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8Analyzing Love, by Robert Brown (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1): 244-245. 1991.review of Analyzing Love
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916How Mathematics Isn’t LogicRatio 12 (3): 279-295. 1999.View more Abstract If logical truth is necessitated by sheer syntax, mathematics is categorially unlike logic even if all mathematics derives from definitions and logical principles. This contrast gets obscured by the plausibility of the Synonym Substitution Principle implicit in conceptions of analyticity: synonym substitution cannot alter sentence sense. The Principle obviously fails with intercepting: nonuniform term substitution in logical sentences. ‘Televisions are televisions’ and ‘TVs ar…Read more
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116Anthology introduction Intro to Empowering Our Military Conscience
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262Translation, Quotation and TruthThe Paideia Archive, 20th World Congress of Philosophy. 1998.critique of Church's Translation Test
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520ConditionsJournal of Philosophy 65 (12): 355-364. 1968.Critique of prevailing textbook conception of sufficient conditions and necessary conditions as a truth functional relation of material implication (p->q)/(~q->~p). Explanation of common sense conception of condition as correlative of consequence, involving dependence. Utility of this conception exhibited in resolving puzzles regarding ontology, truth, and fatalism.
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310Speciesism defended against common misrepresentations of what people actually believe about human moral status.
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7650Understanding the abortion argumentPhilosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1): 67-95. 1971.critical analyses of the arguments and attitudes favoring the various popular datings of the inception of a human being's life
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1336Understanding RetributionCriminal Justice Ethics 2 (2): 19-38. 1983.Critical analysis of wide variety of conceptions and justifications of retribution and punishment. Emphasis is on pivotal role of condemnation
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658Socratic ScepticismMetaphilosophy 24 (4): 344-362. 1993.The Socratic Paradox (that only Socrates is wise, and only because only he recognizes our lack of wisdom) is explained, elaborated and defended. His philosophical scepticism is distinguished from others (Pyrrhonian, Cartesian, Humean, Kripkean Wittgenstein, etc.): the doubt concerns our understanding of our beliefs, not our justification for them; the doubt is a posteriori and inductive, not a priori. Post-Socratic philosophy confirms this scepticism: contra-Descartes, our ideas are not transpar…Read more
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443Post-Fregean theorists use 'quotation' to denote indifferently both colloquially called quotations (repetitions of prior utterances) and what I call 'displays': 'Rot' means red. Colloquially, quotation is a strictly historical property, not semantic or syntactic. Displays are semantically and syntactically distinctive sentential elements. Most displays are not quotations. Pure echo quotations (Cosmological arguments involve "an unnecessary shuffle") aren't displays. Frege-inspired formal languag…Read more
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3786Are the Police Necessary?In E. Viano & J. Reiman (eds.), The Police in Society, D.c. Heath. 1975.critical analysis of need for police
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953Neither M. Walzer's collectivist conception of the "moral equality" of combatants, nor its antithetical individualist conceptions of responsibility are compatible with the ethos of military professionalism and its conception(s) of the responsibility of military professionals for service in an unjust war.
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331Errata: A reply to AbbottPolitical Theory 6 (3): 337-344. 1978.A lengthy inventory of misreadings and other errors in Phillip Abbott's critique of recent essays on abortion by analytic philosophers.
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684The Synonymy AntinomyIn A. Kanamori (ed.), The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Philosophy Document Center. pp. 67-88. 2000.Resolution of Frege's Puzzle by denying that synonym substitution in logical truths preserves sentence sense and explaining how logical form has semantic import. Intensional context substitutions needn't preserve truth, because intercepting doesn't preserve sentence meaning. Intercepting is nonuniformly substituting a pivotal term in syntactically secured truth. Logical sentences and their synonym interceptions share factual content. Semantic content is factual content in synthetic predications,…Read more
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649Review of Robert Brown, Analyzing Love (review)Philosophy and Phenomonological Research 51 (1): 244-45. 1991.
