a blog about philosophy.

It is very common for people to complain about executive compensation. Rates of compensation for executives have gone up by more than 900% in the past 40 years. The gap between executive pay and the average pay in a company keeps widening. Many people think that this is unfair and that executives get paid more…

This is the end of chapter 7 of my dissertation (which, God willing, I will eventually finish turning into a book). It explains my impolite, honest assessment of physicalism in philosophy of mind.   When discussing the content of the first chapter of this work with others, one common response is a sort of ad…

The recent decision by the NFL to fine teams if their players kneel during the national anthem is creating a lot of controversy. As far as the legal questions go, I think the NFL is violating employment law, that the NFLPA will sue, and that if the judge isn’t biased the rule will be overturned.…

The Last Jedi is divisive. Most people liked it, some people absolutely loved it, and many people absolutely hate it. Most of the hate comes from people who think that the movie wasn’t enough like the other Star Wars movies, and that the way it was different tarnishes the value of those films. They are…

In an earlier post, I claimed that one reason to study philosophy is that it teaches valuable skills. I supplied as a piece evidence for this view the fact that philosophy majors do better on post-graduate exams than almost every other discipline. Several departments have raised this point on their web pages as a reason…

I am uncertain how the ethical considerations surrounding affirmative action balance out as an issue of public policy. However, there appears to be an argument for private companies to adopt a policy favoring minorities and other under-represented groups in their hiring decisions that bypasses the tricky ethical issues raised in the debate. This argument is…

After tiring of the excuse that “I didn’t know that counted as plagiarism,” I wrote up a lengthy explanation of the different types of plagiarism out there. It hasn’t stopped it from occurring, but it has diminished it, and it does negate the most common excuses. If anyone finds it valuable, you should feel free…

Social contracts have long been held by political philosophers to be a just foundation for civil societies. Such contracts are supposed take into account the interests of citizens by ensuring that the state is governed by rules that society has accepted. The fundamental problem with social contracts throughout history, however, has been that actual contracts…

For a while now I have thought that redistribution of wealth was unjustified since it involved a form of taxation that I thought violated people’s rights. However, there is what appears to be a sound argument for the view that some redistribution of wealth through taxation is morally justified, even though taxation is a violation…