presupposed by them. Second, the article examines how the three problems are motivated by everyday experiences in three distinct ways.

Athlete Caster Semenya's successes have, in conjunction with her appearance, led to an inquiry. She appeared to have high levels of testosterone; it was decided that she had to reduce them if she wanted to race against other women. I argue that the recognition of the difference between Caster Semenya and her competitors should not result in this outcome: similar differences exist (in all sports), which are accepted as such. It would be inconsistent to focus on this advantage if one disregards others, while the alternative to realize an outcome in which all differences are removed would yield absurd results.

Few critical scholars have responded to my recent work on the controversial topic of Jesus’ probable ahistoricity. Disregarding my advice that this should be a debate among atheists, Brenda Watson has become the first to respond in an academic journal. Stephen Law also received some criticism for his own article on scepticism about Jesus. I respond to them all here.

This dialogue presents a substantive account of the nature and aim of ontology.