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Paper   IPM / Philosophy / 16343
School of Analytic Philosophy
  Title:   The problem of arbitrary requirements: an abrahamic perspective
  Author(s): 
1.  Amir Saemi
2.  Sara Aronowitz
3.  Marilie Coetsee
  Status:   Published
  Journal: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion
  No.:  3
  Vol.:  89
  Year:  2020
  Pages:   221-242
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
Some religious requirements seem genuinely arbitrary in the sense that there seem to be no sufficient explanation of why those requirements with those contents should pertain. This paper aims to understand exactly what it might mean for a religious requirement to be genuinely arbitrary and to discern whether and how a religious practitioner could ever be rational in obeying such a requirement. We lay out four accounts of what such arbitrariness could consist in, and show how each account provides a different sort of baseline for understanding how obedience to arbitrary requirements could, in principle, be rational.

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