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8994Understanding 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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3940Are 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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3353Philosophy on HumanityIn R. L. Perkins (ed.), Abortion: Pro and Con, Schenkman. 1974.critical analysis of moral status of human beings. Argues that humans have special moral status simply by being members of our species
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2179Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE) must transmit and promote military professionalism, so it must continuously.
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2064Constraining condemningEthics 108 (3): 489-501. 1998.Our culture is conflicted about morally judging and condemning. We can't avoid it altogether, yet many layfolk today are loathe to do it for reasons neither they nor philosophers well understand. Their resistance is often confused (by themselves and by theorists) with some species of antiobjectivism. But unlike a nonobjectivist, most people think that (a) for us to judge and condemn is generally (objectively) morally wrong , yet (b) for God to do so is (objectively) proper, and (c) so too for ce…Read more
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1794Reconnoitering 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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1575Understanding 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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1544The 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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1383Review of Robert Brown, Analyzing Love (review)Philosophy and Phenomonological Research 51 (1): 244-45. 1991.
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1229How 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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1191Neither 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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1051People 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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993The Paradox of TranslationIn B. . Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & M. Thelen (eds.), Translation and Meaning, Hogeschool Zuyd. 2008.Critique of Alonzo Church's Translation Test. Church's test is based on a common misconception of the grammar of (so-called) quotations. His conclusion (that metalogical truths are actually contingent empirical truths) is a reductio of that conception. Chruch's argument begs the question by assuming that translation must preserve reference despite altering logical form of statements whose truth is explained by their form.
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922Regulating Police Use of Deadly ForceIn N. Bowie & F. Elliston (eds.), Ethics, Public Policy and Criminal Justice, Oelgeschalger, Gunn & Hain. pp. 93--109. 1982.What should be a police department's policies and regulations on the use of deadly force? What is the relevance for this of the state law on capital punishment?
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897Identity: Logic, ontology, epistemologyPhilosophy 73 (2): 179-193. 1998.The identity "relation" is misconceived since the syntax of "=" is misconceived as a relative term. Actually, "=" is syncategorematic; it forms (true) sentences with a nonpredicative syntax from pairs of (coreferring) flanking names, much as "&" forms (true) conjunctive sentences from pairs of (true) flanking sentences. In the conaming structure, nothing is predicated of the subject, other than, implicitly, its being so conamed. An identity sentence has both an objectual reading as a necessity a…Read more
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846The Synonymy AntinomyIn A. Kanamori (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th World Conress of Philosophy, Vol VI , Analytic Philosophy and Logic, 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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827Quotation 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
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740Understanding Blackmun's Argument: The Reasoning in Roe v. WadeIn J. Garfield & P. Hennessy (eds.), Abortion: Moral and Legal Perspectives, University of Massachusetts. 1984.Critical analysis of Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision
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736Jus Ante BellumIn George R. 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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716Socratic 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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714Synonymy Without AnalyticityInternational Philosophical Preprint Exchange. 1994.Analyticity is a bogus explanatory concept, and is so even granting genuine synonomy. Definitions can't explain the truth of a statement, let alone its necessity and/or our a priori knowledge of it. The illusion of an explanation is revealed by exposing diverse confusions: e.g., between nominal, conceptual and real definitions, and correspondingly between notational, conceptual, and objectual readings of alleged analytic truths, and between speaking a language and operating a calculus. The putat…Read more
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671ConditionsJournal 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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586Post-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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575Applying Ethical Theory: Caveats from a Case StudyIn David M. Rosenthal & Fadlou Shehadi (eds.), Applied ethics and ethical theory, University of Utah Press. 1988.abortion argument and fact-value distinction
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500Review of Abortion and Moral Theory (review)Philosophical Review 93 (1): 97. 1984.Criticism of a moral theorizing that disparages common moral thought for violating presumed a priori principles. Argues for questioning alleged principles.
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496critical analysis of logical form of predications of truth vs predications of fact
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454Preferring Punishment of Criminals Over Provisions for VictimsIn Diane Sank & David I. Caplan (eds.), To Be a Victim: Encounters with Crime and Injustice, 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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426Animal 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
Decatur, Georgia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Language |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |