I was recently asked by a colleague, Dr. Lisa Guenther (Philosophy, Vanderbilt University), to add my signature to an open letter to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, petitioning him to suspend the scheduled execution of 10 inmates beginning in January. I agreed to lend my name to the petition alongside several others in a coalition named…
Read MoreThese are the letters from the fourth day of the Grading War. If you landed here by accident and don’t know what you’re reading, click here for the backstory. 8 December 2013, 11:35pm My Dearest Leigh, It is my sincere hope that these few words find you well. I have had no time to write,…
Read MoreThese are the letters from the third day of the Grading War. If you landed here by accident and don’t know what you’re reading, click here for the backstory. 7 December 2013, 11:20am Dearest Marcus, Oh Happy Day! This morn found my heart both gladdened and relieved after procuring news that Providence continues to shelter…
Read MorePreliminary note: If you’re here because you’re checking back for updates on the Grading War archive, rest assured that new letters are still being added as they appear. However, this was getting a bit on the long side for a single post, so I’m breaking up the letters by day now. Click the following links…
Read MoreThese are the letters from the second day of the Grading War. If you landed here by accident and don’t know what you’re reading, click here for the backstory. 6 December 2013, 10:05amDearest Marcus, I take up my pen this morning to inform you once more of my disconsolate station. Please pardon the poor condition…
Read MoreThese are the letters from the first day of the Grading War. If you landed here by accident and don’t know what you’re reading, click here for the backstory. 5 December 2013, 3:29pm Dearest Marcus, The battle here rages on unabated, only intensifying my longing for Deliverance, for the warmth and Safety of your hearth…
Read More[Disclaimer: I haven’t read any of the books in Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular Hunger Games trilogy, though I did see the first movie version of that trilogy (The Hunger Games) last year and I just saw the second film, currently out in theaters, Catching Fire. I’ll go ahead and stipulate that the books are probably…
Read MorePrompted by a recent piece on newAPPS, I’m (somewhat reluctantly) forced to acknowledge the renewed attention to a not-at-all-new phenomenon in the world of Philosophy over the last couple of years, namely, the dramatic under-representation of women in our profession. Here’s what you need to know up front, assuming that some of you readers are…
Read MoreLet me be clear at the outset: when I say that tolerance is not a virtue, I’m saying that as a philosopher for whom virtue has a conceptually substantive meaning. I do not mean to imply that tolerance is a vice, a claim to which I think no reasonable moral agent, and no philosopher worth…
Read MoreI had the very good fortune of seeing historian Darrin McMahon (Florida State University), author of the recently published Divine Fury: A History of Genius, deliver a lecture last week as part of Rhodes College’s year-long Communities in Conversation lecture series. I want to write a bit here about some of the questions his book…
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