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Michael Huemer

Michael Huemer is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he has taught since 1998.^[1] He specializes in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, and political philosophy, with research focusing on topics such as philosophical skepticism, ethical intuitionism, deontological ethics, and the justification of political authority.^[1] Huemer holds a PhD from Rutgers University (1998) and has authored over eighty academic articles as well as ten books, including Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (2001), Ethical Intuitionism (2005), and The Problem of Political Authority (2013).^[2]^[1] In ethics, Huemer is a prominent defender of ethical intuitionism, arguing that ordinary moral intuitions provide prima facie justification for ethical beliefs, supporting moral realism against skepticism and relativism.^[1] His work in epistemology critiques indirect realism and defends direct realism about perception, challenging traditional skeptical arguments.^[3] In political philosophy, Huemer contends that commonsense moral principles undermine the legitimacy of state authority, advocating for libertarian or anarchist conclusions through intuitive reasoning rather than consequentialist calculations.^[4] These contributions have influenced debates in moral epistemology and anarcho-capitalist theory, emphasizing rational assessment of authority based on individual rights and non-aggression.^[4]^[3]

Biography

Early Life and Influences

Michael Huemer grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles during his childhood.^[5] From ages approximately 5 to 10, he displayed an early inclination toward philosophical inquiry, questioning the origins of God and dismissing explanations like "He created himself" as illogical; his mother later repeated this anecdote to others.^[5] He was raised in a non-religious family, where his father worked as a nutritionist.^[5] His mother discouraged his later interest in philosophy as a major, favoring mathematics instead, partly due to the influence of a prosperous uncle who was a banker.^[5] In elementary school, Huemer enjoyed debating conceptual questions, such as "Who discovered America?", though he found standard history curricula unappealing.^[5] His early reading included science fiction and fantasy novels that fostered curiosity about moral and existential themes, notably A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov.^[5] He also explored computing from middle school onward, playing early video games and learning basic programming.^[5] A pivotal influence was Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, which underscored for him the foundational role of philosophy in human thought and oriented him toward libertarian ideas.^[5] In high school, he demonstrated strong aptitude in science and mathematics while acquiring practical skills like typing.^[5] These experiences, combined with intuitive moral reflections—such as the principle of not treating others in ways one would not wish to be treated—laid the groundwork for his later ethical intuitionism.^[5]

Education

Huemer earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, completing his studies from 1988 to 1992.^[6]^[7] He then pursued graduate studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1998.^[1]^[6]^[7] His doctoral dissertation, titled "Skepticism and the Veil of Perception," addressed epistemological issues related to perceptual knowledge and skepticism.^[8]

Academic Career

Huemer received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Rutgers University in 1998.^[9] He joined the University of Colorado Boulder as an assistant professor of philosophy that same year.^[9] His initial appointment lasted until 2005, during which he established himself in epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy.^[9] In 2005, Huemer was promoted to associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, a position he held until 2011.^[9] He advanced to full professor in 2011 and has remained in that role since.^[9] During his tenure, he received the Provost's Faculty Achievement Award in 2008 for his book Ethical Intuitionism.^[10] Additional recognition included Faculty Fellowships from the Center for Humanities and the Arts in 2003–2004 and 2011–2012, which provided teaching reductions to support research.^[10] In 2018–2019, Huemer served as Visiting Research Professor at Tulane University's Murphy Institute, supported by a $66,000 research fellowship.^[10] His career milestones also encompass the 2013 E.M. Adams Prize ($50,000) and the 2014 PROSE Award in philosophy for The Problem of Political Authority, affirming his contributions to ethical and political theory.^[10]

Philosophical Methodology

Ethical Intuitionism

Michael Huemer defends ethical intuitionism as a metaethical theory positing the existence of objective moral truths that are apprehensible through non-inferential intellectual awareness.^[11] In his 2005 book Ethical Intuitionism, he outlines four central theses: (i) irreducibly normative properties exist objectively, independent of human attitudes or natural facts; (ii) some of these truths are known directly via ethical intuitions, akin to perceptual seemings but intellectual rather than sensory; (iii) such intuitions provide prima facie justification for moral beliefs; and (iv) moral knowledge generates reasons for action irrespective of personal desires.^[12] ^[13] Ethical intuitions, for Huemer, manifest as immediate appearances of evaluative propositions, such as "unnecessary suffering is bad" or "enjoyment is preferable to pain," without reliance on prior inferences or empirical observation.^[13] He analogizes these to perceptual experiences, where the seeming itself confers initial credibility, governed by the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism: if it seems to one that p, then one is prima facie justified in believing p, unless defeated by further evidence.^[13] This principle extends beyond ethics to justify perceptual, memorial, and rational beliefs, countering skepticism by treating intellectual seemings as evidentially on par with sensory ones, though defeasible through reflective scrutiny.^[13] Huemer rebuts rival theories systematically: against emotivism and non-cognitivism, he argues that moral statements function as truth-apt assertions, not mere expressions of attitude, as evidenced by their role in rational disagreement and prediction of behavior beyond desire; against naturalist reductions (e.g., equating goodness with pleasure), he contends they fail to capture the irreducibly normative force of moral claims, which resist empirical verification or desire-dependence.^[13] Skepticism about moral knowledge is addressed by highlighting the unreliability of general epistemological doubts, which, if applied consistently, undermine all justification, including the skeptic's own premises; instead, intuitions' self-evident prima facie status prevails absent specific defeaters.^[13] ^[14] In resolving moral disagreements, Huemer advocates reflective equilibrium, where conflicting intuitions prompt revision of less reliable ones—often those influenced by bias, culture, or incomplete information—while preserving abstract, widely shared principles like the wrongness of gratuitous harm.^[13] He illustrates with trolley problems, where initial intuitions against direct killing guide theory-building, subject to rational adjustment rather than deference to empirical consensus or authority.^[13] This approach yields revisionary outcomes, rejecting entrenched but erroneous commonsense views (e.g., certain retributivist intuitions) in favor of intuitionism's demand for consistency and unbiased reflection.^[15]

Phenomenal Conservatism

Phenomenal conservatism is an internalist theory of epistemic justification according to which appearances or "seemings" confer prima facie justification on beliefs, absent defeaters.^[16] Michael Huemer formulated the principle in his 2001 book Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, stating it as: "If it seems to S as if P, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that P."^[17] This view posits that the phenomenal character of an experience—its seeming a certain way—itself provides immediate justificatory force, without requiring further evidence or reliability tracking.^[18] Huemer extends the principle beyond perceptual seemings to include rational intuitions, memory appearances, and moral seemings, arguing that all such mental states generate defeasible justification.^[19] Huemer's defense relies on the intuitive appeal of trusting appearances unless contradicted. In his 2007 paper "Compassionate Phenomenal Conservatism," he contends that rejecting the principle leads to radical skepticism, as no alternative foundational source of justification (such as coherence or reliability) escapes self-defeat: skeptics must rely on seemings to doubt them, undermining their position.^[18] He employs a "phenomenal conservatism argument," highlighting that seemings possess an intrinsic "force" demanding assent; for instance, when one seems to see a tree, the experience justifies belief in the tree's existence independently of meta-evidence about perception's reliability.^[16] Against evidentialist rivals, Huemer argues that demanding antecedent evidence for seemings regresses infinitely or arbitrarily halts, whereas phenomenal conservatism halts naturally at the mental state's content.^[17] The theory accommodates defeaters, such as known illusions or conflicting evidence, which can override prima facie justification without impugning the seeming itself.^[18] Huemer illustrates this with optical illusions: even when one knows the lines are equal length, the seeming of inequality retains some justificatory pull until defeated by measurement. This defeasibility preserves common-sense beliefs about the external world, memory, and induction, countering skeptical hypotheses like the brain-in-a-vat scenario by prioritizing undefeated seemings over underdetermined alternatives.^[17] Critics have challenged phenomenal conservatism for potentially justifying biases or unreliable intuitions, but Huemer responds that defeaters from empirical psychology or logical inconsistency suffice to undermine such cases, without needing externalist conditions.^[16] The view thus supports direct realism in perception, rejecting sense-data theories as unnecessary intermediaries.^[19] Huemer's refinement in later works emphasizes the "compassionate" aspect, advocating tolerance for diverse seemings while subjecting them to rational scrutiny, rather than dogmatic dismissal.^[18] This internalist framework contrasts with process reliabilism, which Huemer critiques for failing to explain why unreliable processes sometimes yield knowledge, or for permitting justification without subjective access.^[17] Phenomenal conservatism thereby offers a unified account of noninferential justification across sensory, memorial, and a priori domains, influencing debates in ethical intuitionism by treating moral seemings analogously.^[19] Empirical support draws from psychological studies on intuition reliability, though Huemer cautions against overgeneralizing unreliability claims without specific defeaters.^[16]

Epistemological Contributions

Direct Realism and Skepticism

Huemer's epistemological contributions include a defense of direct realism, the thesis that perceptual experiences provide immediate, non-inferential awareness of external, mind-independent objects rather than intermediaries such as sense-data or mental representations.^[20] In this view, perception justifies beliefs about the physical world directly, without requiring prior justification for auxiliary assumptions about reliable perception or the correspondence between representations and reality.^[20] He contrasts this with indirect realism, which he argues creates an insurmountable epistemic barrier akin to a "veil of perception," rendering knowledge of the external world unattainable.^[21] Central to Huemer's position is the 2001 book Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, where he systematically critiques representative theories of perception for entailing skepticism.^[21] Indirect realists, he contends, must infer external objects from internal representations, but such inferences are vulnerable to underdetermination: multiple scenarios (e.g., veridical perception versus hallucination) could produce identical representations, leaving no evidential basis to favor one over skeptical alternatives.^[21] Direct realism circumvents this by positing that perceptual states involve direct acquaintance with objects' properties, such as shape and color, grounded in a non-accidental causal link between the object and experience.^[20] For instance, seeing a tree entails awareness of the tree itself satisfying the experience's content, not a proxy image.^[20] Huemer specifies three conditions for genuine perception: an internal perceptual experience with representational content and phenomenal forcefulness; an external object that roughly satisfies that content; and a suitable causal connection ensuring the experience is not merely coincidental.^[20] This framework yields noninferential justification via what he terms the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism (or Appearance Conservatism): if something seems to a subject to be the case in perception, the subject has prima facie justification for believing it, absent defeaters.^[20] Perceptual states thus function as foundational in a modest foundationalism, terminating epistemic regress without circularity or infinite chains of reasons, as they are not themselves beliefs requiring further support.^[21] To counter skepticism, Huemer rejects the need to preemptively rule out global error possibilities, such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, arguing that direct perceptual evidence preferentially supports ordinary beliefs over skeptical rivals under a "Preference Principle": justifications favor interpretations aligning with immediate appearances unless independently defeated.^[22] This addresses Humean doubts about external objects by denying that only mental states are directly accessible, and Agrippan trilemma concerns by treating perceptual awareness as a primitive justifier rather than a hypothesis.^[20] He handles hallucinations by allowing that qualitatively identical experiences can occur without objects (e.g., in dreams), but veridical perceptions are distinguished by their causal ties to reality, preserving defeasible yet robust external-world knowledge.^[21] Critics of direct realism, such as those invoking the argument from illusion, are met with the claim that illusions do not undermine direct contact in non-illusory cases but instead highlight the context-sensitivity of justification.^[21]

Knowledge and Justification

Huemer's primary contribution to the theory of epistemic justification is the principle of phenomenal conservatism (PC), which holds that if it seems to a subject S that p, then S is prima facie justified in believing p, unless S possesses a defeater for that belief.^[23] This principle posits that justification arises directly from seemings—propositional attitudes with phenomenal force, such as perceptual experiences, memories, or rational intuitions—without requiring further evidential support or coherence with other beliefs. Huemer defends PC as a foundationalist account, where seemings serve as basic sources of justification, applicable across sensory, introspective, and a priori domains, thereby avoiding infinite regress in justification chains. He argues that denying PC's authority leads to self-defeating skepticism, as one cannot coherently withhold belief from one's own seemings without undermining all epistemic norms. PC embodies an internalist approach to justification, emphasizing that epistemic status depends on mental states accessible through reflection, rather than external factors like reliability or environmental causation.^[25] Huemer critiques externalist theories, such as reliabilism, for failing to explain why subjects are rationally compelled to accept their seemings, even in hypothetical scenarios where reliability is absent.^[25] He rejects coherentism, exemplified in his analysis of Laurence BonJour's position, contending that coherence among beliefs cannot generate justification without independent grounding in seemings, as probabilistic support alone does not confer warrant absent prior credences justified by appearances.^[26] In this framework, defeaters—such as higher-order evidence or inconsistent seemings—can undermine but not eliminate prima facie justification, preserving a defeasible yet default rational entitlement to one's appearances.^[23] Regarding knowledge, Huemer maintains that it consists of justified true belief, with PC supplying the justificatory component sufficient to overcome skeptical challenges when combined with truth and the absence of Gettier-style defects, though he devotes less emphasis to the latter.^[27] In addressing skepticism, particularly about the external world, he advocates direct realism: perceptual seemings justify beliefs about mind-independent objects directly, without intermediary sense-data or representational veils, as argued in his 2001 book Skepticism and the Veil of Perception.^[19] This view counters arguments from illusion or dreaming by prioritizing the phenomenal force of ordinary seemings over skeptical hypotheses, which lack comparable explanatory power or specific defeaters.^[28] Huemer extends PC to defeat global skepticism, asserting that empirical knowledge, such as scientific claims, rests on chains of seemings from perception and inference, rather than requiring infallible foundations or Cartesian certainty.^[29] His 2022 textbook Understanding Knowledge synthesizes these elements, presenting PC as resolving core epistemological puzzles by aligning justification with intuitive epistemic practice.^[30]

Ethical Philosophy

Problem of Political Authority

In his 2013 book The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey, Michael Huemer argues that governments possess no special moral right to coerce citizens and that individuals hold no corresponding duty to obey laws simply because they emanate from the state.^[12] He frames the "problem" as the puzzle of why societies grant governments a unique ethical status—allowing actions like taxation, imprisonment, and warfare that would be condemned as extortion, kidnapping, or murder if performed by private individuals—without adequate justification rooted in common-sense morality.^[31] Huemer's analysis draws on ethical intuitionism, positing that intuitive moral judgments, such as the wrongness of unprovoked coercion absent self-defense or consent, apply equally to state and non-state actors, undermining claims of governmental legitimacy.^[31] To illustrate the anomaly, Huemer employs a "political parable": imagine a vigilante who captures vandals, imprisons them without trial, and demands $100 from each neighbor for a "crime prevention fund," enforcing compliance through threats of violence; such conduct would intuitively be rejected as criminal, yet analogous state practices—arrests, taxes, and penalties—are routinely accepted.^[31] He contends that political authority comprises two elements: (i) the state's putative right to rule, permitting coercion where others cannot, and (ii) citizens' duty to obey, obligating submission to directives irrespective of personal moral assessment.^[31] This presumed authority lacks empirical or logical grounding, as no feature of government officials (e.g., elections, expertise, or representation) intuitively overrides prohibitions against interpersonal violence or theft, per everyday ethical norms.^[31] Huemer systematically critiques standard philosophical defenses of authority, including consent theories (actual or hypothetical agreements fail to bind non-participants, as tacit consent via residence or voting is illusory and non-binding), fairness arguments (benefits received do not generate obligations without prior consent, akin to rejecting forced reciprocity in private contexts), and democratic justifications (majority rule does not confer moral rights over minorities, mirroring the flaws of mob coercion).^[12] Psychological factors, such as deference biases observed in experiments like Milgram's obedience studies, explain widespread acceptance of authority rather than rational endorsement, rendering belief in it a cognitive error with harmful consequences like unchecked state overreach.^[32] Rejecting authority does not entail chaos, Huemer maintains, but aligns ethics with non-aggression principles applicable universally.^[12]

Animal Ethics and Ostroveganism

Michael Huemer argues that animals deserve moral consideration due to their capacity for suffering, making the infliction of unnecessary harm on them ethically wrong. In his 2019 book Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism, he contends that factory farming, which accounts for the vast majority of meat production, involves extreme cruelty through practices like overcrowding, mutilations without anesthesia, and prolonged pain, affecting approximately 74 billion land animals annually worldwide.^[33] He emphasizes that this suffering is gratuitous, as plant-based alternatives provide adequate nutrition without requiring animal deaths, and human gustatory pleasure does not justify the harm under intuitive moral principles that prioritize avoiding severe pain for trivial benefits.^[34] Huemer extends this reasoning to critique libertarian defenses of meat consumption, asserting that even under a non-aggression principle focused on humans, individuals have ethical duties to refrain from funding such operations, given the scale of harm.^[35] Huemer's position aligns with ethical veganism but incorporates a practical exception for certain low-sentience organisms, termed "ostroveganism." This diet consists primarily of plant foods supplemented by oysters and other bivalves, which he argues lack the neural complexity for conscious pain or suffering, based on their simple nervous systems lacking centralized brains.^[33] He justifies this inclusion as minimizing ethical compromise while addressing nutritional gaps, such as vitamin B12, without contributing to the suffering inherent in vertebrate farming. In discussions, Huemer notes that while strict veganism avoids all animal products, ostroveganism better balances moral imperatives with feasibility, avoiding the incidental insect deaths in crop production that affect all diets equally.^[36] Critics, including some libertarians like Walter Block, challenge Huemer's views by questioning the commensurability of animal suffering with human rights or the feasibility of alternatives, but Huemer counters that the empirical evidence of factory farm conditions—documented in undercover investigations and industry reports—overrides speculative nutritional or evolutionary arguments for meat-eating.^[37] His framework relies on ethical intuitionism, where commonsense judgments against torture generalize to non-human sentients, urging a shift away from demand-driven cruelty without mandating legal prohibitions.^[38]

Problem of Evil

Huemer argues that the existence of gratuitous suffering, such as children afflicted with terminal diseases or natural disasters causing widespread harm, constitutes strong evidence against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent deity.^[39] He formulates the core argument as follows: an omnipotent and perfectly good being would create only the best possible world, yet the observed world contains significant imperfections and evils that could have been avoided without compromising greater goods, implying no such being exists.^[39] For instance, Huemer employs the analogy of a neighbor who knows of a serial killer murdering innocents nearby but fails to intervene despite possessing the power to do so effortlessly; divine inaction in the face of preventable horrors mirrors this moral failure.^[39] Common theodicies receive critical scrutiny in Huemer's analysis. The free will defense, which posits that moral evil arises from human choices necessary for genuine freedom, fails to account for natural evils like earthquakes or animal predation unrelated to human agency.^[39] Claims that suffering builds virtues or that evils represent mere absences of good are dismissed as insufficient, given that an omnipotent creator could achieve virtues through less costly means or define goodness in ways that preclude such absences from arising.^[39] Appeals to postmortem compensation, such as heaven balancing earthly suffering, do not negate the intrinsic wrongness of allowing unnecessary pain in the first place, akin to the neighbor excusing inaction by promising future rewards to victims.^[39] Huemer further contends that traditional divine attributes may harbor internal inconsistencies exacerbating the evidential force of evil. Omnipotence, for example, encounters paradoxes like the inability to create an unliftable stone, suggesting limits incompatible with absolute power; similarly, moral perfection might preclude action in worlds lacking a unique best option, as no such optimal world may exist.^[40] Omniscience could conflict with free will if divine foreknowledge fixes future events, undermining the libertarian freedom often invoked in theodicies.^[40] These tensions lower the prior probability of an O3 God, rendering the problem of evil a decisive Bayesian update against theism, though Huemer maintains agnosticism rather than outright atheism, allowing for non-traditional conceptions of divinity lacking full omnipotence.^[40]^[39]

Political Philosophy

Common-Sense Libertarianism

Michael Huemer's common-sense libertarianism posits that libertarian political principles emerge directly from widely shared moral intuitions, without reliance on controversial foundational theories such as self-ownership or natural rights derived from abstract axioms.^[41] Instead, it applies ethical intuitionism, where specific moral judgments—such as the wrongness of assault, theft, or coercion—provide prima facie justification for ethical conclusions, taking precedence over general theories unless overridden by stronger evidence.^[41] Huemer argues that these intuitions, which form the basis of "common-sense morality," intuitively reject the special moral privileges claimed by governments, leading to a presumption against coercive authority.^[42] Central to this approach is the analogy argument: actions deemed immoral when performed by private individuals remain immoral when executed by state agents, absent a compelling justification for exemption. For instance, taxation without consent parallels extortion by a criminal gang, as both involve forcibly taking property under threat of violence, which common-sense ethics condemns unless the victim has consented or forfeited rights through wrongdoing.^[41] Similarly, laws prohibiting voluntary exchanges, such as drug use or certain commercial transactions, resemble private prohibitions enforced by force, violating intuitions against interference with non-harmful personal choices.^[43] Huemer contends that standard defenses of authority—social contract theory, hypothetical consent, or democratic legitimacy—fail to override these intuitions, as they do not generate actual obligations or rights to coerce non-consenting parties.^[42] This framework yields libertarian conclusions by extending common-sense protections of individual rights against aggression and fraud to the political sphere, implying that no entity possesses inherent authority to rule others without consent.^[41] Huemer derives a rejection of political authority from these premises, advocating for a society ordered by voluntary cooperation rather than state monopoly on force, while addressing feasibility concerns through empirical observations of non-state dispute resolution in history and modern polycentric systems.^[42] Unlike more absolutist libertarian arguments, Huemer's method remains modest, aligning with moderate ethical views held across ideological lines, such as aversion to arbitrary coercion and respect for personal autonomy.^[43] Policy implications include opposition to drug prohibition, immigration restrictions, and gun control, as these infringe on intuitive rights without proportional justification.^[43]

Critiques of Progressive Policies and Myths

In his 2024 book Progressive Myths, Michael Huemer dissects numerous progressive assertions across domains including race, gender, economics, and science, contending that they rest on empirical distortions or outright falsehoods that perpetuate ineffective policies. Huemer maintains that these misconceptions, such as exaggerated claims of systemic discrimination, foster polarization, obstruct factual discourse, and sustain interventions that fail to address root causes while ignoring trade-offs. For instance, he argues that progressive worldviews often prioritize narrative coherence over data, leading to overreliance on anecdotal evidence amid institutional tendencies in academia and media to amplify ideologically aligned interpretations.^[44]^[45]^[46] Huemer challenges myths surrounding racial disparities in policing, asserting that fatal shootings of unarmed black men by police—numbering approximately 10 to 20 per year in the United States—do not constitute an "epidemic" driven by institutional racism. He cites statistical rarity and comparable rates across demographics in high-risk encounters, attributing most incidents to situational errors rather than prejudice, and notes that broader violent crime patterns better explain disparities without invoking systemic bias as the dominant factor. This critique extends to affirmative action policies, which Huemer, in a 2023 examination, deems unjustified by purported benefits like stereotype reduction; he argues such measures can reinforce group-based thinking and fail utilitarian tests, as selective admissions based on race overlook merit and individual agency.^[47]^[48]^[49] On economic myths, Huemer refutes the narrative of a discriminatory gender pay gap, explaining that the raw 77-82% figure shrinks to near parity—around 92-98%—when controlling for occupation, hours worked, experience, and career interruptions, with differences largely attributable to voluntary choices rather than employer bias. He extends this skepticism to policies like minimum wage mandates, which he opposes in works such as "In Praise of Passivity" (undated, circa 2000s), reasoning that they coerce market outcomes, elevate unemployment among low-skilled and marginal workers (e.g., via reduced hiring or automation), and yield net disemployment effects documented in empirical studies, without evidence of sustained wage gains for the targeted groups.^[50]^[51] Huemer further critiques progressive emphases on equality as a policy goal, in his paper "Against Equality and Priority" (2008), where he employs intuitive thought experiments to demonstrate that equal resource distribution holds no intrinsic moral value; for example, transferring goods from a well-off individual to equalize holdings with the worse-off is impermissible absent consent, as it violates rights without proportional welfare gains, prioritizing individual entitlements over aggregate leveling. Regarding welfare redistribution, he likens state-enforced transfers to non-consensual extraction—akin to "mugging for charity"—arguing in libertarian analyses that they infringe on property rights and crowd out voluntary aid, though he concedes private charity's efficacy but deems coercive systems inefficient due to administrative costs and disincentives to self-reliance.^[52]^[53] These arguments underscore Huemer's commitment to common-sense intuitions and data-driven evaluation, positing that progressive policies often exacerbate issues they aim to resolve, such as by entrenching dependency or overlooking causal mechanisms like behavioral incentives. He warns that uncritical acceptance of such myths, prevalent in left-leaning institutions despite countervailing evidence, impedes societal progress toward genuine equity through market and individual liberties.^[54]^[55]

