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Weapons of mass destruction : are they morally special?In Larry May & Emily Crookston (eds.), War: Essays in Political Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2008.
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6Universal Human Rights: Moral Order in a Divided World (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2005.Universal Human Rights brings new clarity to the important and highly contested concept of universal human rights. This collection of essays explores the foundations of universal human rights in four sections devoted to their nature, application, enforcement, and limits, concluding that shared rights help to constitute a universal human community, which supports local customs and separate state sovereignty. The eleven contributors to this volume demonstrate from their very different perspectives…Read more
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5Book review : Action theory. Ed. by Myles brand and Douglas Walton. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976. Pp. 345. $39.50 (review)Philosophy of the Social Sciences 9 (4): 531-535. 1979.
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30International Governance and the Fight against TerrorismEthics and International Affairs 20 (2): 241-246. 2006.The present concerns about threats to international security from nonstate actors may lead to some significant strengthening of global governance.
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71A Moral Critique Of The Cosmopolitan Institutional ProposalEthics and International Affairs 19 (2): 99-108. 2005.Steven Lee critiques an essay by Allen Buchanan and Robert Keohane on the preventive use of military force.
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30Ethics and Foreign InterventionEthics and International Affairs 18 (2): 101-102. 2004.In their introduction, the editors ask: Is the frequent practice of humanitarian intervention in the 1990s the beginning of a long-term trend or a historical aberration? Perhaps these essays were written too close to 9/11 to have the perspective needed to answer this question.
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63Ethics, Killing and WarPhilosophical Review 106 (1): 129. 1997.War, Richard Norman reminds us, is treated as the great exception to the strong moral prohibition against the killing of other humans. Despite the widespread belief that war is, in many cases, permissible, its morally exceptional character suggests that there is a strong presumption against its permissibility. Norman argues that this presumption cannot be successfully rebutted and, in particular, that just-war theory, which attempts to provide such a rebuttal, fails in this endeavor. But Norman’…Read more
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15Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity: The Fundamental Questions (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1986.The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.
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Smith v. Board of School Commissioners: The Religion of Secular Humanism in Public EducationNotre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy 3 (4): 591-628. 1988.
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76Review of Steven P. Lee: Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons (review)Ethics 105 (1): 196-198. 1994.With the passing of the Cold War, a chapter in the history of nuclear deterrence has come to an end. Nuclear weapons remain, however, and nuclear deterrence will again be practiced. Rather than simply assume that the policy of deterrence has worked we need to learn the proper lessons from history in order to ensure that its mistakes are not repeated. Professor Lee furnishes us with the kind of analysis that will enable us to learn those lessons. This 1993 book is the first post-Cold War assessme…Read more
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3[Book review] morality, prudence, and nuclear weapons (review)In Peter Singer (ed.), Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 105--1. 1994.
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4Morality and Paradoxical DeterrenceSocial Philosophy and Policy 3 (1): 136. 1985.Nuclear deterrence is paradoxical. One paradox of nuclear deterrence we may call the rationality paradox: While it is a rational policy to threaten nuclear retaliation against an opponent armed with nuclear weapons, it would not be rational to carry out the retaliation should the threat fail to deter; and what would not be rational to do is not, in the circumstances characteristic of nuclear deterrence, rational to threaten to do. This is a paradox in the standard sense that it involves contradi…Read more
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12The morality of nuclear deterrence: Hostage holding and consequencesEthics 95 (3): 549-566. 1985.
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1Although public law scholars have long addressed the problems of accountability generated by private decision-making and "privatization," they have largely ignored this phenomenon in the immigration context. Our ignorance is increasingly indefensible. Millions of employers - private parties - are required by law to screen their workers for unauthorized immigrants, and growing evidence suggests that they use their screening power to ignore workplace protections and to otherwise exploit these work…Read more
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9Double effect, double intention, and asymmetric warfareJournal of Military Ethics 3 (3): 233-251. 2004.Modern warfare cannot be conducted without civilians being killed. In order to reconcile this fact with the principle of discrimination in just war theory, the principle is applied through the doctrine of double effect. But this doctrine is morally inadequate because it is too permissive regarding the risk to civilians. For this reason, Michael Walzer has suggested that the doctrine be supplemented with what he calls the idea of double intention: combatants are not only to refrain from intending…Read more
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6Nuclear proliferation and nuclear entitlementEthics and International Affairs 9. 1995.In this essay Lee examines three questions:1) Is nuclear proliferation dangerous? Is it morally permissible for a state to acquire nuclear weapons? What are morally permissible actions for states trying to keep other states from acquiring nuclear weapons?
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98The Ethics of Current Drone PolicyInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 30 (1): 115-132. 2016.The subject of this paper is the ethics of the use of attack drones by a state. My concern is not the moral acceptability of drones as such, but rather that of current drone policy insofar as it involves the targeted killing of individuals in the “war on terror.” I seek to clarify and extend some of the arguments offered regarding the policy. Though this will involve some appeal to just war theory, my moral argument is broader than this. I conclude that there is a reasonably strong case that cur…Read more
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217Humanitarian intervention - eight theoriesDiametros 23 22-43. 2010.Much has been written about the ethics of humanitarian intervention in the past fifteen years. In this paper I discuss a variety of justifications that have been proposed (in fact, seven theories of justification), finding difficulties with each of them, and then I offer a theory of justification of my own. My approach to justification will differ from most of the earlier accounts in two ways. First, I begin the discussion of justification at a different point. Second, I seek to expand the tradi…Read more
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14Book Review: After War Ends: A Philosophical Perspective, written by Larry May (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 12 (2): 251-253. 2015.
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8The Moral Distinctiveness of GenocideJournal of Political Philosophy 18 (3): 335-356. 2009.No Abstract
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4Is Public Philosophy Possible?International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22 (1): 13-18. 2008.Do philosophers have an obligation to public philosophy, that is, do they owe the pubic an effort to explain their work in a form that the public can understand and make use of? A prior question is whether public philosophy is possible, and this question is open because the role of the public philosopher may not be a possible role in our society. In Plato’s view, public philosophy was not possible in a democracy, as the only role for public philosophy was in a society in which philosophers were …Read more
Geneva, New York, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |