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1204Dilemmas of Rawlsian OpportunityCanadian Journal of Philosophy 40 (1): 1-24. 2010.John Rawls's repeated assertions that the basic structure of society creates profound and inevitable differences in life prospects for people born in different starting places seems to contradict his assertions that, under fair equality of opportunity, a person's life prospects would not be affected by class of origin for those similarly endowed and motivated. This seeming contradiction seems to be resolved by Rawls's apparent belief that class of origin inevitably affects motivation. This recon…Read more
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48How Morality Works and Why It Fails: On Political Philosophy and Moral ConsensusJournal of Social Philosophy 28 (3): 43-70. 1997.
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35The Fallacy Of PhilanthropyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (1): 29-65. 2002.Should we stop spending money on things we do not really need and send the money instead to groups that aid victims of absolute poverty? Garrett Cullity and Peter Unger have given renewed vigor to the well known argument by Peter Singer that we should do this. Like Singer, Cullity and Unger compare our duties to the poor to our duties when we encounter a victim of calamity, such as a child in danger of drowning. Singer and Unger tell us what to do and why we must do it; most starkly, Unger gives…Read more
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867Abortion and the Morality of NurturanceCanadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (4). 1991.Most discussion of the morality of abortion assume the central issue is whether the fetus is a person. I disagree. The central issue is better understood as whether the fetus is one's *baby* whom one has a duty to nurture (babies need not be persons). Understanding the central issue as centering on duties to nurture one's children allows us better to understand both liberal and conservative views about abortion.
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310Does “possible” ever mean “logically possible”?Philosophia 8 (2-3): 389-403. 1978.Are skeptical arguments invalid because they trade on an ambiguity of the word "possible," asserting that it is possible that our experiences are not of anything outside our own minds and concluding that it is not certain that there is an external world outside our own minds? It is sometimes asserted that such arguments invalidly trade on an ambiguity of "possible" where the premise is true only in the sense "logically possible" while the inference is valid only in the sense "empirically possibl…Read more
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13 Hegel on History and Freedom: An Exposition and Marxist Assessment Paul GombergIn Tm Powers & P. Kamolnick (ed.), From Kant to Weber: Freedom and Culture in Classical German Social Theory, . pp. 37. 1999.
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55Consequentialism and HistoryCanadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (3). 1989.John Stuart Mill wrote in the opening chapter of Utilitarianism, ‘A test of right and wrong must be the means, one would think, of ascertaining what is right or wrong,’ thus explaining why he thought the work to follow was practically important. In Chapter 3, ‘On the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility,’ he answers the question, ‘What are the motives to obey the principle of utility?’ This principle is presented as a morality to be adopted. Yet before the nineteenth century was over He…Read more
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628Against competitive equal opportunityJournal of Social Philosophy 26 (3): 59-73. 1995.Competitive opportunity assumes limited positions of advantage. Making competitive opportunity equal without expanding opportunity would delay socialization for diminished expectations but have no advantages, thus possibly making a bad situation worse. Equal opportunity worth fighting for would be opportunity available to all non-competitively.
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21Book Review:Marxism 1844-1990: Origins, Betrayal, Rebirth. Roger S. Gottlieb (review)Ethics 106 (4): 882-. 1996.
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964The Fallacy of PhilanthropyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (1). 2002.Global poverty, hunger, and lack of access to save water raise problems of how to organize human society so that everyone's needs can be met. Philanthropic proposals, such as Peter Singer's and Peter Unger's, are based on a false analogy to duties of rescue and encourage philanthropic responses, thus closing the discourse to discussion of the causes and remedies of poverty. Radical criticism of capitalist social structures are put off the table, and this is a profound error.
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1308Why Distributive Justice Is Impossible but Contributive Justice Would WorkScience and Society 80 (1): 31-55. 2016.Distributive justice, defined as justice in distribution of income and wealth, is impossible. Income and wealth are distributed either unequally or equally. If unequally, then those with less are unjustly subject to social contempt. But equal distribution is impossible because it is inconsistent with bargaining to advance our own good. Hence justice in distribution of income and wealth is impossible. More generally, societies where social relations are mediated by money are necessarily unjust, a…Read more
Davis, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |