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.

• THE WHO-STARTED-IT GAME

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 13, 2022 • ( 0 )

  When two parties are having at each other, strictly speaking somebody has to have delivered the first blow. But how far back are we to reconstruct? Or, what amounts to the same thing, what’s the statute of limitations on retaliation?… Read More ›

• TALK AS STUPID AS IT IS CHEAP

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 12, 2022 • ( 1 )

  Just when I thought I’d plumbed the depth of Administration stupidity with my entry entitled “The Dean’s Letter”, Pamela Lindsay, my part time research assistant and full time wife – has just brought to my attention what makes Matt Letts… Read More ›

• IN DEFENCE OF RAPE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 12, 2022 • ( 5 )

  When someone argues in defence of x, at least in the realm of ethics, he usually means x is morally defensible, by which he need not be urging us to do x, but rather and only that it would be… Read More ›

• A CORRECTIVE TO THE ABORTION DEBATE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 12, 2022 • ( 0 )

  Abortion is no longer an issue in Canada, and let’s hope, touch wood, it remains that way. This is because Canada, unlike its unfortunate neighbour to the south, is a civilised country. As is most of Europe and the Antipodes…. Read More ›

• “YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. I DON’T THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS”

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 1, 2022 • ( 0 )

  From the Most-Memorable-One-Liners-in-Cinema file, this one’s from The Princess Bride. And here are just some of my favourite words or phrases that don’t mean what either the speaker or the listener thinks they mean: BLACK LIVES MATTER: No one thinks all… Read More ›

• A CALL TO ARMS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 30, 2022 • ( 0 )

  Don’t demand to know what these words mean. Just accept that EDI programs are assigned three prima facie laudable objectives: equity, diversity, and inclusion. Let’s look at each in turn from this particular stakeholder’s perspective, a perspective shared, I suspect,… Read More ›

• WHAT NOT TO SAY WHEN …

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 21, 2022 • ( 0 )

  All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. Check. All lives matter. Black lives are lives. Therefore black lives matter. Check. But if you say black lives matter, and I respond with all lives matter, I’ll… Read More ›

• UVALDE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 20, 2022 • ( 0 )

  At the risk of trivialising the death of those kids and their teachers in the latest spate of school shootings, I guess I am going to trivialise the death of those kids and their teachers in the latest spate of… Read More ›

• THE ODDITY OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 20, 2022 • ( 0 )

  As you might have heard, there’s a war not between Russia and Ukraine but rather a war in Ukraine. This is odd, not in the sense that wars are never fought on the territory of one but not the other…. Read More ›

• THE DEMISE OF ROE V WADE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 20, 2022 • ( 7 )

  There is no reason – at least not in principle – why a polity couldn’t assign certain duties to some of its members but not others. For example, men, but not women, are subject to the draft. Nor, therefore, is… Read More ›