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54Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2010._Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone_ investigates our profound intrigue with mass-murderers. Exploring existential, ethical and political questions through an examination of real and fictional serial killers, philosophy comes alive via an exploration of grisly death. Presents new philosophical theories about serial killing, and relates new research in cognitive science to the minds of serial killers Includes a philosophical look at real serial killers such as Ian Brady, Ted Bundy, John Way…Read more
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1Serial Killers: Philosophy for Everyone – Killing and Being, ed. Sara Waller (Wiley-Blackwell: 2010), 129-140. (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2010.
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1Neuroenhancement: Warning, Autonomax May Be NecessaryJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 5 1-5. 2010.This paper argues that neuroscience has great potential to increase free will rather than condemn us to determinism. If human freedom depends on such factors as: having the intelligence and rationality to understand the physical, social and moral consequences of one’s actions; being aware of what choices are available and viable; being without emotional illness and compulsion; etc., then brain based treatments can expand human freedom. We present several hypothetical cases in which treatments ap…Read more
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29Philosophical CounselingPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 10 (2): 23-31. 2003.I offer a method for philosophical counseling that is contrasted with Marinoffs. This version of philosophical counseling is primarily epistemic and suggests therapy as the examination of the justification of a client's beliefs, with a goal of enabling the client to change belief systems if the client so chooses.
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31Recent Texts in Animal Ethics (review)Teaching Philosophy 37 (2): 233-252. 2014.This is a comparative review of four books for classroom and instructor use: Ethics and Animals, by Lori Gruen; Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce; Animal Ethics in Context, by Clare Palmer; and Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents: The Moral Status of Animals in the History of Western Philosophy, by Gary Steiner. The books range from original scholarship in ethics suitable for the undergraduate and graduate level, to broad historical surveys and analysi…Read more
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A Defense of Semantic ConventionalismDissertation, Loyola University of Chicago. 1999.This is a defense of semantic conventionalism. Several strategies are used in the defense. In the introduction, I provide criteria for evaluating semantic theories in general. In the first chapter, I survey various types of conventionalism and identify the conventionalism to be defended. The allies for this conventionalism include Quine. In the second chapter, I show that other semantic theories, including holism, can be thought of as conventions. This is done through an appeal to metalanguages.…Read more
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68Psychological investigations: the private language argument and inferences in contemporary cognitive scienceSynthese 171 (1): 135-156. 2009.Some of the methods for data collection in experimental psychology, as well as many of the inferences from observed behavior or image scanning, are based on the implicit premise that language use can be linked, via the meaning of words, to specific subjective states. Wittgenstein’s well known private language argument (PLA), however, calls into question the legitimacy of such inferences. According to a strong interpretation of PLA, all of the elements of a language must be publicly available. Th…Read more
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21When Love Hurts Children: Controlling the Feelings of MinorsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 13 (11): 28-29. 2013.No abstract
Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Metaphilosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Metaphilosophy |