What’s not in dispute is that the hundreds of civilians who’ve been killed in the suburbs around Kyiv would be alive today but for the Russian invasion. No doubt some were collateral damage, though the Russians will call them human… Read More ›
Social and Political Philosophy
… BUT FEAR ITSELF
Until now in this blog I’ve been pressing my views, for what little they’re worth, on what’s happening in the world, but I’ve assiduously avoided touting myself as some kind of expert in the matters on which I’ve opined. But… Read More ›
The Myth of Civilian Immunity — Why There ‘Could’ Be No Such Law —
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 ›
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 ›
A PROOF THAT LIBERTARIANISM IS EITHER FALSE OR BANAL
Abstract In this paper I consider all 243 positions that could constitute libertarianism and show that all but a few are false and the few remaining are banal. I argue further that all 243 versions must issue a promissory note… Read More ›
THE REDUCTION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE TO TRIBUTE
Von Clausewitz thought that war is just the continuation of politics by other means. I hold that it’s exactly the reverse. But if all political categories are reducible, without remainder, to military ones, to what are considerations of distributive justice… 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, IF ANYTHING, IS WRONG WITH GENOCIDE?
— for presentation on October 7, 2009, and again on October 4, 2012, for the Liberal Education Capstone course on genocide —
PACIFISM, ADVOCACY, AND POPULATION DYNAMICS
– for presentation at the ILECS in Belgrade on June 23, 2012 – Viminitz, Paul. “Pacifism, advocacy, and population dynamics.” Belgrade Philosophical Annual 25 (2012): 281-291.
Paulosophical Vimplications 