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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Review Of Ethics And The Golden Rule By Henry J. Gensler, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Review Of Ethics And The Golden Rule By Henry J. Gensler, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Review Of The Ethics Of Species: An Introduction By Ronald L. Sandler, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Review Of The Ethics Of Species: An Introduction By Ronald L. Sandler, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Review Of The Philosophy Of Free Will: Essential Readings From The Contemporary Debates Edited By Paul Russell And Oisin Deery, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Review Of The Philosophy Of Free Will: Essential Readings From The Contemporary Debates Edited By Paul Russell And Oisin Deery, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Island Universe Problems, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Island Universe Problems, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

We share a common space-time with everything that we interact with in our world. An island universe would be a spatiotemporally interrelated segment of reality that is isolated from the rest of reality; it would be part of our world but something that we cannot interact with. Spatiotemporal interrelatedness plays an important role in a number of metaphysical theories concerning possible worlds. Here I discuss four problems surrounding the possibility of island universes. I contend the most troubling of these problems gives us good reason to think that island universes are possible; metaphysical theories that cannot make sense of the …


Shaky Ground, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Shaky Ground, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

The debate surrounding free will and moral responsibility is one of the most intransigent debates in contemporary philosophy - but it does not have to be. At its heart, the free will debate is a metaethical debate - a debate about the meaning of certain moral terms - free will, moral responsibility, blameworthiness, praiseworthiness. Compatibilists argue that these concepts are compatible with wholly deterministic world, while incompatibilists argue that these concepts require indeterminism, or multiple possible futures. However, compatibilists and incompatibilists do not disagree on everything - both parties agree that free will and moral responsibility require control - the …


Lucky Assassins: On Luck And Moral Responsibility, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Lucky Assassins: On Luck And Moral Responsibility, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Deontic Cycling Problem, William Simkulet Jan 2014

The Deontic Cycling Problem, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

In his recent article "Deontic Cycling and the Structure of Commonsense Morality," Tim Willenken argues that commonsense ethics allows for rational agents having both ranked reasons (A > B, B > C, and A > C) and cyclical reasons (A < B, B < C, and A > C). His goal is to show that not all plausible views are variations of consequentialism, as consequentialism requires ranked reasons. I argue instances of apparent deontic cycling in commonsense morality are the byproducts of incomplete characterizations of the cases in question.


Under The Veil, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Under The Veil, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Moral And Professional Accountability For Clinical Ethics Consultants, William Simkulet Jan 2014

Moral And Professional Accountability For Clinical Ethics Consultants, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


In Control, William Simkulet Jan 2014

In Control, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

In George Sher’s recent article “Out of Control”, he discusses a series of 9 cases that he believes illustrates that some agents are uncontroversially morally responsible for actions they “cannot help” but perform (2006: 285). He argues these agents exert partial control over these actions insofar as their actions are determined from their character; but this is no control at all. Here I argue that in each of these cases the agent exerts morally relevant control over her actions and that none of these are genuine instances of moral luck, nor counterexamples to the control principle.