Rivka Weinberg
Professor of Philosophy; Mary W. and J. Stanley Johnson Chair in the Humanities; Chair, Department of Philosophy
Phone: 71819
Academic History
- B.A. Brooklyn College, CUNY
- Ph.D. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Academic Focus
- Ethics, procreative ethics, bioethics.
- Ethical and metaphysical questions regarding birth, death, and meaning.
Courses Taught
- Ethical Theory
- Ethical Theory Seminar: The Moral Deal
- Ethics of the Beginning and End of Life
- Political Philosophy
- Introduction to Philosophy
- Death
- The Meaning of Life
- Senior Seminar
Selected Research and Publications
Books
- The Meaning of It All, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
- The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When, and Why Procreation May Be Permissible Oxford University Press, 2016.
- "Death is Overrated," The Philosopher, February 2023.
- "The Road to Auschwitz Wasn't Paved with Indifference," The New York Times, 2020.
- Why Life is Absurd, New York Times, 2015
- "Replies to Critics" (Replies to Response papers to Weinberg, "Ultimate Meaning: We Don't Have it, We Can't Get it, and We Should Be Very, Very, Sad," Journal of Controversial Ideas, 2021 1: 4-24), Journal of Controversial Ideas, 2022 2.
- "Between Sisyphus's Rock and a Warm and Fuzzy Place: Procreative Ethics and the Meaning of Life," The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, ed. Iddo Landau, 2022.
- " "Ultimate Meaning: We Don't Have It, We Can't Get It, and We Should Be Very, Very Sad," Journal of Controversial Ideas, 2021: 1 4-25.
- "Risk, Responsibility, and Procreative Asymmetries," The Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics, ed. Stephen Gardiner, 2021.
- "The Endless Umbilical Cord: Parental Obligation to Grown Children," Journal of Practical Ethics, 2018 6: 55-72.
- "'You Got Me Into This': Procreative Responsibility and its Implications for Suicide and Euthanasia," in New Directions in the Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia, Springer, 2015.
- "Whose Problem is Non-Identity?" co-authored with Paul Hurley, The Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2015 12: 699-730.
- "Existence: Who Needs It? The Non-Identity Problem and Merely Possible People," Bioethics, 27(9), November 2013: 471-484.
- "Is Having Children Always Wrong?" The South African Journal of Philosophy, Special Issue on Antinatalism, 31, May 2012: 26-37.
- "It Ain't My World," Utilitas, 21(2), June 2009: 144-162.
- "The Moral Complexity of Sperm Donation," Bioethics 22(3), March 2008: 166-178.
- "Identifying and Dissolving the Non-Identity Problem," Philosophical Studies 137(1), January 2008: 3-18.
- "Procreative Justice: A Contractualist Account," Public Affairs Quarterly, 16:4 (2002), 405-425.