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91Missiles and morals: A utilitarian look at nuclear deterrencePhilosophy and Public Affairs 11 (3): 189-231. 1982.
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33Ethical Reflections on Company-Owned Life InsuranceJournal of Business Ethics 80 (4): 845-854. 2008.COLI – company owned life insurance – is often purchased by firms on employees in whom the firm has no demonstrable insurable interest. Though no immediate harm comes to individuals insured in this way, purchasing such policies raises moral questions. From a Kantian framework, questions arise about reciprocity and fairness, the deception of employees, the generation of mistrust, and the use of the employee’s life as a means to profit. No compensating social good is served by the sale of these po…Read more
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15Fame as a Value ConceptPhilosophy Research Archives 12 541-551. 1986.This essay distinguishes personal from generic fame and accurate from inaccurate fame, and claims that only accurate personal fame could possess intrinsic value. Nevertheless, three common arguments why accurate personal fame might possess intrinsic value are shown to be unsound. After rejecting two Aristotelian arguments to the effect that no sort of fame possesses value, the author suggests that fame is valueless if one assumes a modern axiology in which the good life consists of self-regulati…Read more
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The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical StudyPhilosophical Forum 42 (3): 269-271. 2011.
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34Cultural Pluralism Essays On Toleration, Michael Walzer , 128 pp., $16.50 cloth (review)Ethics and International Affairs 12 220-221. 1998.
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Robert Powell, Nuclear Deterrence Theory: The Search for Credibility Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 12 (2): 135-137. 1992.
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12Ethics and Native American reburials: a philosopher's view of two decades of NAGPRAIn Chris Scarre & Geoffrey Scarre (eds.), The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice, Cambridge University Press. pp. 146. 2006.
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6Russell's Contribution to the Study of Nuclear Weapons PolicyRussell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 4 (2): 243. 1984.
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19Moral Principles and Nuclear WeaponsRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1984.To find more information about Rowman and Littlefield titles, please visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com
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57The Ethics of Life Insurance Settlements: Investing in the Lives of Unrelated Individuals (review)Journal of Business Ethics 96 (4). 2010.Life insurance settlements, or life settlements, are life insurance policies owned by investor-beneficiaries on the lives of unrelated individuals. With life settlements, investors make substantial payments to the insured individuals upon purchasing such policies, pay any remaining premius, and collect the death benefits upon the demise of the insured individuals. Transactions involving life settlements seem poised to become a major source of profits for investment banks, comparable in dollar am…Read more
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51The Moral Irrelevance of the Counterforce/Countervalue DistinctionThe Monist 70 (3): 255-275. 1987.Since the atomic era began in 1945, there have been three waves of moral criticism directed at American nuclear weapons policies. The first wave, which began around 1957 and ended in 1962 with McNamara’s announcement of Flexible Response, focused on Dulles’s policy of Massive Retaliation. The second wave, which began in the early 70’s and ended in 1974 with Schlesinger’s announcement of Countervailing Response, focused on the Assured Destruction policy developed in McNamara’s later reports to Co…Read more
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91Divine Omniscience and Human PrivacyPhilosophy Research Archives 10 383-391. 1984.This paper argues that there is a conflict between divine omniscience and the human right to privacy. The right to privacy derives from the right to moral autonomy, which human persons possess even against a divine being. It follows that if God exists and persists in knowing all things, his knowledge is a non-justifiable violation of a human right. On the other hand, if God exists and restricts his knowing in deference to human privacy, it follows that he cannot fulfill the traditional function …Read more
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31Review: Trenton Merricks, Propositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 321 + xiii pages; $42.68/hardcover (review)Philosophical Forum 47 (1): 107-109. 2016.
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40Book Review:Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons. Steven Lee (review)Ethics 105 (1): 196-. 1994.
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14Out on a Nuclear LimbDialogue 26 (2): 341-. 1987.Nuclear War, edited by Fox and Groarke, is one of five recent anthologies containing new essays by philosophers on the subject of nuclear war. The Blake and Pole volumes, containing essays mainly by British philosophers, are distinguished by unrelenting and comprehensive opposition to British and American policy, and by the fame of the contributors, which include Anthony Kenny, Michael Dummett, and Bernard Williams. The Chicago volume contains a number of excellent papers by philosophers and the…Read more
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57Immoral Risks: A Deontological Critique of Nuclear Deterrence: DOUGLAS P. LACKEYSocial Philosophy and Policy 3 (1): 154-175. 1985.I. Beyond Utilitarianism In the summer of 1982, I published an article called “Missiles and Morals,” in which I argued on utilitarian grounds that nuclear deterrence in its present form is not morally justifiable. The argument of “Missiles and Morals” compared the most likely sort of nuclear war to develop under nuclear deterrence with the most likely sort of nuclear war to develop under American unilateral nuclear disaramament. For a variety of reasons, I claimed diat the number of casualties i…Read more
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318What are the modern classics? The Baruch poll of great philosophy in the twentieth centuryPhilosophical Forum 30 (4). 1999.
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12The American Debate on Nuclear Weapons PolicyAnalyse & Kritik 9 (1-2): 7-46. 1987.Criticism of nuclear weapons policies often misses the target through ignorance of the policies that are actually in effect. This essay recounts the development of American nuclear weapons policies, together with a history of the criticisms of these policies presented by nuclear strategists and moral philosophers.
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4Admiral Turner's Plan Caging the Nuclear Genie: An American Challenge for Global Security, Stansfield Turner , 162 pp., $22.00 cloth (review)Ethics and International Affairs 12 226-227. 1998.