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47If Monty Hall Falls or CrawlsEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 9 (2): 33-47. 2014.The Monty Hall problem is consistently misunderstood. Mathematician Jeffrey Rosenthal argues in Monty Hall, Monty Fall, Monty Crawl” and Struck By Lightning that a proportionality principle can solve and explain the Monty Hall problem and its variants like Monty Fall and Monty Crawl better than the classic solution. Rosenthal’s Monty Fall example and solution are examined in detail. I show he has misidentified the crucial assumption in the Monty Hall problem, and his own Monty Fall problem is lo…Read more
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4Human Cloning and Moral StatusDissertation, The Florida State University. 2003.In this dissertation I take on the task of reconstructing and evaluating arguments for and against human cloning for both research and reproduction, and conclude that the moral disagreement is really about how to define "moral status" and not about cloning in particular. In Chapter I, I clarify the biological and scientific facts relevant to the human cloning debate. I then give a topic neutral definition of cloning, and show what the moral problems seem to be. ;Chapter II evaluates the common m…Read more
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5Plato's Republic: A Tale of Two CitiesTelos: Critical Theory of the Contemporary 2002 (123): 175-182. 2002.
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26A Modern Analytic Socrates and Meno’s ParadoxInquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 21 (3): 23-25. 2003.
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1Why is there a stem cell debate? And how to depoliticize itIn Christopher Stephens & Mohan Matthen (eds.), Elsevier Handbook in Philosophy of Biology, Elsevier. pp. 144--425. 2004.
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13Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, Peter Herissone-Kelly and Gardar Árnason, eds. , Arguments and Analysis in Bioethics . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 31 (3): 209-212. 2011.
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25Melinda A. Roberts , Abortion and the Moral Significance of Merely Possible Persons: Finding Middle Ground in Hard Cases . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 32 (3): 225-227. 2012.
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169Ad hominem arguments and intelligent design: Reply to KoperskiZygon 47 (2): 289-297. 2012.Abstract Jeffrey Koperski claims in Zygon (2008) that critics of Intelligent Design engage in fallacious ad hominem attacks on ID proponents and that this is a “bad way” to engage them. I show that Koperski has made several errors in his evaluation of the ID critics. He does not distinguish legitimate, relevant ad hominem arguments from fallacious ad hominem attacks. He conflates (or equates) the logical use of valid with the colloquial use of valid. Moreover, Koperski doesn't take seriously the…Read more
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325Seven Arguments Against Extra CreditTeaching Philosophy 37 (2): 191-214. 2014.Overwhelmingly, students desire the opportunity to earn extra credit because they want higher grades, and many professors offer extra credit because they want to motivate students. In this paper, I define the purposes of both grading and extra credit and offer three traditional arguments for making extra credit assignments available. I follow with seven arguments against the use of extra credit that include unnecessary extra work, grade inflation, and ultimately paradox. I finish with an exampl…Read more
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