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75In the context of redressing wrongs of the past, the importance of acknowledgement is often urged. It figures significantly, for instance, in the final report of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in the 1996 Canadian Royal Commiss ion Report on Aboriginal Peoples. In both documents a central theme is that acknowledging wrongs of the past is a key first step towards healing and reconciliation. Several recent statements about public apology also urge that moral apologies are s…Read more
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36How can we respond in the aftermath of wrongdoing? How can social trust be restored in the wake of intense political conflict? In this challenging work, philosopher Trudy Govier explores central dilemmas of political reconciliation, employing illustrative material from Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Peru, and elsewhere. Govier stresses that reconciliation is fundamentally about relationships. Whether through means of truth commissions, apologies, community processes, or c…Read more
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47Belief, Values, and the WillDialogue 15 (4): 642-663. 1976.In this paper I shall presuppose that: logic and epistemology are disciplines which supply us with normative statements pertaining to states of belief. as such, logic and epistemology have implications concerning what we ought and ought not to believe. as such, logic and epistemology presuppose that there is some sense in which a person controls what he believes — some sense in which ‘can’ has a place in contexts where one comes to believe things.
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48Is Conscientiousness Always—or Ever—a Virtue?Dialogue 11 (2): 241-251. 1972.On most views of the nature of moral judgments, it is possible for a person to be mistaken in the belief that it is right to act in a certain way. When someone believes that it is right to do something, does that thing on the basis of such a belief, and yet in so doing commits deeds which are wrong by moral standards other than his own, we do not quite know whether to praise him for his conscientiousness while condemning his actions. He acts according to his conscience and does what he believes …Read more
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53Trust and the problem of national reconciliationPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (2): 178-205. 2002.The authors propose a conception of national reconciliation based on the building or rebuilding of trust between parties alienated by conflict. It is by no means obvious what reconciliation between large groups of people amounts to in practice or how it should be understood in theory. Lack of conceptual clarity can be illustrated with particular reference to postapartheid South Africa, where reconciliation between whites and blacks was a major goal of the Mandela government and the Truth and Rec…Read more
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Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson, eds., Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions (review)Philosophy in Review 21 290-292. 2001.
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18Nuclear Illusion and Individual ObligationsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 13 (4). 1983.Until very recently the topic of nuclear armaments and the prospects of global nuclear war have been relatively inconspicuous in the work of philosophers. With some exceptions, these and related themes have not figured prominently in the academic writings of philosophers; nor have they occupied space commensurate with their importance in courses and anthologies on applied ethics. Helen Caldicott's widely circulated film, ‘If You Love This Planet,’ and Jonathan Schell's moving book, The Fate of t…Read more
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93What's Wrong with Slippery Slope Arguments?Canadian Journal of Philosophy 12 (2). 1982.Slippery slope arguments are commonly thought to be fallacious. But is there a single fallacy which they all commit? A study of applied logic texts reveals competing diagnoses of the supposed error, and several recent authors take slippery slope arguments seriously. Clearly, there is room for comment. I shall give evidence of divergence on the question of what sort of argument constitutes a slippery slope, distinguish four different types of argument which have all been deemed to be slippery slo…Read more
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My interlocutorIn F. H. van Eemeren, Peter Houtlosser, Haft-van Rees & A. M. (eds.), Considering pragma-dialectics: a festschrift for Frans H. van Eemeren on the occasion of his 60th birthday, L. Erlbaum Associates. pp. 87. 2006.
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War's aftermath : the challenges reconciliationIn Larry May & Emily Crookston (eds.), War: Essays in Political Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2008.
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |