This is part 4 of a 4-part series on utilitarianism. This material is related to my forthcoming book, WILD PROBLEMS: A GUIDE TO THE DECISIONS THAT DEFINE US, coming on August 9. In Wild Problems, I critique what I call narrow utilitarianism — the day-to-day calculus of pleasure and pain…

This is part 3 of a 4-part series on utilitarianism. This material is related to my forthcoming book, WILD PROBLEMS: A GUIDE TO THE DECISIONS THAT DEFINE US, coming on August 9. In Wild Problems, I critique what I call narrow utilitarianism — the day-to-day calculus of pleasure and pain…

This is part 2 of a 4-part series on utilitarianism. This material is related to my forthcoming book, WILD PROBLEMS: A GUIDE TO THE DECISIONS THAT DEFINE US, coming on August 9. In Wild Problems, I critique what I call narrow utilitarianism — the day-to-day calculus of pleasure and pain…

This is part I of a 4-part series on utilitarianism. This material is related to my forthcoming book, WILD PROBLEMS: A GUIDE TO THE DECISIONS THAT DEFINE US, coming on August 9. In that book, I critique what I call narrow utilitarianism — the day-to-day calculus of pleasure and pain…

In part I of this series, I argued that I do not deserve my standard of living. Though I’ve worked hard and had a few good ideas in my career, it can be argued that much if not all of my material success comes from things I had no part…

My dad, who passed away in March of 2020, gave me many gifts; one of the most precious was a love of poetry. He loved Keats and Shelley, Frost and Dickenson, Teasdale and St. Vincent Millay, Kipling and Eliot, Hopkins and Tennyson. As I grew up, he shared the poems…

At Grass The eye can hardly pick them out From the cold shade they shelter in, Till wind distresses tail and mane; Then one crops grass, and moves about - The other seeming to look on — And stands anonymous again. Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps Two dozen distances sufficed…

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near…

The First Snowfall The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl…