iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul Kelleher

@paulkelleher.net

11K followers 1.5K following 8.2K posts

Moral & political philosophy, climate econ, bioethics Author of *The Social Cost of Carbon* (OUP 2025) | Posting in personal capacity Likes: Boston Celtics ☘️, Maine (from whence I come), bouldering, ebikes, funding public ed. paulkelleher.net

Posts Replies Media

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 01/10/2026

same famous moral philosopher ten years apart

reaches the five. This would be insufficient to save the five (since the trolley would loop around and strike them from the opposite direction) were it not for the presence of another person on the loop. If the trolley is diverted onto the loop, it will be stopped by hitting and killing this one person. Reeder agrees that it is permissible to divert the trolley in this way, killing the one in order to save the five. But how can it be, since this would be an instance of "fatal using"? Reeder responds that "no matter what is done, someone's body (bodies) is (are) used as the means of saving others. I would assume that this is a case of a conflict of rights and that in such a case agents would agree to sacrifice as few rights as possible" (126-27).
It is false, however, that someone is fatally used whatever one does. If one decides not to intervene, one's reason need not be to use the five as a means of saving the one. Suppose, for example, that one believes that, other things being equal, killing is normally worse than letting die and that it is normally worse to harm someone as an intended effect than as a foreseen side-effect of one's action.
In that case one may refrain from diverting the trolley because to divert it would be to kill the one as a means of saving the five. One would thereby let the five die not as a means of saving the one but as an unintended side-effect of obeying what one took to be the dictate of morality.
My intuition is the same as Reeder's: it would be permissible to divert the trolley in this case. The challenge is to defend this intuition within the framework of common sense morality, without collapsing into consequentialism. While I do not believe that Reeder has successfully answered the challenge, I do not know of anyone else who has either.

except to run it into the one as a means of saving the five.? But Thomson believes that it is permissible to divert the trolley in this case, just as it is in the original case: "we cannot really suppose that the presence or absence of that extra bit of track makes a major moral difference."23 If this is right, the Loop case not only undermines the claim that it is the difference in intention that explains the moral difference between the original version and the means-variant
but also constitutes a positive counterexample to the relevance of intention to permissibility, since that view implies that diverting the trolley is impermissible.
Scanlon shares Thomson's intuition and cites this argument, along with others of Thomson's, in his rehearsal of the case against the relevance of intention to permissibility.24
This intuition about the loop case has always been alien to me. Diverting the trolley in this case seems to me virtually indistinguishable morally from using the man to stop the trolley in the means-variant. Perhaps those who find it

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 01/10/2026

Her she is again, this time with capitalization :)

Trolley Problem
something by the doing of which he would make it be the case that he has not killed five.
I have no objection to this shift in attention from (II) to (II'). But we should not overlook an interesting question that lurks here. As it might be put: Why should the present tense matter so much? Why should a person prefer killing one to killing five if the alternatives are wholly in front of him, but not (or anyway, not in every case) where one of them is partly behind him? I shall come back to this question briefly later.
Meanwhile, however, even if (II') can be appealed to in order to explain why the trolley driver may turn his trolley, that would leave it entirely open why the bystander at the switch may turn his trolley. For he does not drive a trolley into each of five if he refrains from turning the trolley; he merely lets the trolley drive into each of them.
So I suggest we set Trolley Driver aside for the time being. What I shall be concerned with is a first cousin of Mrs. Foot's problem, viz.: Why is it that the bystander may turn his trolley, though the surgeon may not remove the young man's lungs, kidneys, and heart? Since I find it particularly puzzling that the bystander may turn his trolley, I am inclined to call this The Trolley Problem. Those who find it particularly puzzling that the surgeon may not operate are cordially invited to call it The Transplant Problem instead.

100

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 01/10/2026

huward thay chioose to tuit that toney.
Killing and letting die apart, in fact, it's a lovely, nasty difficulty: why is it that Edward may turn that trolley to save his five, but David may not cut up his healthy specimen to save his five? I like to call this the trolley problem,
in honor of Mrs. Foot's example.

000

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 27/09/2026

Gorgeous night for my first ever Forward Madison FC game.

Soccer game with a big harvest moon looming in the distance

Larger zoom of the harvest moon

Even larger

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 18/09/2026

Screenshot of a Bluesky post by Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com, verified), posted 6:48 PM Sep 17, 2026. Text reads: "Trump: 'I could've banned fishing. The power of this office is crazy. I could've banned fishing. I think I'm gonna do that.'" Below the text is a photo of Donald Trump speaking at a podium bearing the Presidential Seal, in front of the White House Rose Garden colonnade doors.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 15/09/2026

Smith:

Yes. Something. I have forgotten the names. I also had one from Yale to do mathematics, but had long since decided to get out of math. I got through Chicago in four years, going from a master’s to a Ph.D., which was kind of fast. I also had the shortest dissertation on record in the physics department.

Morton:

How short was it?

Smith:

Three pages.

Morton:

That’s short.

Smith:

Yes. This was because I published it under my own name in the Physical Review. They accepted that rather than the big fat dissertations one usually needed. It was a very short article, but was pretty good.

Morton:

That’s nice.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 12/09/2026

Soft opening this morning on our block. A very welcome addition to the neighborhood. www.grandadsfarmstop.com

Kiddo in baseball cap perusing produce section of the new Grandad’s Farm Stop

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 08/09/2026

A hand-drawn two-axis chart titled ‘KNOW YOUR BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY.’ The vertical axis runs from ‘STUFF THAT DOESN’T MATTER’ (bottom) to ‘STUFF THAT MATTERS’ (top). The horizontal axis runs from ‘CAREFUL REASONING’ (left) to ‘CONFUSING BULLSHIT’ (right). A dot labeled ‘CONTINENTAL’ sits in the upper-right quadrant (matters, but confusing bullshit). A dot labeled ‘ANALYTIC’ sits in the lower-left quadrant (careful reasoning, but doesn’t matter).

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 08/09/2026

The Difference Principle: Your poast will make no difference; touch grass instead.

Perhaps he is peculiarly neurotic and in early life acquired an
aversion to human fellowship, and so he counts blades of grass to avoid
having to deal with other people. But if we allow that his nature is to
enjoy this activity and not to enjoy any other, and that there is no feasible
way to alter his condition, then surely a rational plan for him will center
around this activity.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 05/09/2026

New Yorker–style black-and-white line cartoon by Sipress showing a fenced tennis court. A man in sunglasses and a polo shirt stands mid-court holding a racket, waiting to serve. In the foreground, a woman with a racket has her back to the viewer and is turned toward him mid-complaint, a ball at her feet. Caption below reads: “Can you please just say ‘fault,’ Gerald, and quit adding, ‘is not in our stars…’”

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 02/09/2026

Bought this on vacation and promptly went on a whale watch that rendered it 10,000% false.

Framed map of Maine with the following quote overlaid upon it:

“I would rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else” —E.B. White

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 30/08/2026

@beatricecointe.bsky.social @allouryesterdays.bsky.social Any chance either of you has access to this paper? These proceedings were widely cited in the literature, but I don't think they were formally published.

see W. D. Nordhaus, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Economic/Energy/Environmental Modelling in Climate Policy Analysis, Washington, DC, October 1990, D. O. Wood and Y. Kaya, Eds. (University of Tokyo and MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1991).

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 26/08/2026

Universities need to provide BYOKs to every student or else require them. The time is now.

A BYOK on a stand and a Bluetooth keyboard

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 26/08/2026

Last night. Hard to say goodbye.

Frenchman Bay from the sand bar to Bar Island

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 21/08/2026

Ok now I’m really home. #parentshouse

A lot of alcohol

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 19/08/2026

Sunset on Frenchman Bay

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 16/08/2026

I’m home ❤️

Me at Portland Lobster Co, drinking a Lunch IPA from Maine Beer Company

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 07/08/2026

P.G. Wodehouse, "Archibald and the Masses"

‘I’m sorry, old girl,’ replied Archibald apologetically. ‘The fact is, I’m brooding a bit at the moment on the situation in Bottleton East.’

Aurelia stared at him.

Archibald,’ she said, for she was a girl of swift intuitions, ‘you’ve had one over the eight.’

‘No, I haven’t, honestly It’s simply that I’m brooding. And 1 was wondering if you would mind if I toddled home fairly shortly. All this sort of thing jars on me a goodish bit. All this dancing and so forth, I mean. I mean to say, so different from the home-life of Bottleton East. I don’t think a chap ought to be dancing at a time when the fundamental distribution of whatever-it-is is so dashed what-d’you-call-it. You don’t find Stalin dancing. Nor Maxton. Nor, for the matter of that, Sidney, Lord Passfield.’

Aurelia refused to be mollified,

I don’t know what’s come over you,’ she said petulantly. ‘You seem absolutely to have changed this last couple of weeks. You used to be one of the cheeriest old bounders that ever donned a spat, and now you’re a sort of emperor of the Glooms. You don’t even do your hen-imitation any more.’

‘Well, the thing is, you can’t imitate a hen laying an egg properly if your heart’s bleeding for the martyred proletariat.’

‘The what?’

‘The martyred proletariat.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well … er … it ’s – how shall I put it? … it’s the martyred proletariat.’

‘You wouldn’t know a martyred proletariat if they brought it to you on a skewer with Béarnaise sauce.’

‘Oh, yes, I should. Meadowes has been giving me all the inside stuff. What it all boils down to, if you follow me, is that certain blokes – me, for example – have got much too much of the ready, while certain other blokes – the martyred proletariat, for instance – haven’t got enough. This makes it fairly foul for the m.p., if you see what I mean.’

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 04/08/2026

This is an entire article: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Screenshot of a mostly blank white webpage with the heading “Higher Taxa: Reply to Cartmill” beneath a black navigation bar labeled “ISSUES” at the top right. The author is listed as Ian Tattersall. The body contains a two-word paragraph: “Enough already.” Below is a bordered author bio stating that Ian Tattersall is curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History and has worked on lemur systematics, ecology, paleoanthropology, hominid diversity, and cognitive evolution. At the bottom, the page lists the keywords: “enough; already.”

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 27/07/2026

forgot alt-text. included here

I have always loved the name of the DICE model. It is easy to remember and visualize. DICE also conveys a shiver of risk and danger. It alludes to the Faustian bargain that we make as we continue down the path of unchecked climate change, on the Walpurgis Night of reveling in a world enflamed by fossil-fuel passions and ignoring how the devil of damages will drag us into a hellish future. I wrote a book entitled The Climate Casino (Nordhaus 2013) to develop the metaphor further. One lesson that I drew from DICE is the importance of elementary things like names and labels. That of course is foundational in market research and branding. It is also important for scholars.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 27/07/2026

That eventually did make its way into this: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 21/07/2026

Me, when a med student wants to fashion an ECMO machine out of a BP cuff during a triage exercise

Dr. Robby from The Pitt, saying "Great. MacGyver move."

Dr. Robby from The Pitt, saying "Go for it."

Dr. Whitaker from The Pitt saying "Does a Dr. MacGyver work here?"

Dr. King from The Pitt saying "I don't know"

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 21/07/2026

incredible

Red Sox July schedule showing 14 straight wins

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 18/07/2026

just gonna drop this here www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 15/07/2026

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 11/07/2026

Philosophers change your prose style after doing it this way for 2400 years challenge

disgrace. It would have been a dreadful way [e] to behave, men of Athens, if, at Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium, I had, at the risk of death, like anyone else, remained at my post where those you had elected to command had ordered me, and then, when the god ordered me, as I thought and be-lieved, to live the life of a philoso-pher, to examine myself and others, I had abandoned my post for fear of death or [29] anything else. That would have been a

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 10/07/2026

This was in every car we had growing up in the 80s and 90s.

Cover of The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, by DeLorme

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 09/07/2026

“as if by an invisible sand in the gears”

Is all the beekeeping, baking and leatherwork just escapist fantasy or the start of a radically human approach to work?

000

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 07/07/2026

Got my book’s referee reports five years ago today. This part was tough but fair.

(Snippet of) REPORT 3
I've read this book.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 07/07/2026

A USMNT watch party along a lake with a family of cranes in the foreground

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 03/07/2026

This you?

Bill Simmons & @BillSimmons
Follow
I've never had a colonoscopy but it can't be worse than watching every 2009 Papelbon save chance. It just can't.
9:31 PM • Jul 28, 2009

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 02/07/2026

um

The next encounter involved an arcane subject: accounting. I remember the exact moment I be- came interested in environmental accounting. I was flying out of Albuquerque, reading a glossy magazine on a defunct airline,TWA. I saw an article criticizing gross national product (GNP) and encountered the following: “In the words of a young radical, don’t tell me about your GNP. To me, it’s really Gross National Pollution.”

I thought, wow, that’s really cute. But is it true?

Actually, it is completely false. Our output measures do not count pollution.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 27/06/2026

England’s Bellingham grimacing and grabbing his shin

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 21/06/2026

Best Father’s Day gift ever.

Green t shirt with a blown up vintage Larry Bird basketball card on the front

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 21/06/2026

9:04pm

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 20/06/2026

The last time I was at this pool was for the 2019 K9 paddle with this dear departed duo 😭

Two wet Labrador Retrievers, one black (Maddie) and one yellow (George), sit side by side at a community pool, drying off in the sun.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 18/06/2026

It’s a trapezoid!

Admiral Ackbar

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 18/06/2026

If soccer players had a political party it’d be called Shin Feign.

Soccer player grabbing his shin in agony while laying on the pitch

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 17/06/2026

post the best picture you have ever taken of your pet (This one hits me differently now that they’re both gone)

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 11/06/2026

Perfect day for a Milwaukee boat tour 😬

Milwaukee from Lake Michigan with a large storm looming

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 11/06/2026

LeBron James, Jan 2020. But I also saw this at the same game 💚 💚💚

Jaylen Brown posterizing LeBron James.

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 09/06/2026

doing just great

Mary McGonigle-Martin's son Chris in the ICU on a ventilator

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 06/06/2026

pooh-pooh
VERB (USED WITH OBJECT)
to express disdain or contempt fort dismiss
lightly.

000

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 05/06/2026

how?

No results found for ""Pooh-pooh
Platner""'

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 02/06/2026

A New Yorker-style cartoon set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The skyline in the background shows a destroyed, smoldering city under a dark, smoky sky. In the foreground, a man in a tattered business suit sits cross-legged across a small campfire from what appears to be a family, including a child. He addresses them with apparent self-satisfaction.
Caption: "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 02/06/2026

Anyone know what kind of animal this is? Assuming it’s an owl, but we’ve never heard a call like this just outside our house.

100

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 27/05/2026

In a weird twist of fate, a paper I'm working on led me to this article

Omaha Speakeasy Forced to Change Its Name to “Censored Shop” After Nebraska Barber Board Claims Ownership of the Word “Barber”

000

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 23/05/2026

The kids are now practicing it in the park

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 22/05/2026

This lady didn't understand that it was better off broken

The Save the Clock Tower lady from Back to the Future

Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 22/05/2026

Sandhill crane family with two chicks