West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics
Applied Ethics
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics
Applied Ethics
  • Rollbacks, Endorsements, and Indeterminism
    In Mike Almeida & Mark H. Bernstein (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd Edition. pp. 484-498. 2010.
  •  35
    Informed consent for clinical trials of deep brain stimulation in psychiatric disease: challenges and implications for trial design: Table 1
    with Nir Lipsman, Peter Giacobbe, and Andres M. Lozano
    Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (2): 107-111. 2012.
    Advances in neuromodulation and an improved understanding of the anatomy and circuitry of psychopathology have led to a resurgence of interest in surgery for psychiatric disease. Clinical trials exploring deep brain stimulation (DBS), a focally targeted, adjustable and reversible form of neurosurgery, are being developed to address the use of this technology in highly selected patient populations. Psychiatric patients deemed eligible for surgical intervention, such as DBS, typically meet stringe…Read more
  •  12
    Free Will and Values
    Noûs 23 (4): 557-559. 1989.
  •  154
    Opportunistic carnivorism
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 17 (2). 2000.
    Some carnivores defend the position that the opportunistic consumption of meat is morally permissible even under the assumption that it is morally wrong to act in ways that ause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings. Ordering and consuming chicken once a week, they argue, will not increase the numbers of chickens suffering or slaughtered, since the system of purchasing and farming chickens is not sufficiently fine‐tuned to register differences at margin. We argue that, insensitivity of the ma…Read more
  •  13
    Agency and Integrality
    Noûs 23 (3): 391-394. 1989.
  •  6
    The moral equality of humans and animals
    Palgrave-Macmillan. 2015.
    Received opinion has it that humans are morally superior to non-human animals; human interests matter more than the like interests of animals and the value of human lives is alleged to be greater than the value of nonhuman animal lives. Since this belief causes mayhem and murder, its de-mythologizing requires urgent attention.
  •  10
    Evaluating the Value of Animals and Humans
    Journal of Animal Ethics 9 (1): 66-75. 2019.
    Received opinion attributes greater value to the lives of humans than to the lives of animals. Arguably, this conviction allows the continuation of the institutions of factory farming, hunting, and animal experimentation. After all, if we believe that the value of animal lives is at least equal to the value of human lives, we would presumably be quick to renounce and abolish these activities. My aim is to show that we have no good reason to sustain our common belief in the hierarchy of value con…Read more
  •  23
    A Response to MacClellan
    Journal of Animal Ethics 3 (1): 69-71. 2013.
    In "Size Matters" in this issue, Joel MacClellan argues for three claims: according to utilitarianism, faced with a choice of eating large or small animals, we should eat the large; utilitarianism may ground obligations to eat meat; and we justifiably attract greater moral responsibility for the "direct" killing of our food animals than we do for "indirect" killing. MacClellan tends to underestimate the resources available even to hedonistic utilitarianism and oversimplifies the conditions in th…Read more
  •  329
    Is it impossible to relieve suffering?
    Philosophia 32 (1-4): 313-324. 2005.
  •  18
    Comparing the Wrongness of Killing Humans and Killing Animals
    In Andrew Linzey & Clair Linzey (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan Uk. pp. 349-361. 2018.
    Virtually all persons—philosophers and laypersons alike—agree that, special circumstances aside, killing humans is more morally objectionable than killing animals. I argue for a radical inversion of this dogma: all else being equal, killing nonhuman animals is more morally objectionable than killing humans. We will discover that the dominant reason for the pervasive belief that killing humans is worse than killing animals—that the human kind of animal uniquely has the capacities for self-conscio…Read more
  •  2
    Introduction: The Ethics of Killing
    In Andrew Linzey & Clair Linzey (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan Uk. pp. 249-254. 2018.
    In this Introduction, I have two goals. First, I try to contextualize the reasons most people believe both that, all else being equal, killing animals is wrong, and that some justification is needed, at least implicitly, to perform these killings. In the course of this discussion, I briefly discuss the comparative badness of killing human and nonhuman animals. Second, I provide short summaries of all of the papers in this section of the Handbook.
  •  50
    Kanean libertarianism
    Southwest Philosophy Review 11 (1): 151-57. 1995.
  •  96
    I Involutional Determinism
    The Monist 71 (3): 358-364. 1988.
    One tolerably clear statement of Determinism has it that all events are caused. Expanded upon, this thesis has been taken as the claim that the existence of any event E1, has a set of events, E2 … En which antedate E1, and which are causally sufficient for the occurrence of E1. That is, given the occurrence of E2 … En, E1 is causally necessary. I would hardly wish to claim that this is the only plausible statement of the doctrine of Determinism; nonetheless it is a common one, and the one that I…Read more
  •  12
    Research Consent for Deep Brain Stimulation in Treatment-Resistant Depression: Balancing Risk With Patient Expectations
    with Nir Lipsman, Mary Pat McAndrews, and Andres M. Lozano
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 2 (1): 39-41. 2011.
  •  63
    The Moral Complexities of Eating Meat
    Journal of Animal Ethics 7 (2): 198-203. 2017.
    The Moral Complexities of Eating Meat is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the moral issues revolving around our eating habits. While much of the volume concerns the so-called causal impotence argument— the idea that since, as individuals, we do little to add to the harm imposed on animals, some opportunistic carnivorism on our parts is not blameworthy—there are thought-provoking essays running the gamut from defending the practice of meat eating more generally to insisting that st…Read more
  •  4
    On pandemics and the duty to care: whose duty? who cares?
    with Bernstein Mark, M. Bensimon Cécile, Tracy C. Shawn, Ruderman Carly, Hawryluck Laura, Shaul Randi, and E. G. Upshur Ross
    BMC Medical Ethics 7 (1): 5. 2006.
    Background As a number of commentators have noted, SARS exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care systems and governance structures. Health care professionals and hospital systems that bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak continue to struggle with the aftermath of the crisis. Indeed, HCPs – both in clinical care and in public health – were severely tested by SARS. Unprecedented demands were placed on their skills and expertise, and their personal commitment to their profession was severely t…Read more
  •  20
    Neo‐speciesism
    Journal of Social Philosophy 35 (3): 380-390. 2004.
  •  9
    Kanean Libertarianism
    Southwest Philosophy Review 11 (1): 151-157. 1995.
  •  8
    Moral Responsibility and Free Will
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 19 (1): 1-10. 1981.
  • Freedom of Will and Autonomy of Mind
    Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. 1982.
    This thesis discusses the traditional problem of Free Will. I refer to this problem as, equivalently, the Deterministic challenge or the Deterministic dilemma. It can be phrased, roughly, as follows: Determinism is either true or false. If Determinism is true, then all of our actions are determined by events which ultimately, are beyond our control. If Determinism is false, then all of our actions are mere random happenings. Thus, our actions can never be legitimately said to be our own. ;Attemp…Read more
  •  43
    Challenges and Defense (review)
    Philo 13 (1): 94-111. 2010.
  •  39
    Robert Kane, Through the Moral Maze (review)
    Southwest Philosophy Review 11 (2): 267-274. 1995.
  •  32
    Robert Kane, the Significance of Free Will (review)
    Southwest Philosophy Review 13 (2): 171-172. 1997.
  •  45
    Love, particularity, and selfhood
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (3): 287-293. 1985.
  •  130
    Friends without favoritism
    Journal of Value Inquiry 41 (1): 59-76. 2007.
  •  19
    Introduction
    Philosophical Studies 75 (1-2): 1-3. 1994.