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1505J. S. Mill and Robert Veatch's Critique of UtilitarianismSouthern 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
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2327Do 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
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10Bioethics (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.
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4A Return to Moral and Religious Philosophy in Early AmericaReligious Studies 19 (3): 421-422. 1982.
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5A Return to Moral and Religious Philosophy in Early AmericaUniversity Press of America. 1982.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
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4Freedom, responsibility and obligationM. Nijhoff. 1970.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
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5Psychiatry and ethics: insanity, rational autonomy, and mental health care (edited book)Prometheus Books. 1982.
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18Ethics and psychiatry: insanity, rational autonomy, and mental health care (edited book)Prometheus Books. 1997.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
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514God as a Single Processing Actual EntityProcess 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
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120Review of: The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence (review)Process Studies 44 (2): 299-303. 2015.This is a review of a book by Thomas Jay Oord.
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41Agency Without a Substantive SelfThe 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
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1869Formal Axiology and Its Critics (edited book)Rodopi. 1995.This book is a collection of articles dealing with criticisms of Robert S. Hartman’s theory of formal axiology. During his lifetime, Hartman wrote responses to many of his critics. Some of these were previously published but many are published here for the first time. In particular, published here are Hartman’s replies to such critics as Hector Neri Castañeda, Charles Hartshorne, Rem B. Edwards, Robert E. Carter, G. R. Grice, Nicholas Rescher, Robert W. Mueller, Gordon Welty, Pete Gunter, George…Read more
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1164Pain and the Ethics of Pain ManagementSocial Science and Medicine 18 (6): 515-523. 1984.In this article I clarify the concepts of ‘pain’, ‘suffering’. ‘pains of body’, ‘pains of soul’. I explore the relevance of an ethic to the clinical setting which gives patients a strong prima facie right to freedom from unnecessary and unwanted pain and which places upon medical professionals two concomitant moral obligations to patients. First, there is the duty not to inflict pain and suffering beyond what is necessary for effective diagnosis. treatment and research. Next, there is the duty t…Read more
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200On Being 'Rational' About NormsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 5 (3): 180-186. 1967.The theses of this paper are that: 1. the attempt to found absolute norms on rationality presupposes the availability of a single universal absolute conception of rationality, but no such conception is available; and 2. any conception of rationality which might be available for justifying one's ultimate normative commitments is itself evaluative. “Rationality” itself is a value-laden concept, as are all its philosophical sub-divisions—logic, ethics, aesthetics, axiology, etc. Choosing ultimate v…Read more
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508The Knowledge of Good: Critique of Axiological Reason (edited book)Rodopi. 2002.This book presents Robert S. Hartman's formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson. Open Access funding for this volume has been provided by the Robert S. Hartman In…Read more
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277Existential experience, and limiting questions and answersInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (2). 1973.This article critically examines the positions taken by Stephen E. Toulmin, Robert C. Coburn, and and Gordon D. Kaufman on existential experience and limiting questions and answers.
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6200The principle of utility and mill's minimizing utilitarianismJournal of Value Inquiry 20 (2): 125-136. 1986.Formulations of Mill's principle of utility are examined, and it is shown that Mill did not recognize a moral obligation to maximize the good, as is often assumed. His was neither a maximizing act nor rule utilitarianism. It was a distinctive minimizing utilitarianism which morally obligates us only to abstain from inflicting harm, to prevent harm, to provide for others minimal essentials of well being (to which rights correspond), and to be occasionally charitable or benevolent
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24A response to 'on being "mentally healthy"'Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 8 (2): 199-202. 1983.
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410Whitehead's Theistic Metaphysics and AxiologyProcess Studies 45 (1): 5-32. 2016.This article explores and critically examines the concepts and value dimensions of God, process, creativity, eternal objects, and individuals in Whitehead's thought.
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184Public funding of abortions and abortion counseling for poor womenAdvances in Bioethics 2 303. 1997.This article tries to show that commonplace economic, ethico-religious, anti-racist,and logical-consistency objections to public funding of abortions and abortion counseling for poor women are quite weak. By contrast, arguments appealing to basic human rights to freedom of speech, informed consent, protection from great harm, justice and equal protection under the law, strongly support public funding. Thus, refusing to provide abortions at public expense for women who cannot afford them is moral…Read more
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583How Process Theology Can Affirm Creation Ex NihiloProcess Studies 29 (1): 77-96. 2000.Most process theologians have rejected the creation of the world out of nothing, holding that our universe was created out of some antecedent universe. This article shows how on process grounds, and with faithfulness to much of what Whitehead had to say, process theologians can and should affirm the creation of our universe out of nothing. Standard process objections to this are refuted.
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216The value of man in the Hartman value systemJournal of Value Inquiry 7 (2): 141-147. 1973.This article summarizes and critique’s Robert S. Hartman’s four alleged “proofs for the infinite value of man.” Each “proof” assumes that all individual human beings actually contain within themselves an infinite number of good-making properties, and that this accounts for the literal infinite worth of each. Hartman developed four variations on this central theme. This critique shows that none of his arguments are plausible and none succeed in “proving” their conclusion.
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573Composition and the cosmological argumentMind 77 (305): 115-117. 1968.This article argues that not all arguments from parts to wholes commit the informal logical fallacy of composition,and especially not the cosmological argument for God which moves from the contingent existence of all the parts of the cosmos to the contingent existence of the whole.
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17Analogies between nature and its partsInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (2). 1976.
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332Process Thought and the Spaciness of MindProcess Studies 19 (3): 156-166. 1990.The process claim that matter is mentally infused and that mind or consciousness is spatially and temporally extended is explored. The views of Peirce, Whitehead, Hartshorne, Cobb, Ford and Griffin on the following questions are examined: If spacy, where are the occasions of human consciousness, how are they related to the brain, how large are they, and can they be externally perceived directly or with instruments? It is proposed that what is internally experienced as human consciousness is obje…Read more
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382On Being ‘Rational’ About NormsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 5 (3): 180-186. 1967.The theses of this paper i: I. that the attempt to found absolute norns on rationality presupposes the availability of a single universal absolute conception of rationality but that no such conception is available; and II. that any conception of rationality which might be available for justifying one's ultimate normative commitments is itself evaluative. “Rationality” itself is a value-laden concept, as are all its philosophical sub-divisions—logic, ethics, aesthetics, axiology, etc. Choosing ul…Read more
Emory University
PhD, 1962
APA Eastern Division
Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
1 more
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |