•  14
    Author Meets Critics (review)
    The Acorn 16 (2): 41-52. 2016.
    Two critics respond to Predrag Cicovacki’s book, Gandi’s Footprints. Cicovacki opens the discussion by presenting his motivations for exploring a paradox, that Gandhi’s work is widely revered but not widely emulated. Cicovacki explores a resolution to the paradox by suggesting how Gandhi’s promising visions may be followed without being imitated, especially Gandhi’s insight that we must seek spiritual grounding for life in a materialistic world. Critic Sanjay Lal affirms Cicovacki’s insight but …Read more
  •  12
    Author Meets Critics (review)
    The Acorn 16 (1-2): 41-52. 2016.
    Two critics respond to Predrag Cicovacki’s book, Gandi’s Footprints. Cicovacki opens the discussion by presenting his motivations for exploring a paradox, that Gandhi’s work is widely revered but not widely emulated. Cicovacki explores a resolution to the paradox by suggesting how Gandhi’s promising visions may be followed without being imitated, especially Gandhi’s insight that we must seek spiritual grounding for life in a materialistic world. Critic Sanjay Lal affirms Cicovacki’s insight but …Read more
  •  13
    Why Is There A World?
    Philosophy Now 128 19-21. 2018.
  •  31
    Free Will Is Still Alive!
    Philosophy Now 124 22-24. 2018.
  •  4
    Persons, Motivation, and Acts
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (2): 201-215. 1985.
  •  5
    Non-substantial Streams of Consciousness and Free Action
    International Studies in Philosophy 20 (3): 1-11. 1988.
  •  6
    Suppose that this world is not an accident, but an expression of a divine super-mind. This book boldly contends that divine motives are guided by values that exist objectively, defending a cosmic vision that has been prominent in the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years
  •  11
    Professor Filice’s Defense of Pacifism
    Journal of Philosophical Research 17 483-491. 1992.
    I argue in this paper that pacifism is a live moral option. I do this in four steps. First, I try to make the case that the backing of thinkers and prophets of the stature of Gandhi and Jesus lends pacifism some prima-facie moral legitimacy. Second, I try to determine what the ethical-metaphysical preconditions that would justify pacifism would have to be---and I conclude that some consequentialist soul-exposing scheme would be required. Third, I argue that such a scheme would be able to sustain…Read more
  •  27
    Libertarian Autonomy and Intrinsic Motives
    Social Theory and Practice 36 (4): 565-592. 2010.
    This paper suggests that libertarians should avail themselves of a system of natural and autonomy-friendly motivational foundations—intrinsic motives. A psyche equipped with intrinsic motives could allow for some degree of character-formation that is genuinely and robustly autonomous. Such autonomy would rest on motives that are one’s own in the most direct way: they are part of one’s natural make-up. A model with intrinsic motives can help libertarians in multiple ways: to deal with skeptics re…Read more
  •  12
    Rawls and non-rational beneficiaries
    Between the Species 13 (6): 3. 2006.
  •  55
    On the autonomy of the divine
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 55 (2): 83-108. 2004.
  •  18
    Religions and Peace (review)
    Journal for Peace and Justice Studies 17 (2): 59-73. 2008.
  •  7
    Professor Filice’s Defense of Pacifism
    Journal of Philosophical Research 17 483-491. 1992.
  •  19
    Sustained Causation and the Substantial Theory of the Self
    International Philosophical Quarterly 26 (2): 137-145. 1986.
  •  75
    Pacifism
    Journal of Philosophical Research 17 119-153. 1992.
    I argue in this paper that pacifism is a live moral option. I do this in four steps. First, I try to make the case that the backing of thinkers and prophets of the stature of Gandhi and Jesus lends pacifism some prima-facie moral legitimacy. Second, I try to determine what the ethical-metaphysical preconditions that would justify pacifism would have to be---and I conclude that some consequentialist soul-exposing scheme would be required. Third, I argue that such a scheme would be able to sustain…Read more
  •  4
    Agency and the Self
    Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 1983.
    This thesis attempts to show that an adequate account of human agency requires postulation of a substantial self that is intrinsically active. It proposes and defends a coherent picture of this self's relation to its states, notably, to its motives; and it tries to establish the conditions for freedom-qua-autonomy. ;It is first shown that the "action-event" distinction is real and ontologically significant. Explanations of this distinction are found to come in two types: event-causal and agent-c…Read more
  •  11
    Persons, motivation, and acts
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (2): 201-215. 1985.
  •  17
    Non-substantial streams of consciousness and free action
    International Studies in Philosophy 20 (3): 1-11. 1988.
  •  128
    The moral case for reincarnation
    Religious Studies 42 (1): 45-61. 2006.
    I attempt to show that a cosmic theistic scheme that includes multiple lives as part of a benign plan for the world is likely to be the most moral scheme. It has the best chance of dealing with key aspects of the problem of evil, or of apparent cosmic injustice – particularly when compared to a single-life scheme. Its advantages have to do with the initial disparate condition of children, and with the massive nature of undeserved harm. A multiple-lives scheme is also promising for handling broad…Read more
  •  7
    Pacifism
    Journal of Philosophical Research 17 119-153. 1992.
    I argue in this paper that pacifism is a live moral option. I do this in four steps. First, I try to make the case that the backing of thinkers and prophets of the stature of Gandhi and Jesus lends pacifism some prima-facie moral legitimacy. Second, I try to determine what the ethical-metaphysical preconditions that would justify pacifism would have to be---and I conclude that some consequentialist soul-exposing scheme would be required. Third, I argue that such a scheme would be able to sustain…Read more
  •  25
    Causation and the Self
    International Philosophical Quarterly 27 (3): 329-334. 1987.