Associate professor and chair of philosophy at Oakland University Phone: (248) 370-2662 Address: Oakland University Department of Philosophy Rochester, MI 48309
Philip Pettit’s neo-Roman republican theory of non-domination is billed as a more egalitarian alt... more Philip Pettit’s neo-Roman republican theory of non-domination is billed as a more egalitarian alternative to classical liberal theories of non-interference. As a theory of geopolitical affairs, however, his republicanism fails to fulfill this egalitarian promise in ways that closely echo John Rawls’s liberal law of peoples. Pettit’s republican law of peoples is ill equipped to address structural sources of transnational and global domination because it exaggerates the ontological separateness of peoples, it overvalues the self-sufficiency of states for purposes of achieving internal non-domination, and it conceives of domination too narrowly as an evil that must be intentionally or negligently imposed by identifiable agents.
From the Civil War to the South Sea Bubble, English republican writers endeavoured to legitimate ... more From the Civil War to the South Sea Bubble, English republican writers endeavoured to legitimate various modes of political violence as instances of just punishment despite apparent deficits in regular legal authority and applicable civil law. These political acts — some completed, others merely compassed or threatened — included regicide, assassination, conquest and impeachment. Each posed an obvious problem of ideological coherence in light of avowed republican commitments to the rule of law.1 From the ancient Roman republic on, the precept that ‘there can be no punishment without law’ (nulla poena sine lege) remained one of the enduring basic principles associated with the rule of law. According to this principle, which is sometimes called the principle of legality, in the absence of applicable law or regular legal authority, political violence remains political violence and cannot be deemed to be just punishment. English republicans were therefore obliged to explain how their ostensibly extra-legal acts of political violence could be construed as just punishment and made consistent with the rule of law.
This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education in order t... more This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education in order to articulate the philosophical bases for initiating academic and community programs that will address the problem of post-industrial urban contamination. Deweyan environmental pragmatism is especially appropriate for this purpose because it is naturalistic, socially progressive, and association-centered. Human intelligence is the basic bio-cultural good of his democratic method of social reconstruction. Free inquiry in the academy alone is insufficient to ensure that increases in scientific knowledge will foster democratic intelligence. It is also necessary to create institutions and community-based associations that can disseminate expert knowledge and empower citizens to participate in the process of social problem-solving. Contrary to common philosophical objections, it is argued that pragmatism's favored forms of "civic environmentalism" are neither essentially pro-indu...
An examination of the applicability of conventional and revisionist just war principles to the gl... more An examination of the applicability of conventional and revisionist just war principles to the global war on terror.
This articles exposes the methodological errors involved in attempting to operationalize or value... more This articles exposes the methodological errors involved in attempting to operationalize or value-neutralize the concept of 'terrorism.' It defends, instead, an effects-based approach to the taxonomy of 'terrorism' that builds out from a central conceptual connection between the term's negative connotation and a widely shared moral presumption against the killing of innocent non-combatants. Although this approach to the core meaning of 'terrorism' is far from value-neutral, it has a number of virtues to recommend it. First, it has the political virtue of even-handedness in the way it enables competing appraisals of asymmetric conflicts. Second, it is has the ethical virtue of being flexible enough to accommodate nuanced appraisals of various modes and degrees of terrorist violence. And third, it has the empirical virtue of being useful for purposes of rigorous social scientific research.
Abstract: This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education... more Abstract: This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education in order to articulate the philosophical bases for initiating academic and community programs that will address the problem of post-industrial urban contamination. Deweyan ...
Abstract. Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justi... more Abstract. Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the basis of intuitions about imaginary and sometimes outlandish examples, often taken from non-military contexts. This article argues for a sharp curtailment of this method and defends, instead, an empirically and historically informed approach to the ethical scrutiny of armed conflicts. After critically reviewing general philosophical reasons for being sceptical of the moral-theoretic value of imaginary hypotheticals, the article turns to some of the special problems that this method raises for appraisals of warfare. It examines some of the hypothetical examples employed in the construction of Jeff McMahan's revisionist just war theory, and finds that they sometimes stipulate incomprehensible conditions, lead to argumentative impasses of diverging yet uncertain intuitions, and distract attention away from the real problems of war as we empirically know it. In contrast, empirical and historical studies of warfare reinforce the deep connections between facts and values, and compel theorists to face uncomfortable moral ambiguities. Perhaps most importantly, the analytic method of focusing on imaginary hypothetical examples can not only be distracting, but it can also be genuinely dangerous. Hence, the article pays special attention to the way in which a seemingly innocuous fiction like the famous Ticking Time Bomb scenario can come to frame a new paradigm of inhumanity in the treatment of prisoners of war.
Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the ... more Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the basis of intuitions about imaginary and sometimes outlandish examples, often taken from non-military contexts. This article argues for a sharp curtailment of this method and defends, instead, an empirically and historically informed approach to the ethical scrutiny of armed conflicts. After critically reviewing general philosophical reasons for being skeptical of the moral-theoretic value of imaginary hypotheticals, the article turns to some of the special problems that this method raises for appraisals of warfare. It examines some of the hypothetical examples employed in the construction of Jeff McMahan's revisionist just war theory, and finds that they sometimes stipulate incomprehensible conditions, lead to argumentative impasses of diverging yet uncertain intuitions, and distract attention away from the real problems of war as we empirically know it. In contrast, empirical and historical studies of warfare reinforce the deep connections between facts and values, and compel theorists to face uncomfortable moral ambiguities. Perhaps most importantly, the analytic method of focusing on imaginary hypothetical examples can not only be distracting, but it can also be genuinely dangerous. Hence, the article pays special attention to the way in which a seemingly innocuous fiction like the famous Ticking Time Bomb scenario can come to frame a new paradigm of inhumanity in the treatment of prisoners of war.
In the primary, full-blooded sense of the term, political “rebellion” is forceful internal resist... more In the primary, full-blooded sense of the term, political “rebellion” is forceful internal resistance to a ruling order. Its etymology is rooted in the Latin rebellio, which refers to a renewal of warfare that disrupts an established peace. The methods of force employed in rebellions are various. They may include, for example, a military coup d’état, clandestine or open political assassination, guerilla warfare, terrorist violence, sabotage of infrastructure, destruction of public and private property, and violent mob riots, whether armed or unarmed. The presence of such methods of force distinguishes full-blooded rebellion from civil disobedience and peaceful dissent. Protest gatherings, labor strikes, acts of self-immolation, and other such pacific methods of political dissent may spark full-blooded rebellion, but they do not in themselves constitute it.Keywords:coup d'état;just war;natural rights;regicide;revolution;violencecoup d'état;just war;natural rights;regicide;revolution;violence
Philip Pettit’s neo-Roman republican theory of non-domination is billed as a more egalitarian alt... more Philip Pettit’s neo-Roman republican theory of non-domination is billed as a more egalitarian alternative to classical liberal theories of non-interference. As a theory of geopolitical affairs, however, his republicanism fails to fulfill this egalitarian promise in ways that closely echo John Rawls’s liberal law of peoples. Pettit’s republican law of peoples is ill equipped to address structural sources of transnational and global domination because it exaggerates the ontological separateness of peoples, it overvalues the self-sufficiency of states for purposes of achieving internal non-domination, and it conceives of domination too narrowly as an evil that must be intentionally or negligently imposed by identifiable agents.
From the Civil War to the South Sea Bubble, English republican writers endeavoured to legitimate ... more From the Civil War to the South Sea Bubble, English republican writers endeavoured to legitimate various modes of political violence as instances of just punishment despite apparent deficits in regular legal authority and applicable civil law. These political acts — some completed, others merely compassed or threatened — included regicide, assassination, conquest and impeachment. Each posed an obvious problem of ideological coherence in light of avowed republican commitments to the rule of law.1 From the ancient Roman republic on, the precept that ‘there can be no punishment without law’ (nulla poena sine lege) remained one of the enduring basic principles associated with the rule of law. According to this principle, which is sometimes called the principle of legality, in the absence of applicable law or regular legal authority, political violence remains political violence and cannot be deemed to be just punishment. English republicans were therefore obliged to explain how their ostensibly extra-legal acts of political violence could be construed as just punishment and made consistent with the rule of law.
This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education in order t... more This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education in order to articulate the philosophical bases for initiating academic and community programs that will address the problem of post-industrial urban contamination. Deweyan environmental pragmatism is especially appropriate for this purpose because it is naturalistic, socially progressive, and association-centered. Human intelligence is the basic bio-cultural good of his democratic method of social reconstruction. Free inquiry in the academy alone is insufficient to ensure that increases in scientific knowledge will foster democratic intelligence. It is also necessary to create institutions and community-based associations that can disseminate expert knowledge and empower citizens to participate in the process of social problem-solving. Contrary to common philosophical objections, it is argued that pragmatism's favored forms of "civic environmentalism" are neither essentially pro-indu...
