University of Alberta
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2001
Highland Heights, Kentucky, United States of America
  • A Humean Naturalistic Moral Theory
    Dissertation, University of Alberta (Canada). 2001.
    This thesis is a Humean dialogue with David Hume on his influential ideas that are of contemporary philosophical influence and importance, in particular his ideas on the relation between morality and science. It interprets Hume's view of science in terms of his theory of causation and examines the connection that his causal theory of scientific explanation bears with his moral theory. The connection that Hume's causal theory bears with his moral theory has not been sufficiently appreciated and g…Read more
  •  24
    Moral realism, social construction, and communal ontology
    with Wesley Cooper
    South African Journal of Philosophy 19 (2): 120-131. 2005.
    The paper examines two forms of naturalistic moral realism, “Micro-structure realism” and “Reason realism” . The latter, as we defend it, locates the objectivity of moral facts in socially constructed reality, but the former, as exemplified by David Brink\'s model of naturalistic moral realism, secures the objectivity of moral facts in their micro- structure and a nomic supervenience relationship. We find MSR\'s parity argument for this account of moral facts implausible; it yields a relation sh…Read more
  •  31
    Moral Realism, Social Construction, and Realism, Social Construction, and Communal Ontology
    with Wesley Cooper and Augustine Frimpong-Mansoh
    South African Journal of Philosophy 19 (2): 119-131. 2000.
    The paper examines two forms of naturalistic moral realism, “Micro-structure realism” and “Reason realism”. The latter, as we defend it, locates the objectivity of moral facts in socially constructed reality, but the former, as exemplified by David Brink\'s model of naturalistic moral realism, secures the objectivity of moral facts in their micro- structure and a nomic supervenience relationship. We find MSR\'s parity argument for this account of moral facts implausible; it yields a relation shi…Read more
  •  56
    Culture and voluntary informed consent in african health care systems
    Developing World Bioethics 8 (2): 104-114. 2007.
    This paper discusses how to apply a collective decision model of the principle of voluntary informed consent in African communitarian culture, in a culturally sensitive way, in order to protect research candidates from potential exploitations and abuses. Dismissing cultural and ethical skepticism surrounding the global application of the principle of voluntary informed consent, the paper ultimately concludes that international collaboration on diagnostic and therapeutic medical research in Afric…Read more