Academic website of Michael Vincent. Here I share short pieces and work-in-progress, respond to the work of others, and link to publications.
I want to highlight a difference in public comments on the terrorist attack in Christchurch which I think deserves comment. (This was actually written shortly after the attack occurred, but I’m just getting around to posting it now unfortunately…) One type of response is typified by the hashtag #thisisnotus, which became popular in the hours … Continue reading Exceptional Violence
What is morality, if not the positive morality studied by anthropologists and their kind? For some this will seem like a daft question: obviously positive morality is to be contrasted with normative morality, the latter of which is the subject of moral philosophy. Isn’t that what we have the is/ought distinction for? I think that … Continue reading Value is Something We Do
If there is one thing that my engagement with the psychological literature is leading me to think, it is that people are not very good at being consequentialists. They recognise a huge difference between acting and failing to act, they are very particular in deploying their empathy, and in many situations they are terrible at … Continue reading Bell-Curve Consequentialism and Sustainability
Ken Binmore claims that when he asked some philosopher colleagues about Kantian ethics, some replied that Kant thought we should cooperate in a prisoners' dilemma (PD) (Natural Justice, p.viii). He does not cite any particular academics here, though there is a quote from Amartya Sen in Binmore’s Playing Fair (p.26) which could be taken to … Continue reading Kant and the Prisoners’ Dilemma
When searching for the terms ‘agriculture’ or ‘farming’ on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, there is not much to see. The most relevant links seem to be to articles on environmental ethics and animal welfare (certainly relevant topics). Other than that, there are mostly references to the views of … Continue reading Philosophical Work on Agriculture (Dearth of)
The ArachneanMetaxion Point 