Howard Nye, PhD, BA

Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts - Philosophy Dept

Contact

Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts - Philosophy Dept
Email
hnye@ualberta.ca
Phone
(780) 492-3307
Address
2-59 Assiniboia Hall
9137 116 St NW
Edmonton AB
T6G 2E7

Availability
By Appointment

Overview

About

Howard Nye is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alberta. He works primarily in the areas of practical ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics, and has related interests in political philosophy, the philosophy of mind, and decision theory.

One line of Howard’s current research concerns the ethics of collective action, including why individuals should contribute to projects that may do a great deal of good if enough others also contribute, and what contributions to potentially beneficial projects are most important to make. Much of his current research in this line investigates the desirability and feasibility of a just transition to a predominantly plant-based food system in Canada.

Another line of Howard's research investigates challenges to the common assumption that life is less of a morally important benefit to sentient beings who lack the intellectual abilities of typical human adults.

A third line of Howard's research investigates what it takes for an entity to have representations and goals in a sense that admits of genuine, underivative error and unfulfillment, with applications to the sentience and mental lives of various non-human animals, intellectually less able humans, and possible future artificial intelligence systems.

Courses

PHIL 305 - Philosophy of Psychology

Central topics at the interface of philosophy and psychology. Prerequisite: PHIL 205, or two courses in Psychology, or consent of Department.


PHIL 345 - Humans and Animals

Philosophical approaches to the question of comparative human and animal cognition, emotion, awareness, and language. The course will also address the problem of animal rights vis-à-vis individual and institutional human interests.


PHIL 350 - Foundations of Ethics

A philosophical investigation of theoretical questions about ethics, such as whether ethical values are objective or subjective, why we should be moral, whether virtues really exist, what role reason plays in ethical deliberation, and what constitutes the basis of our ethical obligations.


PHIL 470 - Topics in Social and Political Philosophy

Prerequisite: At least *6 in PHIL, *3 of which must be at the 200-level, or consent of Department.


PHIL 570 - Social and Political Philosophy


Browse more courses taught by Howard Nye

Publications

Why Should We Try to be Sustainable? Expected Consequences and the Ethics of Making an Indeterminate Difference

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 5/25/2021
Publication: Right Research: Modelling Sustainable Research Practices in the Anthropocene, Geoffrey Rockwell, Chelsea Miya and Oliver Rossier (eds.), Cambridge: Open Book Publishers
Page Numbers: 3-37
External Link: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/48542

Artificial Moral Patients: Mentality, Intentionality, and Systematicity

Author(s): Howard Nye and Tugba Yoldas
Publication Date: 3/30/2021
Publication: International Review of Information Ethics
Volume: 29
Page Numbers: 1-10
External Link: https://informationethics.ca/index.php/irie/article/view/418

Technological Displacement and the Duty to Increase Living Standards: from Left to Right

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 7/1/2020
Publication: International Review of Information Ethics
Volume: 28
Page Numbers: 1-16
External Link: http://informationethics.ca/index.php/irie/article/view/389/373

The Wrong Kind of Reasons

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 2017
Publication: The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, Tristram McPherson and David Plunkett (eds), New York: Routledge
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/08081c003fb14ee092a5da453b19c4e4/nye-the-wrong-kind-of-reasons-2017.pdf

Directly Plausible Principles

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 2015
Publication: The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods, Christopher Daly (ed.), London: Palgrave MacMillan
Page Numbers: 610-636
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/a122fee512eb46718cc896280ef2d8a2/nye-directly-plausible-principles-2015-ebv.pdf

Non-Consequentialism Demystified

Author(s): Howard Nye, David Plunkett, and John Ku
Publication Date: 2015
Publication: Philosophers’ Imprint
Volume: 15
Issue: 4
Page Numbers: 1-28
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/3812eed256df49038248e6fcc178783a/nyeplunkettkunonconsequentialismdemystified2015.pdf

On the Equivalence of Trolleys and Transplants: The Lack of Intrinsic Difference Between Direct Attack and ‘Collateral Damage’

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 12/1/2014
Publication: Utilitas
Volume: 26
Issue: 4
Page Numbers: 432-479
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/faa5e0b272c14e629b1e5fc031ecc671/nyeontheequivalenceoftrolleystransplants2014.pdf

Well-Being, Self-Regarding Reasons, and Morality

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 12/1/2014
Publication: Thought
Volume: 3
Issue: 4
Page Numbers: 332-341
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/5ab37051e60e490d97ec70cc8a37fdc7/nyewellbeingselfregardingreasonsmorality2014.pdf

Chaos and Constraints

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 2014
Publication: Dimensions of Moral Agency, David Boersema (ed), Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page Numbers: 14-29
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/c6a7ab31234048c19166afa132eaabd3/nyechaosconstraints2014.pdf

Objective Double Effect and the Avoidance of Narcissism

Author(s): Howard Nye
Publication Date: 2013
Publication: Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Mark Timmons (ed), Oxford: Oxford University Press
Volume: 3
Page Numbers: 260-286
External Link: https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/media-library/people/hnye/dfe49392c07741fdb1db18ec5fbf9795/nyeobjectiveddetheavoidanceofnarcissism2013.pdf

Dollar and Kraay on “Trade, Growth, and Poverty”: A Critique

Author(s): Howard Nye and Sanjay Reddy
Publication Date: 7/1/2008
Publication: Globalization and the Problem of Poverty, Paul Collier and Jan Willem Gunning (eds), Edward Elgar
Volume: I
Page Numbers: 343-353
DOI: 10.4337/9781785366895
External Link: https://www.networkideas.org/feathm/jun2002/Trade_Growth_Poverty.pdf

Endowments, Preferences, Technologies and Abatement: Growth-Environment Microfoundations

Author(s): Alexander Pfaff, Shubham Chaudhuri, and Howard Nye
Publication Date: 12/1/2004
Publication: International Journal of Global Environmental Issues
Volume: 4
Issue: 4
Page Numbers: 209-228
DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2004.006051
External Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5172197_Endowments_preferences_technologies_and_abatement_Growth-environment_microfoundations

Household Production and Environmental Kuznets Curves: Examining the Desirability and Feasibility of Substitution

Author(s): Alexander Pfaff, Shubham Chaudhuri, and Howard Nye
Publication Date: 7/1/2004
Publication: Environmental and Resource Economics
Volume: 27
Page Numbers: 187–200
DOI: 10.1023/B:EARE.0000017279.79445.72
External Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5146665_Household_Production_and_Environmental_Kuznets_Curves_-_Examining_the_Desirability_and_Feasibility_of_Substitution