Annotated Bibliography #1

Rist, John. On Inoculating Moral Philosophy Against God. The Aquinas Lecture, 2000. Print
This book talks about how theology and philosophy have been merged when they are
supposed to be two distinguished ideas. It says that philosophy starts with the world and theology
starts with God. St. Augustine, who did not distinguish philosophy and theology, claimed that
theology was an advanced form of philosophy. A philosophy where he claims, has more available
data. Even though this data is actually just belief and hope rather than actual knowledge.
We cannot avoid living in this moral space where there is a sense of right and wrong,
good and bad. The factors are determined by first realizing the rationale; how much sense it
makes versus something that doesnt. But while doing so, adopting the ability to commit to
believing that all there is in morality, is rationality, and thus assigning the idea that doing the
right thing makes sense, being that it is the most reasonable and rational thing to do.
A Christians idea of rationality may be good, but it is not the highest good. People are
subjected to a fundamental and inexplicable moral weakness, needing Gods assistance to deter
from immorality.
John Rist is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and is a British scholar of ancient
philosophy, classics, and early Christian philosophy and theology. He is a Professor of Classics
Emeritus at the University of Toronto, and a part-time visiting professor at the Institutum
Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome. He also holds the Father Kurt Pritzl Chair in Philosophy at
the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
This book was really hard to understand and took a lot of thinking to actually get
what he was saying. He tended to cite from the ancient philosophers so it was hard to
connect. Once I understood it, he stated some really good ideas. He seemed biased towards
atheism and kind of disrespected Christianity. This was the first of my sources that I read
and I believe there is better content on the other sources. I may pull out some ideas from
this book but I dont believe this will be a main source.

Annotated Bibliography #2

Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. Morality Without God. Chapter Four, Whats Wrong. Oxford
Press, 2009. Print
This book talks about how morality is the thing that separates us from animals. It enables
us to get along with other humans, without morality life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short. We make choices based off of moral considerations. We all face the temptations of
doing bad things such as lying or cheating. Moral beliefs helps us take stands on controversial
issues and affects how and what we vote on.
The author talks about how there are visions of morality that compete in society. The first
view is that morality consists in obeying Gods commands, the other is that morality is
independent of God and religion. He then explains how people try to bring in religion into
moral issues, where religion isnt usually discussed. He then begins to further explain how
morality is objective and how there still would be morality without god. He explains why
immoral things, such as rape, are immoral and how everyone can agree on that. The reasons why
these acts are immoral are because they cause harm. Harm is anything that would affect a person
being done immorally wrong. Then it talks about all of the different types of harm such as pain
and loss of freedom.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is an American philosopher. He is the Chauncey Stillman
Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics
at Duke University. He is an atheist and believes that moral behavior should be independent of
religion.
This was a pretty easy read. Everything was straight forward and easy to
understand. He explained things in a manner that was easy to relate to and comprehend.
While he is a very educated person, he uses the language of a common person. Although he
is atheist, he respected peoples religion. I will definitely be using this piece in my paper
because it gives great insight to my thesis. He answers many other questions throughout his
book than just the one I asked.

Annotated Bibliography #3

Dye, Lee. Do We Need God to be Moral? ABC News. 7 April 2013. Web.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/god-moral/story?id=18898993

This articles questions if we are moral because we believe in God, or do we believe in

God because we are moral? It shows that we are the latter but most religious leaders would argue
it's the other way around: Our sense of what's moral came from God, and without God there
would be no morality. Frans de Waal, although atheist, tells how religion serves its purpose, by
using rituals and body of beliefs that help strengthen the bonds of communities.
Waal is a primatologist who worked with Bonobo monkeys. Chimps and bonobos and
other primates show empathy with others who are suffering. They have a sense of fairness, they
take care of those in need, and they will share what they have with others who are less fortunate.
This shows that they have the understanding of being somewhat moral.
There was a bonobo monkey in a zoo that accidentally bit off its feeders hand when
being fed. When he realized what he had done he dropped his head and wrapped his hands
around himself, showing the signs of guilt and grief. The ape understood that it had done
something wrong, showing that it has the beginnings of having morality.
Lee Dye is Column writer for ABC News. He loves Science.
This article was pretty interesting. It made me think about other life form that do
acts of morality, meaning that maybe we do need a higher being to be moral. All you need is
a heart. While this source doesnt have the best credibility other than it being from ABC
News, the information it gives helped lead me into a different direction to cover on my
thesis.

