•  1590
    J. S. Mill and Robert Veatch's Critique of Utilitarianism
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (2): 181-200. 1985.
    Modern bioethics is clearly dominated by deontologists who believe that we have some way of identifying morally correct and incorrect acts or rules besides taking account of their consequences. Robert M. Veatch is one of the most outspoken of those numerous modern medical ethicists who agree in rejecting all forms of teleological, utilitarian, or consequentialist ethical theories. This paper examines his critique of utilitarianism and shows that the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill is either n…Read more
  •  2394
    Do pleasures and pains differ qualitatively?
    Journal of Value Inquiry 9 (4): 270-81. 1975.
    Traditional hedonists like Epicurus, Bentham and Sidgwick were quantitative hedonists who assumed that pleasures and pains differ, not just from each other, but also from other pleasures and pains only in such quantitatively measurable ways as intensity, duration, and nearness or remoteness in time. They also differ with respect to their sources or causes. John Stuart Mill introduced an interesting and important complication into the modern theory of hedonism by insisting that pleasures also dif…Read more
  •  12
    Bioethics (edited book)
    Harcourt, Wadsworth. 1988.
    This textbook in Medical Ethics covers most of the standard issues. Each chapter begins with detailed comments by the editors, followed by the best available articles on each topic covered.
  •  6
    A Return to Moral and Religious Philosophy in Early America concentrates especially on three philosophical positions that dominated early American philosophy, Puritanism and Idealism, the Enlightenment or Age of Realism, and Transcendentalism. This book focuses primarily but not exclusively on the best representatives of each. Jonathan Edwards was the most brilliant and philosophically minded of early Puritan thinkers; his thinking was colored by metaphysical idealism. Thomas Jefferson gave us t…Read more
  •  4
    This work is conceived as a modem study of the relationships of the concept of human freedom with the moral concepts of responsibility and obligation and other closely allied notions. One pitfall into which writers on my sub jects have occasionally fallen has been that of spending too much time in critically examining positions and arguments which no sane philosopher has ever offered. In order to guard against the danger of debating with "straw men," I have attempted to engage in critical conver…Read more
  •  18
    Ethics of Psychiatry addresses the key ethical and legal issues in mental health care. With selections by Paul S. Applebaum, Christopher Boorse, Kerry Brace, Peter R. Breggin, Paula J. Caplan, Glen O. Gabbard, Donald H.J. Hermann, Lawrie Reznek, Thomas Szasz, Jerome Wakefield, Bruce J. Winick, and Robert M. Veatch, among others, this sourcebook offers the latest research in psychiatry, psychology, advocacy, mental health law, social services, and medical ethics relevant to the rational autonomy …Read more
  •  237
    A criticism of Ross's hypothetical 'I can'
    Mind 69 (273): 80-83. 1960.
    This article argues that the hypothetical 'I Can' position of Sir David Ross is incompatible with his determinism.
  •  319
    Thomas Nagel., Equality and Partiality (review)
    International Studies in Philosophy 26 (2): 136-137. 1994.
  •  850
    Toward an Axiological Virtue Ethics
    Ethical Research 3 (3): 21-48. 2013.
    This article introduces Formal Axiology, first developed by Robert S. Hartman, and explains its essential features—a formal definition of “good” (the “Form of the Good”), three basic kinds of value and evaluation—systemic, extrinsic, and intrinsic, and the hierarchy of value according to which good things having the richest quantity and quality of good-making properties are better than those having less. Formal Axiology is extended into moral philosophy by applying the Form of the Good to person…Read more
  •  77
    Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism (review)
    Philosophical Review 91 (1): 143-145. 1979.
  •  443
    Mental health as rational autonomy
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 6 (3): 309-322. 1981.
    Rather than eliminate the terms "mental health and illness" because of the grave moral consequences of psychiatric labeling, conservative definitions are proposed and defended. Mental health is rational autonomy, and mental illness is the sustained loss of such. Key terms are explained, advantages are explored, and alternative concepts are criticized. The value and descriptive components of all such definitions are consciously acknowledged. Where rational autonomy is intact, mental hospitals and…Read more
  •  19
    Fetz's misunderstandings of formal axiology
    Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 1 (13): 24-30. 1999.
  •  6
  •  534
    Tom Regan's Seafaring Dog and (Un) Equal Inherent Worth
    Between the Species 9 (4): 231-235. 1993.
