This thinker rejected ethics as conformity to law by refuting an early version of Pascal’s Wager called the “Slave’s Wager.” A thought experiment in which one man wants to build a house for the poor but lacks the means while another has the desire and the means demonstrates this thinker’s intention-based ethics. This thinker argued that no real object can satisfy Boethius’s (“bo-EE-thee-uss’s”) criteria, and therefore ontological realism about (*) universals is incoherent. The questions of whether faith must be completed by reason and whether faith only deals with things unseen is explored in one book by this thinker. That book presents and resolves apparently contradictory theological statements from church fathers. For 10 points, name this scholastic philosopher who wrote Sic et Non, Héloïse’s (“ay-loh-EEZ’s”) lover. ■END■
ANSWER: Peter Abelard [or Pierre Abélard or Petrus Abaelardus]
<JS, Philosophy>
= Average correct buzz position