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.

• CHOICE FOR WOMEN, BUT NONE TO BE ONE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 26, 2021 • ( 0 )

  What we might call the weak pro-Lifer believes that 1) the foetus is a person, 2) it’s wrong to kill persons, and so 3) it’s wrong to have an abortion. Is this incompatible with the pro-Choice position? Not at all…. Read More ›

• MYANMAR, BELARUS, XINJIANG, AND ALABAMA

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 25, 2021 • ( 1 )

  I can’t help wondering what Americans would do if Alabama decided to reinstate black slavery. People who are about to do something the international community is bound to regard as beyond the rights of sovereignty – the military coup in… Read More ›

• TAKING NAMES

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 24, 2021 • ( 4 )

  There’s been a great deal of palaver of late – palaver in which I’m now ashamed to have participated – about the cancel culture that’s now doing a number on the academy. I’m ashamed not because I shouldn’t play my… Read More ›

• HAVING A JORDAN PETERSON MOMENT

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 23, 2021 • ( 2 )

  If I’m talking to you, your pronoun is you. If I’m talking about you but out of earshot of you, then you can’t complain about having been misgendered because you won’t know you were. So it’s only if I’m talking… Read More ›

• ELEVEN DAYS IN MAY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 21, 2021 • ( 0 )

  More people died on American highways the week before 9/11 than in those two towers.  But how much has been spent on guardrails compared to so-called homeland security?  Does this show that Americans care less about their loved ones being… Read More ›

• DO I HAVE THIS RIGHT OR NOT?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 19, 2021 • ( 5 )

  I think it will generally be allowed that unprotected sex is better sex than protected sex. And so one needn’t be an idiot to opt for unprotected sex if there were, say, only a one in a hundred chance of… Read More ›

• THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 17, 2021 • ( 4 )

  Israel could pretend to hold the moral high ground – not in the Muslim world of course, but certainly in the West – from 1948 until the Six Day War in ’67. But whatever might be said of the Palestinians… Read More ›

• HOW TO BE A MORE EFFECTIVE TERRORIST – LESSON SIX

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 10, 2021 • ( 3 )

  PICKING THE RIGHT TARGET I’m on record of having suggested that the targeting of the Twin Towers, though not bad, could have been better. This is because much if not most of Main Street sheds only crocodile tears when Wall… Read More ›

• HOW TO BE A MORE EFFECTIVE TERRORIST – LESSON FIVE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 10, 2021 • ( 0 )

  THE DIRECT APPROACH In Lesson One we asked under what conditions terrorism might be justified, and we concluded that there are no conditions under which it’s not. This is because justification in a state of war is what, were he… Read More ›

• NEAR ENOUGH GOOD ENOUGH

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 7, 2021 • ( 0 )

  As a philosopher – never mind a social and political one – it’s not surprising I’d be pretty keen on freedom of expression. After all, there’s not much point taking the widow’s mite to think about things if, having thought… Read More ›