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37The Epistemic Problem of Cartesian PassionsInternational Philosophical Quarterly 43 (3): 309-332. 2003.For Descartes, the passions are the key to the good life. But he is also wary of the extent to which they may lead us astray. As I argue, there is reason to be skeptical that Descartes himself provides a satisfying resolution of this tension in the Passions of the Soul. The problem concerns our ability to interpret and work through intra-subjective passional conflicts. Descartes seems almost obsessed with the problem of such conflicts in this text. What he needs to provide, however, is a kind of…Read more
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18Passion and virtue in Descartes (edited book)Humanity Books. 2003.Anglophone philosophers have on the whole overlooked much of the last ten years or so of Descartes' philosophical career. In the period following publication of the Meditations, however, Descartes was extremely active in attempting to develop a comprehensive ethics, rooted in his analysis of human passions. His work in this area grew out of a lengthy correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and was later systematically presented in the Passions of the Soul. The present volume is the fir…Read more
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14Humanism with a Human Face: Intimacy and the Enlightenment Howard B. Radest Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996, xi + 212 pp., $59.95 (review)Dialogue 37 (4): 849-. 1998.
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1David Goicoechea, ed., The Nature and Pursuit of Love: The Philosophy of Irving Singer Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 15 (2): 105-106. 1995.
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101The Sublime AnthropoceneEnvironmental Philosophy 13 (2): 155-174. 2016.In the Anthropocene, humanity has been forced to a self-critical reflection on its place in the natural order. A neglected tool for understanding this is the sublime. Sublime experience opens us up to encounters with ‘formless’ nature at the same time as we recognize the inevitability of imprinting our purposes on nature. In other words, it is constituted by just the sort of self-critical stance towards our place in nature that I identify as the hallmark of the Anthropocene ‘collision’ between h…Read more
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Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes' System of Natural Philosophy Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 23 (2): 107-110. 2003.
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1Joyce Jenkins, Jennifer Whiting and Christopher Williams, eds., Persons and Passions: Essays in Honour of Annette Baier Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 26 (5): 358-360. 2006.
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90Environmental Ethics for Canadians (edited book)Oxford University Press Canada. 2015.Designed for second- and third-year university and college courses on environmental ethics or philosophy and the environment, Environmental Ethics for Canadians 2e is a comprehensive introduction to the core ethical questions shaping contemporary environmental debates
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89Blaming Agents in Moral DilemmasEthical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (5): 563-576. 2006.Some philosophers – notably Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum and Ruth Barcan Marcus – argue that agents in moral dilemmas are blameworthy whatever they do. I begin by uncovering the connection these philosophers are presupposing between the agent’s judgement of wrongdoing and her tendency to self-blame. Next, I argue that while dilemmatic choosers cannot help but see themselves as wrongdoers, they both can and should divorce this judgement from an ascription of self-blame. As I argue, dilemmati…Read more
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4The Importance of Self-ForgivenessAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 49 (1). 2012.To self-forgive is to foreswear specific self-directed negative attitudes, attitudes that result from an agent’s recognition of his own moral failing. What does this foreswearing process involve? When is it justified? And what is the relation between self-forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness? I will make two arguments in an attempt to answer these questions. First, self-forgiveness essentially involves a process of shaming whose ultimate goal is restoration of the wrongdoer’s goodness. Seco…Read more
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2Peter Sedgwick, Descartes to Derrida: An Introduction to European Philosophy Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 22 (2): 147-149. 2002.
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2Humanism with a Human Face: Intimacy and the EnlightenmentHoward B. Radest Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996, xi + 212 pp., $59.95 (review)Dialogue 37 (4): 849-851. 1998.In The Devil and Secular Humanism Howard Radest explored the enlightenment roots of humanism; in this book he moves on humanism’s “personal and transcendental” features. As he sees it, contemporary humanism faces two enemies. There is, first, the “shadow enlightenment.” Radest describes this as that version of enlightenment principles with which humanists operate today, but which distorts the original meaning of those principles. Thus, for example, in place of the revolutionary idea of the moral…Read more
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10Daniel Innerarity , The Future and its Enemies: In Defense of Political Hope . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 34 (1-2): 46-48. 2014.
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Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes' System of Natural Philosophy (review)Philosophy in Review 23 107-110. 2003.
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58Moral progress and Canada's climate failureJournal of Global Ethics 7 (2). 2011.In a recent letter to Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, British columnist and climate change gadfly George Monbiot pleaded with Canada to clean up its greenhouse gas emissions act. The letter appeared just a week before the Copenhagen climate conference. In it, Monbiot alleged that Canada's newly acquired status as oil superpower threatens to ?brutalize? the country, as it has other oil-rich countries (Monbiot, G. 2009. Please, Canada, clean up your act, The Globe and Mail, Novemb…Read more
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21Enlightenment shadowsgenevieve Lloyd oxford: Oxford university press, 2013. V + 185 pp. £30.00 (review)Dialogue 53 (2): 356-358. 2014.
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |