 Hello, I'm J.J. Joachim and welcome to Philosophy and What Matters, where we discuss things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Today, we will talk about God and the problem of evil. Now, according to the so-called Ansomian thesis, if God exists, then this God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. But the existence of God has been challenged by the existence of evil and suffering the world. Since if God has all those omnipotent properties, then there should be no evil. Now, since evil exists, however, it seems to follow that there is no God. Now, according to our guest in this episode, the problem of evil is not only a problem for atheists, there's also a problem even for atheists and non-theists. Here to guide us through the problem of evil in the philosophy of religion, we have Professor Eugene Nagasawa, HG Wood Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham, and the Director of the Jean-Tav Milton Global Philosophy of Religion Project. Hello, Professor Nagasawa, welcome to Philosophy and What Matters. Thank you for having me. Okay, so before we start discussing our topic, let's first discuss your philosophical background. How did you get into philosophy? Okay, so when I was a teenager in Japan, I read the introductory philosophy book, and I was really fascinated. I particularly liked the first chapter of the book, which discusses the concept of RK in ancient Greek philosophy. So the ancient Greek philosophers, they tried to find out RK, the fundamental principle or element of reality, and I thought this was very interesting, and I thought I wanted to study philosophy. But my university, which was linked to my high school, didn't have a philosophy department, so instead I chose to study law because I thought if I study law, I can study jurisprudence, which is basically the philosophy of law. Now I went to this university and I met an interesting professor of jurisprudence, and this professor had a big grant from the Japanese government, and he was working on a legal expert system, which is basically artificial intelligence, which emulates lawyers' decision-making abilities. And this is old time. This was before Windows, so he was using MS-DOS 5.0 in the programming language called Prologue. So he was a little bit ahead of time, but he was an unusual professor, and he said I should study logic, mathematics, and analytic philosophy. And I thought this was funny because I was prepared to study law, but I was taught to study mathematics. And then eventually I thought I really want to study philosophy and mathematics seriously. So I moved to the States, and I went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook to study philosophy and applied mathematics. And there I met some interesting professors as well. So in this philosophy department there, there were very interesting analytic philosophers like Peter Ladlow, Patrick Grimm, and Gary Maher. So for example, Patrick Grimm, he is a logician, but at that time he was working on computer modeling of philosophical puzzles and paroxys. And also he wrote a very interesting book called The Incomplete Universe, where he argues that the concept of omniscience is somewhat incoherent because we cannot achieve omniscience because we face all sorts of puzzles concerning our limitations of knowledge. There was also Gary Maher, who is a logician, and he is also a philosopher of religion, so he wrote an interesting paper on the modal unity of Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God. And Ladlow is a philosopher of language and linguistics, and he taught several, you know, all sorts of interesting courses in these areas. So, you know, I met these really inspiring teachers there and I thought, you know, this is philosophy is really something that I want to study more. And that was the beginning of my journey in philosophy. Now that's interesting because Patrick Grimm, as we all know, has that little article, the problems of omniscience, were you influenced by that article? Yeah, at that time I didn't really think about it. I, you know, my interest was in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. And I didn't really think that I would work on omniscience. You know, later, you know, I have, I have written several papers on omniscience, and probably there was some unconscious influence of Patrick Grimm. So, aside from Peter Ladlow, Maher, and Grimm, who else influenced you to pursue an academic career in philosophy? Okay, so after my undergraduate studies I went to Australia to do a PhD in philosophy. And that was the year 2000. And in 1996, Dave Chalmers published the influential seminal book called The Conscious Mind. And this is where he introduced the notion of the hard problem of consciousness. You know, consciousness, what it is like to feel pain, what it is like to feel pleasure and so on. They seem to be very different from ordinary physical objects and properties. So Chalmers says, you know, the hardest problem in philosophy is to find out where we can place these unusual phenomenal properties in our universe, which seems to be fundamentally material. And everyone was excited about his book and I was one of them. So around that time everyone wanted to do a PhD in philosophy of mind. And I was one of them. And I wanted to work with Frank Jackson, who is also a philosopher of consciousness. And I particularly liked his knowledge argument against the physicalist approach to consciousness. So I went to the Australian National University to work with Frank. And there I also encountered, I met Daniel Stojar. I'm aware that you interviewed him. And I still remember our first meetings. I had some ideas about externalism and self-knowledge, which I was working on at the time, and I presented my idea. And he immediately grasped my argument. I wrote it down on a whiteboard and analyzed it and he suggested, you know, maybe you can tweak some of these premises and you can derive a much more interesting conclusion. I was like, wow, how can he grasp my idea so fast and analyze it and even, you know, he can suggest a way to improve it. And I thought, you know, he could see something that I cannot see. And I thought I wanted to become like him. But I think, you know, I really out of my philosophers like Daniel, who is a clear thinker and clear writer as well. So philosophers that have influenced me, they're all clear thinkers and clear writers, I think. People like Alvin Planting, Frank Jackman, Daniel Stojar, and these people, Dave Chalmers as well. Yeah, that's an unusual route. So you're coming from law, jurisprudence, then philosophy of law, then language, and a bit of philosophy of religion. So I went to the ANU with philosophy of mind coming into the picture. But most of your work has focused on philosophy of religion. So how did you end up in this area of philosophy? So I was always interested in the philosophy of religion, because I like to talk about the existence of God and the origin of the universe and so on. So my main interest at the beginning was in the philosophy of mind. And so my PhD thesis was mainly on Frank Jackson's knowledge argument. So this argument goes something like this. So he says, you know, the argument is based on the thought experiment. So imagine, marry a brilliant scientist who lives in a black and white environment. She has acquired complete physical knowledge by reading black and white textbooks and watching black and white television. You know, everything there is to know about the physical, but one day she comes outside her room for the first time and she sees color. And then she, you know, discovers something. She would say, wow, this is what it is like to see color. She says that, you know, this is a reputation of physicalism because she knew everything there is to know in the physical world, but she still discovered something, which means that there is something beyond the physical. And so, you know, this was the topic of my PhD thesis, but then I realized that, you know, many people describe Mary in this thought experiment as a physically omniscient scientist. It's very interesting. And I thought, okay, maybe I can have a look at the literature on omniscience in the philosophy of religion. And of course there was, you know, Patrick Grimm's work on omniscience too. And I found some interesting arguments in the philosophy of religion that are somewhat comparable to Jackson's argument. So some philosophers of religion talk about, you know, whether or not God can know what it is like to be in danger or what it is like to feel pain, given that God is all powerful and so on. So I tried to contrast these arguments in the philosophy of religion and in the philosophy of mind, and then find what we can learn from this comparison. This is my PhD thesis. And that's how I started to work very seriously on philosophy of religion. And these days I tend to be too busy with philosophy of religions. I have worked on all sorts of topics like the problem of evil, the existence and nature of God, miracles and so on. I still have research interest in the philosophy of mind, especially the problem of consciousness, which still fascinates me. I still work in these two areas, but you're right that my main area of research interest these days is philosophy of religion. Now let's turn to the main topic in the philosophy of religion. One of the main topics is the problem of evil. One contribution you made in this area of philosophy is your elaboration of the Anselmian thesis. You have a book on this one as well. But could you elaborate or could you tell us something about these, these particular thesis. Okay, so the Anselmian thesis says that God is something that which no greater can be thought. That's what Anselm says in his book called the proslogan which was published in the 11th century. But recently I don't call it the Anselmian thesis. I call it the perfect being thesis because often Anselm scholars, they say, you know, you're not being faithful to Anselm's texts or your view doesn't really represent Anselm's metaphysics. You know, I want to say, you know, this is just a thesis that is inspired by Anselm and I don't necessarily mean to defend Anselm's entire metaphysical system. But anyway, I thought it's safe to say, call this thesis the perfect being thesis rather than the Anselmian thesis. But anyway, so according to this thesis, there is nothing greater than God. God is the greatest possible being if we rephrase this thesis in a more contemporary way. So there is no possible being that is greater than God. So if your God, if there is something greater than your God, then your God is not the God according to the perfect being thesis. And I would say, you know, this thesis is accepted by most Judeo-Christian Islamic theists. They would all agree that there is no possible being that is greater than God. So I think this is a very good definition that captures the nature of God. But the perfection here implies omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence? Yeah, that's a very good question. I think it's a quite contentious topic. I think philosophers tend to assume that, you know, if God is the greatest possible being then he or she or it must be omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolence, because knowledge, power and benevolence are great making properties, properties that make its possessor great. So I would say that I would have all of these properties to the highest degree of intensity. But that's something I dispute in my book, Maximum God. Okay, so in your new defense of the Anselmian theism, you outlined three sorts of problems against the thesis and you claim that there must be a holistic solution to these problems. So