Action and Trying Davidson once memorably said, “We never do more than move our bodies; the rest is up to nature”. This aphorism has the sound of an illuminating truism, but does it stand up to critical examination? Suppose you are suffering from paralysis, total or partial, following an accident. Your physiotherapist asks you to […]
Good Intentions I was in my local supermarket, Milams, yesterday, doing my weekly food shopping—not a place of moral drama, you might think. Only one checkout line was open, I was dismayed to discover; a passing supervisor (big, black, vaguely professorial) observed my distress and suggested I take the empty express line (10 items or […]
Barbados I am seriously thinking about moving to Barbados. The political situation in this country has become intolerable and has been for a while (I’m thinking of the political situation in American academic philosophy, but national politics is pretty bad too). Barbados is a British protectorate, not American, so you can get away from that […]
The President The president wants to put on a TV show about deporting criminals. He rounds up a bunch of guys capable of acting the part of deportable criminals. He has them filmed and broadcasts the footage. It makes for great TV. There would be a problem if he insisted on due process for this […]
Degrees of Mind and Body We are accustomed to a sharp and rigid distinction between mind and body, between “the mental” and “the physical”. We also tend to think that these are absolute concepts: something is either one or the other with no degrees. One thing can’t be more mental than another, or more physical. […]
3/20 I find my mind going back to 9/11 a lot. That state of mind is rising up in me again (does it ever really leave?). It’s a mixture of moral outrage, nausea, despair, fear, and anger. It is exceedingly unpleasant. What is causing it? The current political situation, of course. The planes flying into […]
Miami and Me When I moved to the University of Miami in 2006 the plan was to improve the standing of the philosophy department. The hope was to “do a Rutgers”, where I had worked for the previous sixteen years. Peter Klein, the chief architect of Rutgers’ success, had been approached by the university to […]
A Causal Argument for Physicalism Good arguments have been given to show that mental states are not reducible to physical states of the brain (neural transmissions etc.); and intuitively they don’t seem like brain states. Thus, some degree of dualism obtains, of one sort or another. But no one ever argues that mental causation is, […]
Deportation I keep hearing people say that deporting violent criminals from other countries is a good idea that we should all accept. It is not, and the reasons are obvious. There are two questions: should we deport criminals already convicted and serving time, and should we deport criminals not yet convicted but with a history […]
Errors of Philosophers I asked myself if there are any errors philosophers regularly commit, through the centuries and still today. This would be useful information to have. I came up with three. The first is that they seldom if ever acknowledge that positions they oppose generally have things to be said in their favor; they […]