Alan Harris Goldman (born 1945) is an American philosopher and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the

College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public university, public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III of England, William III and Queen ...

. He is known for his works on philosophy and

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...

love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

, and

beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes them pleasure, pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, art and taste are the main subjects of aesthetics, one of the fie ...

Philosophy

He has defended an explanationist

theory of knowledge Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledg ...

, a

coherentist theory In philosophical epistemology, there are two types of coherentism: the coherence theory of truth, and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism). Coherent truth is divided between an anthropological approach, whic ...

moral truth In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ...

, an ideal critic account of acceptable

aesthetic judgment Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , acces ...

, and a subjectivist view of well-being and value. In an earlier book he argued for preference in admissions and hiring on socio-economic, not gender or racial, grounds. In the first book on ethics across the professions, he introduced the concept of role differentiation, while attacking zealous advocacy by lawyers,

medical paternalism Medical paternalism is a set of attitudes and practices in medicine in which a physician determines the course of treatment based on the doctor's judgment of what is best for the patient, largely discounting or ignoring the wishes and preferences o ...

, and

profit maximization In economics, profit maximization is the short run or long run process by which a firm may determine the price, input and output levels that will lead to the highest possible total profit (or just profit in short). In neoclassical economics, ...

by corporations.

Books

* ''Life's Values: Pleasure, Happiness, Well-Being, Meaning'', Oxford University Press, 2018 * ''Philosophy and the Novel'', Oxford University Press, 2013 * ''Reasons from Within'', Oxford University Press, 2009 * ''Practical Rules: When We Need Them and When We Don't'', Cambridge University Press, 2002 * ''Aesthetic Value'', Westview Press, 1995 * ''Moral Knowledge'', Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988 * ''Empirical Knowledge'', University of California Press, 1988 * ''The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics'', Rowman and Littlefield, 1980 * ''Justice and Reverse Discrimination'', Princeton University Press, 1979 * ''Mark Twain and Philosophy'' (ed.), Rowman and Littlefield, 2017

References

External links

Alan H. Goldman
21st-century American philosophers Analytic philosophers American philosophy academics Living people 1945 births Philosophy journal editors Fellows of the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows of the American Council of Learned Societies American philosophers of art Philosophers of literature Philosophers of sexuality American epistemologists College of William & Mary faculty {{US-philosopher-stub