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129Ethics without morals: in defence of amoralityRoutledge. 2013.A defense of amorality as both philosophically justified and practicably livable. While in synch with their underlying aim of grounding human existence in a naturalistic metaphysics, this book takes both the new atheism and the mainstream of modern ethical philosophy to task for maintaining a complacent embrace of morality. It advocates instead replacing the language of morality with a language of desire. The book begins with an analysis of what morality is and then argues that the concept is no…Read more
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43Rats and Rationality and othersBioethics Forum. 2007.Various commentaries on the use of animals in biomedical research and related.
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107Animal Abolitionism Meets Moral Abolitionism: Cutting the Gordian Knot of Applied EthicsJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 10 (4): 1-11. 2013.The use of other animals for human purposes is as contentious an issue as one is likely to find in ethics. And this is so not only because there are both passionate defenders and opponents of such use, but also because even among the latter there are adamant and diametric differences about the bases of their opposition. In both disputes, the approach taken tends to be that of applied ethics, by which a position on the issue is derived from a fundamental moral commitment. This commitment in turn …Read more
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59On Due Recognition of Animals Used in ResearchJournal of Animal Ethics 1 (1): 6-8. 2011.The experimental laboratory can be a horror house for rats, monkeys, and other nonhuman animals. Yet their use in this setting is usually reported in a routine manner in publications that discuss the results. These contentions are illustrated with an analysis of the way animal evidence is presented in David J. Linden’s recent book, The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God (Harvard University Press, 2007). The article concludes with a call to science aut…Read more
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50A is for Animal: The Animal User’s LexiconBetween the Species 18 (1): 2-26. 2015.In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice, “When I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” When Alice questions this license, Humpty Dumpty replies, “The question is … which is to be master — that’s all.” The present article offers a lexicon of words that are used by human beings, however unintentionally or ingenuously, to maintain their mastery or prerogatives over other animals. A motivating assumption of the article is …Read more
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80Cheating 101Teaching Philosophy 26 (2): 131-145. 2003.This paper describes a ten-year experiment aimed at stopping cheating in the philosophy classroom. In addition to evaluating a number of common approaches to dealing with cheating in the classroom (e.g. punishing students, preventative measures), the author argues that combating cheating requires fostering a rational appreciation of right conduct while acknowledging that such conduct cannot be policed. One way that this conduct is instilled is through “contract grading”, a type of grading where …Read more
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63When is a fallacy not a fallacy?Metaphilosophy 19 (3‐4): 307-312. 1988.The informal fallacies can be conceived as enthymemes that are formally valid. But, then, what accounts for our sense of their fallaciousness? I explain this in terms of the notion of a warrant.
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368Heaven Can't Wait: A Critique of Current Planetary Defence PolicyIn Jai Galliott (ed.), Commercial Space Exploration: Ethics, Policy and Governance, Ashgate. pp. 71-90. 2015.It is now generally recognized that Earth is at risk of a devastating collision with an asteroid or a comet. Impressive strides in our understanding of this threat have been made in recent decades, and various efforts to deal with it have been undertaken. However, the pace of government action hasn’t kept up with the advance of our knowledge. Despite the daunting dimensions of planetary defense, one intrepid NGO has stepped up to the plate: The B612 Foundation has embarked on a half-billion-doll…Read more
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110Innocent and Innocuous: The Case Against Animal ResearchBetween the Species (10): 98-117. 2010.Animal research is a challenging issue for the animal advocate because of what, besides animal well-being, is considered to be at stake, namely, human health. This article seeks to vindicate the antivivisectionist position. The standard defense of animal research as promoting the overwhelming good of human health is refuted on both factual and logical, or normative-theoretical, grounds. The author then attempts to clinch the case by arguing that animal research violates a deontic principle. Howe…Read more
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80A planet by any other name: An exercise in astro-metaphysicsThink 5 (14): 103-106. 2007.Joel Marks discusses the philosophical aspects of a question recently in the news: is Pluto a planet, or not?
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63Activism as Integrity (review)Philosophy Now (67): 44-45. 2008.Review of Lee Hall's book, Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights Advocacy in the Age of Terror. Ostensibly about tactics in the animal rights movement, the book is in fact a manifesto for thinking about nonhuman animals in a wholly different way from what we have become accustomed to. The review focuses on the welfare/rights debate in the animal movement.
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61Accept No Substitutes: The Ethics of AlternativesHastings Center Report 42 (s1). 2012.It is common to argue that animal experimentation is justified by its essential contribution to the advancement of medical science. But note that this argument actually contains two premises: an empirical claim that animal experimentation is essential to the advancement of medical science and an ethical claim that if research is essential to the advancement of medical science, then it is justified. Both claims are open to challenge, but in the logic of the case, only one of them needs to be show…Read more
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APA Eastern Division
New Haven, CT, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |