Tim Sommers is a Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy at The College of William & Mary. He teaches and writes on ethical, legal, and political philosophy. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and an M.A. from Brown. Tim has won storytelling slams in London and elsewhere and was once a bodyguard for The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (for one night). He can be reached at [email protected].
by Tim Sommers Honestly, in academic philosophy a great, or even a good, title is not really necessary. Perhaps, the most influential philosophy article of the twentieth century is called “On Denoting.” Really, Russell? That’s all you got? Compare Donald Davidson’s “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs.” Now, that’s a title. Unfortunately, given that he argues…
by Tim Sommers Ever heard of Heraclitus? I bet you’ve heard of his river. It’s on a million posters. I’m not one to judge, but I would go so far as to say this quote is bandied about pretty thoughtlessly. For example, this is the ocean and not a river. Not to mention not a…
by Tim Sommers It’s not often that you get a new argument on such a well-canvassed issue, but starting in 2018 Perry Hendricks began energetically defending variations on what he calls the impairment argument against abortion. It attempts to establish the wrongness of abortion without taking a stand on whether the fetus is a person,…
by Tim Sommers (1) Aristophanes. This is my favorite theory about the origin and nature of romantic love. Humans were once spherical, four-armed, four-legged, two-headed beings that rolled around everywhere confidently. They were cut in half by Zeus for trying to scale Olympus and attack the gods. Love is the search for your missing half…
by Tim Sommers When is it acceptable to break the law to protest an injustice? That’s an easy one. Anytime the injustice is sufficiently unjust. But that’s not the whole story. Among the rights everyone should be afforded in a reasonably just liberal democracy, I believe, is the right to break the law sometimes in…
by Tim Sommers Having previously discussed Ethics Bowl here, I can’t resist bragging just a little, tiny bit. On Sunday, May 8 in St. Louis, Missouri the Ethics Bowl team from William & Mary – our team! – became the 2026 APPE International Ethics Bowl® Champions. The crew on the stage, led by Team Founder/Coach…
by Tim Sommers At one point in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (401 BCE), the chorus offers this bit of wisdom: “Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best; but when a man has seen the light, the next best is to go whence he came as soon as possible.” This particular way of putting…
by Tim Sommers “Happiness is that which all things aim at” according to Aristotle. All virtues – arete (ἀρετή) or “excellences” – are the mean between two extremes. We should choose courage over cowardice, sure, but also over being too bold. Stick to the tame middle. Epicureans and Stoics counsel against risk and in favor…
by Tim Sommers “I’d rather entrust the government to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory,” William Buckley once said, “than to the faculty of Harvard University.” If we can put aside his right-reactionary politics and look past the performative anti-intellectualism on display here (from a Yalie!), there is the seed of…
by Tim Sommers In an ordinary classroom at a typical American university, two teams of four students sit across from each other in front of small audience, waiting. A judge stands and says, “The first question will be based on Case 15 which is concerned with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” (better known as SNAP).…
by Tim Sommers The economy is not a force of nature. We have some control over it. Granted, it’s also not like a machine controlled directly by levers, switches, and buttons either. But when the state acts, intentionally or not, it often influences the distribution of income and wealth. More often than not, it influences…
by Tim Sommers The ends don’t justify the means. Right? But then what does? Utilitarians say that, of course, the ends justify the means. If the ends can’t justify the means, then nothing can. Utilitarianism is built on the twin pillars of welfarism and consequentialism. Consequentialism is the view that the morally right thing to…
by Tim Sommers Even as we want to do the right thing, we may wonder if there is really, in some objective sense, a right thing to do. Throughout most of the twentieth-century most Anglo-American philosophers thought not. They were mostly some sort of subjectivist or other. Since they focused on language, the way that…
by Tim Sommers In October of 1987, 18-month-old Jessica McClure Morales – forever after to be known as “Baby Jessica” – fell into a well in her aunt’s backyard in Midland Texas. She was lodged 22 feet down in the 8 inch well casing with one leg bent above her head. Over the next 58…
by Tim Sommers The first time I tried to take a shower in Italy, I stubbed my toe, tripped, and smacked my face into the shower wall. In fact, I did that pretty much every time I took a shower there. Turns out it is not that uncommon there to have a 4-inch barrier that…
by Tim Sommers Most of the evidence available to us suggests that there is something. There are probably electrons and other fundamental particles, as well as fields and fundamental forces, likely there are planets, stars, black holes, and galaxies, and there are probably even, what Quine called, “medium-sized” objects: tables, chairs, dogs, and us. As…
by Tim Sommers Welcome to the VR office and, hopefully, welcome to the coven! No, it’s not just witches, a group of vampires is called a “coven” too. VR? Human Resources for vampires, obviously. Just a few last details before we can move forward. Lunch after, so let’s get through this. I know that some…
by Tim Sommers Or, rather, the very real threat to Physicalism posed by Philosophical Zombies. On the one hand, there are the Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Walking Dead, zombies, which are rotting, but animated, corpses that devour human flesh and can only be stopped by destroying…
by Tim Sommers In “Calculating God,” Robert J. Sawyer’s first-contact novel, the aliens who arrive on Earth believe in the existence of God – without being particularly religious. Why? There are certain physical forces, they explain, that make life in our universe possible only if they are tuned to very specific values. Which they are.…
by Tim Sommers John Austin was cursed with famous friends, among them Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Carlyle, James Mill and Mill’s son John Stuart, whom Austin tutored in the law. Cursed because, while they were all impressed by his intellect and predicted he would go far, he did not. His nervous and depressive disposition combined with…