Michael Huemer

Michael Huemer (/ˈhjuːmər/; born December 27, 1969) is an American professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has defended ethical intuitionism, direct realism, metaphysical libertarianism, phenomenal conservatism, substance dualism, reincarnation, the repugnant conclusion, and philosophical anarchism.

Huemer graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his Ph.D. at Rutgers University in 1998 under the supervision of Peter D. Klein.

Huemer is a philosophical dualist and an agnostic.

His 2005 book, Ethical Intuitionism, was reviewed in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Mind.

In 2013, he published The Problem of Political Authority, in which he argues that modern arguments for political authority fail and that society can function properly without state coercion.

Huemer has defended phenomenal conservatism, the epistemological view that it is reasonable to assume that things are as they appear, except when there are positive grounds for doubting this.

Huemer has stated that the presence of evil in the world, such as children with terrible diseases, is strong evidence that an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

Huemer defended reincarnation in his 2021 paper "Existence Is Evidence of Immortality". He has argued that immaterial souls exist, and in 2022, he debated Graham Oppy on the topic.