    Tom Regan's seafaring dog that is justifiably thrown out of the lifeboat built for four to save the lives of four humans has been the topic of much discussion. Critics have argued in a variety of ways that this dog nips at Regan's Achilles heel. Without reviewing previous discussions, with much of which I certainly agree, this article develops an unexplored approach to exposing the vulnerability of the position that Regan takes on sacrificing the dog to save the humans. It argues that when deali…Read more
  •  15
    This book features two old philosophical friends engaged in lively personal and intellectual conversations. Wary of any dogmatism, their dialogues explore the Big Bang and the joy of grandchildren, value theory and terrorism, God and art, metaphor and meaning, while assessing the thought of Robert S. Hartman, Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, H. Richard Niebuhr, and others.
  •  135
    Review of Religion and Violence (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 57 (4): 833-834. 2004.
    If you relish paradoxes, this is the book for you. The writings quoted are full of them; the book is largely about “a category beyond all categories”, “atemporal temporality”, “the radical possibility of the impossible itself”, the “concept without concept”, “the myth of the myth, the metaphor of the metaphor”, “hospitality-without-hospitality, brotherhood-without-brotherhood, messianicity-without-messianism”, “relation without relation”, “ethics beyond ethics”, and “the One plus or minus One, n…Read more
  •  1006
    This article approaches Judaism through Rabbi Bradley S. Artson’s book, God of Becoming and Relationships: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology. It explores his understanding of how Jewish theology should and does cohere with central features of both process theology and Robert S. Hartman’s formal axiology. These include the axiological/process concept of God, the intrinsic value and valuation of God and unique human beings, and Jewish extrinsic and systemic values, value combinations, and val…Read more
  •  29
    Matters of Faith and Matters of Principle (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 36 (4): 956-958. 1983.
    In this promising and well written book, the author struggles with the question of how basic religious beliefs can be groundless without being irrational. He notes that the axiomatic beliefs--philosophical, scientific, or religious--which ground all areas of human knowledge, are groundless in the sense of being unsupported by more primitive evidential considerations. He wishes to avoid purely non-cognitivist accounts of religious belief as purely subjective expressions of tastes, preferences, va…Read more
  •  411
    Is an Existential System Possible?
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 17 (3). 1985.
    The article critiques Kierkegaard's understanding of an "existential system" and relates his theology to Classical and Process Theism
  •  473
    Discussion: The truth and falsity of definitions
    Philosophy of Science 33 (1/2): 76. 1966.
    This article examines several answers to the question, can lexical definitions be true or false.
  •  393
    Why we should not use some drugs for pleasure
    In S. Luper-Foy C. Brown (ed.), Drugs, Morality, and the Law, Garland. pp. 183. 1994.
    The article explains why we should not use dangerous drugs for pleasure.
  • An Emotivist Analysis of the Ontological Argument
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 48 (1): 25. 1967.
  •  634
    In his Edifying Discourses, Soren Kierkegaard published a sermon entitled ‘The Unchangeableness of God’ in which he reiterated the dogma which dominated Catholic, Protestant and even Jewish expressions of classical supernaturalist theology from the first century A.D. until the advent of process theology in the twentieth century. The dogma that as a perfect being, God must be totally unchanging in every conceivable respect was expressed by Kierkegaard in such ways as: He changes all, Himself unch…Read more
  •  508
    The Human Self
    Process Studies 5 (3): 195-203. 1975.
    This is a serious critique of Whitehead's epochal theory of time. It argues that human selves and perhaps all actual entities are in continuous concrescence, like Whitehead's God.
  •  842
    People and Their Worth
    Process Studies 38 (1): 43-68. 2009.
    This article argues that process philosophy and Hartmanian formal axiology are natural allies that can contribute much to each other. Hartmanian axiology can bring much needed order and clarity to process thought about the definitions of “good,” “better,” and “best,” about what things are intrinsically good, and about the nature and value of unique, enduring, individual persons. Process thought can bring to axiology greater clarity about and emphasis on the relational and temporal features of hu…Read more
  •  19
    Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character (review)
    International Studies in Philosophy 35 (4): 145-146. 2003.
  •  542
    God as a Single Processing Actual Entity
    Process Studies 42 (1): 77-86. 2013.
    This article defends Marjorie Suchocki’s position against two main objections raised by David E. Conner. Conner objects that God as a single actual entity must be temporal because there is succession in God’s experience ofthe world. The reply is that time involves at least two successive occasions separated by perishing, but in God nothing ever perishes. Conner also objects that Suchocki’s personalistic process theism is not experiential but is instead theoretical and not definitive. The reply i…Read more
  •  41
    Agency Without a Substantive Self
    The Monist 49 (2): 273-289. 1965.
    A typical dispute between a libertarian and a determinist will usually involve some reference to ‘self-determination’. The libertarian will perhaps claim that I am free when I am not determined in my choices by anything outside myself but instead determine my choices ‘myself’. To this the determinist is likely to reply that ‘self-determination’ is determination all the same and that he cannot see how the freedom of choice defended by the libertarian is an exception to determinism. This is where …Read more