•  11
    Ayer and Stevenson’s Epistemological Emotivisms
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1): 59-79. 2004.
    Ayer and Stevenson advocated ethical emotivisms, non-cognitivist understandings of the meanings of moral terms and functions of moral judgments. I argue that their reasons for ethical emotivisms suggestanalogous epistemological emotivisms. Epistemological emotivism importantly undercuts any epistemic support Ayer and Stevenson offered for ethical emotivism. This is because if epistemic emotivism is true, all epistemic judgments are neither true nor false so it is neither true nor false that anyo…Read more
  •  11
    The Real Problem of Infant and Animal Suffering
    Philo 5 (2): 216-225. 2002.
    The problem of infant suffering and death has remained one of the most intractable problems for theists. Andrew Chignell has attempted to develop a theodicy for this problem that is based on Marilyn Adam’s paradigm for theodicy. However, his discussion repeatedly avoids the argument that, traditionally, most have thought to be the basis of this problem of evil. Thus, his theodicy provides the traditional theist with no adequate response to the problem. I argue that since infant suffering is a se…Read more
  •  8
    ‘Better Selves’ and Sympathy
    Southwest Philosophy Review 17 (2): 141-145. 2001.
  •  49
    The ethics of animal research: a survey of the public and scientists in North America
    with Ari R. Joffe, Meredith Bara, and Natalie Anton
    BMC Medical Ethics 17 (1): 1-12. 2016.
    BackgroundTo determine whether the public and scientists consider common arguments in support of animal research convincing.MethodsAfter validation, the survey was sent to samples of public, Amazon Mechanical Turk, a Canadian city festival and children’s hospital), medical students, and scientists. We presented questions about common arguments to justify the moral permissibility of AR. Responses were compared using Chi-square with Bonferonni correction.ResultsThere were 1220 public [SSI, n = 586…Read more
  •  2
    Interests and Harms in Primate Research
    American Journal of Bioethics 9 (5): 27-29. 2009.
  •  711
    This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. Which, if any, uses of animals are morally wrong, which are morally permissible and why? What, if any, moral obligations do we, individually and as a society, have towards animals and why? How should animals be treated? Why? We will explore the most influential and most developed answers to these questions – given by philosophers, scientists, and animal advocates and their criti…Read more
  •  257
    Should people who believe in animal rights think that abortion is wrong? Should pro-lifers accept animal rights? If you think it’s wrong to kill fetuses to end pregnancies, should you also think it’s wrong to kill animals to, say, eat them? If you, say, oppose animal research, should you also oppose abortion? Some argue ‘yes’ and others argue ‘no’ to either or both sets of questions. The correct answer, however, seems to be, ‘it depends’: it depends on why someone accepts animal rights, and why …Read more
  •  24
    Vegetarianism and Virtue
    Social Theory and Practice 28 (1): 135-156. 2002.
    "Nobis argues that Singer's consequentialist approach is inadequate for defending the moral obligation to become a vegetarian or vegan. The consequentialist case rests on the idea that being a vegetarian or vegan maximizes utility -- the fewer animals that are raised and killed for food, the less suffering. Nobis argues that this argument does not work on an individual level -- my becoming a vegetarian makes no difference to the overall utility of reducing animal suffering in a context of a huge…Read more
  •  46
    R.M. Hare’s Irrationalist “Rationalism”
    Southwest Philosophy Review 27 (1): 205-214. 2011.
  •  12
    Carl Cohen's 'kind' arguments for animal rights and against human rights
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 21 (1). 2004.
    Carl Cohen's arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one's peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploit…Read more
  •  16
    Abortion
    The Philosophers' Magazine 72 87-88. 2016.
  •  29
    “The fact is that animals that don't seem to have a purpose really do have a purpose. The Bosses have to eat. It's probably the most noble purpose of all, when you come to think about it.” – Cat, “Babe”.
  •  4
    Moral Realism (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 29 (2): 178-181. 2006.
  •  10
    right. Unlike incoherent positive rights , such as the “right” to education or health care, the animal right is, at bottom, a right to be left alone . It does not call for government to tax us in order to provide animals with food, shelter, and veterinary care. It only requires us to stop killing them and making them suffer. I can think of no other issue where the libertarian is arguing for a positive right—his right to make animals submit to any use he sees—and the other side is arguing for a n…Read more
  •  4
    Rejoinder to John Altick, "Putting Humans First? YES!" (Spring 2007): Animals and Rights
    with David Graham
    Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 8 (2). 2007.
    In his reply to the Nobis-Graham review of Tibor Machan's book, Putting Humans First, John Altick defends Machan's and Rand's theories of moral rights, specifically as they relate to the rights of non-human animals and non-rational human beings. Nobis and Graham argue that Altick's defense fails and that it would be wrong to eat, wear, and experiment on non-rational—yet conscious and sentient—human beings. Since morally relevant differences between these kinds of humans and animals have not been…Read more
  •  4
    Who Needs the ’Actual Futures Pr/Nciple’?
    Southwest Philosophy Review 18 (2): 55-63. 2002.
    Elizabeth Harman has presented a novel view on the moral status of early fetuses that she calls the “ Actual Future Principle” : An early fetus that will become a person has some moral status. An early fetus that will die while it is still an early fetus has no moral status. This view is said to justify a "very liberal" position on abortion, that "early abortion requires no moral justification whatsoever," and show this position to be "more attractive than has previously been thought." Harman co…Read more
  •  36
    This article is book review of Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in the Post-Genomic Age by Jonathan Kahn
  •  13
    Cut the fat! Defending trans fats bans
    American Journal of Bioethics 10 (3). 2010.
    Is banning trans fat a bad policy? Resnik (2010) offers two general reasons for thinking so. First, because trans fat bans could lead to the government’s placing other objectionable restrictions upon food choices. Second, that, because we can adequately reduce trans fat consumption through education and mandatory labeling, bans are unnecessary. There are good reasons to reject both claims. First, since any slippery slope towards further restrictions on food choices is easily avoided, trans fat b…Read more
  •  8
    Abortion and Moral Arguments From Analogy
    with Abubakarr Sidique Jarr-Koroma
    American Journal of Bioethics 10 (12): 59-61. 2010.
    This Article does not have an abstract