can you elaborate on this one? So what are the three sorts of problems against the Anselmian or the perfect being thesis? Okay, so there are many, many arguments against the existence of God. But first I say, okay, all of them can be classified into three different types. So type A arguments focus on one of God's omniatributes. So for example, the paradox of the stone focuses on God's omnipotence, and it goes something like this. Either God can create a stone that he cannot lift, or God cannot create a stone that he cannot lift. But you know, in either way, God is not omnipotent. There's always something that God cannot do. Or there is always some, you know, there's no being that can do everything. So this paradox, if it's sound, it shows that the concept of omnipotence is internally incoherent. These arguments are like this. So they try to focus on one of God's omniatributes and try to show that there cannot be an omnigob, because at least one of these omniatributes is internally incoherent or self-contradictory. And there are several other arguments that try to show that God's omnibenevolence is self-contradictory or omniscience is self-contradictory. These type B arguments, as I called them, try to show that some of these omniatributes are mutually incompatible. So for example, what I called the argument from God's inability to sing says that if God is all-powerful or omnipotent, then he should be able to do absolutely everything, including torturing innocent children, for example. If God is omnibenevolent or all-loving, then God shouldn't be able to torture innocent children, because that's a horrible thing to do. So this argument seems to suggest that omnibenevolence and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. So God or no being can have both of them at the same time. So therefore, if we define God as an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being, then God doesn't exist. So there are other similar arguments, type B arguments that try to show that God's omniscience and omnibenevolence are incompatible or omnibenevolence and omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible. Type C arguments try to show that there is some external fact which is incompatible with the set of omniatributes. Probably the most well-known example is the problem of evil. This problem says that there is the fact that evil exists. In this world, there are horrible things like wars and crimes and natural disasters and so on. And the fact that they exist is incompatible with the set of God's omniatributes, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence, because if God is omniscient, then he should know that there is evil. If God is omnipotent, then he should be able to eradicate evil. And if God is omnipenevolent, then he should be willing to eradicate evil, but there is evil. Therefore, we have to give up at least one of these omniatributes. And there are several other arguments like this, including the problem of divine hiddenness and the argument from no best possible world and so on. And I say that, you know, if we look at these arguments, all of them focus on God's omniatributes. And that's because, again, theists tend to say that, you know, once we accept the perfect being thesis or the Anselmian thesis, then we have to agree that God is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being. Because the greatest possible being should be omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent. And I say that that's not really obvious. Maybe the paradox of the stone is right. Maybe omnipotence is a self-contradictory concept. Then, you know, what theists can say is that, okay, God is still the greatest possible being, as the perfect being thesis says. But nevertheless, God is not an omnipotent being because no being can be omnipotent, because omnipotence is a self-contradictory concept. So these theists can still say that, you know, God has the maximal consistent set of knowledge, power, and benevolence. And that's what I call the maximal God thesis. It's not necessarily that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, but God has the maximal consistent set of these attributes, knowledge, power, and benevolence. And in this way, we can undercut all of these arguments at once. So what we can say is that, okay, maybe the paradox of the stone is right. Maybe no being is omnipotent. But then in that case, God is, you know, very, very powerful, but not exactly omnipotent, because no being is omnipotent. And in this way, I think this is an economical response to these arguments against the existence of God. Because, you know, existing response to these argument is to assess every single argument against the existence of God. So every time an atheist comes up with a new argument and theists have to analyze it and specify exactly what is wrong with the argument. But if we have this economical maximal God approach, then we can undercut all of these arguments at once. So that's that's my general approach to these arguments. No, that's interesting, because I'm hearing Alvin planting his notion of a maximal God here. Did he influence you in this argument? Yeah, planting a way he presents the ontological argument, the model ontological argument he, I think he says that God is a maximum being maximally great being. Yeah, I wasn't really aware of it. Maybe you're right that planting as one of these early figures who defined God as a maximally great being. Maybe there's some influence there. Yeah, but the maximality here does not imply omnipotence in our. So planting, I think he still assumed that even though he defined God as a maximally great being in his presentation of the model ontological argument, he still assumed that maximal means necessarily omniscient, necessarily omnipotent, necessarily omnibenevolent. And I, I don't reject that idea. I'm not saying