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10The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 8th edition (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield. 2022.This is the 8th edition of the book, with eight new essays to the volume. Table of contents: Are We Having Sex Now or What? (Greta Christina); Sexual Perversion (Thomas Nagel); Plain Sex (Alan Goldman); Sex and Sexual Perversion (Robert Gray); Masturbation and the Continuum of Sexual Activities (Alan Soble); Love: What’s Sex Got to Do with It? (Natasha McKeever); Is “Loving More” Better? The Values of Polyamory (Elizabeth Brake); What Is Sexual Orientation? (Robin Dembroff); Sexual Orientation: …Read more
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10The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 7th edition (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield. 2017.
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54Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary ReadingsRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2007.This book's thirty essays explore philosophically the nature and morality of sexual perversion, cybersex, masturbation, homosexuality, contraception, same-sex marriage, promiscuity, pedophilia, date rape, sexual objectification, teacher-student relationships, pornography, and prostitution. Authors include Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Alan Goldman, John Finnis, Sallie Tisdale, Robin West, Alan Wertheimer, John Corvino, Cheshire Calhoun, Jerome Neu, and Alan Soble, among others. A valuable resou…Read more
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20Prolegomena to the Study of LovePhilosophies 8 (3): 44. 2023.Consider this propositional function which includes the dyadic predicate “loves”: “X does not love Y unless Y loves X” (or “if Y does not love X”). This function may be treated in four ways. (1) If universally quantified, it states a (purported) conceptual truth about “love” or the nature or essence of love. Love is necessarily reciprocal. (2) If universally quantified, it may alternatively be a nomological generalization stating an empirical or factual truth about human nature, i.e., about a pa…Read more
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39The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1980.Featuring twenty-nine essays, thirteen of which are new to this edition, this best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena. Topics include sexual desire, masturbation, sex on the Internet, homosexuality, transgender and transsexual issues, marriage, consent, exploitation, objectification, rape, pornography, promiscuity, and prostitution
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Sexual Gifts and Sexual DutiesIn Raja Halwani, Jacob M. Held, Natasha McKeever & Alan G. Soble (eds.), The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 8th edition, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 539-556. 2022.Relying on a sexual encounter that he had once while in graduate school, Soble explores in this essay two important and under-explored ideas in sexual ethics. The first is whether there are sexual duties to others (including, even especially, to strangers), and what the source of such duties might be. He provides good reasons, rooted in both religious and secular thought, for believing that such duties exist. The second is whether there are supererogatory sexual actions—sexual actions that go be…Read more
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Sexual UseIn Raja Halwani, Jacob M. Held, Natasha McKeever & Alan G. Soble (eds.), The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 8th edition, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 395-421. 2022.In this essay, Soble addresses the various attempts in the philosophical literature to solve the "Kantian sex problem"—people's mere instrumental use of each other (and allowing themselves to be used as such by others) during sexual activity and the diminishing of one's sexual rationality and autonomy when experiencing sexual desire. The problem won't be solved by denying Kant's account of sexuality or the validity of his Formula of Humanity, but by fashioning a sexual ethics consistent with Kan…Read more
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1Masturbation and the Continuum of Sexual ActivitiesIn Raja Halwani, Jacob M. Held, Natasha McKeever & Alan G. Soble (eds.), The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 8th edition, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 69-93. 2022.Some philosophical accounts imply that masturbation is inferior sexual activity. Against this, Soble argues that masturbation is central. Relying on the physical-anatomical indistinguishability of sexual act-types, he derives a Zeno-style paradox about sexual activity: either all sexual activity (even ordinary coitus) is masturbatory or none of it is (not even solitary masturbation). Soble argues for the first horn of the dilemma, thus ensuring that solitary masturbation is a member of the conti…Read more
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31The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1980.This best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena. Updated and new discussion questions offer students starting points for debate in both the classroom and the bedroom.
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21The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1980.This best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena. Updated and new discussion questions offer students starting points for debate in both the classroom and the bedroom.
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5Review of Love’s Confusions, by C. D. C. Reeve (review)Essays in Philosophy 7 (1): 146-157. 2006.
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44Letters to the EditorProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 65 (5). 1992.
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29Reviews of Feyerabend's Critique of Foundationalism George Couvalis, 1989 Aldershot, Avebury Press x+158 pp., hardback, ISBN 0 566 07043 X Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking From Women's Lives Sandra Harding, 1991 Buckingham, Open University Press xii + 319pp (review)International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 6 (2): 155-162. 1992.
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103The Unity of Romantic LovePhilosophy and Theology 1 (4): 374-397. 1987.Romantic love is analyzed as including concern, admiration, the desire for reciprocity, exclusivity, and the passion for union. I argue that the passion for union is its central element. An analysis of “x admires y” which recognizes the intentionality of admiration is used to explain how romantic love practices turn out to be sexist. The analysis also shows that idealization is a special case of admiration, and is therefore not an essential part of romantic love.
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16194Kant and Sexual PerversionThe Monist 86 (1): 55-89. 2003.This article discusses the views of Immanuel Kant on sexual perversion (what he calls "carnal crimes against nature"), as found in his Vorlesung (Lectures on Ethics) and the Metaphysics of Morals (both the Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). Kant criticizes sexual perversion by appealing to Natural Law and to his Formula of Humanity. Neither argument for the immorality of sexual perversion succeeds.
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31Sexual Use and What To Do About ItEssays in Philosophy 2 (2): 37-54. 2001.I begin by describing the hideous nature of sexuality, that which makes sexual desire and activity morally suspicious, or at least what we have been told about the moral foulness of sex by, in particular, Immanuel Kant, but also by some of his predecessors (e.g., Augustine) and by some contemporary philosophers. A problem arises because acting on sexual desire, given this Kantian account of sex, apparently conflicts with the Categorical Imperative. I then propose a typology of possible solutions…Read more
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6053Gender, Objectivity, And RealismThe Monist 77 (4): 509-530. 1994.A detailed examination of the philosophy of science of Evelyn Fox Keller, with special emphasis on her account of "objectivity" and her understanding of the methodology of Barbara McClintock.
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49Review of Fact and Value: Essays on Ethics and Metaphysics for Judith Jarvis Thomson, ed. Alex Byrne, Robert Stalnaker, and Ralph Wedgwood (review)Essays in Philosophy 4 (1): 70-75. 2003.
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21Additional readingIn Sex From Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press. pp. 2--767. 2006.
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57Pornography and the social sciences: Reply to Brannigan and GoldenbergSocial Epistemology 2 (2). 1988.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality |