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.

• CHALLENGE versus RIDICULE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 9, 2017 • ( 0 )

  Much as I’d sometimes like to be, I’m not a knee-jerk civil libertarian. I understand that the maintenance – and before that the promotion – of a civil society sometimes requires limits to freedom of movement, of association, of expression,… Read More ›

• THE TONY HALL CASE REVISITED

  By paulosophicalvimplications on May 9, 2017 • ( 1 )

  I made a stab at this in my blog in an earlier post entitled “Holocaust Denial and Anti-Semitism”. Since that post, an internal investigation of an internal complaint against Tony Hall has exonerated him, and the Administration’s complaint against him… Read More ›

• TWO LECTURES YOU WON’T GET AT LAW SCHOOL

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 14, 2017 • ( 0 )

     LESSON 1: NATURAL LAW AND POSITIVE LAW There are, among the Great Unwashed – that’s everybody except me, by the way – some pretty serious misconceptions about law. Some people, including some philosophers, think there’s something called natural law, by… Read More ›

• THE TRUTH-ABOUT-SNEEZING MOVEMENT

  By paulosophicalvimplications on April 1, 2017 • ( 0 )

  Consider the following two claims: 1) Sneezing could provoke an attack from Mars. 2) Anthropogenic climate change may have contributed to the civil war in Syria. Both of these statements are undoubtedly true, since all they mean is 1) There’s… Read More ›

• PERSONALIZED PRONOUNS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 26, 2017 • ( 0 )

  I’m old enough to remember when ‘Ms’ was introduced so that women didn’t have to gratuitously announce their marital status to all and sundry. So I have no objection to our language being altered to serve a laudable political objective…. Read More ›

• THE I-BELIEVE-YOU CAMPAIGN

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 26, 2017 • ( 0 )

  I have a colleague down the hall who believes that “Any criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitism!” This is stupid, but in her case forgivable. She’s the daughter of two Shoah survivors, both of whom had tattoos on… Read More ›

• THE SERENITY PRAYER

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 26, 2017 • ( 0 )

  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. – Reinhold Neibuhr, 1892-1971 What it is to know something is the same… Read More ›

• SLAVERY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 26, 2017 • ( 0 )

  Because I’m now two-thirds of a century old I’m allowed to be a curmudgeon. I don’t say things like, “Why can’t they mow their lawn?!”, but I do ask, “Why can’t my students write in proper English sentences?!” But what… Read More ›

• UNEMPLOYMENT

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 26, 2017 • ( 0 )

  I’m not the first to say what I’m about to say here, but I think it has to be said over and over and over again, to at least attempt to counter the nonsense that’s been spouted over and over… Read More ›

• FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE BROMIDE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on March 26, 2017 • ( 0 )

  The recent spat – actually it’s turning into a spate of spats – between Donald Trump and the mainstream media, has resurrected a query I’ve had for decades. What exactly justifies freedom of the press? The standard bromide, recall, is… Read More ›