Saturday, October 25, 2025
Exam Question in Sentential Logic
This semester, I'm taking a class in deductive logic at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Below is my answer to a question on our second exam (construct a derivation of the conclusion in line 2 from the premise in line 1). The exam covered derivations in sentential logic, based on Gary M. Hardegree's Symbolic Logic: A First Course, second edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999). The annotation to the right of each line shows the justification for its presence in the derivation, with "Pr" standing for premise, "CD" standing for conditional derivation, "As" standing for assumption, "ID" standing for indirect derivation, "DD" standing for direct derivation, and "X" standing for contradiction.
Below is my answer to another question.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Brandon Terry presents "Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement"
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| Philosopher Brandon Terry, talking about his new book, "Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement," at Red Emma's bookstore, in Baltimore. |
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| Meeting Brandon Terry. |
Brandon Terry is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. His new book is a ground-breaking work of scholarship exploring the varying interpretations of the civil rights movement that are found in contemporary politics and offering a new vision of what the civil rights movement has been and what it can still be.
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Birnbacher and Hommen's Account of Negative Causality
Dieter Birnbacher and David Hommen are philosophers at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Birnbacher has written widely on such subjects as ethics, applied ethics, theories of emotions, and the work of Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer. Hommen has written widely on such subjects as the philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind.
Together, they wrote a very enlightening book entitled Negative Kausalität (2012), which examines the question of whether negative entities such as omissions and non-actions can be causes or causal factors. This question has moral and legal dimensions, because it leads to the question of whether harmful actions are more blameworthy than non-actions, and whether actively causing harm is more blameworthy than passively allowing harm. The relative blameworthiness of harmful actions versus non-actions also leads to the question of whether intentional omissions of morally obligatory actions are more blameworthy than inadvertent omissions, and whether the blameworthiness of such omissions depends on the severity of the consequences (since harmless omissions may not be considered as morally blameworthy as those that have harmful consequences).
As an example of the causality of omissions or non-actions, Birnbacher and Hommen describe a scenario in which a subject A goes on vacation, and he asks his co-worker B to water the plants in his office while he is away. B agrees to do so but fails to keep his word, and by the time A returns to the office, the plants have all died. B's omission of the action that A expected him to do is seen as a causal factor in the death of the plants.
As another example of the causality of omissions, they describe a scenario in which a subject A regularly drinks coffee in the morning, but one morning doesn't, and this change in his usual daily routine prompts B to ask what is going on with him today. A's omission of something that B expected him to do is the cause of B's question.
Omission (Unterlassung) may need to be distinguished from negligence (Fahrlässigkeit), which may take the form of a failure to exercise the care required in a given situation, thereby causing harm, even though the subject may not have intended to cause harm or have even foreseen it. The subject has thus violated a duty of care.1 Negligence, like omission, may take the form of non-action or failure to do something.
Doubts about whether omissions (Unterlassungen) or non-actions (Nicht-Handlungen) may be considered as causes (Ursachen) may also be associated with doubts about whether they may be considered as effects (Wirkungen). One solution to this problem may be to consider omissions as quasi-causal, hypothetically causal, or causal under counterfactual conditions, in which case the performance of an action that was not actually performed would certainly (according to the "strong" interpretation) or probably (according to the "weak"interpretation) have prevented the consequences in question. The strong interpretation may be epistemically problematic insofar as it places a much higher burden of proof on anyone who claims to know with certainty that an action that was omitted would have prevented a given event from occurring.2 Indeed, the claim that there may be a completely deterministic connection between actions or non-actions and their effects is difficult to substantiate, since it's almost always possible to conceive of circumstances in which additional factors could intervene to disrupt the causal connection between an action or non-action and its intended effect.3
Birnbacher and Hommen make clear that to say the relation between non-actions and their consequences is one of hypothetical causality is not to say that it is one of actual causality. Hypothetical causality is not actual or genuine causality.4 However, they admit that the case in which A causes harm to B by omitting to do something may not always be so different from the case in which A actively harms B, and that we may need to ask whether we really need to approach the problem of moral responsibility differently in the two cases. Is there actually a genuine causality in the harms A actively causes B, but not in the harms that A causes B through inaction?
They explain that under a broad definition of omission, omission refers to the non-performance (Nicht-Ausführung) of an action (Handlung) that an agent could have performed under the given conditions. In order for the agent to have omitted performing the action, they must at least have been capable of performing that action. A narrower definition of omission, however, might also stipulate the expectedness (Erwartetheit) or requiredness (Erfordertheit) of the omitted action under the given conditions. Under this definition, an agent can only omit performing an action they were expected or required to perform under the given conditions.5
Other examples of situations in which omissions may act as causal factors include (1) when A's omission of a certain action is a signal for (or triggers) a certain action by B, and (2) when A's omission of a required action causes B to act in A's place.
Together, they wrote a very enlightening book entitled Negative Kausalität (2012), which examines the question of whether negative entities such as omissions and non-actions can be causes or causal factors. This question has moral and legal dimensions, because it leads to the question of whether harmful actions are more blameworthy than non-actions, and whether actively causing harm is more blameworthy than passively allowing harm. The relative blameworthiness of harmful actions versus non-actions also leads to the question of whether intentional omissions of morally obligatory actions are more blameworthy than inadvertent omissions, and whether the blameworthiness of such omissions depends on the severity of the consequences (since harmless omissions may not be considered as morally blameworthy as those that have harmful consequences).
As an example of the causality of omissions or non-actions, Birnbacher and Hommen describe a scenario in which a subject A goes on vacation, and he asks his co-worker B to water the plants in his office while he is away. B agrees to do so but fails to keep his word, and by the time A returns to the office, the plants have all died. B's omission of the action that A expected him to do is seen as a causal factor in the death of the plants.
As another example of the causality of omissions, they describe a scenario in which a subject A regularly drinks coffee in the morning, but one morning doesn't, and this change in his usual daily routine prompts B to ask what is going on with him today. A's omission of something that B expected him to do is the cause of B's question.
Omission (Unterlassung) may need to be distinguished from negligence (Fahrlässigkeit), which may take the form of a failure to exercise the care required in a given situation, thereby causing harm, even though the subject may not have intended to cause harm or have even foreseen it. The subject has thus violated a duty of care.1 Negligence, like omission, may take the form of non-action or failure to do something.
Doubts about whether omissions (Unterlassungen) or non-actions (Nicht-Handlungen) may be considered as causes (Ursachen) may also be associated with doubts about whether they may be considered as effects (Wirkungen). One solution to this problem may be to consider omissions as quasi-causal, hypothetically causal, or causal under counterfactual conditions, in which case the performance of an action that was not actually performed would certainly (according to the "strong" interpretation) or probably (according to the "weak"interpretation) have prevented the consequences in question. The strong interpretation may be epistemically problematic insofar as it places a much higher burden of proof on anyone who claims to know with certainty that an action that was omitted would have prevented a given event from occurring.2 Indeed, the claim that there may be a completely deterministic connection between actions or non-actions and their effects is difficult to substantiate, since it's almost always possible to conceive of circumstances in which additional factors could intervene to disrupt the causal connection between an action or non-action and its intended effect.3
Birnbacher and Hommen make clear that to say the relation between non-actions and their consequences is one of hypothetical causality is not to say that it is one of actual causality. Hypothetical causality is not actual or genuine causality.4 However, they admit that the case in which A causes harm to B by omitting to do something may not always be so different from the case in which A actively harms B, and that we may need to ask whether we really need to approach the problem of moral responsibility differently in the two cases. Is there actually a genuine causality in the harms A actively causes B, but not in the harms that A causes B through inaction?
They explain that under a broad definition of omission, omission refers to the non-performance (Nicht-Ausführung) of an action (Handlung) that an agent could have performed under the given conditions. In order for the agent to have omitted performing the action, they must at least have been capable of performing that action. A narrower definition of omission, however, might also stipulate the expectedness (Erwartetheit) or requiredness (Erfordertheit) of the omitted action under the given conditions. Under this definition, an agent can only omit performing an action they were expected or required to perform under the given conditions.5
Other examples of situations in which omissions may act as causal factors include (1) when A's omission of a certain action is a signal for (or triggers) a certain action by B, and (2) when A's omission of a required action causes B to act in A's place.
All omissions need not be intentional. If someone omits to do something, they do not necessarily have to have an explicit intention to omit doing that thing.6
Birnbacher and Hommen note that the legal philosopher Michael S. Moore rejects the idea that omissions or non-events can be causes, because he says that non-events cannot be causal relata. Causal relations can only occur between events, and indeed, there are no such things as non-events, there are are only uninstantiated types of events.7Allowing harm to occur should therefore not be mistaken for causing harm by omission.
