  Both Russell's and McBrayer's objections alleging skeptical implications of CORNEA depend on interpreting CORNEA as a counterfactual conditional, that is, a subjunctive conditional with a false antecedent. Though this is a natural interpretation, it has been resisted by Wykstra and Perrine (2011, forthcoming). According to standard principles of common sense defeasible reasoning, if it appears to one that p, then one thereby has some reason for p, though this reason can be outweighed in the end. Thus the defender of the epistemic principles approach could grant that the advocate of the argument from evil has defeasible reasons for atheism, but add that the rational force of these reasons is neutralized by Obscurity, which appears to be the core of CORNEA. This still leaves the debate over Obscurity in place, but it plausibly avoids the skeptical objections to which CORNEA has been subjected. 