m. blake wilson

RESEARCH

As a philosopher, my primary interests revolve around individual rights, and, specifically, the right against punishment. As a lawyer, I have extensive professional experience within the institutions of the criminal law (such as the court system and prisons), the methodologies of punishment, and constitutional criminal procedure. As a philosopher/lawyer, these interests intertwine around questions about political authority, law’s normative force, and the possibility of a social order without law. My work focuses on the role of rights in response to assertions of state authority, and whether law and the political process provides adequate opportunities for just allocations of those rights between the often-conflicting interests of individuals and communities. 

I am currently working on answers to the problems of mass incarceration, the collateral consequences of criminal convictions, and differential punishment. I also have abiding interests and scholarship efforts in 19th-20th century German philosophy in general, and Nietzsche studies in particular. 

I have presented my work at academic conferences in the United States (California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, New York, Tennessee, Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC), Canada (Toronto and Montreal), Italy (Florence), the Netherlands (Amsterdam), and the United Kingdom (Bangor, Wales (twice!) and Durham UK).

I created the book series Criminal Justice and Philosophy for Trivent Publishing’s Conflict and Violence imprint and currently serve as series editor. Drop me a line if you’ve got a proposal that might be appropriate for the series.

I also enjoy writing about contemporary culture, music, and art. Lately I’ve been investigating how police and the larger criminal justice system are depicted in (primarily science fiction) films with a focus the use of the police as protagonists. I’ve also been writing about the religious philosophy of science fiction author Philip K. Dick.

Some of my work is available on my Academia.edu page.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS

• Crime, Violence, Justice: Philosophical Perspectives (editor), Trivent Publishing (forthcoming 2024).

• “The Conquest of Death and the Divine Afterlife: Philip K. Dick’s Life and Fiction of the 1960s,” in The Esoteric Theology of Philip K. Dick, eds. George Sieg and Michael Barros (Lexington, 2024 [forthcoming]).

• “Perturbations in the Reality Fields: Logos, Gnosis, and Aletheia in Philip K. Dick’s Late Works,” presentation as invited speaker, The Philip K. Dick Festival, Fort Morgan Colorado, June 2024.

• “Law, Lawlessness, and Political Philosophy in Paul Verhoeven’s Science Fiction Trilogy,” Paul Verhoeven@85 Conference, The Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies, Bangor University, Wales, UK (September, 2023)

• “Creating a Faculty Road Map for Successful Pre-Law Programs (Or, Advising the CSU Way),” Pacific Coast Association of Pre-Law Advisors Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA 2023.

• “The Home as Haven: Personhood, Privacy, and Property Rights,” Sanctuary: Criminal Legal Conference, Durham University, UK (September, 2023)

• “Perturbations in the Reality Fields: Logos, Gnosis, and Aletheia in Philip K. Dick’s Late Works,” in Jesuits in Science Fiction: The Clash of Reason and Revelation on Other Worlds, ed. Richard Feist (Vernon Press, 2024).

• “Phil Dick’s Political Syncretism: The Intrusion of the Era into His Fiction,” Philip K. Dick: His Sources and Inspirations (seminar panelist), Northeast Modern Language Association Virtual Conference (virtual presentation, March 2021).

• “Rogue Cops: Policing the Future in the Blade Runner Films,” Blade Runner @40 Conference, The Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studies, Bangor University, Wales, UK (June, 2022) (video link here: my presentation begins at about 00:21:00 with panel discussion at about 01:26:00).

• “Criticizing the Criminal Law: Rejoining A Severed Corpse/Corpus” (panel convener), “Pure Compensation, Mass Incarceration, and the Abolition of Criminal Justice” (paper presentation), Critical Legal Conference, University of Dundee, UK (virtual presentation, September 2021).

• “Decarceration in California: How a Plurality of Political Agents Are Changing Criminal Justice in the Golden State,” Rule and Resistance: Law and Society Association Annual Meeting (virtual presentation, May 2020).

• “Examining the effects of psychiatric symptoms, brain injury symptoms, and low self-control on the placement of inmates in administrative segregation and their risk for suicidal ideations,” Chintakrindi, S., Cappelan, J., Porter, J. R., Gupta. S. & Wilson, M.B., Criminology & Social Integration Vol 29 (2021) 1, 3 – 23.

• “Introduction” and “Reflections from the Abyss: Herzog’s Philosophy of Death,” in The Philosophy of Werner Herzog, eds. Christopher Turner and M. Blake Wilson (Lexington Books [Rowman & Littlefield], 2020)

• A Philosophy of Criminal Justice (under contract for Trivent Publishing).

• “Slicing Up Eyeballs: The Criminal Underworlds of Nicolas Winding Refn,” Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol. IV (Issue 2/20120, September)

• “Personhood and Property in Hegel’s Conception of Freedom,” Pólemos Issue 11, No. 1: 2018.

• “The Business Ethics of Recreational Marijuana,” in Business Cases in Ethical Focus, eds. Fritz Allhoff and Alexander Sanger (Broadview Press, 2019).

• “The Philosophy of Werner Herzog,” Society for the Philosophical Study of the Contemporary Visual Arts Group Session Panel Discussion of The Philosophy of  Werner Herzog, eds. Christopher Turner and M. Blake Wilson (Lexington Books [Rowman & Littlefield], 2020), American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting (April, 2021).

• “Creating a Faculty Road Map for Successful Pre-Law Programs (Or, Advising the CSU Way),” Pacific Coast Association of Pre-Law Advisors Annual Meeting, Portland, OR, 2019.

• “Decarceration in California: How a Plurality of Political Agents Are Changing Criminal Justice in the Golden State,” Western Association of Criminal Justice Annual Meeting, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 2019.

• “Counterrevolutionary Polemics: Katechon and Crisis in de Maistre, Donoso, and Schmitt,” Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence, Vol. III (Issue 2/2019, December)

• “Flow My Tears, Rick Deckard Said,” in Blade Runner 2049 and Philosophy (La Salle: Open Court Publishing, 2019)

• “Decarceration and the Right Against Punishment,” Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reform Conference, San Quentin Prison University Project, October 5, 2018.

• “Due Process Rights,” Students: Know Your Rights! Conference, The Diversity Center, California State University, Stanislaus, 2018.

• “The International Criminal Court: the Legal Mandate for Prosecuting Human Rights Violations,” Human Rights Conference, California State University, Stanislaus, 2018.

• “When Police Kill: Public Perception and Police Liability,” Western Association of Criminal Justice Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV, 2018.

• “From Black Market to Supermarket: Glimmers of Justice in California's New Cannabis Codes,” Social Justice in the Central Valley Conference, California State University, Stanislaus, 2017.

• “From Crime to Commerce: Negotiating the Morass of California’s ‘New’ Marijuana Industry,” Western Association of Criminal Justice Annual Meeting, Spokane, WA, 2017.

• “In the Neutral Zone, A Libertarian’s Home is Their (High) Castle,” in The Man in the High Castle and Philosophy (La Salle: Open Court Publishing, 2017)

• “Behind Zarathustra’s Eyes: The Bad, Sad Man Meets Nietzsche’s Prophet,” in The Who and Philosophy (Latham: Lexington Books [Rowman and Littlefield], 2016)

• “What’s So Private About Private Property” Colloquium Session, American Philosophical Association, Central Division Meeting, 2016.

• “Ton Corps est a Toi: The Rhetoric of Selves and Their Owners,” Metaphors in Use: The Third Annual Lehigh University Philosophy Conference, Bethlehem, PA, 2015.

• “What’s So Private About Private Property?” panelist for “The Values and Ethics of Privacy,” Amsterdam Privacy Conference 2015, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2015.

• “Winking, Nudging, Shoving: Law’s Punishment Problem,” XXVII World Congress of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Washington DC, 2015.

• “The Exception Proves the Rule: The Crisis of Constitutional Rights,” panelist for “Pluralism and Consensus,” European Consortium for Political Research, Montreal, Canada, 2015.

• “The Use of Eminent Domain in the Pursuit of Basic Income,” The Future of Basic Income Research, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, 2015.

• “Zarathustra’s Highest Hope: Nietzschean Revenge and Restorative Justice,” Beyond Bars: The Future of Prisons, University of Memphis, 2015.