Michael Tooley


Michael Tooley is an American philosopher, now emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder, best known for his contributions to metaphysics.

Education and career

He has a BA from the University of Toronto and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton University in 1968. He taught at Stanford University and the Australian National University and since 1992 at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Philosophical work

Tooley has worked on philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, causality and metaphysical naturalism, and has debated the existence of God with William Lane Craig. His early paper "Abortion and Infanticide," arguing that there is no moral difference between them and that both are permissible, has been controversial.