Pruss, Motivational Centrality, and Probabilities Attached to Possibility Premises in Modal Ontological Arguments

Abstract

Pruss (2010) argues that consideration of the motivational centrality of Theistic belief in flourishing and intellectually sophisticated lives of significant length provides reason for thinking that Theistic belief is at least possibly true. But Theistic belief is belief in a necessarily existent God. So, according to Pruss, consideration of the motivational centrality of Theistic belief in flourishing and intellectually sophisticated lives of significant length provides reason for thinking that there is a necessarily existent God. Pruss’s gambit is the most interesting original move in the recent literature on modal ontological arguments and, on that account, deserves detailed analysis. In this paper, I aim to provide just such an analysis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I argue for the conclusion that Pruss’s gambit should be declined.