February, 2007
ANDREW I. COHEN
Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center For Ethics
Department of Philosophy
Georgia State University
Box 4089
EDUCATION:
1994 Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
DISSERTATION: “Hobbesian Political Authority and the Right of Resistance” Committee: Bernard R. Boxill (Director), Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Gerald J. Postema, Christopher W. Morris, Jeannette Boxill
1990 M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
THESIS: “Basic Rights, Subsistence, and Positive Duties”
Committee: Bernard R. Boxill (Director), Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Gerald J. Postema
1988 B.A., State University of New York at Binghamton, magna cum laude.
HONORS THESIS: “Freedom of the Will and the Causation of Human Action”
Committee: M.C. Dillon (Director), Anthony Preus, Leon J. Goldstein
POSITIONS HELD:
2005-present Assistant Professor, Georgia State University
2003-present Associate Director, Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics,
Georgia State University. (Acting Director, 2004-2005.)
Fall, 2001-present Adjunct faculty, Independent and Distance Learning, University of Georgia.
1999-2003 Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma.
Fall, 2001 Visiting Instructor, University of Georgia.
1997-1999 Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point.
1996-1997 Visiting Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina.
1995‑1996 Visiting Assistant Professor, Washington and Lee University.
1994‑1995 Lecturer, University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
Summer, 1994 Visiting Assistant Professor, Fayetteville State University.
PUBLICATIONS:
Edited volumes:
2005 (with Christopher Heath Wellman): Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics (Oxford:
Blackwell).
This is an anthology of new essays featuring pairs of writers taking opposing views on enduring controversies in applied ethics. Topics/authors include: values in nature: Bryan Norton, Baird Callicott; capital punishment: Louis Pojman, Stephen Nathanson; abortion: Patrick Lee/Robert George; M. Little; affirmative action: Celia Wolf-Devine, Albert Mosley; privacy and civil society: Amitai Etzioni, David Friedman; immigration: David Miller, Chandran Kukathas; cloning: John Harris, Jeremy Rifkin; pornography: Andrew Altman, Susan Brison; animals: Tom Regan, Ray Frey; euthaniasia: Michael Tooley, Daniel Callahan
Essays in anthologies:
Forthcoming “Pharmaceutical Advertising and Consumer Autonomy”,
in Jeremy Garrett and H. Tristram Englehardt, Jr., eds., Title TBA (an anthology on medical innovation and pharmaceuticals) (M&M Scrivener Press). This essay considers whether the norms governing the direct-to-consumer advertisement of prescription drugs should differ in any substantial way from those for other consumer products. The essay approaches this issue indirectly, mostly by considering how key autonomy-based arguments for such stringent regulation are inconclusive. Pharmaceutical promotions, I argue, remain on a par with those for dish soap. Leaving consumers in the right relationship with the reasons that bind them, I suggest, requires leaving them to use whatever epistemic shortcuts they deem appropriate to assess the competing claims from all available sources of the merits of any product.
2005 “Famine Relief and Human Virtue” (for
inclusion in Contemporary Debates in Applied
Ethics, pp. 313-342).
This will be paired with another essay by Kit Wellman. I argue that while there are sometimes important moral reasons to provide aid to distant suffering persons, justice is not one such reason. Virtuous persons may and sometimes should provide aid, but there are significant moral reasons against licensing coercion to extract such aid should it not be forthcoming. Including some discretion in the fulfillment of positive duties is key for reliably fostering human virtue and for alleviating suffering in the long run.
2005 (with Christopher Heath Wellman)
“Introduction” to Contemporary Debates in Applied
Ethics, pp. 1-9.
A brief discussion of the anthology and overview of the essays in the anthology.
Essays in refereed journals:
Forthcoming “Contractarianism,Other-regarding Attitudes, and the Moral Standing of Nonhuman Animals,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 24 (2007).
ABSTRACT: Contractarianism roots moral standing in an agreement
among rational agents in the circumstances of justice. Critics have argued that the
theory must exclude nonhuman animals from the protection of justice. I argue that
contractarianism can consistently allow that nonhuman animals are owed direct moral
consideration. They can acquire their moral status indirectly, but their claims to
justice can be as stringent as those among able-bodied adult humans. Any remaining
criticisms of contractarianism likely rest on a disputable moral realism.
