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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.

• ON MORAL URGENCY COMPARISONS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Wherever and whenever one group of people is doing better than another, there’s going to be resentment. The Europeans shipped slaves from Africa to the Americas to cut cane and pick cotton. A mere century and a half later, should… Read More ›

• AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL YOU 9/11 TRUTHERS

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 1 )

  For the prosecution to get a conviction, it’s not enough that I confess to the crime. I have to make good on every element the prosecution would have had to make good on had I not confessed, including means, motive,… Read More ›

• ON LIKENING GAZA TO THE WARSAW GHETTO

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Academics sometimes use words in ways that may not correspond to how they’re used among the hoi polloi. For example, I’d have thought that to discriminate means to ascertain a difference and act accordingly. But among the unwashed it means… Read More ›

• WHAT IS HOLOCAUST DENIAL?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  “I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.” In case you’re not old enough to remember, it’s an Eric Clapton song from 1974. “Yes we killed millions of Jews during the war, but not only Jews.” “Yes… Read More ›

• THE UNIVERSITY’S SEXUAL VIOLENCE POLICY

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  I’ve just had the opportunity to read the University of Lethbridge’s recently adopted Revised Sexual Violence Policy. On the one hand I’m bound, by what I’m supposed to do for a living, to point out in what respects it’s a… Read More ›

• CAUSE FOR CANONIZATION – PIUS XII AND THE CURA

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Let’s start with a little Hohfeldian housekeeping. Arguably there’s no such thing as a duty to defend oneself from injury. But no one, save the most bone-headed pacifist, would deny one has a right to defend himself, to defend himself… Read More ›

• RAPE CULTURE

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 0 )

  Apparently there’s something called ‘rape culture’. I wouldn’t have guessed that. Having specialized in the Philosophy of War, I’d have thought rape was pretty much endemic to the human species. In fact isn’t there a biologist, Randy Thornhill, and an… Read More ›

• AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING TRANSPHOBIC …

  By paulosophicalvimplications on August 3, 2019 • ( 1 )

  Apart from the half dozen things I do care about – and for aught I know I’m the only one who does – I pretty much live in my own little world. My wife, by contrast, researches everything. She even… Read More ›

• WHAT IS IT TO TRIVIALIZE?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 30, 2019 • ( 0 )

  I killed a wasp the other day. I murdered a wasp the other day. These have two very different meanings. Why? Because killing means killing, whereas murder means wrongful killing, and presumably no one, or almost no one, thinks it’s… Read More ›

• A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO AGW DENIAL

  By paulosophicalvimplications on July 30, 2019 • ( 2 )

  ABSTRACT: Of the things I care least about, AGW is in a dead heat with what really happened on 9/11. But because, as George W. Bush put it, either you’re with the terrorists or you’re against them, I think I’d rather… Read More ›