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459Identity SyntaxIn Tom Rockmore (ed.), The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Philosophy Document Center. pp. 171-186. 1999.Like '&', '=' is no term; it represents no extrasentential property. It marks an atomic, nonpredicative, declarative structure, sentences true solely by codesignation. Identity (its necessity and total reflexivity, its substitution rule, its metaphysical vacuity) is the objectual face of codesignation. The syntax demands pure reference, without predicative import for the asserted fact. 'Twain is Clemens' is about Twain, but nothing is predicated of him. Its informational value is in its 'metaile…Read more
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360Preferring Punishment of Criminals Over Provisions for VictimsIn D. Sank & D. Caplan (eds.), To Be a Victim, Plenum. 1991.Victims of crime have long been victimized by our criminal justice system. Why? And why has the movement to rectify this been so late coming?
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898People espousing human moral equality encompassing every conspecific have been unumbrageous being labeled ‘speciesists’ and likened to Nazis and Klansmen, despite the insult’s being indefensible, and, if meant seriously, enraging. Perhaps their equanimity is unruffled because anti-speciesist acquaintances are remarkably chummier with them than with real racists. Anti-speciesists confuse two questions: (1) Is the bare fact of an individual’s being a human in itself a reason for us humans to deal …Read more
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306Animal liberationists call speciesism their enemy, but speciesism, perspicuously specified, says only that being human is sufficient for having our moral status. No one thinks it necessary. Throughout history, people have imagined alter-specifics, like the crowd at a Star Wars cantina, whom they’d recognize as their moral equals. Speciesism says nothing about our treatment of nonhumans. Speciesism’s historic popularity justifies presuming it true, a presumption buttressed by the absence of sound…Read more
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1577Reconnoitering Combatant Moral EqualityJournal of Military Ethics 6 (1): 60-74. 2007.Contra Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahan, neither classical just war theory nor the contemporary rules of war require or support any notion of combatant moral equality. Nations rightly accept prohibitions against punishing enemy combatants without recognizing any legal or moral right of aggressors to kill. The notion of combatant moral equality has real import only in our interpersonal -- and intrapersonal -- attitudes, since the notion effectively preempts any ground for conscientious objection. …Read more
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Ethics for Naval LeadersPearson. 2002.A textbook designed for the mandatory semester ethics course at the United States Naval Academy by USNA Ethics Section, with contributions by the Distinguished Chair in Ethics.
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1256The Relevance of Speciesism to Life Sciences PracticesJournal of Philosophical Research 32 (9999): 27-38. 2007.Animal protectionists condemn speciesism for motivating the practices protectionists condemn. This misconceives both speciesism and the morality condoning those practices. Actually, animal protectionists can be and generally are speciesists. The specifically speciesist aspects of people’s beliefs are in principle compatible with all but the most radical protectionist proposals. Humanity’s speciesism is an inclusivist ideal encompassing all human beings, not an exclusionary ethos opposing moral c…Read more
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70Empowering Our Military Conscience: Transforming Just War Theory and Military Moral Education (edited book)Ashgate. 2010.Responding to increasing global anxiety over the ethics education of military personnel, this volume illustrates the depth, rigour and critical acuity of Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE) with contributions by distinguished ethical theorists. It refreshes our thinking about the axioms of just war orthodoxy, the intellectual and political history of just war theorizing, and the justice of recent military doctrines and ventures. The volume also explores a neglected moral dimension of w…Read more
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270Talking about objects requires talking with objects, presenting objects in speech to identify a term's referent. I say This figure is a circle while handing you a ring. The ring is a prop, a perceptual object referenced by an extra-sentential event to identify the extension of a term, its director ('This figure'). Props operate in speech acts and their products, not in sentences. Intra-sentential objects we talk with are displays. Displayed objects needn't be words but must be like words, percep…Read more
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512Jus Ante BellumIn George Lucas (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Military Ethics, Routledge. pp. 54-68. 2015.Critical analysis of development of concept of jus ante bellum
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680Quotation appositionPhilosophical Quarterly 49 (197): 514-519. 1999.Analyses of quotation have assumed that quotations are referring expressions while disagreeing over details. That assumption is unnecessary and unacceptable in its implications. It entails a quasi-Parmenidean impossibility of meaningfully denying the meaningfulness or referential function of anything uttered, for it implies that: 'Kqxf' is not a meaningful expression 'The' is not a referring expression are, if meaningful, false. It also implies that ill formed constructions like: 'The' is 't…Read more
Decatur, Georgia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Language |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |