Can God Know what Time it is? A Working Paper

Many thinkers hold the following five propositions are inconsistent: The dynamic theory of time (McTaggart’s “A-theory”) is correct God is atemporal God knows tensed facts Free human actions are possible God interacts responsively with humans This working paper uses the discussion in Four Views: God and Time as a starting-point and moves towards explaining how these propositions are consistent

Justice in Labor Immigration Policy

I provide an alternative to the two prevailing accounts of justice in immigration policy, the free migration view and the state discretion view. Against the background of an internationalist conception of domestic and global justice that grounds special duties of justice between co-citizens in their shared participation in a distinctive scheme of social cooperation, I defend three principles of justice to guide labor immigration policy: the Difference Principle, the Duty of Beneficence, and the Duty of Assistance. I suggest how these principles are to be applied in both ideal and nonideal circumstances. Finally, I argue that the potential conflict between these principles has often been overstated, and propose priority rules for genuine cases of conflict

What Does the Happy Life Require? Augustine on What the Summum Bonum Includes

Many critics of religion insist that believing in a future life makes us less able to value our present activities and distracts us from accomplishing good in this world. In Augustine's case, this gets things backwards. It is while Augustine seeks to achieve happiness in this life that he is detached from suffering and dismissive of the body. Once Augustine comes to believe happiness is only attainable once the whole city of God is triumphant, he is able to compassionately engage with present suffering and see material and social goods as part of our ultimate good

Mount Rushmore: A Tomb for Dead Ideas of American Greatness

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial stands in the Black Hills of South Dakota as a symbol of American greatness. However, the public perceptions of the greatness represented in this memorial do not take into consideration the ideals held by the three main contributors to the development of the mountain, Doane Robinson, Peter Norbeck, and Gutzon Borglum. An exploration into the lives and beliefs of these three men reveals that they possessed a specific definition of America greatness exemplified in the white male farmer of the American West. The four former presidents selected for carving symbolize a general American greatness, but more importantly they epitomize the specific version of greatness championed by the planners of the memorial. Yet, from the earliest perceptions of Mt. Rushmore, the public saw only the representation of a general American greatness that included all members of the nation and eventually the entire world. Visitors to Mount Rushmore do not see the specific ideas of American greatness intended by the planners of the memorial and these ideas of American greatness are now dead