•  681
    This book aims to apply recent thinking in philosophy to the age-old problem of the meaning of life, and to do so in a way that is useful to atheists, agnostics, and humanists. The book reorients the search for meaning away from a search for purpose and toward a search for what truly matters, and criticizes our society's prevailing theory of value, the preference satisfaction theory of the economists. It next argues that emotions are our best guides to what matters in life, and shows how emotion…Read more
  •  78
    Teleology and logical form
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (1): 27-34. 1987.
    Recent proposals by Taylor, Bennett, Wright and Cohen to identify teleological systems as systems governed by teleological laws and teleological laws as laws of a certain logical form are discussed. Suggested logical forms are treated with both extensional and simple non-extensional models of nomic necessity and shown to generate problematic entailments not derivable from the causal form alone
  •  66
    This book explains the basic concepts of environmental ethics and applies them to global environmental problems. The author concisely introduces basic moral theories, discusses how these theories can be extended to consider the non-human world, and examines how environmental ethics interacts with modern society’s economic approach to the environment. Online multiple-choice questions encourage the reader’s active learning.
  •  55
    Rawls and the Colledive Ownership of Natural Abilities
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20 (1): 19-28. 1990.
    In two passages of A Theory of Justice Rawls suggests that, as a consequence of his egalitarian theory, the natural talents of persons are common property.We see then that the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset and to share in the benefits of this distribution whatever it turns out to be. The two principles are equivalent, as I have remarked, to an undertaking to regard the distribution of natural abilities as …Read more
  •  43
    Capitalism and Self-Ownership
    Social Philosophy and Policy 6 (1): 60. 1988.
    From the standpoint of libertarian ideology, capitalism is a form of liberation. In contrast to the slave, whose productive powers are wholly owned by his master, and the serf, whose productive powers are partially owned by his lord, the worker under capitalism is presented as possessing the fullest possible self-ownership. That capitalism fosters self-ownership is a false and stultifying myth. Exposing its errors from within capitalism's own conceptual framework requires a careful analysis of t…Read more
  •  39
    Rights against polluters
    Environmental Ethics 17 (3): 245-257. 1995.
    When there is only one source of pollution, the language of rights is adequate for justifying solutions to pollution problems. However, pollution is often both a public and an accumulative harm. According to Feinberg, an accumulative harm is a harm to some person brought about by the actions of many people when the action of no single person is sufficient, by itself, to cause the harm. For example, although no single car emits enough exhaust to do any harm, the emissions from many cars can accum…Read more
  •  33
    Individual acts and accumulative consequences
    Philosophical Studies 97 (3): 343-366. 2000.
  •  33
    Desert and self-ownership
    Journal of Value Inquiry 27 (2): 197-202. 1993.
  •  27
    Social power and human agency
    Journal of Philosophy 86 (12): 712-726. 1989.
  •  26
    _Business Ethics: An Interactive Introduction_ connects the academic to the practical, extracting the basic elements of rigorous philosophical ethics into a format that can be understood and applied in the business world. Concepts such as utility, duty, and sustainability are given practical value and connected to examples and methods familiar to business people. Classical ethical theories are surveyed, as are modern perspectives on justice, equality, and the environment. Where possible, quantit…Read more
  •  26
    Psychology: Autonomous or anomalous?
    Dialogue 24 (3): 427-42. 1985.
    In a recent series of papers, Donald Davidson has put forward a challenging and original philosophy of mind which he has called anomalous monism. Anomalous monism has certain similarities to another recent and deservedly popular position: functionalist cognitive psychology. Both functionalism, in its materialist versions, and anomalous monism require token-token psychophysical identities rather than type-type ones. Both deny that psychology can be translated into, or scientifically reduced to, n…Read more
  •  20
    Desiring what is desirable
    Journal of Value Inquiry 41 (2-4): 281-289. 2007.
  •  15
    Social Power and Human Agency
    Journal of Philosophy 86 (12): 712. 1989.
  •  7
    How can we lead a good life in a world without God? This clear, concise book applies recent thinking in philosophy to the age-old question of what gives meaning to our lives. The prose is simple, the arguments precise, the ideas powerful and thought-provoking. The book deals with many questions: Why does death not destroy the possibility of meaning? In what way is the search for purpose misleading? Why is there not just one thing that is the meaning of life? Why do pleasures and satisfied desire…Read more
  •  4
    Rights against Polluters
    Environmental Ethics 17 (3): 245-257. 1995.
    When there is only one source of pollution, the language of rights is adequate for justifying solutions to pollution problems. However, pollution is often both a public and an accumulative harm. According to Feinberg, an accumulative harm is a harm to some person brought about by the actions of many people when the action of no single person is sufficient, by itself, to cause the harm. For example, although no single car emits enough exhaust to do any harm, the emissions from many cars can accum…Read more
  •  2
    Liberalism, Equality, and Cultural Oppression
    Cambridge University Press. 1998.
    Liberal political philosophy emphasizes the benefits of membership in a cultural group and, in the opinion of this challenging book, neglects its harmful, oppressive aspects. Andrew Kernohan argues that an oppressive culture perpetuates inegalitarian social meanings and false assumptions about who is entitled to what. Cultural pollution harms fundamental interests in self-respect and knowledge of the good and is diffuse, insidious, and unnoticed. This cultural pollution is analogous to environme…Read more
  • Liberalism, Equality, and Cultural Oppression
    Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196): 419-421. 1999.