•  248
    Why Plantinga's updated (2009) version of the Free Will Defense does not work, and consequently the Logical Argument From Evil against the God of Theism is undefeated.
  •  164
    Three Angry Men
    Phables. 2022.
    A short play wherein three pregnant (previously) anti-abortion men consider the arguments for and against abortion.
  •  370
    Perry Hendricks’ ‘impairment argument’, which he has defended in this journal, is intended to demonstrate that the generally conceded wrongness of giving a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) shows that abortion must also be immoral, even if we allow that the fetus is not a rights-bearing moral person. The argument fails because the harm of causing FAS is extrinsic but Hendricks needs it to be intrinsic for it to show anything about abortion. Either the subject of the wrong of causing FAS is a pe…Read more
  •  2
    Introduction
    In New Philosophical Essays on Love and Loving, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 1-24. 2021.
    Love has been a topic of interest to philosophy since at least the time of Plato’s Symposium, but with a few notable exceptions, it was unduly neglected in the twentieth century, at least by writers in the analytic tradition that predominates in the English-speaking world. However, in the past quarter century, writing on the topic has exploded. In this volume, we touch on most of the currently hot debates and also introduce some fascinating tangents. The main threads of discussion reflected in t…Read more
  •  555
    New Philosophical Essays on Love and Loving (edited book)
    Palgrave-Macmillan. 2021.
    New philosophical essays on love by a diverse group of international scholars. Topics include contributions to the ongoing debate on whether love is arational or if there are reasons for love, and if so what kind; the kinds of love there may be ; whether love can explain the difference between nationalism and patriotism; whether love is an necessary component of truly seeing others and the world; whether love, like free will, is “fragile,” and may not survive in a deterministic world; and whethe…Read more
  •  276
    You & Yours
    Phables. 2020.
    An extended example illustrating various theories of personal identity and imagining how duplicates would confront the argument that neither of them is identical with the original.
  •  51
    Interview by Simon Cushing
    Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics (Philosophical Profiles). 2015.
    Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Marya Schechtman on 24 June 2015.
  •  46
    Interview by Simon Cushing
    Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics (Philosophical Profiles). 2016.
    Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Eric Olson on 1 July 2016.
  •  54
    Interview by Simon Cushing
    Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics (Philosophical Profiles). 2017.
    Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Robert Kane on 24 August 2017.
  •  14
    Interview by Simon Cushing
    with Susan Wolf
    Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics (Philosophical Profiles). 2016.
    Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Susan Wolf on 29 July 2016.
  • Interview by Simon Cushing
    Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics (Philosophical Profiles). 2014.
    Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Allen Buchanan on 2 June 2014.
  •  600
    Heaven and Philosophy (edited book)
    Lexington Books. 2017.
    This volume is a collection of essays analyzing different issues concerning the nature, possibility, and desirability of heaven as understood by the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity. and Islam. Topics include whether or not it is possible that a mortal could, upon bodily death, become an inhabitant of heaven without loss of identity, where exactly heaven might be located, whether or not everyone should be saved, or if there might be alternative destinations (including some less fiery ve…Read more
  •  675
    Don't Fear the Reaper: An Epicurean Answer to Puzzles about Death and Injustice
    In Kate Woodthorpe (ed.), Layers of Dying and Death, Inter-disciplinary Press. pp. 117-127. 2007.
    I begin by sketching the Epicurean position on death - that it cannot be bad for the one who dies because she no longer exists - which has struck many people as specious. However, alternative views must specify who is wronged by death (the dead person?), what is the harm (suffering?), and when does the harm take place (before death, when you’re not dead yet, or after death, when you’re not around any more?). In the second section I outline the most sophisticated anti-Epicurean view, the deprivat…Read more
  •  273
    Heaven and Homicide
    In Heaven and Philosophy, Lexington Books. pp. 255-269. 2017.
    I address the questions of whether or not the very existence of heaven provides a motivation for killing. If universalism is true, then anyone killed will end up there, as will the killer. And given that heaven is infinitely better than earth, killing would be, on this view, the greatest gift possible to the “victim.” But if universalism is not true, there is perhaps an even greater incentive to kill one’s loved ones if one knows them to be currently heaven-bound: that is, to save them from th…Read more
  •  692
    Evil, Freedom and Heaven
    In Heaven and Philosophy, Lexington Books. pp. 201-230. 2017.
    By far the most respected response by theists to the problem of evil is some version of the free will defense, which rests on the twin ideas that God could not create humans with free will without them committing evil acts, and that freedom is of such value that it is better that we have it than that we be perfect yet unfree. If we assume that the redeemed in heaven are impeccable, then the free will defense faces what I call the Heaven Dilemma: either the redeemed in heaven are free, in which …Read more
  •  1400
    The Philosophy of Autism (edited book)
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2012.