that God is definitely not omnipotent or definitely not omnibenevolent. I'm just saying that the idea should be open. You know, they don't necessarily need to say, you know, God is absolutely omnipotent and omniscient or omnipotent. They can't say that God has a maximal consistency out of these attributes, and whether that means that God is omniscient or omnipotent or omnipotent is a further question. They don't need to make any commitment, but they said they tend to say too much. So the maximal being and moreover, he's omniscient, omnipotent, omnipenevolent, and that's why they have to face these arguments. Actually, I'm thinking about maximality in terms of ideal properties. So God must be an ideal powerful being or an ideal knowledgeable being and so on, not really having that kind of the omni of extreme of the sense, because you'll have the contradictions along the way. So I think the maximality of thesis, your maximality thesis is spectacular. Yeah, it's a one side. I like the, your notion of God as an ideal being, because I think that's underlying in the Anselmian or perfect being thesis. God is the greatest possible being in the sense that there's no being that is greater than God even in even conceptually. So in that sense, God is the most ideal being. And, you know, exactly what kind of properties this ideal being has is a further question that philosophers can address but the PS don't necessarily need to say you know God has definitely these properties. So let's move on to the one of your contributions in the philosophy of religion as well, the problem of evil. So you mentioned about the problem of evil as type C, a type C argument against the existence of God. And could you tell us something about this problem and some phoenix solutions for you. So here's my rough understanding of the history of the debate on the problem of evil in analytic philosophy. So in 1955, JL Mackie published a paper called evil and omnipotence in the journal Mind. And then there he basically said that the existence of evil in the world is logically incompatible with the existence of God. So given that there is evil in this world, there cannot be God, logically speaking, evil and God are logically incompatible. And this is a pretty strong claim. And planting us said in the 70s, I believe, he said that, you know, he can show that evil and God are not logically incompatible or inconsistent because there is a logically possible scenario where God and evil coexist. And then he said, very roughly speaking, he said, Okay, God have to create free human agents like us because freedom is intrinsically great. But because we are free. And moreover, we are morally significantly free. Sometimes we do good things, but sometimes we do bad things, but God is not responsible for that. And he said, he didn't say that, you know, this is what actually happened, but he says this is at least a logically possible scenario where God and the evil coexist. And it shows that that Maki's claim is false. It's not true that evil and God are logically incompatible. And that's why atheists these days tend to talk about the evidential problem of evil, which is a weaker version of the problem of evil. So they say that, okay, maybe evil and God are not logically incompatible, but nevertheless evil is very strong evidence against the existence of God. So here's my analogy. So suppose that you have a fancy car, and it's a very rare car, and with a unique scratch, and then one day your car gets stolen. And then, you know, I, I drive a car that is very similar to yours, including this unique scratch. And then some of your friends tell you that they saw me around your house when the car was stolen. And then, you know, this is pretty good evidence that I stole your car. But nevertheless, you know, it's logically possible that I didn't. But maybe that's not important because this is still very strong evidence that I stole your car and you know the situation is a little bit similar evil might not logically undermine the existence of God, but it's still very strong evidence against the existence of God. And of course, theists have introduced many responses to the evidential problem of evil. So for example, the whole making the Odyssey says that okay God had to allow evil because evil is necessary for our spiritual maturity. So in order for us to improve spiritually, we have to encounter a certain amount of evil. The greater good the Odyssey says that God has to allow evil because in order to realize certain greater goods like compassion and altruism and so on there has to be evil. And step people theism, which is one of the most popular responses to the problem of evil says that, okay probably God has very good reason to allow evil, but we just don't know what it is. Our knowledge is very limited. There are a lot of things that we don't know about morality and the nature of God. So it's reasonable to assume that we don't have relevant knowledge here, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't have any good reason. If there is God as an all powerful, all knowing and all good being, then God must have a very good reason to allow evil, but we just don't know it. So it's a version of skepticism. So these are some of the prominent responses to the problem of evil discussed in the literature today. But that's interesting because J. L. Mackie in his evil on the end omnipotence article has already discussed and well responded to these theistic solutions, which he calls fallacious solutions. I wonder how you would react to Mackey Mackey's arguments. Yes, I don't remember exactly what Mackey says in that paper, apart from his presentation of the logical problem of evil. But probably the way I outlined the history of the philosophy of religion is a little bit too simplistic because obviously Mackey was aware of these theistic responses and he addresses these responses. Yeah, I'm sure he was said that none of these responses is successful in undermining the problem of evil. Yeah, because if you have the notion of omnipotence, then the necessary good from evil argument won't work because well, if God is omnipotent, then he could. It's not necessary for him to have evil to have for us to have the good and so on. I think that's the main line of the argument. But yeah, one intriguing philosophical claim that you made is that the problem of evil is not only a problem for atheists, but also for atheists and non-theists. So what's your argument for this claim? Right, so that's an unusual claim that I made. I think one of my papers titled the problem of evil for atheists because, you know, again, the problem of evil is normally presented as a challenge for a theist. So actually atheists use this argument under my theism. But I say there is a version of the problem of evil, which creates challenge and not only for theist but also for atheists, or at least a certain group of atheists. So that argument goes something like this. So first I focus on a specific type of the problem of evil. So I focus on pain and suffering arises in the process of natural selection. Nature seems to be a quite violent and cruel place. And our existence as sentient animals is dependent on natural selection. And that's why, you know, the animal sentient animals and humans like us, we have to compete for survival all the time and that's why there's a lot of pain and suffering in nature, and that's inevitable. And this is what I call the systemic problem of evil. So I'm not talking about any specific events or specific types of events. I'm not talking about, you know, natural disasters or wars and so on. I'm talking about the system which seems to be evil or system that seems to necessitates pain and suffering. And, okay, so this clearly creates a challenge for theists because theists would say that God created the world. So obviously God is responsible for natural selection. So how could God do that. But also I focus on atheists who embrace what I call existential optimism. And we are that, you know, the nature is overall a wonderful thing, and we should be grateful that we live in it. So for example Richard Dawkins, he's a very powerful atheist, but he's also an existential optimist, but he says, you know, we should be grateful for natural selection, which allows us to exist. And thanks to natural selection, we can appreciate the beauty of nature. And, you know, there is some conflict between existential optimism and the affirmation that nature is based on our existence is dependent on natural selection. It was on the one hand, existential optimist would want to say that the nature is overall great and we should be grateful to be alive. And at the same time our existence is causally or nomologically dependent on this pain and suffering for millions of billions of sentient animals. How can we consistently hold these two beliefs at the same time. I think this problem because I think that the problem of evil is a specific type of bigger problem, which I call the problem of axiological mismatch or problem of expectation mismatch. But the idea is that you project a certain level of axiological value to the world. For instance, they think that the world was created by God and God is all loving and all powerful, so the world should be very, very good. But if you look at the world, there are a lot of horrible things. Just like there's a gap between your expectation and reality and this gap creates the problem of evil. And here atheists seem to be facing a similar problem. So existential atheists who are existential optimists, they want to think that the world is overall really good. But if you look at the reality of the world carefully, then it looks like a quite a horrible place where pain and suffering for many, many sentient animals and humans are guaranteed. So they have to explain this gap. So this is a version of the problem of evil, which creates a challenge not only for theists, but also for atheists. Atheists of the existential optimist sort. That's right. Not all atheists. I tend to think that the pessimists, they are consistent. It's very easy to say. The world is horrible. We just accept that. We're atheists. They have a consistent and very straightforward view. But they are very, I would say many or even most atheists are optimists as well. They tend to say, you know, life is overall great and overall it's great that we are alive. And this problem creates a talent for them. Yeah, it's interesting that you're talking about gaps, actual logical value gaps. I wonder how Frank Jackson reacted to this because there's a similarity in the epistemic gap argument as well. I didn't even think about it. I have to think about it. I'm thinking about that connection that there's a gap between physical knowledge and phenomenological knowledge that we have. At the same time, we have that kind of expectation of the goodness in the world, but there's a reality. That's interesting. Maybe that's another unconscious influence. So in Jackson's knowledge argument, he derives an ontological conclusion that physicalism is false from the epistemic gap between Mary's complete physical knowledge and complete knowledge simplicity. This gap tells us something interesting. Maybe I might be doing something similar here. I didn't even think about that. That's interesting. That's an intriguing problem. And I think one of the inspirations in the global philosophy of religion project that you are now heading. So this is a John Temple to grant that you have received a couple of years ago and last year. So could you tell us something about this project and what results are expected from it. So this is a three year project funded by the John Temple to foundation and our university. And so again, I love