Michael Huemer

Received his B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1992 and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1998. He is presently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is the author of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (2001), Ethical Intuitionism (2005), and more than forty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy.
Email: owl232@earthlink.net

Issue: 1:2 (The second issue)

Political actors, including voters, activists, and leaders, are often ignorant of basic facts relevant to policy choices. Even experts have little understanding of the working of society and little ability to predict future outcomes. Only the most simple and uncontroversial political claims can be counted on.

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Issue: 10:1 (the thirty seventh issue)

I address Walter Block’s recent criticisms of my book, Dialogues on Ethical
Vegetarianism. Methodologically, Block relies too much on appeals to
contentious and extreme assumptions. Substantively, most of his objections are
irrelevant to the central issue of the book. Those that are relevant turn on false
assumptions or lead to absurd consequences. In the end, Block’s claim to
oppose suffering cannot be reconciled with his indifference to a practice that
probably causes, every few years, more suffering than all the suffering in
human history.

Issue: 11:1 (The forty first issue)

A standard argument for ethical vegetarianism contends that factory farming – the source of nearly all animal products – is morally wrong due to its extreme cruelty, and that it is wrong to buy products produced in an extremely immoral manner. This article defends this argument against objections based on appeal to libertarian political philosophy, the supposed benefit to animals of being raised for food, and nonhuman animals’ supposed lack of rights.