Contractarianism can underwrite the direct moral considerability of nonhuman
animals by appealing to a projectivist quasi-realism.
2004 “Must Rights Impose Enforceable Positive Duties?” Journal of Social Philosophy 35,
pp. 264-76.
ABSTRACT: On some recent accounts, there are no purely negative
rights because all rights must entail some positive duties. I show why this
sort of conceptual argument fails. I focus on the arguments of Henry Shue,
Stephen Holmes, and Cass Sunstein. At most they adduce substantive but not
conceptual considerations for why rights must impose positive duties.
2003 “Examining the Bonds and Bounds of Friendship,” Dialogue:
The Canadian
Philosophical Review XLII (2003), pp. 321-44.
ABSTRACT: Friends exhibit a trust, spontaneous care and mutual regard that may seem to clash with examining a friendship for considerations of reciprocity and moral worth. In this essay I argue that the dynamic qualities of friendship sometimes require friends to reflect on their relationship. Friends sustain their relationship partly by assessing the terms of reciprocity. Friends must also sometimes examine their relationship for moral worth because they must adjudicate clashes between the demands of friendship and other moral considerations, and they must sometimes serve as a moral steward for a friend. I discuss how friends may monitor their relationship without betraying attitudes that clash with what we expect of friends.
2002 “Warmongers, Martyrs, and Madmen versus the Hobbesian Laws of Nature,”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (No. 4, Dec. 2002), pp. 561-86.
ABSTRACT: Thomas Hobbes casts the laws of nature as principles of peace that are conclusions of right reason. Glory-driven reason, however, seems to argue against the laws of nature. Hobbes might then claim that seekers of glory are irrational, but, as I show, this is not available to him. Instead, Hobbes must argue that valid reasons to seek glory do not count against the normative force of the laws of nature. I thus explore a Hobbesian account of reason given that some glory seekers by reason oppose peace.
1998 “Retained Liberties and Absolute Hobbesian Authorization,” Hobbes Studies 11 (1998): 33-45.
ABSTRACT: Hobbes claims that the sovereign’s absolute authority is consistent with the subjects’ retaining liberties to resist certain commands. In this essay, I explore what it means for subjects to authorize a sovereign with a right to command. I show how retained rights are compatible with sovereignty. Though any given subject does not authorize the sovereign to do anything, I argue that the sovereign power is absolute. The sovereign has the most power anyone could command.
1997 “Virtues, Opportunities, and the Right to Do Wrong,” Journal of Social Philosophy 28 (1997): 43-55.
ABSTRACT: Rights theorists often defend a right to do wrong by appealing to a commitment to self-definition. I argue that considerations of self-constitution and personal integrity are inconclusive foundations for the right to do wrong. There are instrumentalist appeals to autonomy that argue against a right to do wrong. A fuller statement of what rights are, and what is the nature and role of autonomy, must precede any defense of the right to do wrong.
Invited book reviews:
2003 Review of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra, eds., (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Press, 1999). Hypatia 18 (2003): 226-29.
Encyclopedia entries:
Forthcoming "Social Contract,"International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, second edition(Macmillian, 2007).
WORKS IN PROGRESS:
"Ecological Interdependencies and the Moral Standing of Nonhuman Animals" (submitted).
ABSTRACT: An instrumentalist environmental ethic could give reasons to extend moral consideration regarding nonhuman animals but it might fall short of justifying their moral standing. This essay explores whether ecological interdependencies might justify the direct moral considerability of nonhuman animals. The essay sets out a conception of moral standing as relational, scalar, and unilateral and then considers the scope and stringency of any moral standing that might be traced to ecological interdependencies.
“Reparations for Historic Injustices: The Boxill/Sher Argument”
ABSTRACT: A common criticism against reparation arguments is that many purported beneficiaries owe their existence to the injustice for which they claim damages. I explore a recent argument by Bernard Boxill and George Sher that pegs the compensable wrong for an injustice that occurs after a child is born: the failure to compensate her parents for an earlier injustice. I consider the limits of this argument.
“Reparations and the Paradox of Apologies”(submitted)
ABSTRACT:How can one meaningfully apologize for an injustice to which one owes one’s existence? Some scholars argue that we must come up with an attenuated sense of the relevant apology, but I argue that one’s failure to yield resources that are rightly claimed by the descendants of victims of earlier injustices can in many cases be an injustice for which one owes at least a sincere apology.