philosophy of religion because in this area of philosophy we address all sorts of big questions about the existence of God, the sports of morality, science and religion and so on. And I think there has been a lot of exciting development in philosophy of religion in the last 3040 years. But I have to say the scope of the philosophy of religion has been quite narrow. So the main focus has been on Judeo Christian monotheism. And I think that's partly because most philosophers of religion in the English speaking part of the world are Christians. And I think there is nothing wrong about that. I think Christian philosophers made significant contributions to this field, and they have been amazing work in Christian philosophy. But if we take religion seriously, we cannot ignore other traditions as well. So Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and so on. We want to expand the scope of this field, because there are a lot of amazing philosophical and religious resources in each tradition, which have been discussed for centuries. So I want to expand the scope in terms of religious traditions that we cover. And also we want to do this project we want to expand the scope of the field in terms of geographical locations as well. We would like to promote research by philosophers of religion in underrepresented visions, such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. So I know that you're from the Philippines, so we really welcome contributions from philosophers in Southeast Asia. And I think this is quite exciting. I'm sure it will be a slow process. It will be a long process. And we want to promote research in this field by inviting all philosophers of religion from all religious and even non-religious traditions from all over the world. That's what we try to do in the next three years. Okay, so where do you see philosophy of religion heading in the future? So, I would say, so philosophy of religion has been quite interesting in the last few years. There have been some new emerging topics. So for example, religious disagreement or the cognitive science of religion. So there have been some interesting developments in the cognitive science of religion, which have implications for philosophy of religion. And also there has been some recent work on alternative concepts of God, which I have worked on as well. So we explore alternatives to the traditional Judeo-Christian monotheistic concept of God, like pantheism, panentheism, polytheism, and so on. But I would say in the end, we will still be mainly talking about some of the old questions in this field, like the existence and nature of God and other deities, the possibility of immortality and the afterlife, faith and knowledge, and against science and religion, miracles and so on. So I think these questions and problems will remain, but hopefully from more global perspectives, because I think globalization is inevitable. Whether or not you like it, I think the world is being globalized, and I think this field has to follow that as well. So hopefully there will be a lot of interesting global inter-faith and inter-religious discussions on these topics in the coming years. Okay, so on a more personal note, you've been one of the best philosophers of religion that we have around presently. So what's your advice for those who want to get into professional philosophy? So I would say to young people, whether or not they do philosophy, I would tell them to do something that they really enjoy. I think there is nothing more painful than doing something that they don't enjoy. So in the debate on the meaning of life, we often talk about Sisyphus. Sisyphus is this mythological character who has to push this heavy rock every day towards the top of the mountain. And as soon as he reaches the top, then this rock rolls down on the other side of the mountain. He has to push this rock. So this is a paradigm example of painful and meaningless life. So we wouldn't want to have a life like this. So I say, you know, find something that you really enjoy. And if you love philosophy, then I would say, you know, pursue an academic career in philosophy, because that's the most intellectually rewarding thing. Money is obviously important. You have to feed yourself, but there are a lot of things that are more important than money. You love philosophy. I mean, you cannot make a lot of money in philosophy, but if you love the subject, there is nothing more rewarding than pursuing an academic career in philosophy. Yeah, so it's a career in philosophy worth it? Would you say that your career is worth it? Yeah, I would say my answer is yes and no. If you love philosophy like myself, you know, this is a great career and I enjoy every moment. I think it's amazing that I can make a living from teaching philosophy to some of the, you know, bright young students. And also I can, you know, publish my work and many people around the world would read my work and send me feedback. Or I can give folks to people in many different countries. I have given lectures in over 20 countries and I don't know if I could have done it without being in this profession. So I feel very fortunate and I love it all the time. But at the same time, you know, it's a very competitive field and also you might think that academic philosophers can philosophize all the time, but we also, you know, have all sorts of boring things in our jobs. So we have to attend many committee meetings and there's a lot of paperwork and we always have a pile of essays to grade and, you know, it's not that exciting, but nevertheless, you know, I do enjoy it because I enjoy philosophy. So on that note, thanks again, Professor Nagesawa for sharing your time with us. For you guys, join me again for another episode of Philosophy at One Matters where we discuss things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Cheers.