Annotated Bibliography #4

Young, Elizabeth Drummond. Gods moral goodness and supererogation. International Journal
for Philosophy of Religion. Volume 73, Issue 2, pp 83-95. April, 2013. Peer Reviewed
Article.
The author tries to help the reader understand Gods goodness. She quotes that Alston
claims that by answering the question of understanding Gods goodness, divine command theory
can be strengthened against some major objections. He rejects the idea that Gods goodness lies
in the area of moral obligations. Instead, he proposes that Gods goodness is best described by
the phenomenon of supererogation.
Joseph Lombardi, in response, agrees with Alston that God does not have moral
obligations but says that having rejected moral obligation as the content of divine goodness,
Alston cannot help himself to supererogation as a solution to the content of Gods moral
goodness. If God has no moral obligations and does not perform supererogatory acts, Lombardi
suggests that Gods goodness may be explicated through concentrating on Gods benevolence.
The author proposes that Alstons idea of divine supererogation without obligation is sustainable,
but that a reshaping of the concept of supererogation is required; one in which love, rather than
benevolence, plays an important part. If the love associated with supererogation is characterized
in a certain way, it would add a new angle to the understanding of divine goodness.
Elizabeth Drummond Young is the Director of The Albertus Institute at Edinburgh. She has a
PhD in Philosophy and specializes in the philosophy of religion and normative ethics. She has
multiple peer reviewed articles.
This article was really long and really boring. I had a hard time simplifying the
information. While she did have some good points I dont plan on using this piece that
much in my paper. I think its because it doesnt correlate enough with what I am looking
for. For people who have questions about supererogation then this would be more use.

Annotated Bibliography #5

Craig, William Lane. Can We Be Good without God? Reasonable Faith. Web
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/can-we-be-good-without-god
The author argues that if God exists, then the objectivity of moral values, moral duties,
and moral accountability is secured, but if he didnt exist, then morality would just be a human
convention. Meaning morality is subjective and non-binding. Society may act in the same ways
that we already do, but without God, actions would no longer count as good or evil, being that
God didnt exist, objective moral values would not either. This leads him to state that we cannot
truly be good without God. But, if we do believe that moral values and duties are objective,
which provides moral grounds for believing in God.
He goes to contrast this with an atheistic hypothesis. If atheism is true, objective moral
values do not exist. He then questions, If God does not exist, then what is the foundation for
moral values? And what is the basis for the value of human beings? He claims that if God
doesnt exist, then why are human beings special or that their morality is objectively true.
The moral principles that govern societal behavior are rooted in habit and custom, feeling and
fashion, So the morality of people who dont conform to society are doing nothing more serious
than acting unfashionably.
William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology
and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. He gave his life to God at a very
young age of 16. He did graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Craig has
written over thirty books on the topics of theology and Philosophy.
This piece is very interesting because it gives the view of a strong Christian. I will
definitely be using it in my thesis because he gives great insight to that of someone who
believes that you actually need God to be a good and moral person.

Annotated Bibliography #6

Ayala1, Francisco J. The difference of being human: Morality. HighWire Press. PNAS. Online
Article.
The author quotes Charles Darwin: I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers
who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or
conscience is by far the most important. I raise the question of whether morality is biologically
or culturally determined.
The question of whether the moral sense is biologically determined may refer either to
the capacity for ethics (i.e., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to
the moral norms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. He proposes that the
capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature, whereas moral codes are products of
cultural evolution. He states that humans have a moral sense because their biological makeup
determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (1) the ability to
anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (2) the ability to make value judgments; and
(3) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action.
It says that ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself
but as a necessary consequence of someones intellectual abilities, which is promoted by natural
selection. Morality evolved as an exaptation, not as an adaptation. Moral codes, are outcomes of
cultural evolution, which accounts for the diversity of cultural norms among populations and for
their evolution through time.
Francisco Jos Ayala Pereda is a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist and
philosopher at the University of California, Irvine. He is a former Dominican priest. He is
known for his research on population and evolutionary genetics, and has been called the
"Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology."
This article was really interesting. It was an easy read and I got some really good
points. Even though he is a strong religious person, he doesnt let his religion bias his ideas.
I will definitely be using some of these ideas in my paper.

Annotated Bibliography #7

Horn, Trent. Answering Atheism: You don't need God to be a good person Youtube. Catholic
Answers. 23 Sept 2013. Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjJ-5YNDBHE
This video answer the question do we need God to be a good person? Trent Horn
replies by saying it is true that you necessarily need god to be a good person on the basis of
personal or cultural morality. However, he states that the concept of being a good person loses its
objectivity, being that God does not exist. Since God doesnt exist, being good is relative to the
individual or society.
For example someone could believe they are a doing a really good thing but are doing
something actually really evil. This makes him come to the conclusion that morality doesnt
come from the individual. And being that they are also evil societies, morality has to also
transcend societies. This means if morality was to have a standard for goodness, it would have to
transcend through time, place and culture. And for that to happen there would have to be
something to base this off of---a supremely good person---God.
Trent Horn is the spokesperson for Catholic Answers. He is an apostolate that is
dedicated to explaining and defending the Catholic faith by teaching Catholics how to defend
their faith with sound arguments and persuasive communication techniques. He has a graduate
degree in theology and is currently working on a degree in philosophy.
This video definitely gave me insight to the Christian mind of how to answer my
question. This information was really valuable and gave me yet another route to look into
for my paper.