Other Philosophical Interests

Reincarnation and Immortality

Michael Huemer has argued that human existence provides probabilistic evidence for personal immortality, primarily through the mechanism of reincarnation rather than a singular afterlife. In his 2021 paper "Existence Is Evidence of Immortality," published in Noûs, Huemer employs Bayesian reasoning and the anthropic principle to contend that, assuming the universe has an infinite past and future, the fact of one's current existence is highly improbable under models where persons live only once.^[56] He posits that if time is infinite and qualitative states recur infinitely often—as suggested by eternal recurrence or similar cosmological models—then a "restrictive" view limiting each person to a single life yields a near-zero prior probability for observing one's life at any specific moment, such as the present.^[57] This improbability is resolved, Huemer argues, by "permissive" models permitting reincarnation, where the same consciousness or qualitative identity recurs across infinite timelines, making current existence expectable with probability approaching 1.^[58] Huemer's framework distinguishes between reincarnation and traditional soul-based immortality, favoring the former as more parsimonious given infinite time. He critiques one-life hypotheses (e.g., annihilation after death) for failing to account for the self-sampling assumption in anthropic reasoning: observers should reason as if randomly selected from all possible observers, implying that finite lives in an infinite universe render one's temporal location vanishingly unlikely.^[57] Reincarnation, by contrast, aligns with empirical priors on cosmic scale and recurrence, predicting infinite prior and future incarnations for each person without invoking unobservable souls or divine intervention.^[58] Huemer acknowledges alternatives like immaterial souls surviving bodily death but notes they are compatible only if souls enable multiple embodiments; otherwise, they face similar probabilistic challenges in infinite time.^[57] In related work, Huemer extends these arguments to defend the existence of immaterial souls, suggesting in a 2022 discussion that philosophical considerations, including causal arguments against physicalism, support non-physical persistence beyond death.^[59] He has explored optimal afterlife structures in essays, evaluating reincarnation against heavenly or purgatorial models based on utility and repetition, while rejecting eternal heaven as potentially monotonous due to diminishing marginal returns on experiences.^[60] Critics, such as in responses published on PhilArchive, challenge Huemer's priors by arguing that existence alone does not confirm immortality, as anthropic selection effects may not favor reincarnation over one-shot lives in multiverse scenarios.^[61] Nonetheless, Huemer's position remains grounded in first-principles probability, emphasizing that empirical cosmology's openness to infinite time elevates reincarnation's evidential status over annihilationism.^[58]

Free Will and Determinism

Michael Huemer maintains that free will is incompatible with determinism, arguing that genuine freedom requires the existence of alternative possibilities for action, which determinism precludes by positing that every event is necessitated by prior states of the universe and the laws of nature.^[62] He endorses a libertarian conception of free will, under which agents sometimes possess the ability to do otherwise than what they in fact do, necessitating indeterminism at the level of human decision-making.^[63] In his 2000 paper "A Proof of Free Will," Huemer advances a deductive argument for a minimal free will thesis (MFT), defined as the claim that at least sometimes, someone has more than one course of action open to them.^[63] The proof proceeds from four premises: (1) rational inquiry demands refraining from believing falsehoods about free will; (2) "ought" implies "can," meaning that if one should believe something, one can believe it; (3) under determinism, whatever can be done is inevitably done, as the future is fixed by the past and laws; and (4) the author (or rational agents) believe MFT to be true based on introspection.^[63] From these, Huemer derives that if determinism holds, then MFT must be true, since rational belief in MFT would be unavoidable under determinism.^[63] This renders determinism self-refuting, as it entails its own negation (the denial of alternative possibilities), thereby establishing MFT independently of determinism and falsifying the latter.^[63] Huemer critiques compatibilist attempts to reconcile free will with determinism, such as those redefining freedom in terms of alignment with one's desires or hypothetical control under fixed laws.^[62] He invokes a refined version of Peter van Inwagen's Consequence Argument, asserting that if determinism is true, no agent has any choice about the present or future given the fixed past and inviolable laws, eliminating genuine alternative possibilities regardless of compatibilist reanalyses.^[62] For instance, even if an agent acts in accordance with their strongest motives, those motives and the ensuing action are themselves determined, rendering claims of "could have done otherwise" illusory under counterfactuals that presuppose the impossible alteration of the past.^[62] Huemer's views were publicly defended in a 2023 debate against neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, a hard determinist who denies free will based on biological and environmental causation.^[64] Huemer argued that introspective evidence of deliberative choice and moral responsibility presupposes libertarian free will, rejecting Sapolsky's reduction of agency to neural inevitability as insufficient to undermine the phenomenological reality of alternatives.^[65] This position aligns with his broader ethical intuitionism, where common-sense intuitions about responsibility support incompatibilism over deterministic eliminativism.^[63]

