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39Moral VegetarianismProcess Studies 45 (2): 236-249. 2016.In this article the work of a recent critic of moral vegetarianism (and veganism) is analyzed: Andrew F. Smith. Smith s work is significant for process thinkers who defend moral vegetarianism for various reasons. One of these is that he forces process thinkers to consider in more depth Whitehead’s view of plant ontology; another is that Smith adds insightfully to the conversation within process thought regarding the relationship between claims regarding animal rights and the ecoholistic concerns…Read more
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31The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (review) (review)The Pluralist 6 (2): 110-114. 2011.
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9Being in America: Sixty Years of the Metaphysical Society (edited book)Editions Rodopi. 2014.Since its founding in 1950, the Metaphysical Society of America has remained a pluralistic community dedicated to rigorous philosophical inquiry into the most basic metaphysical questions. At each year’s conference, the presidential address offers original insights into metaphysical questions. Both the insights and the questions are as perennial as they are relevant to contemporary philosophers. This volume collects eighteen of the finest representatives from those presidential addresses, includ…Read more
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56Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into BiologyLexington Books. 2013.It has been said that new discoveries and developments in the human, social, and natural sciences hang “in the air” (Bowler, 1983; 2008) prior to their consummation. While neo-Darwinist biology has been powerfully served by its mechanistic metaphysic and a reductionist methodology in which living organisms are considered machines, many of the chapters in this volume place this paradigm into question. Pairing scientists and philosophers together, this volume explores what might be termed “the New…Read more
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12Beyond metaphysics?: explorations in Alfred North Whitehead's late thought (edited book)Rodopi. 2010.Alfred North Whitehead’s interpreters usually pay less attention to his later monographs and essays. Process and Reality is taken to be the definitive center of the Whiteheadian universe and the later works, thereby, appear to many only as applications or elaborations of themes already introduced earlier. Yet, is it also possible that the dominance of this perspective has obscured or even distorted further creative developments of Whitehead’s thought? This volume offers a sort of Copernican revo…Read more
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25Consenting to God and Nature: Toward a Theocentric, Naturalistic, Theological EthicsProcess Studies 38 (1): 139-142. 2009.
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23Alfred North Whitehead and Yi Yulgok (review)Newsletter of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy 35 (106): 72-74. 2007.
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29From the Anthropocene to the Ecozoic: Philosophy and Global Climate ChangeMidwest Studies in Philosophy 40 (1): 284-295. 2016.
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37Animals, Ethics, and Process Thought: Hierarchy without AnthroparchyProcess Studies 42 (2): 221-239. 2013.Hierarchical views of nature have for centuries been used to justify the enslaving of peoples perceived as inferior, the often violent and coercive “reeducation” of indigenous peoples, the patriarchal subjugation of women, the cruel use of nonhuman animals for often trivial purposes, and the wanton destruction of the natural world. I join those who condemned the oppressive nature of these forms of hierarchical thinking. Yet, I fear that, in their effort to right past wrongs, too many thinkers ar…Read more
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26A Genuine Ethical Universe: Beauty, Morality, and Nature in a Processive CosmosDissertation, Fordham University. 2003.This project develops and defends a holistic, organic ethical theory grounded firmly in Whitehead's aesthetico-metaphysics of process. The seminal insight of this ethic, which I refer to as the Ethics of Creativity, is the fundamental sense of beauty and value at the base of existence; there is no vacuous, valueless existence. As a result of this starting point, it is this project's contention that it is not enough for an ethical theory merely to prescribe how we ought to interact with other hum…Read more
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3Stewardship and the Roots of the Ecological Crisis: Reflections on Laudato Si’In John B. Cobb Jr & Ignacio Castuera (eds.), For Our Common Home: Process-Relational Responses to Laudato Si’, Process Century Press. pp. 41-51. 2015.My goal in this brief essay is not so much to defend White's controversial thesis, but to use it as a context for appreciating the significance of Pope Francis's new encyclical Laudato Si’. Considering it in the context of White’s thesis, will bring certain salient features into relief.
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Creative Love: Eros and Agape in Whitehead and PeirceIn Brian G. Henning, William T. Myers & Joseph David John (eds.), Thinking with Whitehead and the American Pragmatists: Experience and Reality, Lexington Books. pp. 149-164. 2015.The kernel of this chapter has been lodged in my mind since I was a graduate student at Fordham. As I studied the work of Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead I was continually struck by the numerous points of conver-gence between their respective projects. Unlike other pragmatists, both of these mathematically trained philosophers were interested in constructing a specula-tive philosophy that rejected the reductive, mechanistic accounts of nature. Instead, both Peirce and Whitehead…Read more
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264The Ethics of Food, Fuel, and FeedDaedalus 144 (4): 90-98. 2015.As the collective impact of human activity approaches Earth’s biophysical limits, the ethics of food become increasingly important. Hundreds of millions of people remain undernourished, yet only 60 percent of the global harvest is consumed by humans, while 35 percent is fed to livestock and 5 percent is used for biofuels and other industrial products. This essay considers the ethics of such use of edible nutrition for feedstock and biofuel. How humanity uses Earth’s land is a reflection of its v…Read more
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Philosophy in the Age Fascism: Reflections on the Presidential Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 1931-1940In Richard T. Hull (ed.), Historical Essays in Twentieth Century American Philosophy, Philosophy Documentation Center. pp. 69-95. 2000.The opportunity to read and reflect on Presidential Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 1931–1940, the fourth volume of the American Philosophical Association Centennial Series, has been in equal measures rewarding, humbling, and taxing. Having recently completed my own edited volume of presidential addresses of another philosophical society, I have been thoroughly disabused of the notion that there is any particular form or content that defines a philosophical presidential addre…Read more
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47Unearthing the Process Roots of Environment Ethics: Whitehead, Leopold, and the Land EthicBalkan Journal of Philosophy 8 (1): 3-12. 2016.The aim of this essay is twofold. First, I examine the role of Alfred North Whitehead and process thinkers in bringing about and shaping the field of environmental ethics. As we will see, our job is not so much to develop the connections between Whitehead and environmental thought as to recover them. Second, given this genealogical work, I invite process scholars to reconsider their generally hostile reception of Aldo Leopold and his land ethic. I suggest that a version of the land ethic grounde…Read more
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64Riders in the Storm: Ethics in an Age of Climate ChangeAnselm Academic. 2015.With the increase of natural disasters, droughts, and superstorms, it’s clear that climate change isn’t coming—it’s here. The ecological crisis of climate change—and how we handle it—is the challenge of this century. Though policy changes or technological advances may help, they’re not enough. We are in need of new ways of thinking and acting; new ways of understanding our relationship to the world. Riders in the Storm assesses the challenges of climate change through an interdisciplinary study,…Read more
Spokane, Washington, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Environmental Ethics, Misc |
Metaphysics |
Process Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Environmental Ethics, Misc |
Metaphysics |
Process Philosophy |
Alfred North Whitehead |