An examination of the applicability of conventional and revisionist just war principles to the gl... more An examination of the applicability of conventional and revisionist just war principles to the global war on terror.
This articles exposes the methodological errors involved in attempting to operationalize or value... more This articles exposes the methodological errors involved in attempting to operationalize or value-neutralize the concept of 'terrorism.' It defends, instead, an effects-based approach to the taxonomy of 'terrorism' that builds out from a central conceptual connection between the term's negative connotation and a widely shared moral presumption against the killing of innocent non-combatants. Although this approach to the core meaning of 'terrorism' is far from value-neutral, it has a number of virtues to recommend it. First, it has the political virtue of even-handedness in the way it enables competing appraisals of asymmetric conflicts. Second, it is has the ethical virtue of being flexible enough to accommodate nuanced appraisals of various modes and degrees of terrorist violence. And third, it has the empirical virtue of being useful for purposes of rigorous social scientific research.
Abstract: This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education... more Abstract: This essay reclaims elements of John Dewey's theory of democratic public education in order to articulate the philosophical bases for initiating academic and community programs that will address the problem of post-industrial urban contamination. Deweyan ...
Abstract. Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justi... more Abstract. Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the basis of intuitions about imaginary and sometimes outlandish examples, often taken from non-military contexts. This article argues for a sharp curtailment of this method and defends, instead, an empirically and historically informed approach to the ethical scrutiny of armed conflicts. After critically reviewing general philosophical reasons for being sceptical of the moral-theoretic value of imaginary hypotheticals, the article turns to some of the special problems that this method raises for appraisals of warfare. It examines some of the hypothetical examples employed in the construction of Jeff McMahan's revisionist just war theory, and finds that they sometimes stipulate incomprehensible conditions, lead to argumentative impasses of diverging yet uncertain intuitions, and distract attention away from the real problems of war as we empirically know it. In contrast, empirical and historical studies of warfare reinforce the deep connections between facts and values, and compel theorists to face uncomfortable moral ambiguities. Perhaps most importantly, the analytic method of focusing on imaginary hypothetical examples can not only be distracting, but it can also be genuinely dangerous. Hence, the article pays special attention to the way in which a seemingly innocuous fiction like the famous Ticking Time Bomb scenario can come to frame a new paradigm of inhumanity in the treatment of prisoners of war.
Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the ... more Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the basis of intuitions about imaginary and sometimes outlandish examples, often taken from non-military contexts. This article argues for a sharp curtailment of this method and defends, instead, an empirically and historically informed approach to the ethical scrutiny of armed conflicts. After critically reviewing general philosophical reasons for being skeptical of the moral-theoretic value of imaginary hypotheticals, the article turns to some of the special problems that this method raises for appraisals of warfare. It examines some of the hypothetical examples employed in the construction of Jeff McMahan's revisionist just war theory, and finds that they sometimes stipulate incomprehensible conditions, lead to argumentative impasses of diverging yet uncertain intuitions, and distract attention away from the real problems of war as we empirically know it. In contrast, empirical and historical studies of warfare reinforce the deep connections between facts and values, and compel theorists to face uncomfortable moral ambiguities. Perhaps most importantly, the analytic method of focusing on imaginary hypothetical examples can not only be distracting, but it can also be genuinely dangerous. Hence, the article pays special attention to the way in which a seemingly innocuous fiction like the famous Ticking Time Bomb scenario can come to frame a new paradigm of inhumanity in the treatment of prisoners of war.
In the primary, full-blooded sense of the term, political “rebellion” is forceful internal resist... more In the primary, full-blooded sense of the term, political “rebellion” is forceful internal resistance to a ruling order. Its etymology is rooted in the Latin rebellio, which refers to a renewal of warfare that disrupts an established peace. The methods of force employed in rebellions are various. They may include, for example, a military coup d’état, clandestine or open political assassination, guerilla warfare, terrorist violence, sabotage of infrastructure, destruction of public and private property, and violent mob riots, whether armed or unarmed. The presence of such methods of force distinguishes full-blooded rebellion from civil disobedience and peaceful dissent. Protest gatherings, labor strikes, acts of self-immolation, and other such pacific methods of political dissent may spark full-blooded rebellion, but they do not in themselves constitute it.Keywords:coup d'état;just war;natural rights;regicide;revolution;violencecoup d'état;just war;natural rights;regicide;revolution;violence
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