    This book examines autism from the tradition of analytic philosophy, working from the premise that Autism Spectrum Disorders raise interesting philosophical questions that need to be and can be addressed in a manner that is clear, jargon-free, and accessible. The goal of the original essays in this book is to provide a philosophically rich analysis of issues raised by autism and to afford dignity and respect to those impacted by autism by placing it at the center of the discussion.
  •  833
    Has Autism Changed?
    In Monika dos Santos & Jean-Francois Pelletier (eds.), The Social Construction and Experiences of Madness, Inter-disciplinary Press. pp. 75-94. 2016.
    The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published in 2013 containing the following changes from the previous edition: gone are the subcategories ‘Autistic Disorder,’ ‘Asperger Syndrome’ and ‘PDD-NOS,’ replaced by the single diagnosis ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder,’ and there is a new category ‘Social Communication Disorder.’ In this paper I consider what kind of reasons would justify these changes if one were (a) a realist about autism, or (b) one wer…Read more
  •  476
    Citizenship, Political Obligation, and the Right-Based Social Contract
    Dissertation, University of Southern California. 1998.
    The contemporary political philosopher John Rawls considers himself to be part of the social contract tradition of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, but not of the tradition of Locke's predecessor, Thomas Hobbes. Call the Hobbesian tradition interest-based, and the Lockean tradition right-based, because it assumes that there are irreducible moral facts which the social contract can assume. The primary purpose of Locke's social contract is to justify the authority of the state …Read more
  •  317
    Reaching for my gun: why we shouldn't hear the word "culture" in normative political theory
    1st Global Conference: Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging. 2007.
    Culture is a notoriously elusive concept. This fact has done nothing to hinder its popularity in contemporary analytic political philosophy among writers like John Rawls, Will Kymlicka, Michael Walzer, David Miller, Iris Marion Young, Joseph Raz, Avishai Margalit and Bikhu Parekh, among many others. However, this should stop, both for the metaphysical reason that the concept of culture, like that of race, is itself either incoherent or lacking a referent in reality, and for several normative rea…Read more
  •  1446
    Rawls and "Duty-Based" Accounts of Political Obligation
    APA Newsletter on Law and Philosophy 99 (1): 67-71. 1999.
    Rawls's theory of political obligation attempts to avoid the obvious flaws of a Lockean consent model. Rawls rejects a requirement of consent for two reasons: First, the consent requirement of Locke’s theory was intended to ensure that the liberty and equality of the contractors was respected, but this end is better achieved by the principles chosen in the original position, which order the basic structure of a society into which citizens are born. Second, "basing our political ties upon a princ…Read more
  •  2965
    Against "humanism": Speciesism, personhood, and preference
    Journal of Social Philosophy 34 (4). 2003.
    Article responds to the criticism of speciesism that it is somehow less immoral than other -isms by showing that this is a mistake resting on an inadequate taxonomy of the various -isms. Criticizes argument by Bonnie Steinbock that preference to your own species is not immoral by comparison with racism of comparable level
  •  615
    Liberal Nationalism, Culture, and Justice
    Social Philosophy Today 18 151-165. 2002.
    Over the past ten years or so, the position of Liberal Nationalism has progressed from being an apparent oxymoron to a widely accepted view. In this paper I sketch the most prominent liberal defenses of nationalism, focusing first on the difficulties of specifying criteria of nationhood, then criticizing what I take to be the most promising, culture-based defense, forwarded by Will Kymlicka. I argue that such an approach embroils one in a pernicious conservatism completely at odds with the globa…Read more
  •  557
    Autism: The Very Idea
    In Jami L. Anderson & Simon Cushing (eds.), The Philosophy of Autism, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 17-45. 2013.
    If each of the subtypes of autism is defined simply as constituted by a set of symptoms, then the criteria for its observation are straightforward, although, of course, some of those symptoms themselves might be hard to observe definitively. Compare with telling whether or not someone is bleeding: while it might be hard to tell if someone is bleeding internally, we know what it takes to find out, and when we have the right access and instruments we can settle the issue. But matters are not so si…Read more
  •  605
    Representation and Obligation in Rawls’ Social Contract Theory
    Southwest Philosophy Review 14 (1): 47-54. 1998.
    The two justificatory roles of the social contract are establishing whether or not a state is legitimate simpliciter and establishing whether any particular individual is politically obligated to obey the dictates of its governing institutions. Rawls's theory is obviously designed to address the first role but less obviously the other. Rawls does offer a duty-based theory of political obligation that has been criticized by neo-Lockean A. John Simmons. I assess Simmons's criticisms and the pos…Read more