Birnbacher and Hommen, however, argue that omissions or non-actions are no less real than the actions they contrast with. Negative events can be observed, just as their positive counterparts can be observed.8 The question then is: do we have a theory of causality that allows for the causal efficacy of omissions?
They explain that while physicalist theories of causality, which postulate a physical relation between cause and effect, may be incompatible with the causality of omissions or non-actions, other theories, such as regularity theory, interventionism, and various forms of counterfactual theory may be compatible.
According to regularity theory, if a set of causal factors S is causally sufficient for a particular event W, then W regularly follows S, and individual occurrences of S are causal for W only as long as this regularity exists. The causality of S for W is seen in the regularity with which W follows S. However, a weakness of this theory is that it may fail to distinguish between causal relations and mere correlations in which there is no causal relation.9
According to regularity theory, if a set of causal factors S is causally sufficient for a particular event W, then W regularly follows S, and individual occurrences of S are causal for W only as long as this regularity exists. The causality of S for W is seen in the regularity with which W follows S. However, a weakness of this theory is that it may fail to distinguish between causal relations and mere correlations in which there is no causal relation.9
Interventionist theories of causality may distinguish between causal relations and correlations by postulating an external intervention (or event, or condition) that causes the omission or non-action, which then causes the given effect. For example, if B forgets to water A's plants because he has taken drugs that make him forget the promise he made to A, then his taking the drugs and his forgetting to water the plants (and thus omitting the action he was expected to do) may both be causal factors for the death of the plants.
According to counterfactual theory, the regularity that exists between cause and effect can be extended beyond actually occurring cases to counterfactual cases. Thus, in the example of causality described above, if B were not to water A's plants while A is away on vacation, then under the given background conditions, this omission would be causally sufficient for A's plants to die, in all possible worlds with the same nosological structure as the actual world.10
According to counterfactual theory, the regularity that exists between cause and effect can be extended beyond actually occurring cases to counterfactual cases. Thus, in the example of causality described above, if B were not to water A's plants while A is away on vacation, then under the given background conditions, this omission would be causally sufficient for A's plants to die, in all possible worlds with the same nosological structure as the actual world.10
Birnbacher and Hommen also explain that there tends to be a normative asymmetry between actions and non-actions insofar as actively causing harm is often judged more harshly than failing to prevent harm, even if the harm is the same in the two cases. Some of the qualitative differences between active and passive harms may be determined by the degree of intentionality, deliberateness, and willfulness on the part of the agent. Thus, for example, the Ten Commandments ("Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal," etc.) are predominantly prohibitions on actions, rather than prohibitions on omissions.11
The causal efficacy of omissions may also be seen in the fact that some omissions are seen as expected or desirable, such as refraining from playing a radio in the library or refraining from talking during a concert performance.
Negative causes of events may include non-actions, omissions, inhibitions, absences, deficiencies, and non-occurrences of events. These negative causes can form links in causal chains, just like positive causes. And just as non-actions and omissions may only be seen as causes if the agent could have performed the non-performed or omitted action, so other negative causes may only be seen as causes if they could logically or nomologically have been possible.
An example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of a traffic light at a busy intersection, causing traffic congestion at that intersection. Another example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of snowfall at a ski resort, causing a decline in the number of tourists at that resort. Other examples include the absence of rain as a cause for drought, and the absence of oxygen as a cause of a match not lighting when struck.
An example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of a traffic light at a busy intersection, causing traffic congestion at that intersection. Another example of an absence as a causal factor would be the absence of snowfall at a ski resort, causing a decline in the number of tourists at that resort. Other examples include the absence of rain as a cause for drought, and the absence of oxygen as a cause of a match not lighting when struck.
According to Birnbacher and Hommen, the inflation objection to the causality of absences is that a myriad of absences may be postulated as negative causal factors for any given event. For example, the absence of an elephant, the absence of a hippopotamus, and the absence of a rhinoceros in my bedroom may all be postulated as causal factors for my being able to sleep without being disturbed. A way of countering this objection may be to formulate criteria by which causally relevant factors are distinguished from irrelevant ones. With regard to the causality of omissions, such criteria might include restriction of the concept of omission to the non-performance of actions that are expected or required. However, the non-performance of unexpected or unsolicited actions may also in some cases be causal factors for events, so additional criteria must be considered. Other such criteria might be intended to exclude all negative causal factors that seem to be trivial, but even this strategy might be unsuccessful if some negative causal factors that at first seem trivial later turn out to be significant. Thus, Birnbacher and Hommen conclude that, despite the difficulty of countering the inflation objection, certain strategies for reducing the number of negative possible causes to be considered for any given event may still be preferable to restricting consideration of possible causes to only positive ones.
