Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T17:29:29.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Worship, Excellence, and Intrinsic Value

from Part III - Normative Aspects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Scott Davison
Edited by
Aaron Segal  and
Samuel Lebens
Aaron Segal
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Samuel Lebens
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Israel
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, I explore and defend the idea that the core experience of worship involves a fitting response to the excellence of the divine, and that this can be understood in roughly the same ways that we understand fitting responses to excellence in general. I also defend a particular account of the excellence involved here – I argue that in worship, as in many other cases of fitting response to excellence, we are tracking intrinsic value. Along the way, I respond to Mark Murphy’s arguments for the conclusion that no creature could have intrinsic value.

Keywords

worshipintrinsic valueexcellenceadmirationMark Murphy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Philosophy of Worship
Divine and Human Aspects
 , pp. 152 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Robert M. (1999). Finite and Infinite Goods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, David M. (1978). Nominalism & Realism – Universals & Scientific Realism, volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baillie, James and Hagen, Jason. (2008). There Cannot Be Two Omnipotent Beings. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 64(1), 21–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayne, Tim and Nagasawa, Yujin. (2006). The Grounds of Worship. Religious Studies, 42, 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayne, Tim Bayne and Nagasawa, Yujin. (2007). The Grounds of Worship Again: A Reply to Crowe. Religious Studies, 43, 475–480CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berto, Francesco and Jago, Mark. (2018). Impossible Worlds. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/impossible-worlds/.Google Scholar
Bradley, Ben. (2006). Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 9(2), 111–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chisholm, Roderick. (1986). Brentano and Intrinsic Value. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crisp, Roger. (2000). Review of Jon Kupperman, Value … and What Follows. Philosophy, 75, 458–462.Google Scholar
Danaher, John. (2012). Stumbling on the Threshold: A Reply to Gwiazda on Threshold Obligations. Religious Studies, 48, 469–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arms, Justin and Jacobson, Daniel. (2000). The Moralistic Fallacy: On the “Appropriateness” of Emotions. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 61, 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davison, Scott A. (2012). On the Intrinsic Value of Everything. New York City: Continuum Press.Google Scholar
Davison, Scott A. (2018). God and Intrinsic Value. In Kray, Klaas J., ed. Does God Matter? Essays on the Axiological Consequences of Theism. New York: Routlege, 39–45.Google Scholar
Davison, Scott A. (2019). A Naturalistic Intrinsic Value Theodicy. In Buchak, Lara, Zimmerman, Dean W., and Swenson, Philip, eds., Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion volume 9. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 236–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geach, P. T. (1956). Good and Evil. Analysis 17, 32–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gwiazda, Jeremy. (2011). Worship and Threshold Obligations. Religious Studies, 47, 521–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humberstone, I. L. (1996). Intrinsic/Extrinsic, Synthese, 108(2), 205–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Daniel. (2011). Fitting Attitude Theories of Value. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Zalta, Edward N., ed. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/fitting-attitude-theories/.Google Scholar
Johnston, Mark. (2019). Why Did the One Not Remain within Itself? In Buchak, Lara, Zimmerman, Dean W., and Swenson, Philip, eds., Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion volume 9. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 106–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonas, Silvia. (2018). Modal Structuralism and Theism. In Ellis, Fiona, ed., New Models of Religious Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 151–171.Google Scholar
Lemos, Noah. (1994.) Intrinsic Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maurin, Anna-Sofia. (2018). Tropes. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zalta, Edward N., ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/tropes/.Google Scholar
Mele, Alfred R. and Smith, M. P. (1988). The New Paradox of the Stone. Faith and Philosophy, 5(3), 283–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Thomas V. (1984). Duty and Divine Goodness. American Philosophical Quarterly, 21, 261–268.Google Scholar
Murphy, Mark C. “Owing God Worship.” Chapter 11 in this volume, p.190.Google Scholar
Murphy, Mark C. (2017). God’s Own Ethics: Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Mark C. (2018). No Creaturely Intrinsic Value. Philosophia Christi, 20(2), 347–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Mark C. (2021). Divine Holiness and Divine Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagasawa, Yujin. (2017). Maximal God: A New Defense of Perfect Being Theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Jonas. (2015). Doubts about Intrinsic Value. In Hirose, Iwao and Olson, Jonas, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 44–59.Google Scholar
Orsi, Francesco. (2015). Value Theory. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabinowicz, Wlodek and Rönnow-Rasmussen, Toni. (2004). The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value. Ethics, 114, 391–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Smart, Ninian. (1972). The Concept of Worship. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinburne, Richard. (1981). Faith and Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Tännsjö, Törbjorn. (1999). A Concrete View of Intrinsic Value. Journal of Value Inquiry, 33(4), 531–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, J. J. (1997). The Right and the Good. Journal of Philosophy, 94(6), 273–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
William of Ockham. (1978). “Whether It Can be Proved that God Is One” (Quodlibet Septem, translated by P. Linwood Urban), in The Power of God: Readings on Omnipotence and Evil. Eds. P. Urban, Linwood and Walson, D. N.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75–81.Google Scholar
Williams, Donald C. (1953). On the Elements of Being II. Review of Metaphysics, 7(2), 171–192.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael J. (2001). The Nature of Intrinsic Value. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×