Publications and Public Engagement

Major Books and Debates

Huemer's major books span epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy, often employing intuitive reasoning and critiques of conventional assumptions. In Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (2001), he argues against representationalist theories of perception, defending direct realism by showing that sense data do not form an impenetrable veil separating minds from the external world. Ethical Intuitionism (2005) presents a defense of moral intuitionism, positing that self-evident ethical propositions can be known through rational intuition without requiring coherence or foundationalist alternatives like emotivism or error theory. His political work The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey (2013) uses common-sense libertarian principles to contend that governments lack moral authority to enforce laws, as no special rights justify coercive rule over voluntary association. Other notable books include Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism (2019), a Socratic exchange arguing that ostroveganism—avoiding beef and pork for environmental and ethical reasons while permitting other meats—represents a practical ethical compromise superior to full veganism or unrestricted carnivory. In Justice Before the Law (2021), Huemer examines how imperfect legal systems can still promote justice through rule-of-law principles, even absent legitimate authority, drawing on historical examples like common law development. Knowledge, Reality, and Value: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy (2021) serves as an undergraduate textbook, applying phenomenological conservatism to resolve debates in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics via intuitive evidence over skeptical hypotheses. Huemer has engaged in formal debates captured in co-authored volumes. Is Political Authority an Illusion? A Debate (2021), with Daniel Layman, pits Huemer's anarcho-libertarian view—that political authority is illusory and unjustified—against Layman's defense of legitimate state coercion grounded in associative obligations. In Can We Know Anything? A Debate (2023), co-authored with Bryan Frances, Huemer upholds foundationalist epistemology, arguing that commonsense beliefs provide prima facie justification against radical skepticism, while Frances advocates suspension of belief in everyday knowledge claims. These works exemplify Huemer's method of structured argumentation to expose flaws in statist and skeptical positions. He has also participated in public debates, including one on free will against neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky in 2023, defending compatibilist or libertarian alternatives to hard determinism.^[66]

Articles, Blog, and Recent Works

Huemer has published over eighty peer-reviewed articles in journals covering epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and metaphysics.^[2] Recent examples include “No Need for Explanation” in the Asian Journal of Philosophy (2024), which contends that certain epistemic justifications do not require explanatory accounts,^[67] and “Comments on ‘Chatbot Epistemology’” in Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (2025), responding to arguments about AI's implications for knowledge acquisition.^[68] Other contributions from this period address topics such as irrationality in Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles (Routledge, 2024)^[69] and gun rights as deontic constraints in Social Theory and Practice (2020).^[9] Huemer operates a Substack blog titled Fake Noûs, where he shares essays on philosophy, politics, and related subjects, emphasizing common-sense approaches over academic jargon.^[70] Recent posts include “Intuitive Libertarianism” (August 30, 2025), outlining his personal evolution toward libertarian views,^[43] “First World Problems: Dating” (February 16, 2025), exploring relational challenges in affluent societies,^[71] and “How to Philosophize” (May 11, 2024), advising independent reasoning before engaging scholarly literature.^[72] Earlier entries like “The State” (May 20, 2023) critique prevailing justifications for governmental authority.^[73] Recent standalone works encompass books such as Progressive Myths (independently published, 2024), which systematically challenges empirical claims underpinning progressive policies, including assertions about inequality and discrimination,^[74] and Can We Know Anything?: A Debate (with Bryan Frances, Routledge, 2023), debating skepticism versus foundationalist epistemology.^[75] These build on his prior arguments for intuitive, evidence-based reasoning in moral and political domains.^[9]

Reception and Legacy

Achievements and Influence

Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism (2005) advanced defenses of moral realism and phenomenal conservatism, earning recognition for contributions to metaethics through the inaugural E. Maynard Adams Prize in Philosophy, a $50,000 award from the University of North Carolina and Taylor Charitable Trust in 2013.^[76] His corpus, exceeding 50 peer-reviewed articles in epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy, has accumulated over 7,000 citations on Google Scholar as of recent metrics.^[77] These works emphasize first-person intuition as a reliable epistemic source, influencing debates on skepticism and justification beyond traditional foundationalism.^[78] In political philosophy, The Problem of Political Authority (2013) articulated a "common-sense libertarianism" by analogizing state coercion to private aggression, challenging social contract and democratic justifications for government monopoly on force.^[32] This approach, rooted in intuitive moral prohibitions against rights violations, has shaped anarcho-capitalist theory by prioritizing everyday ethical intuitions over utilitarian or rights-based abstractions.^[4] Commentators note its novelty in deriving radical conclusions from modest premises, bridging deontological and empirical critiques of interventionism.^[79] Huemer's influence extends to public discourse via debates and essays critiquing policy myths, such as overreliance on government for social coordination, fostering a rationalist strain in libertarian advocacy that appeals to non-ideologues.^[80] His arguments against political irrationality, detailed in works like "Why People Are Irrational About Politics," highlight cognitive biases in collective decision-making, impacting analyses of voter behavior and institutional design.^[81] While academic reception varies, with some property rights theorists questioning extensions to private authority, his framework has prompted reevaluations of state legitimacy in libertarian scholarship.^[82]

