Heather J. Gert

**Education--Ph.D. in Philosophy from Brown University in May 1991--A.M. in Philosophy from Brown University in May 1987--A.B. with a concentration in Philosophy from Kenyon College (Cum Laude with Honors and Distinction) in May 1984 **Research Interests--Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Applied Ethics

There are 13 included publications by Heather J. Gert :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Alternative Analyses 1995 1546 For quite some time now there has been a debate between those who insist that conceptual analysis is a matter of determining the conditions necessary and sufficient for falling under a concept, or belonging to a kind, and those who believe that if th...
Anger and Chess 1998 1440 In this essay I take what I think of as a Wittgensteinian look at emotions. I do not mean by this that I am going to explain Wittgenstein's view of emotions. His primary claims are negative; emotions are neither states nor processes. Nevertheless, ke...
Avoiding Surprises: A Model for Informing Patients 2002 3510 The standard models for what doctors must tell their patients are based on the idea of informed consent: physicians must provide the information that patients need to make treatment decisions. In fact, though, they usually provide considerably more i...
The Death Penalty and Victims’ Rights: Legal Advance Directives 1999 2223 Insofar as we support the victims’ rights movement, we have reason to support the use of legal advance directives allowing individuals opposed to the death penalty an effective means of expressing their wish that their murderers not be executed. This...
Dialogue: The Characteristics of Information and Avoiding Surprises 2003 1100 The principle of avoiding surprises, on the other hand, provides some recourse. This is because most of the time there is general agreement about which possible outcomes would be surprising. Moreover, if the patient is surprised, that is some - albei...
Family Resemblances and Criteria 1995 3962 In §66 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein looks for something common to various games and finds only an interconnecting network of resemblances. These are "family resemblances". Sympathetic as well as unsympathetic readers have interpreted ...
Hampton on the Expressive Power of Punishment 2004 9744 Hampton‘s expressive theory of retributive punishment is intended to provide a telos for retribution, a justifying aim that will both shed light on the retributive impulse and dispel the moral uneasiness critics feel about the intentional infliction ...
How are Emergencies Different 2005 1582 Three criteria are necessary for an event to be an emergency: (a) there must be an expectation of serious harm; (b) there must be an expectation that someone can do something to prevent or reduce that harm; and (c) there must be time pressure. Becaus...
Rights and Rights Violators: A New Approach to the Nature of Rights 1990 1877 Some philosophers have sought to clarify the notion of a right by considering the question: In virtue of what characteristics does a being have a right? This article asserts that if this is an important question, then it is equally important to ask: ...
The Standard Meter by Any Name is Still a Meter Long 2002 4386 In §50 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein wrote the sentence, "There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris." Although some interpreter...
Two Ways to Teach Pre-Medical Students the Ethical Value of Information Gathering 2001 1136 There are many things that medical and premedical students can and should get out of a course on medical ethics. Many topics relevant to the practice of medicine require genuine philosophical contemplation. For instance: What is voluntary informed co...
Viability 1995 1603 In seeking a compromise on abortion, many have suggested that the woman's rights supersede the fetus's until the fetus becomes viable, at which point the fetus's right to life becomes paramount. Others have objected that this is arbitrary. Neverthele...
Wittgenstein on Description 1997 3230 It is a commonplace in discussions of Wittgenstein's later writings to note that he insisted that philosophy involved descriptions, not explanations. Despite this little has been written about the descriptions he had in mind. A close reading of the t...