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

Graham Oppy

Abstract: Pruss (2010) offers a novel defence of possibility premises in modal ontological arguments. In particular, he offers a new way of arguing that these possibility premises are ‘probably true’. I propose to argue that Pruss’s defence is unconvincing: in the end, it probably amounts to nothing more than an expression of prejudice against worldviews that reject that claim that God is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially perfectly good, essentially the creator of all else, and necessarily existent.