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.

• STEREOTYPING

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 4, 2021 • ( 0 )

  It’s a matter of straightforward induction that Great Danes are typically taller than Chihuahuas. So why would it be odd to say that they’re stereotypically taller? Because in normal parlance a stereotype only applies to people. Then why would it… Read More ›

• THE ROLE MODEL ARGUMENT

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 3, 2021 • ( 2 )

  The role model argument for affirmative action hiring cannot be dismissed out of hand. There may, however, be a few less-than-welcome autonomous consequences to consider.  For one thing, affirmative action hiring is very likely to be sub-optimal by measures other… Read More ›

• OF HUMAN BONDAGE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 2, 2021 • ( 3 )

  Picking cotton in leg-irons is very slow work. So instead – and with very few exceptions – slaves are held in their servitude not by leg-irons but by there being nowhere else to go, and there being no access to… Read More ›

• TWO CALLS TO ARMS: GRIEVANCE ACTIVISM AND THE RESISTANCE OF THE PRIVILEGED

  By paulosophicalvimplications on January 1, 2021 • ( 6 )

  There’s a lot of variation within white. I happen to be swarthily white, but I’m white nonetheless.  I know that all us whites are privileged, but I’m especially privileged. And yet, though I probably should, I don’t seem to suffer… Read More ›

• ISMISM

  By paulosophicalvimplications on December 30, 2020 • ( 7 )

  Among my wife’s many charms are her neologisms. Her latest is ‘ismic’, by which is meant, according to its coiner: prone to think and speak in isms. An ism, in turn, is a suffix indicating a condition, as in autism,… Read More ›

• CULTURAL APPROPRIATION (March 26, 2017)

  By paulosophicalvimplications on December 30, 2020 • ( 1 )

  Without social justice warriors we wouldn’t have any social justice. But every once in a while these moral crusaders get a little carried away. A case in point – well, at least on the surface – is the current crusade… Read More ›

• DRESS LIKE A HUTTERITE DAY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on December 30, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Today, December 30, is Dress Like a Hutterite Day. The debate over this has been raging for a few years now, and it’s put the SJW in a difficult position. Mocking members of the dominant culture has always been more… Read More ›

• AUTONOMY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on December 29, 2020 • ( 0 )

  This morning, a block over and ten blocks north of here, there was a woman tweaking out on something, probably meth or fentanyl. I’m reasonably certain something similar is happening a few blocks from your house too. I take it… Read More ›

• WALLPAPER

  By paulosophicalvimplications on December 29, 2020 • ( 0 )

  We sometimes forget that though 2020 was hell for some, it was a banner year for others. If you escaped Covid, if your income and assets were protected, if the people you now had an excuse not to spend time… Read More ›

• THE BANALITY OF THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER

  By paulosophicalvimplications on December 28, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Every now and then we all have one of those wait-a-minute moments. It’s when  someone’s been trying to slide one over on us, but all of a sudden we notice. The latest, at least for me, is this mantra that… Read More ›