Criticisms and Controversies

Huemer's advocacy for philosophical anarchism in The Problem of Political Authority (2013) has faced scrutiny for its reliance on analogies equating state coercion to individual acts, such as forcing aid in emergencies like lifeboat scenarios. Philosopher Danny Frederick contends that these analogies fail to erode state legitimacy, as a duly authorized state does not violate rights through content-independent directives, unlike ad hoc individual impositions.^[83] Frederick further criticizes Huemer for conflating the institutional roles of state officials with personal moral agency, which obscures the rationale for special political prerogatives granted to governments rather than private actors.^[83] Critics have also targeted Huemer's consequentialist dismissals in defending anarchy, labeling his treatment as superficial and self-contradictory, particularly in overlooking robust empirical support for minimal state functions like defense.^[83] In libertarian circles, some reviewers echo concerns that Huemer's intuitionist groundwork for anti-statism underemphasizes ideological incentives in private governance, potentially leading to coordination failures in anarchic systems. Huemer's opposition to redistribution, exemplified by thought experiments like the "charity mugger" (where coerced giving mirrors taxation) and "hermit's spear" (defending property against minimal takings), has been rebutted as unpersuasive against welfare provisions. Philosopher Ben Burgis argues these scenarios misanalogize systemic social insurance to random extortion, ignoring reciprocal obligations in cooperative societies.^[84] In metaethics, Huemer's ethical intuitionism has drawn structural objections for depending on unverified abstract features of moral perception without independent reliability checks.^[85] Reviews note that while his defense against error theories and emotivism is rigorous, it inherits classic intuitionist vulnerabilities to conflicting intuitions across cultures and revision under empirical pressure.^[13] Huemer's 2024 paper defending reincarnation via probabilistic arguments against cosmic beginnings has elicited doubts about its premises, including the assumption that timeless states preclude causation, which skeptics view as question-begging amid Big Bang cosmology.^[86] Such positions, while philosophically bold, amplify perceptions of eccentricity in his broader oeuvre, though no major personal or professional controversies have arisen.

