Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Moral Arguments for Immortality

**Posted by DanielCC** 5/01/2017 5:58 pm

Does anyone know of any contemporary philosophers of religion who have proposed arguments for the immortality of the soul based on moral concerns (thinking of the Kantian ‘Ought Implies Can’)? I know Pruss has dipped his toes into this water before.

(I'm beginning to think this might be a more succinct way of arguing for what is important in theism, as opposed to giving seperate arguments for the immateriality of mind and so forth)

Last edited by DanielCC (5/01/2017 5:59 pm)

**Posted by Proclus** 5/01/2017 8:27 pm

If you consider Plato contemporary Socrates makes a brief argument like this at the end of the Phaedo (at the beginning of the myth).

**Posted by DanielCC** 5/02/2017 6:24 am

Proclus wrote:
If you consider Plato contemporary Socrates makes a brief argument like this at the end of the Phaedo (at the beginning of the myth).

Yes, by contemporary I mean Analytic Philosophy of Religion though!

**Posted by Greg** 5/02/2017 1:39 pm

I don't know if anyone has argued this way.

I'm skeptical of non-agentive oughts. There's no state of affairs that of itself ought to be; if one says "it ought to be that p," then that has to be elliptical for saying that some agent can bring it about that p. The agent who ought to bring it about that souls survive their humans' deaths could presumably only be God. But if the problem is put that way, then the "ought" just seems epistemically downstream of the "can"; if it were impossible for souls to survive their deaths, I would not think there were some duty which God were failing to fulfill.