FOOTNOTES
1Dieter Birnbacher and David Hommen, Negative Kausalität (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), p. 10.
2Ibid., p. 19.
3Ibid., p. 20.
4Ibid., p. 21
5Ibid., p. 29.
6Ibid., p. 19.
7Michael Moore, "For What Must We Pay? Causation and Counterfactual Baselines," San Diego Law Review, Vol. 40, 2003, p. 1223.
8Birnbacher and Hommen, p. 36.
9Ibid., p. 101.
10Ibid., p. 107.
11Ibid., p. 115.
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Stascha Rohmer's Theory of Love as a Ground of Human Existence and Freedom
Stascha Rohmer is a German philosopher who was born in 1966, in Trier, Germany. He attended the Beethoven-Gymnasium in Bonn, and then the Freie Universität in Berlin and the Technische Universität in Berlin, where he earned his doctoral degree in philosophy in 1999. Between 1999 and 2014, he taught at the Institut für Philosophie of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, and at the Instituto de Filosofía of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in Madrid. In 2015, he became a full-time professor of the philosophy of law at the Universidad de Medellín, in Medellín, Colombia.
His research interests include German idealism, metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of culture, and the philosophy of law, and he has written extensively on the work of Hegel and Whitehead. He has also written on the work of Kant, Kierkegaard, Freud, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Plessner, Horkheimer, Adorno, Hans Jonas, and Scheler.
His research interests include German idealism, metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of culture, and the philosophy of law, and he has written extensively on the work of Hegel and Whitehead. He has also written on the work of Kant, Kierkegaard, Freud, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Plessner, Horkheimer, Adorno, Hans Jonas, and Scheler.
His books include Whiteheads Synthese von Kreativität und Rationalität: Reflexion und Transformation in Alfred North Whiteheads Philosophie der Natur (2000), Liebe - Zukunft einer Emotion (2008), and Die Idee des Lebens: Zum Begriff der Grenze bei Hegel und Plessner (2016).
He has also published German translations of the writings of José Ortega y Gasset (José Ortega y Gasset, Der Mensch ist ein Fremder: Schriften zur Metaphysik und Lebensphilosophie, 2008) and Alfred North Whitehead (Alfred North Whitehead, Denkweisen, 2001).
In Liebe - Zukunft einer Emotion (Love - The Future of an Emotion), Rohmer asks, "What are the primary motivating drives or forces in human beings?" He proposes hunger, thirst, and the desire for sexual fulfillment as possible candidates for these primary drives or forces. However, he explains that the fulfillment of the need for love may be just as important a motivating force, and that love may function not only as a ground of human existence, but also as a foundation for human freedom.
Love may be experienced by human beings in profoundly subjective, distinctive, and intimate ways. The subjectivity of love doesn't mean that love doesn't also exist objectively as a ground for the social dimension of human existence, and as a foundation for human freedom. As a foundation for human freedom, love unites autonomy and selfhood, so that the self experiences the other not as a limit, but as a condition of the possibility of its own realization.
The question of whether love is indispensable for human existence--whether human beings are just as dependent on loving and being loved as they are on physical nourishment and sustenance--is also the question of whether love constitutes an ontological necessity. Is human existence possible without love? Is the continued existence of humanity possible without such a motivating drive or force?
Rohmer contends that love has a fundamental role in human generativity, and that it establishes a basic sphere of social mediation, which is both intergenerational and intersubjective. At the same time, love may appear in infinitely many forms, and it transcends any finite determination. Thus, it cannot truly be grasped or objectified, and its ontological necessity lies precisely in our understanding of it as a force constitutive of the continuous progress of human life.1
With the progress of modern reproductive technology, love can no longer be seen as essential to human reproduction. The biological process of procreation may be possible without the intervention of love and may be achieved through technological interventions such as in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering. However, love cannot be controlled and manipulated in the way that biological cells can be controlled and manipulated. Love has an aspect of freedom that makes possible the cohesion, harmony, and solidarity of human beings. