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308Literature as fable, fable as argumentPhilosophy and Literature 33 (2). 2009.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature as Fable, Fable as ArgumentLester H. HuntIIn an ancient Chinese text we find the following exchange between the Confucian sage Mencius and one of his adversaries:Kao Tzu said, "Human nature is like whirling water. Give it an outlet in the east and it will flow east; give an outlet in the west and it will flow west. Human nature does not show any preference for either good or bad, just as water does not show any preference …Read more
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284Thus Spake Howard Roark: Nietzschean Ideas in The FountainheadPhilosophy and Literature 30 (1): 79-101. 2006.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thus Spake Howard Roark:Nietzschean Ideas in The FountainheadLester H. HuntIThe position I will be taking here will seem very peculiar to many people. I will be treating a novel as a discussion of the work of a philosopher—namely, Friedrich Nietzsche. Worse yet, I will be treating it as a discussion that is philosophically penetrating and deserves to be taken seriously. Still worse, the novel is Ayn Rand's early novel The Fountainhea…Read more
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216Self-fulfillmentPhilosophical Review 109 (4): 589-592. 2000.As its title suggests, the subject of this book is the nature of self-fulfillment, which the author defines as “carrying to fruition one’s deepest desires or one’s worthiest capacities”. It treats this subject as a specifically ethical one. The motivation behind it lies in the author’s conviction that all other norms and ideals have value only insofar as they serve to advance this one.
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121Gun ControlInternational Encyclopedia of Ethics. 2013.The phrase “gun control” has no very precise meaning. It typically refers either to prohibitions of or restrictions on gun ownership on the part of the civilian population. Such rules may apply either to guns in general or to some type of gun (such as handguns). More rarely, it can refer to legal restrictions, not on classes of weapons, but on classes of users, a sort of restriction that might be called “dangerous possessor gun control” (see Risk). In this case, the state denies the right of gun…Read more
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99Flourishing EgoismSocial Philosophy and Policy 16 (1): 72. 1999.Early in Peter Abelard's Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian, the philosopher and the Christian easily come to agreement about what the point of ethics is: “[T]he culmination of true ethics … is gathered together in this: that it reveal where the ultimate good is and by what road we are to arrive there.” They also agree that, since the enjoyment of this ultimate good “comprises true blessedness,” ethics “far surpasses other teachings in both usefulness and worthiness.” As Abel…Read more
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95The Eternal Recurrence and Nietzsche’s Ethic of VirtueInternational Studies in Philosophy 25 (2): 3-11. 1993.What I would like to try to show here, to the extent that I can do so briefly, is that Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same things is - whatever else it might be in addition to this - an ethical idea. Considering it as such, I will argue, promises to shed light both on the content of Nietzsche's ethics and on the idea of recurrence.
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70An argument against a legal duty to rescueJournal of Social Philosophy 26 (1): 16-38. 1995.Indeed, to a layperson reading the relevant case law, it almost seems that the courts sometimes try to make this principle seem as shocking as possible. In one decision that is often cited, a unanimous state supreme court held that, not only did an eight year old boy have no right to be rescued by the defendant from having his hand caught in a machine in the defendant's factory, but he (the boy, as a trespasser) would even have been liable for damages to the defendant in this case had his hand, …Read more
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68Thus spake Howard Roark: Nietzschean ideas inPhilosophy and Literature 30 (1): 79-101. 2006.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thus Spake Howard Roark:Nietzschean Ideas in The FountainheadLester H. HuntIThe position I will be taking here will seem very peculiar to many people. I will be treating a novel as a discussion of the work of a philosopher—namely, Friedrich Nietzsche. Worse yet, I will be treating it as a discussion that is philosophically penetrating and deserves to be taken seriously. Still worse, the novel is Ayn Rand's early novel The Fountainhea…Read more
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44Flourishing Egoism*: LESTER H. HUNTSocial Philosophy and Policy 16 (1): 72-95. 1999.Early in Peter Abelard's Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian, the philosopher and the Christian easily come to agreement about what the point of ethics is: “[T]he culmination of true ethics … is gathered together in this: that it reveal where the ultimate good is and by what road we are to arrive there.” They also agree that, since the enjoyment of this ultimate good “comprises true blessedness,” ethics “far surpasses other teachings in both usefulness and worthiness.” As Abel…Read more
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40Nietzsche and the origin of virtueRoutledge. 1991.contemporary ethical project--one that should inform our lives as well as our thoughts.
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38Debating Gun Control: How Much Regulation Do We Need?Oxford University Press USA. 2016.Americans have an ambivalent relationship to guns. The debate over the role of guns and gun regulations in American society tends to be acrimonious and misinformed.
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37Courage and PrincipleCanadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (2). 1980.The things I wish to say here are relatively few and simple. Reflection on certain moral phenomena suggests, by way of a rather loose dialectical argument, a certain traditional theory of the nature of virtue. This is the notion that virtue consists, partly, of acting on the basis of some principle. If we do not assume in advance some narrow conception of what principles are like, this theory can provide us with a plausible account of the virtue of courage. If we take it seriously and follow its…Read more
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36Quandaries and Virtues: Against Reductivism in Ethics (review)Philosophical Review 98 (2): 249-251. 1989.
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36Genes, race and research ethics: who's minding the store?Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (6): 495-500. 2008.Background: The search for genetic variants between racial/ethnic groups to explain differential disease susceptibility and drug response has provoked sharp criticisms, challenging the appropriateness of using race/ethnicity as a variable in genetics research, because such categories are social constructs and not biological classifications.Objectives: To gain insight into how a group of genetic scientists conceptualise and use racial/ethnic variables in their work and their strategies for managi…Read more
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35In Poetic Justice Martha Nussbaum undertakes to explain how “story-telling and literary imagining” can supply “essential ingredients in a rational argument” and thereby improve public discourse regarding important ethical, political, and legal issues.
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35Reply to Stephen R. C. Hicks, "Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand" (Spring 2009): Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand: A Somewhat Different ApproachJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 10 (2). 2009.If we examine Rand's relation to Nietzsche in terms of the number of issues on which the late Rand agreed with him, the connection between them looks extremely weak. On the other hand, if we look at the relation in terms of Rand's philosophical development, the connection is much more profound. Nietzsche is where Rand began as a thinker, and though she traveled far from this source, her thinking always bore important traces of her beginnings
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35Book Review:Courage: A Philosophical Investigation. Douglas N. Walton (review)Ethics 98 (1): 172-. 1987.
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34The Scarlet Letter: Hawthorne's Theory of Moral SentimentsPhilosophy and Literature 8 (1): 75-88. 1984.
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33The paradox of the unknown lover: A reading of letter from an unknown womanJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64 (1). 2006.
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32Billy Budd : Melville's DilemmaPhilosophy and Literature 26 (2): 273-295. 2002.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 273-295 [Access article in PDF] Billy Budd:Melville's Dilemma Lester H. Hunt I THE CHAIN OF EVENTS NARRATED in Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)—how Billy is falsely accused of plotting mutiny by his Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, how Billy accidentally kills Claggart and, finally, is executed at the urging of the Captain of the Ship, Edward Fairfax Vere, despite Vere's p…Read more
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25Courage: A Philosophical InvestigationInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 23 (2): 117-118. 1988.
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25Time to Revisit Classical Film TheoryJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 79 (1): 42-51. 2021.Film audiences are no longer in a position to know for certain which images, or features of images they see on the screen were created by photography and which were created in a computer. Yet they are reacting to the advent of computer graphics as if it is merely a technical improvement, not a change in the nature of film itself. This would mean that one of the most influential early theories of film—realism—is wrong. It held that film is by nature photographic and that its unique value is to af…Read more
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University of Wisconsin, MadisonProfessor
Oakland Heights, Wisconsin, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |