Michael Tooley (born 1941) is an American philosopher, now emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder, best known for his contributions to metaphysics.

He has a BA from the University of Toronto and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton University in 1968.^[1] He taught at Stanford University and the Australian National University and since 1992 at the University of Colorado Boulder.^[2]

Tooley has worked on philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, causality and metaphysical naturalism,^[3] and has debated the existence of God with William Lane Craig.^[4][5] His early paper "Abortion and Infanticide", arguing that there is no moral difference between them and that both are permissible, has been controversial.^[6][7][8]

Tooley was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1992.^[9]

• The Problem of Evil (Elements in the Philosophy of Religion) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)
• Abortion – Three Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
• Knowledge of God (with Alvin Plantinga, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008)
• Metaphysics (New York: Garland Publishing, 1999). In five volumes: Volume 1 - Laws of Nature, Causation, and Supervenience; Volume 2 - The Nature of Time; Volume 3 - Properties; Volume 4 - Particulars, Actuality, and Identity; Volume 5 - Necessity and Possibility.
• Time, Tense, and Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)
• Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Readings in Philosophy Series, 1993). Co-edited with Ernest Sosa.
• Causation: A Realist Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)
• Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford, 1985 [1983])

• Growing block universe