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.

• Texting and Driving

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 7, 2016 • ( 0 )

  TEXTING AND DRIVING Most accidents are caused by carelessness, most car accidents by careless driving. Careless driving can be caused by any number of things, including impairment but also a desire to impress one’s buddies. Or, less plausibly, one’s date…. Read More ›

• Trigger Warnings

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 7, 2016 • ( 0 )

  TRIGGER WARNINGS I take it that no one thinks we have a categorical obligation not to upset each other. But many of us think, myself included, that we have the right to try to protect ourselves from being upset. And… Read More ›

• Protected Competition

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 7, 2016 • ( 0 )

  PROTECTED COMPETITION Look, if we want to stay in shape we have to exercise. Exercise is boring, and so we won’t do it unless we can challenge ourselves by adding some kind of skill to what’s otherwise just raw movement…. Read More ›

• Burkinis and Bathrooms

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 7, 2016 • ( 1 )

  BURKINIS AND BATHROOMS Sometime during the Apartheid years in South Africa there was a proposal to do an end run around international condemnation of the regime’s racism by having certain rights – presumably the important ones – attach not to… Read More ›

• Creationism

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 6, 2016 • ( 1 )

  WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 174 – CREATIONISM My colleagues are idiots because they seem to think it unnecessary to tell us to what positions their various labels are attached. We’ve already seen this, back in Rant… Read More ›

• Confirmation Bias

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 6, 2016 • ( 0 )

  WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 171 – CONFIRMATION BIAS Okay, this is now the 314th time I’ll have said it. I take no interest, one way or the other, in any of the The-Sky-is-Falling-No-it’s-Not claims and counterclaims… Read More ›

• If You Wanna Be Serious, Lighten Up

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 6, 2016 • ( 0 )

  WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 170 – IF YOU WANNA BE SERIOUS, LIGHTEN UP Some conceptions of God are incoherent. On pain of irrationality, those can be rejected ab initio. Others are coherent but they violate Occam’s Razor…. Read More ›

• My Colleagues’ Residual Theism

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 6, 2016 • ( 1 )

  WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 169 – MY COLLEAGUES’ RESIDUAL THEISM Look! I realize it takes time to adjust. But it’s been over a century and a half since you were offered the Darwinian turn. It’s time… Read More ›

• Is it Philosophy?

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 6, 2016 • ( 0 )

  WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 168 – IS IT PHILOSOPHY? Here’s what I write in the course outline for my Intros, “What is philosophy? is itself a philosophical question, best answered, if at all, only after having… Read More ›

• Tropes

  By paulosophicalvimplications on September 6, 2016 • ( 1 )

  WHY MY COLLEAGUES ARE IDIOTS – Rant # 166 –   TROPES Who hasn’t memorized pretty much every word of The Princess Bride? After Fezzik keeps misusing the word ‘inconceivable’, Inigo finally says to him, “I do not think that word… Read More ›