SELECT RECENT AWARDS, GRANTS, AND HONORS RECEIVED:
2005&06 Arts and Sciences Freshman Learning Community
Development grant, Georgia State University: $2000
2004 Arts and Sciences Arts and Sciences Writing
Across the Curriculum Development grant, Georgia State University, $2000
Development grant, Georgia State University: $2000 PRESENTATIONS: “Pharmaceutical Advertising and Patient Autonomy,”
Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Jacksonville, FL, March 3, 2006.
“Lunch with an author”, for Contemporary
Debates in Applied Ethics at Association for Practical and Professional Ethics,
Jacksonville, FL, March 3, 2006.
“Environmental Community and Moral Standing,”
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment, University of Oklahoma, February 26, 2003.
Comments on Rex Martin, “Just War and Human Rights,”
Southwestern Philosophical Society, Kansas City, MO, November 9, 2002. “Warmongers, Martyrs, and Madmen, versus the Hobbesian LawS of Nature,”
West Chester University of Pennsylvania Department of Philosophy, June 17, 2002;
University of Georgia Department of Philosophy, February 22, 2002. “Monitoring the Moral Bonds and Bounds
of Friendship,” American Philosophical Association Central Division,
Minneapolis, MN, May 3, 2001. “Natural Hobbesian Right Reason,” Ohio
University Department of Philosophy, February 6, 2001; University of Oklahoma
Department of Philosophy, February 9, 2001. “Conditional Love as Ultimate
Love: Friendship and Reciprocity,” UWSP
Humanities Forum, February 25, 1999. “Public
Reason and the ‘Reasonable’ Person”: Isaac Ferris Lecture at the University of
Wisconsin, Stevens Point, April 9, 1998. “May Subjects Have a Right to Resist an
Absolutely Authorized Hobbesian Sovereign?”:
American Philosophical Association Central Division, Pittsburgh, PA,
April 1997. “Rawls, Hobbes, and
‘Political Schizophrenia’”: University of South Carolina Department of
Philosophy, December 5, 1996. “Hobbesian Political Obligation and the
Right of Private Judgment”: Ohio
University Department of Philosophy, February 3, 1995; The University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill Department of Philosophy, January 20, 1995; The
University of North Carolina at Wilmington Department of Philosophy, November
4, 1994. “Power and Freedom: Can We Hinder a Hobbesian Liberty?”: Fayetteville State University Department of
Philosophy, September 30, 1994. “Right Reason and the Authority of the
Hobbesian Sovereign”: Intermountain
Philosophy Conference, Cullowhee, NC, September 24, 1994. “Absolute Hobbesian Sovereignty and
Inalienable Rights”: Intermountain
Philosophy Conference, Boone, NC, November 20, 1993. SELECT OTHER PRESENTATIONS: “Research Ethics,” presented to the Research,
Education, and Development Program forum on Responsible Conduct of Research, Georgia
State Univ., Sept. 18, 2003, and Sept. 17, 2004; Department of Psychology first-year
research ethics program, September 2006 and September 2005.
“Business, Profits, and Social Obligations,”
presentation to North Dekalb Rotary, February 10, 2006.
“Rejuvenating Ethics in the Liberal Arts:
Ethics Centers in the University Community,” presentation to the annual meetings
of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, January 2004, Washington, D.C. “Freelance Ethics,” presented to the Freelance Forum of
Atlanta at the Creative Circus, October 2, 2003. RECENT DEPARTMENTAL AND UNIVERSITY SERVICE: 2006 Vice-chair, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee 2005 JD/MA joint program advisor 2005 JD/MA joint program advisor 2005 Pre-law advisor 2004 Faculty advisor – Phi Sigma Tau philosophy honor society 2004 Faculty advisor –
SACFE (Center for Ethics Student Forum) TEACHING COMPETENCIES: Ethics, Social and Political
Philosophy, Philosophy of Law, Contemporary Moral Theory, Early Modern Philosophy, Symbolic
Logic, General Introduction to Philosophy, Applied Ethics (such as Medical
Ethics, Business Ethics, Environmental Ethics) “The Obligation of Western Pharmaceutical Companies in the AIDS Crisis
of sub-Saharan Africa,” Ethics and Africa Conference, University of Cape Town, May 30, 2006.