Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado, “Why Can’t Mary Sin?”
Monday, August 24, 12:00-2:00pm
Location: tbd
Suppose there is an all-powerful being who has decided that it is for the best that some perfectly ordinary human being should be unable to sin. But—and this is the tricky part—that ordinary human being must also be meritorious in her actions. Can someone be unable to sin and yet be morally praiseworthy? Could even an all-powerful being bring about that state of affairs? I will consider how William Ockham attempted to answer those questions in the affirmative.
Pasnau is College Professor of Distinction in Philosophy at the University of Colorado. His books include After Certainty: A History of Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions (Oxford University Press, 2017), Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 (Oxford Clarendon Press, 2011), and The Philosophy of Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is principal editor of The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and edited Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy from 2013-2022. He's currently at work on a book on voluntarism in the later Middle Ages.
