This essay considers and rejects the hypothesis of Fackenheim, Wiesel and others that the Jewish Holocaust contains some qualitatively or quantitatively distinct moral evil. The Holocaust was not qualitatively distinct because the intentions and vices of the mass murderer are qualitatively indistinguishable from the intentions and vices of the common murderer. The Holocaust was not quantitatively distinct either because the sum of the evils of the Holocaust is quantitatively indistinguishable from six million randomly selected individual murders or because the notion (...) of a ‘sum’ of moral evils is conceptually incoherent. (shrink)

I. Beyond Utilitarianism In the summer of 1982, I published an article called “Missiles and Morals,” in which I argued on utilitarian grounds that nuclear deterrence in its present form is not morally justifiable. The argument of “Missiles and Morals” compared the most likely sort of nuclear war to develop under nuclear deterrence with the most likely sort of nuclear war to develop under American unilateral nuclear disaramament. For a variety of reasons, I claimed diat the number of casualties in (...) a two-sided nuclear war developing under DET would be at least fifteen times greater than the number of casualties in a one-sided nuclear attack developing under UND. If one assumes that human lives lost or saved is the principal criterion by which nuclear weapons policies should be measured, it follows that DET is morally superior to UND on utilitarian grounds only if the chance of a two-sided nuclear war under DET is more than fifteen times less dian the chance of a one-sided nuclear attack under UND. Since I did not believe that the chance of nuclear war under deterrence is fifteen times less than the chance of nuclear war under unilateral nuclear disarmament, I inferred diat utilitaranism failed to justify DET. Indeed, on utilitarian grounds, DET stood condemned. (shrink)

Old philosophical problems never die, but they can be reinterpreted. In this paper, I offer a reinterpretation of the problem of reconciling divine omniscience and human free will. Classical discussions of this problem concentrate on the nature of God and the concept of free will. The present discussion will focus attention on the concept of knowledge, drawing on developments in epistemology that resulted from the posing of a certain problem by Edmund Gettier in 1963.

To find more information about Rowman and Littlefield titles, please visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

Since the atomic era began in 1945, there have been three waves of moral criticism directed at American nuclear weapons policies. The first wave, which began around 1957 and ended in 1962 with McNamara’s announcement of Flexible Response, focused on Dulles’s policy of Massive Retaliation. The second wave, which began in the early 70’s and ended in 1974 with Schlesinger’s announcement of Countervailing Response, focused on the Assured Destruction policy developed in McNamara’s later reports to Congress. The third wave began (...) in the 80’s with Weinberger’s remarks about “prevailing” in nuclear conflicts and may or may not end with the next MX vote or next strategic arms agreement. (shrink)

The Philosophical Forum, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 285-453, Winter 2021.