Emrys Westacott grew up in the UK and moved to the US in 1986. He is currently professor of philosophy at Alfred University in Western New York. His work has appeared in both scholarly and popular publications, including International Studies in Philosophy, Philosophy Now, The Philosopher's Magazine, Aeon, and Humanities. His books include 'The Virtues of Our Vices: A Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness and Other Bad Habits' (Princeton University Press, 2012), and 'The Wisdom of Frugality' (Princeton University Press, 2016). Email: westacott [at] alfred.edu
by Emrys Westacott Earlier this month I visited Florida for the first time in my life, staying for a few days with relatives who own a house in Vero Beach on the Atlantic coast. The good company, mild January weather, enjoyable outings and excellent grilled fish dinners made for a pleasant trip. My brief glimpse…
by Emrys Westacott When terrorist atrocities are visited on civilian populations, the immediate emotional response is a combination of shock, sadness, and anger. That is natural and understandable. But the anger people feel fuels the thought that “something must be done; ” and political leaders, acutely aware of what is expected of them, immediately proceed…
A Professor To His Coy Doctoral Student (with apologies to Andrew Marvell) Had we but world enough, and time, Procrastination were no crime. We would sit down and think, and talk, Sketch plans for drafts in yellow chalk, Read, discuss, and once again read . . . We'd hardly ever feel a need To put…
by Emrys Westacott I have just finished reading Curtis Cate's 2005 biography of Nietzsche. At close to six hundred pages one would expect it to be exhaustive, the kind that is routinely described in the back cover blurb as “definitive.” After all, Nietzsche's life, apart from his thoughts and subjective experiences, was not especially eventful…
by Emrys Westacott A colleague recently responded to a memo I circulated by telling me they considered it unintentionally heterosexist. I didn't agree. After a brief exchange of e-mails that served only to sandpaper each other's sore spots, my colleague called my attention to the following passage in Allen Johnson's book Privilege, Power, and Difference:…
by Emrys Westacott As an expatriate Brit who has lived in North America for many years, I have sometimes been asked what I miss most about the old country. There's plenty to miss, of course: draught bitter; prime minister's question time; red phone boxes; racist tabloid newspapers; Henderson's Yorkshire Relish; gray rainy afternoons, especially at…
by Emrys Westacott The computer revolution has transformed education over the past quarter century. PowerPoint, greatly improved graphical and multi-media capabilities, e-books, Wikis, online student collaboration, flipped classrooms, clicker quizzes, open-access online courses (MOOCs), and the inexhaustible wealth of material available on the internet have opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities. (At the same…
by Emrys Westacott My Facebook profile describes my political views as “very liberal.” In the US this is a shorthand way of indicating that I support gay rights, government-run health care, stricter gun laws, abortion rights for women, abolition of the death penalty, reduced military spending, environmental protection, campaign finance reform, the United Nations, Charles…
by Emrys Westacott The market is efficient. The market knows best. This belief underlies much contemporary theory and practice, especially in the realm of government policy. It is has been used, for instance, to justify privatizing the railways and the post office in the UK, and it forms a central plank in the arguments of…
by Emrys Westacott Nostalgia is a fascinating and remarkably common phenomenon. We have all heard older people comparing the present unfavorably with the past in spite of–or even because of–obvious material improvements in the standard of living. Most of us over the age of twenty-five have probably done this ourselves. Often the fond remembrance involves…
by Emrys Westacott Why do we choose to do what we think is right even when it goes against our inclinations or interests? This is one of the oldest and toughest questions in moral psychology. Knowing the good clearly does not entail that we will do the good. So what carries us from the former…
Lament of the Expunged Metaphor You bastard! You butcher! You murdering swine! I had it all: beauty, aptness, concision. I fit snugly into that trimetric line. And what's my reward? –A brutal excision. Don't tell me they told you to “kill all your darlings.” Bill Faulkner's not going to take this rap. That's a defense…
Well-intentioned, bleeding-heart, left-leaning liberals are criticized and ridiculed from both the left and the right. But the world would be a much better place if there were more of them.
Why don’t more people choose to induce death at the very end of life when they have little more to live for? We are still in thrall to traditional taboos that aren’t rational. Those who choose suicide in these circumstances should be applauded for heir courage and selflessness.
by Emrys Westacott Surveillance of people by governments and other institutions is an ancient practice. According to the legend, the first Christmas occurred in Bethlehem because of a census ordered by the emperor Augustus. One of the first acts of William the Conqueror after becoming king of England was to commission the Doomsday Book–an exact…
by Emrys Westacott Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is widely touted as one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Western civilization. Yet few people other than academic philosophers read his works, and I imagine that only a minority of them have read in its entirety the Critique of Pure Reason, generally considered his magnum opus.…
by Emrys Westacott According to a number of studies done over several years, cheating is rife in US high schools and colleges. More than 60% of students report having cheated at least once, and it is quite likely that findings based on self-reporting understate rather than overstate the incidence of cheating.[1] Understandably, most educators view…
by Emrys Westacott Like millions of other people, I found the recent Israel-Gaza conflict sickening and depressing. After fifty days of military exchanges from July 8 to August 26, over 2,000 Gazans had been killed of which, even according to Israeli government estimates, over half were civilians. Around 11,000 Gazans had been injured, and several…
by Emrys Westacott I dislike tipping. That is, I dislike the whole tipping system. As a card-carrying tightwad I can't honestly say I enjoy leaving tips, but that's not my point. My point is about the general practice, the social institution. What set me thinking about this was a slightly unpleasant experience I had recently…
by Emrys Westacott “Nothing human is alien to me.” This was Karl Marx's favourite maxim, taken from the Roman writer, Terrence. But I think that if Marx had lived a century later, he might have added as a second choice the famous phrase sung by Sportin' Life in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess: “It ain't necessarily…