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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 GOES AROUND …

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 9, 2023 • ( 2 )

  People like Caroline Hodes like to complain about people complaining about “the indoctrination of their children in our schools”. But school just is indoctrination. There’s no such thing as value-free education. So what she really means is she likes the… Read More ›

• YOU CAN’T TRUST YOUR FEELINGS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 5, 2023 • ( 3 )

  Apparently I harbour a whole lot of hate I didn’t know about. I’d have thought hatred is a sufficiently powerful emotion that I’d feel it. But the fact that I don’t feel it doesn’t mean it’s not there. For example,… Read More ›

• ATLANTIS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 5, 2023 • ( 0 )

  In the year 731 BCE, a flotilla of eight fishing boats, each with about 6 people, men and women, on board, set sail from a village near present-day Cadiz in southern Spain, and, by a freak anomaly of wind and… Read More ›

• THE MANDATORY EDI LETTER (Repost from Feb 13, 2022)

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 3, 2023 • ( 10 )

  What I’ve been discovering is that the woke-ness one espouses in public, and the opinion of it one holds in private, are often two very different things. Why is this? Others may not put it as eloquently as did my… Read More ›

• UNWOKE U

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 3, 2023 • ( 1 )

  Jonathan Haidt has argued that a university can seek truth, or it can pursue justice, but not both. He’s right about the dichotomy, but I’m not sure he’s best identified the two choices. Getting the truth is far above anyone’s… Read More ›

• FANTASIES

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 3, 2023 • ( 1 )

  If you think about it – my advice is don’t – the lion’s share of our lives are lived not in the world but in our heads. By this I don’t mean the now banal observation that our experiences of… Read More ›

• CATCH 22

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 3, 2023 • ( 2 )

  With the exception of my students, who’ve commented that I’m the only one still teaching philosophy rather than how to be woke, pretty much everyone at the University of Lethbridge, myself included, wants me gone. I don’t need the money,… Read More ›

• WHAT IS MORALITY?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 2, 2023 • ( 0 )

  1.Ethics and Meta-Ethics: Ethics is about how we should behave. Meta-ethics is about what we’re doing when we’re doing ethics. That is, meta-ethics asks why we should behave as we should. Note that it won’t do to say because we… Read More ›

• Guest Post (forwarded message): Free Online Conference on EDI and Academic Freedom.

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 28, 2023 • ( 2 )

  Note from Viminitz’ research assistant: Viminitz is not involved with organising this conference, nor is he a panelist. PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY Dear colleagues,  Please join us on April 20 & 21, 2023, for a free, online conference on EDI (equity,… Read More ›

• HACKLES

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 27, 2023 • ( 0 )

  Jonathan Haidt has argued that a university can seek the truth, or it can pursue social justice, but it can’t do both. This is not because the two are never one. As often as not they are. But that means… Read More ›