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387Population and Having Children NowJournal of Practical Ethics 5 (2): 49-61. 2017.This paper aims to state the obvious – the commonsense, rational approach to child-producing. We have no general obligation to promote either the “general happiness” or the equalization of this and that. We have children if we want them, if their life prospects are decent – and if we can afford them, which is a considerable part of their life prospects being OK – and provided that in doing so we do not inflict injury on others. It’s extremely difficult to do this latter, but affording them, in r…Read more
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768Resolving the Debate on Libertarianism and AbortionLibertarian Papers 8 267-272. 2016.I take issue with the view that libertarian theory does not imply any particular stand on abortion. Liberty is the absence of interference with people’s wills—interests, wishes, and desires. Only entities that have such are eligible for the direct rights of libertarian theory. Foetuses do not; and if aborted, there is then no future person whose rights are violated. Hence the “liberal” view of abortion: women (especially) may decide whether to bear the children they have conceived. Birth is a go…Read more
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2Are Liberty and Equality Compatible?Cambridge University Press. 2012.Are the political ideals of liberty and equality compatible? This question is of central and continuing importance in political philosophy, moral philosophy, and welfare economics. In this book, two distinguished philosophers take up the debate. Jan Narveson argues that a political ideal of negative liberty is incompatible with any substantive ideal of equality, while James P. Sterba argues that Narveson's own ideal of negative liberty is compatible, and in fact leads to the requirements of a su…Read more
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23Professor Heath’s CanadaDialogue 42 (2): 363-. 2003.Professor Heath’s thesis that Canada is “The Efficient Society” has shock value. In contemplating our country, the image of efficiency is not the first one that comes to mind. But in this engagingly—indeed, breezily—written book, that is just what we are told. The claim is that we have discovered the virtues of good government, and other more hapless places such as the United States, have not. Contrary to what we might suppose, government is efficient! The idea certainly tickles the intellect, a…Read more
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2The Right to be Old and the Right to Have Young: Some Conundrums About Aging PopulationsTulane Studies in Philosophy 31 183-217. 1982.
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21Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17 (1): 227-234. 1987.
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13Shopping‐mall liberalism: Reply to LegutkoCritical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 5 (1): 129-134. 1991.No abstract
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58The agreement to keep our agreements: Hume, Prichard, and SearlePhilosophical Papers 23 (2): 75-87. 1994.Does it make sense, and is it at all plausible, to view the moral obligation to keep particular promises and do what is called for by particular agreements such as contracts as being founded on a general "Social Contract" -- i.e., to give a contractarian account of promise-keeping? This paper argues that it does. Borrowing from Hume, David Lewis, Gilbert Harman, and David Gauthier, I provide a sketch of what the "social contract" is (not, e.g., either a real or a hypothetical meeting of all with…Read more
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190Cohen’s RescueThe Journal of Ethics 14 (3-4): 263-334. 2010.G. A. Cohen's Rescuing Justice and Equality proposes that both concepts need rescuing from the work of John Rawls. Especially, it is concerned with Rawls' famous second principle of justice according to which social primary goods should be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution is to the benefit of the worst off. The question is why this would ever be necessary if all parties are just. Cohen and I agree that Rawls cannot really justify inequalities on the basis given. But he also thi…Read more
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19Bastiat's great contribution to economics, in his own view, was his identification of service as the source of economic value. What is anything worth to anybody? In the cases where we are not dealing with what our fellow men do for us, the answer is to be found in its utility - how much the thing contributes to our satisfaction. In the case where we deal with our fellows, we are interested specifically in what they can do for us, that is, how much service they can render us - how much they can o…Read more
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20Moral issues (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1983.Though this moderately-priced anthology dates back to 1983, its lively articles are as relevant as ever. Topics covered include suicide, euthanasia, war, punishment,world hunger, abortion, sexual relations, equality, affirmative action, and future generations.
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18Communication and Human Good: The Twentieth Century's Main AchievementSocial Philosophy Today 17 91-102. 2001.The invention of computers, and especially their communication capabilities is revolutionary in several ways. They show the paramount importance of communication in human life, as well as facilitating revolutionary improvements in virtually all areas of social life: business, the arts, agriculture, and others. They put in perspective the erroneous outlook of "materialism" -the idea that human well-being is a matter of accumulating material objects, with a corollary that we must be using up the m…Read more
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27Gewirth's Reason and Morality – A Study in the Hazards of Universalizability in EthicsDialogue 19 (4): 651-674. 1980.
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49Anarchy, State and Utopica, by Robert NozickDialogue 16 (2): 298-327. 1977.Most books defending the position now know as “libertarianism”, the thesis that government ought to confine itself only to the most minimal functions of preventing or punishing force and fraud, can be dismissed with little scruple as the work of cranks. And some have already done so with this one as well: but wrongly. It is clearly the work of a person of extraordinary brilliance, penetration, and learning, possessed of a pungent style and an uncommon flair for paradox and counterexample. Those …Read more
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38Present Payments, Past Wrongs: Correcting Loose Talk about Nozick and RectificationLibertarian Papers 1 1. 2009.It is widely thought that Robert Nozick’s views on rectification of past injustices are of critical importance to his theory of distributive justice, even perhaps justifying wholesale redistributive taxes in the present because of the undoubted injustices that have pervaded much past history. This essay undertakes to correct this impression—not mostly by disagreeing with Nozick’s claims, but nevertheless proceeding on basic libertarian theory. Of enormous importance is the role of putative innoc…Read more
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13The Evaluation of Ethical Theories. By Charles B. Daniels. Halifax, Dalhousie University Press 1975. pp. 87 + viii. $3.00 (review)Dialogue 19 (2): 349-359. 1980.
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226Libertarianism vs. Marxism: Reflections on G. A. Cohen‘s Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality (review)The Journal of Ethics 2 (1): 1-26. 1998.Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality is G.A. Cohens attempt to rescue something of the socialist outlook on society from the challenge of libertarianism, which Cohen identifies with the work of Robert Nozick in his famous book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Sympathizing with the leading idea that a person must belong to himself, and thus be unavailable for forced redistribution of his efforts, Cohen is at pains to reconcile the two. This cannot be done – they are flatly contrary. Moreover, equalit…Read more
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52A Contractarian Defense of the Liberal View on Abortion and of the Wrongness of InfanticideBowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy 8 76-89. 1986.
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45Promising, Expecting, and UtilityCanadian Journal of Philosophy 1 (2). 1971.In this paper, I shall be concerned to explore the utilitarian account of promising, which for some time has had, in many circles, the status of a dead horse. My aim is not to flog it, however, but to show that perhaps it yet lives. At least, I hope to show that some prominent and apparently powerful objections to this account do not find their mark. In the course of this, several subjects of wider interest will come in for review as well, and it is hoped that some further light on the utilitari…Read more
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University of WaterlooDepartment of Philosophy
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |