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 ›
Social and Political Philosophy
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.
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 THEORY OF WAR
ABSTRACT: By virtue of what I call the Counterfeit White Flag Problem, a state of civil society and a state of war are shown to be both phenomenologically and epistemically indistinguishable. From this – or so I argue – it… 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.
ON THE RESEGREGATION MOVEMENT
Truth be told, there’s never not been segregation in Canada of its indigenous population. Even where it’s not legally mandated or enforced, we can see it on the school playground, in the gym, in our public parks, and so on. … Read More ›
AN UNSEEMLY THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ABOUT DESMOND TUTU
Here’s a fascinating statistical anomaly. Every Canadian soldier killed during the twenty year occupation of Afghanistan was eulogized as the finest human being who ever walked the Earth. Not a single asshole among them! Oh, and don’t forget that “He… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 