Abstract. Busting the myth of civilian immunity has long since been standard, albeit unpalatable, philosophical fare. But such myth-busting has invariably appealed to either a) Hobbes’ argument for the incoherence of the very idea of international law, or else b)… Read More ›
Papers My Wife Said I Should Have Published Long Ago
HOW THE ‘LIKE-ALIKE’ AXIOM REALLY PLAYS OUT IN MORAL AND POLITICAL JUDGMENT
Abstract This paper reads like – because it is – a meditation. Its ‘moments’ are these: That like cases are to be treated alike seems to be the core axiom behind all our moral and political reasoning. And yet this… Read More ›
A PROOF THAT EGALITARIANISM IS EITHER FALSE OR BANAL
Abstract In this paper I argue that the only equality that need be postulated between agents qua heading into a theory of normative ethics and/or politics is that the agents in question be equally involved in interactivity in which there’s… Read More ›
CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD (Repost, November 2020)
Presented at the Seventh World Conference on Metaphysics at the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain, Oct 24-27, 2018 ABSTRACT: By a political theodicy is meant an attempt to harness our theological resources to ameliorate the evil we do and suffer… Read More ›
WHAT IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY?
In this paper I attempt to rescue the notion of a crime against humanity from the charge that it is either redundant or else a pseudo-concept. I argue that crimes against humanity are gross violations of basic human rights when… Read More ›
WHAT’S WRONG WITH NUCLEAR HOSTAGE HOLDING?
Since no nation can divest itself of its own rearmament capacity, nuclear disarmament amounts to (what Steven Lee calls) weaponless deterrence. But, he thinks, weaponless deterrence can escape the deontological objection to nuclear hostage holding because it only threatens to… Read More ›
COERCION
I argue that if the notion of coercion is given a non-normative interpretation, then it can do no work for us. Of its normative interpretations – any precisification of the term and condemnation of coercion arising from natural law is… Read More ›
A ‘DEFENSE’ OF RACISM
I’m convinced, or at least satisfied, that there’s nothing to be lost, and arguably a great deal to be gained, by naturalizing racism, if naturalized it can be.
HOW TO BOIL FROG
THE NON-IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES – and, apparently, the discernibility of identicals – IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE – or – HOW TO BOIL FROG Paul Viminitz <vimip0@uleth.ca> Philosophy, U. of Lethbridge Abstract Without in any wise restricting its egress from… Read More ›
WHAT DO THE HOLOCAUST, GLOBAL WARMING, AND THE FILIOQUE HAVE IN COMMON?
Abstract: In this paper we offer a conjecture as to how it’s possible that people of identical epistemic integrity – by which we mean pretty close to none – can and do nonetheless arrive at polar opposite views about history,… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 