References

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Michael Huemer | Philosophy - University of Colorado Boulder
Books ; The Problem of Political Authority. Ethical Intuitionism by Michael Huemer ; Ethical Intuitionism. Skepticism and the Veil of Perception by Michael Huemer.<|separator|>
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Michael Huemer - University of Colorado Boulder
He is the author of more than eighty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy, as well as ten amazing books ...
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Michael Huemer (University of Colorado, Boulder) - PhilPeople
He is the author of 70 academic articles in ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, and metaphysics, as well as six books that you should immediately buy: ...
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Michael Huemer Resume/CV - University of Colorado, Boulder
Professor of Philosophy 2011S Areas of Specialization Epistemology, ethics, meta-ethics, social and political philosophy.
[7]
Curriculum Vitae - Michael Huemer
Ph.D. Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 1998. Academic Positions. University of Colorado, Boulder, Assistant ...
[8]
Michael Huemer Email & Phone Number | Professor - ContactOut
He subsequently pursued a doctoral degree in philosophy from Rutgers and graduated in 1998. His dissertation, titled "Skepticism and the Veil of Perception," ...
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Michael Huemer - Curriculum Vitae - University of Colorado Boulder
Ph.D. Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 1998. Academic Positions. University of Colorado, Boulder, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1998-2005.
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[PDF] Curriculum Vitae Michael Huemer - University of Colorado Boulder
... University Graduate Student ... 23 “Devil's Advocates: On the Ethics of Unjust Advocacy,” Kline Workshop in Political. Philosophy, University of Missouri, 4/1/ ...Missing: background degrees
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Ethical Intuitionism - Michael Huemer - PhilPapers
This book defends a form of ethical intuitionism, according to which (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of ...
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Books
This book defends a form of ethical intuitionism, according to which (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of ...
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Ethical Intuitionism - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Sep 10, 2006 · Michael Huemer's book is a vigorous defense of ethical intuitionism. Since different folks mean different things by this term, ...
[14]
5 Moral Knowledge
Moral claims are assertions about a class of irreducible, objective properties, which cannot be known on the basis of observation.
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[PDF] Revisionary Intuitionism
by Michael Huemer. I. A Conservative Meta-Ethics? Ethical intuitionism is often associated with a conservative approach to normative ethics, an approach that ...
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Phenomenal Conservatism - Michael Huemer - PhilPapers
Phenomenal Conservatism is a theory in epistemology that seeks, roughly, to ground justified beliefs in the way things “appear” or “seem” to the subject who ...
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Michael Huemer and the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism
More specifically, Huemer has defended what he refers to as the “Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism,” and he argues that any attempt to reject that principle ...
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Michael Huemer, Compassionate phenomenal conservatism
I defend the principle of Phenomenal Conservatism, on which appearances of all kinds generate at least some justification for belief.<|separator|>
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Philosophy Papers
Ethical intuitionists should disown a wide range of common moral intuitions that are likely influenced by bias. We should typically give preference to abstract, ...
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Direct Realism
The dissertation presents a direct realist account of our awareness of the external world, embodying two main theses.
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Skepticism and the Veil of Perception
Easy Answers to Skepticism, 27. IV. A Version of Direct Realism, 51. V. A Version of Foundationalism [excerpt], 93. VI. Objections to Direct Realism, 119. VII.
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Michael Huemer, Direct realism and the brain-in-a-vat argument
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Probability and Coherence Justification
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Understanding Knowledge discusses basic philosophical problems in epistemology, including such questions as: What is knowledge? How can we know about the ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary<|control11|><|separator|>
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$$9.99 Rating 4.4 (42) The world's best introduction to epistemology, Understanding Knowledge discusses basic philosophical problems in epistemology, including such questions What ...
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Political Authority
Why do we accord this special moral status to government, and are we justified in so doing? This is the problem of political authority. 1.2 The Concept of ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary<|separator|>
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Michael Huemer's Challenge to the Legitimacy of Government
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[PDF] Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism - Digital Commons @ Cal Poly
And four, animal farming requires killing insects,. 48 The technical term is “ostroveganism.” Page 91. Michael Huemer.
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On Factory Farming, What's the Argument? - Cato Unbound
Mar 3, 2020 · Michael Huemer argues that even if the pain experienced by nonhuman animals is only a little bit bad, the total quantity of pain that we inflict ...
[35]
Debate: Libertarians Should Be Vegetarians - Reason Magazine
Sep 26, 2018 · Libertarians should choose vegetarianism. Almost all meat comes from factory farms. No one who looks at the practices of such farms disagrees that they are ...
[36]
Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism - by Michael Huemer
Jul 30, 2022 · There are intermediate positions between veganism and factory farming, though, right? Seafood, particularly bivalves, (dairy) cattle ...
[37]
Michael Huemer, On Liberty and Cruelty: A Reply to Walter Block
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The Conscience of a Human Being - Cato Unbound
Feb 10, 2020 · Michael Huemer says that how we treat animals may be a crucial test ... 877-905 in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics (Oxford Univ.
[39]
Arguments Against God: The Problem of Evil
Oct 17, 2020 · Maybe the world's evils (that aren't due to human free will) are the work of Satan. It's his fault, not God's. “Evil” = Absence of Good.
[40]
The Probability of God - by Michael Huemer - Fake Noûs
Jun 7, 2025 · Maybe omnipotence is incompatible with moral perfection, since moral perfection makes you unable to do evil. Maybe omnipotence and moral ...
[41]
An Ethical Intuitionist Case for Libertarianism
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The Problem of Political Authority
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Intuitive Libertarianism - by Michael Huemer - Fake Noûs
Aug 30, 2025 · Here, I summarize my ideological development since college.* This was for a book someone put together of biographies of libertarian figures.
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A sober examination of popular progressive claims, exposing exaggerations and myths surrounding issues like racism, feminism, and climate change. See more.
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Progressive Worldviews Are Based Upon a Collection of Myths
Jan 18, 2025 · Michael Huemer's Progressive Myths is a powerful critique of contemporary progressive dogmas that eviscerates popular cliches with clinical precision.
[46]
Fearlessly Puncturing the Progressive Worldview by Stephen ...
Huemer argues that progressive myths cause us to stick with failed policies, block the transmission of information important to the public, polarize the public, ...
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Progressive Myths Book Review - by Bentham's Bulldog - Substack
Oct 9, 2024 · Huemer argues conclusively that many of these are false. For instance, there is no epidemic of police killing unarmed black men, seeing as only ...<|separator|>
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Book Review: Progressive Myths | Cato Institute
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Arguments for Affirmative Action - by Michael Huemer
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Book review: 'Progressive Myths' by Michael Huemer
Oct 21, 2024 · In Progressive Myths, Huemer critically and methodically examines many commonly held beliefs in progressive circles that are often accepted without scrutiny.
[51]
In Praise of Passivity
Political actors, including voters, activists, and leaders, are often ignorant of basic facts relevant to policy choices.
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[PDF] Against Equality and Priority
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Moral Parity and the Welfare State - Econlib
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[54]
Progressive Myths by Michael Huemer (Review)
Jun 25, 2025 · Progressive Myths convincingly and succinctly demonstrates that key Progressive claims about the world are based on half-truths at best and outright falsehoods ...
[55]
Seeking Truth versus Seeking Esteem - Econlib
Dec 2, 2024 · Progressives believe that racism is a significant problem in contemporary America. Huemer points out that a number of myths bolster this belief.
[56]
Existence Is Evidence of Immortality - Huemer - Wiley Online Library
Apr 23, 2019 · The universe plausibly has an infinite future and an infinite past. Given unlimited time, every qualitative state that has ever occurred will occur again, ...
[57]
[PDF] Existence Is Evidence of Immortality - PhilPapers
1 I shall suggest herein that the third alternative,. “reincarnation,” is surprisingly plausible. ... Huemer, Michael. 2016. Approaching Infinity. New York: ...
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Existence Is Evidence of Immortality - by Michael Huemer
the idea that something permanent in them continues. But ...
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Philosophical Reasons for the Soul and Reincarnation - ep. 154
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What's the Best Afterlife? - by Michael Huemer - Fake Noûs
Aug 21, 2021 · When philosophers challenge traditional religions, they spend almost all of their attention on theism. We pay comparatively little attention ...
[61]
[PDF] Existence is not Evidence for Immortality - PhilArchive
EXISTENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE FOR IMMORTALITY. Abstract. Michael Huemer argues, on statistical grounds, that \existence is evidence for immortality".
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Freedom & Determinism Are Incompatible - by Michael Huemer
May 14, 2022 · So the traditional views are that we lack free will since determinism is true, or that determinism is false since we have free will.
[63]
Proof of Free Will
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Upcoming: Debate on free will - by Michael Huemer
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Does Free Will Exist? | Sapolsky vs. Huemer Debate Review
Jan 8, 2024 · I'm joined by Dr. Taylor Cyr to review the recent debate between Dr. Robert Sapolsky and Dr. Michael Huemer on free will. Like the show?
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In Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford & Matthias Steup, Seemings: New Arguments, New Angles. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 94-108 (2023).
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Michael Huemer | Substack: Fake Noûs
Reasonable thoughts about philosophy, politics, and other interesting stuff. Click to read Fake Noûs, by Michael Huemer, a Substack publication with tens of ...
[71]
First World Problems: Dating - by Michael Huemer
Feb 16, 2025 · First world problems are probably important to you. Among the biggest of these is the difficulty most people have with romantic and sexual relationships.
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How to Philosophize - by Michael Huemer - Fake Noûs
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The State - by Michael Huemer - Fake Noûs
May 20, 2023 · Here, I summarize what people have said about the state and why most of it is dumb and wrong. This is like a summary of a summary of my views on authority.
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Philosophy professor's $50k prize is literally a first
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Jan 25, 2013 · Huemer then succinctly sums up the novelty of his approach: The foundation of my libertarianism is much more modest: common sense morality.
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Michael Huemer, Why people are irrational about politics - PhilPapers
Abstract. I look for explanations for the phenomenon of widespread, strong, and persistent disagreements about political issues.
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On the Problematic Political Authority of Property Rights
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[83]
[PDF] A Critique of Michael Huemer's The Problem of Political Authority
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[84]
Michael Huemer's Unconvincing Case Against the Redistribution of ...
Jun 1, 2025 · Huemer apparently thinks that his initial argument about mugging for charity is is all the positive case he needs to establish that taxation is ...
[85]
[PDF] Ethical Intuitionism: A Structural Critique
Feb 8, 2016 · I offer a critique of contemporary intuitionist theories that depends upon their common structure: analysis of the abstract features of the ...
[86]
Michael Huemer's paper argues reincarnation is real: Is there any ...
Aug 21, 2025 · Huemer also argues that the big bang being the beginning of time is unlikely, saying that the universe popping into existence in the year 1950 ...