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.

• HOW TO MAINTAIN ONE’S MORAL INNOCENCE NOW THAT SILENCE IS VIOLENCE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 27, 2021 • ( 3 )

  We wouldn’t have to go back too many generations to realise that every one of us is the product of rape. That every one of us is the product of incest. That every one of us is both the descendant… Read More ›

• SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 25, 2021 • ( 7 )

  Thomas Hobbes tells us that in the state of nature, as distinct from that of civil society, “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Which is not to say the same can’t be said of some… Read More ›

• RUMMAGING

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 24, 2021 • ( 1 )

  The other day I happened to be looking out the window and I noticed someone in the alley rummaging through our garbage. He wasn’t one of, you know, those people. He was wearing a suit and a tie. And so,… Read More ›

• THREE WAYS TO DEFANG THE MOB

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 24, 2021 • ( 0 )

  Now that the Woke have achieved ascendency in the current public discourse – and topped itself off by joining in with the ‘cancel culture’ – the time has come for those of us who’ve yet to convert to their new… Read More ›

• LITTLE MOMENTS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 23, 2021 • ( 0 )

  Back in my misspent youth I met a young woman who told me a story I have no reason to think she made up. She was hitchhiking from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. She’d been standing with no luck for… Read More ›

• NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 23, 2021 • ( 3 )

  I have a theory – I won’t bore you with the details – according to which I am Napoleon Bonaparte. And since I have no recollection of having abdicated, that makes me the Emperor of France.  Why am I not… Read More ›

• SELF-IDENTIFICATION

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 23, 2021 • ( 0 )

  If what it is to be a woman, or Black, or Jewish, is just to publicly so self-identify, then all hell’s going to break loose. Some dirty ol’ man like me is going to saunter at will and unchallenged into… Read More ›

• THE CATHEDRAL AND THE CAPITOL

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 18, 2021 • ( 2 )

  Said the king to his henchmen, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?!” So they did.  To which he whinged afterwards, “But I didn’t mean they should do that!” I think the moral of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in… Read More ›

• WHEN AN AD BACULUM ISN’T A FALLACY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 16, 2021 • ( 2 )

  There’s an important distinction – one too many critical thinking instructors fail to make – between, on the one hand, what’s likely to be true, and, on the other, what one’d be well advised to believe.  For example, that Jesus… Read More ›

• THE INTELLECTUAL DARK WEB

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 15, 2021 • ( 6 )

  There’s no official membership list, but there’s a fairly clear description of who’d be on it. In the light of that description, I’ve just found out, much to my delight, that I am myself a member of the Intellectual Dark… Read More ›