Research & Projects
Research & Projects
My dissertation research explores a phenomenon I call "doctrinal vows." These are vows which not only involve a profession of belief at a particular time, but implicate one's future beliefs and epistemic conduct. Such vows are often found in the rituals of initiation used by Christian churches; the title is borrowed from the membership vows of my own denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The project has several aims:
Identify the distinctive features of doctrinal vows.
Discuss what requirements doctrinal vows impose on vow-makers.
Consider the potential epistemic benefits and harms of making a doctrinal vow.
Discuss the factors which contribute to making particular doctrinal vows rational or irrational to make, and argue that, as they are used in the Christian tradition, they are often rational.
I recently presented this paper at the Fall 2024 conference of the Toronto Philosophy of Religion Working Group, and am currently revising it for journal submission. In it, I argue that omnisubjectivity - a divine attribute recently proposed by Linda Zagzebski - is compatible with the classical doctrine of divine impassibility. I do so by considering the more basic doctrines which motivate belief in impassibility, and showing that omnisubjective experiences, while they could not have been taken into account in historical formulations of impassibility, are compatible with these motivating doctrines and therefore compatible with the spirit of impassibility.