Note: Although the standard Vita serves a legitimate purpose, it strikes me as a much too refined distillation of one's professional life. Too many involvements and contributions go unnoted.
This Enhanced Vita offers more information, although it too is rife with omissions.
Social and political philosophy, ethics, business ethics, medical ethics, logic, philosophy of science, history of western philosophy, American philosophy, philosophy of history
Postmodernism, phenomenology, eastern thought, analytic philosophy, aesthetics
(An elementary medical ethics textbook that tries to lay out issues and positions in a clear, straightforward way so students are quickly able to get to discussion and evaluation. Issues: abortion, sterilization, genetic control, allocation of scarce medical resources, death and dying, experiments on human beings and behavior control, patient relatationships, health care delivery)
(An elementary ethics text that lays out classical and contemporary positions with respect to the good life, human nature, individuals and society, free will and moral responsibility, knowing the good life. )
(An article that tries to resolve problems related to drugs for the aging and dying by applying five principles based upon autonomy, avoidance of harm, sanctity of life, acceptance of death, and others' interests.)
(Selections: The Present Dilemma in Philosophy, What Pragmatism Means, Does Consciousness Exist?, The Will to Believe, Is Life Worth Living?, The Dilemma of Determinism, and The Moral Equivalent of War)
(An elementary logic text with several innovations: use of assumptions that establish validity for standard inductive arguments, an expanded treatment of soundness as "the practical reliability of arguments," a schema for logical analysis of positions taken in ordinary language, application of the schema to letters to the editor on various topics)
(An elementary text that first surveys philosophical positions on two issues, God and Free Will vs. Determinism, and then presents my own critique of other positions along with my stand on the issues. I argue for God's existence being, at best, only plausible and for soft determinism.)
(An elementary text that first surveys philosophical positions on two issues, The Good Life and Knowing the Good Life, and then presents my own critique of other positions along with my stand on the issues. I argue for associating moral persons with sensitivity, knowledge, character, and cooperativeness. With respect to knowing the good life, I argue for a rational-empirical mode rather than openness to life experience, faith, the sales mode, the legal system mode, or cooperataive consciousness-raising.)
(An article advocating greater activism on the part of universities in changing the society--largely an extension of ideas presented in "Universities in the Age of Morality")
(An article where I argue that nuclear war is morally unacceptable if it entails the total destruction of humanity--interpreted as "the total destruction of the important values and valued ways of life, created by human beings over the course of many centuries" rather than as "the total destruction of life on earth")
(This essay argues that we live in the Age of Morality and that universities should be the dominant institution. It is a manifesto-type document that went nowhere--although it probably explains the direction of a good deal of my subsequent philosophical activity.)
(A imaginary dialogue with Richard Nixon (and a moral portrait) about the good life and society--written before the Watergate breakin)
(An imaginary dialogue arguing that pornography is not fully protected by the 1st Amendment and can cause sufficient harm to justify at least some restrictions on the most extreme forms of pornography)
(Bicentennial reflections on the United States: After laying out the distinction between negative and positive freedom and between materialistic and humanistic interpretations of the American Ideal, I argued for positive freedom and the humanistic interpretation as our best hope for the future. The paper was presented as a "Runner-up" Lecture in association with the President's Lecture Series at MSU. An earlier, simpler draft of the paper was presented in a bicentennial symposium at the University of Dayton.)
(A typed manuscript of some 200 pages produced during a sabbatical leave year. The style is set at too elementary a level and probably needs work. Chapters: The Nature of Hypocrisy, Allegations of Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy and Excuses, Hypocrisy and Direct Justification, Hypocrisy and Indirect Justification)
(An elementary text used in my courses, Logic of Scientific Method and Scientific Explanation and the Occult. Chapters: The Scientific Attitude, A Scientific Document: Newton's New Theory About Light and Color, Techniques of Scientific Investigation, The Nature of Scientific Explanation, Special Problems of the Behavioral and Social Sciences)
(An elementary text used in my courses, Logic of Scientific Method and Scientific Explanation and the Occult. Chapters thus far: Challenges to Contemporary Science, Creationism and Religion, Astrology)
(An interactive computer program that allows one to examine one's own position with respect to boxing)
(An interactive computer program that allows one to examine one's own position with respect to abortion)
(A revision of my earlier Scientific Explanation and the Occult—with less focus on the occult, a more general introduction to the logic of science, and more consideration of recent critiques of standard scientific explanation from the standpoints of Thomas Kuhn, Ronald Giere, social constructivism, and feminism)
"A Debate: Does God Exist?," MSU Student Union, May, 1995
(A debate at MSU with Cliff Knechtle, from the national staff of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Main Theme: I took an agnostic position, maintaining that God's existence in terms of reasoning and evidence is merely plausible at best.)
(A luncheon talk. Main Theme: Is loyalty--between customer and store owner or between employee and employer--disappearing from the business environment?)
(A panel discussion along with Paul Brown and Mike Scullin in Anthropology and Dick Liebendorfer in Philosophy. My Main Theme: Although there is nothing wrong with scientific sociobiology, we need to avoid messianic and reductionistic sociobiology and to protect the significance of values by focusing upon levels of self-reflection that sociobiology will never be able to explain or reduce adequately.)
(A presentation and discussion that concentrated mainly on explaining and justifying affirmative action--relying heavily on my discussion of the subject in Practical Ethics)
(An affirmative answer to the question, along with consideration in terms of power, satisfaction, and reality as ultimate values and in terms of sensitivity, knowledge, character, and cooperativeness as the marks of a moral person)
(A debate with Neala Schleuning from the Women's Center at MSU. I argued that, while pornography is not protected fully by the 1st Amendment and some extreme forms should be banned, most pornography should be dealt with in the society as we do alcohol.)
(A panel discussion along with area psychiatrists Drs. Tverberg and Wilson and with Hal Walberg in the Philosophy Department. Main Theme: I tried to establish the reasonableness of physician-assisted dying in terms of moral values already widely accepted.)
(A panel discussion along with Bob Wallace and John Humphrey of the Philosophy Department. I made a distinction between the negative and positive application of natural law--arguing that negative application is acceptable although not necessary to establish rights, but that positive application is both unacceptable and unnecessary. Negative Application: There is nothing in the natural order that establishes the greater moral worth of one human being over another--hence allowing judgments about human equality. Positive Application: Nature itself or divine intent establishes various kinds of human actions as being in accordance with, or in opposition to, the natural order.)
(A panel discussion along with Dr. Maggie O'Connor of the MSU Health Service and with State Senator John Hottinger. I tried to show how the activities of Planned Parenthood are consistent with a moral point of view and social reality.)
(A panel discussion involving Norman Bowie, business ethics professor at the University of Minnesota; MSU faculty: Penny Herickhoff in business law, Henry Okleshen in finance, Tim Scott in Management, and Bob Wallace in philosophy; MSU student John Roberts; Garrett Paul in the religion department at Gustavus Adophus College; and area businesspersons: accountant Frank Gazzola, bank president Starr Kirklin, developer Art Petrie, department president Scott Taylor, and account executive Joyce Thompsen. I set the situations for the panel and served as moderator.)
(A lecture and discussion of the situations later used in the panel discussion above for Professor Arnold Lutnik's class at Worthington Community College)
(A discussion with John Humphrey in the philosophy department on whether the abortion issue is resolvable in terms of objective moral values. I argued that the terminology, social context, and common moral assumptions served to provide ways of making some objective judgments regarding the abortion issue. I also argued that both the pro-choice and pro-life sides make claims that are subject to factual analysis and generally that the pro-life side was less consistent with facts than the pro-choice side.)
Last updated 1/28/06