-
39Editors' IntroductionJournal of Social Philosophy 46 (1): 1-8. 2015.Existing accounts of meaning in reproductive contexts, especially those put forward in debates concerning abortion, tend to focus on the (moral) status of the fetus. This issue on miscarriage, pregnancy loss, and fetal death accomplishes a shift this conversation, in the direction of pushing past embryo-centric value judgments. To put it bluntly, the miscarried embryo is not the one who has to live with the experience. The essays in this special issue are a significant addition to the scarce lit…Read more
-
Material and teleological explanations in problemataIn Robert Mayhew (ed.), The Aristotelian Problemata Physica : Philosophical and Scientific Investigations, Brill. 2015.
-
17Comfort in Annihilation: Three Studies in Materialism and MortalityForum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 15 (1): 119-140. 2010.This paper considers three accounts of the relationship between personal immortality and materialism. In particular, the pagan mortalism of the Epicureans is compared with the Christian mortalism of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It is argued 1) that there are significant similarities between these views, 2) that Locke and Hobbes were, to some extent, influenced by the Epicureans, and 3) that the relation between mortality and materialism is not as straightforward as is commonly supposed.
-
18Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle’s Science of Nature. By Mariska Leunissen (review)Ancient Philosophy 32 (2): 452-458. 2012.
-
66Rethinking Voluntary EuthanasiaJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 38 (6). 2013.Our goal in this article is to explicate the way, and the extent to which, euthanasia can be voluntary from both the perspective of the patient and the perspective of the health care providers involved in the patient’s care. More significantly, we aim to challenge the way in which those engaged in ongoing philosophical debates regarding the morality of euthanasia draw distinctions between voluntary, involuntary, and nonvoluntary euthanasia on the grounds that drawing the distinctions in the trad…Read more
-
61Challenging the epicureans: Death and two kinds of well-beingPhilosophical Forum 42 (1): 1-19. 2011.I argue that attempts to explain the badness of death as a deprivation to the person who dies fail to defeat the ancient Epicurean argument that death is bad for us even. At the same time, I argue that the deprivation account of the badness of death provides a way for us to understand how death can be bad for the person who dies. In support of this paradoxical thesis I invoke a distinction between momentary well-being and narrative well-being—a distinction which, while not entirely new, is insuf…Read more
-
124Philosophical suicideThink 11 (30): 73-84. 2012.In response to the view that death is bad when it ruins our lives by interrupting what gives our lives meaning, my approach in this paper is to consider the meaning of life as something that ends at death. With this, I focus on the meaning of life rather than our vulnerability to the badness of death. Specifically, I consider two responses to the myth of Sisyphus—one from Albert Camus and one from Thomas Nagel—both of which take our lives to be absurd. Ultimately, I argue for a form of what C…Read more
-
55Μέγιστα Γένη and Division in Aristotle’s Generation of AnimalsApeiron 46 (1): 1-25. 2013.Aristotle refers to some animal kinds as μέγιστα γένη, or greatest kinds. The goal of this paper is to make clear the nature and significance of these kinds. I argue that Aristotle thinks of greatest kinds as the most general kinds within a specified domain. I then consider the fact that Aristotle’s discussion of animals’ reproductive parts and modes of reproduction in Generation of Animals is organized around divisions related to the cause of each of the features being explained. I conclude tha…Read more
-
14Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle's Biology, by Allan GotthelfMind 123 (491): 909-913. 2014.
-
14Reasons and the Fear of Death (review)Dialogue 42 (4): 821-823. 2003.Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion is a fitting title for Jean Nienkamp’s book. “Internal Rhetorics” appropriately labels the subject of the study being investigated. The term “internal rhetoric” can be seen as being—as Nienkamp observes—both “obvious and paradoxical”. It is obvious in that it is used in reference to the study of persuasive techniques we use on ourselves. It seems paradoxical, however, to those in the Western tradition who follow Plato in distingu…Read more
-
35Reasons and the Fear of Death R. E. Ewin Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, vii + 167 pp., $70.00, $24.95 paper (review)Dialogue 42 (4): 821-. 2003.
-
83Aristotle, Akrasia, and the Place of Desire in Moral ReasoningEthical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (2): 195-207. 2007.This paper serves both as a discussion of Henry’s (Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 5:255–270, 2002) interpretation of Aristotle on the possibility of akrasia – knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway – and an indication of the importance of desire in Aristotle’s account of moral reasoning. As I will explain, Henry’s interpretation is advantageous for the reason that it makes clear how Aristotle could have made good sense of genuine akrasia, a phenomenon that we seem to observe in the real …Read more
-
50The Value of Pregnancy and the Meaning of Pregnancy LossJournal of Social Philosophy 46 (1): 91-105. 2015.In the first part of this paper, I argue that the positions set out in traditional debates about abortion are focused on the status of the fetus to the extent that they ignore the value and meaning of pregnancy as something involving persons other than the fetus. In the second part of the paper, I build on Hilde Lindemann’s ideas by arguing that recognition of the related activities of calling a fetus into personhood and creating an identity as a parent allow us to make sense of a variety of re…Read more
-
57Comfort in Annihilation: Three Studies in Materialism and MortalityForum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 15 (1): 119-140. 2010.This paper considers three accounts of the relationship between personal immortality and materialism. In particular, the pagan mortalism of the Epicureans is compared with the Christian mortalism of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It is argued 1) that there are significant similarities between these views, 2) that Locke and Hobbes were, to some extent, influenced by the Epicureans, and 3) that the relation between (im)mortality and (im)materialism is not as straightforward as is commonly supposed.
-
5Reasons and the Fear of Death (review)Dialogue 42 (4): 821-823. 2003.Reasons and the Fear of Death is about reasons for acting. As the title suggests, Ewin concentrates specifically on the way in which the fear of death makes certain facts reasons for acting. The book is divided into seven chapters. The first is an introduction.
-
16Christopher Belshaw, Annihilation: The Sense and Significance of Death. Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 30 (4): 240-241. 2010.
-
28Μέγιστα Γένη and Division in Aristotle’s Generation of AnimalsApeiron 46 (1): 1-25. 2013.Aristotle refers to some animal kinds as μέγιστα γένη, or greatest kinds. The goal of this paper is to make clear the nature and significance of these kinds. I argue that Aristotle thinks of greatest kinds as the most general kinds within a specified domain. I then consider the fact that Aristotle’s discussion of animals’ reproductive parts and modes of reproduction in Generation of Animals is organized around divisions related to the cause of each of the features being explained. I conclude…Read more