Philosophical Papers
What if Marx were a prisoner in Plato's Cave? How would he interpret the shadows on the wall? Read all about it in "Teaching Marx With Plato's Cave"
It looks like our thoughts and feelings are events that just happen to us, and yet they determine our choices. What happens, then, to the practice of holding people responsible for their actions? This question is explored in "It Happens: A Critique of Responsibility."
Beginning students of ethics often say that moral judgments about what others do or think aim to impose our own moral values on others, and they question our right to do so. Moral beliefs are, or should be, personal. I try to relieve students' anxiety about moral judgments in this paper. "'Imposing Values on Others': What Do Moral Judgments Do?"
Are we ultimately responsible for our actions? This paper argues that so many accidents of life create who we are and how we act that the responsibility for what we do must be dispersed. There is no place where the buck stops. We are therefore called upon to moderate our resentment and to give up punitive morality in favor of a morality of love and redemption. "Dispersing Responsibility: From Metaphysical to Contingent Determinism"
Are prisons just? If they are, then the individuals confined in them must be ultimately responsible for their crimes. This paper argues that they are not, and therefore prisons must be abolished or radically transformed. "Beyond the Walls: Dispersing the Responsibility for Crime."
Can the mystery of consciousness be dispelled? This paper tries to do so without
recourse to immaterial minds or to the science of the brain. The mystery dissolves
when we understand that the phenomena of consciousness are social phenomena.
"Escape from the Mind: Mental Acts as Social Acts
"