Author Archives

I'm a philosophy professor at the University of Lethbridge in Southern Alberta, Canada. I specialize in philosophy of war, game theory, contractarianism, and theodicy (the Problem of Evil). I am bald, fat, and ugly, but my wife loves me, so I don't care.

• WHAT IF GOD WERE ONE OF US?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 15, 2026 • ( 0 )

  A being that doesn’t want for anything doesn’t want anything. And if there’s nothing it wants, it won’t do anything. It won’t do anything not because it wants to conserve its energy. If there’s nothing it could want, what would… Read More ›

• ON THE UBIQUITY OF FAITH

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 15, 2026 • ( 0 )

  If it’s true but I don’t believe it, I don’t know it. If it’s true, I believe it, but I’m not justified in believing it, I don’t know it. If I believe it, I’m justified in believing it, but as… Read More ›

• OF MIGRANTS AND CELL PHONES

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 15, 2026 • ( 0 )

  In the so-called First World we went from letter writing to land lines and thence to cell phones. In the so-called Third World they skipped the land lines. So on the news we see desperate young men from North Africa… Read More ›

• TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 10, 2026 • ( 0 )

  If it were true that “There are only two kinds of people in the world,” then everyone of the one kind would be qualitatively identical to everyone else of the same kind. Well, apart from identical newborn twins and everyone… Read More ›

• THE MIGRANT CRISIS – PART TWO

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 7, 2026 • ( 0 )

  Humour is about exaggeration. But it’s not exaggeration unless there’s at least a modicum of truth. So yeah, I’m trying to be funny. But take me at least a little bit seriously. Actions have consequences. So does abstinence. It’s not… Read More ›

• THE MIGRANT CRISIS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 7, 2026 • ( 0 )

  Walls are things. Borders are ideas. Hadrian’s Wall used to be both. Now it’s neither. Some borders have walls. Most don’t. They don’t because they don’t need to. They don’t need to because most people think borders are things. More… Read More ›

• ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: PART TWO

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 5, 2026 • ( 0 )

  What do humans have that an AI replacement doesn’t? Well, a body for one thing. Okay, so let’s give it one. What does a human have that an AI-driven robot doesn’t? A certain kind of body, namely a human one…. Read More ›

• ACCENTISM

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 3, 2026 • ( 0 )

  Okay, this is going to sound pretty curmudgeony, but dammit, someone’s gotta say it, so it might as well be me. I try to understand them. Honest I do. But more often than not I can’t. And when I can’t… Read More ›

• RACISM DEFINED

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 3, 2026 • ( 0 )

  WHAT IS RACE? One defeasible but serviceable tell that two species share a common ancestry is that they remain interbreedable. So though possible, it’s highly unlikely that the pre-contact peoples of the Western Hemisphere were sui generis, as some of… Read More ›

• TAXES, TARIFFS, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 29, 2026 • ( 0 )

  The purpose of domestic taxation is two-fold. 1) It raises revenue for the government, without which it couldn’t do what we want it to do for us. And, 2) if but only if consumption of the product is discretionary, it… Read More ›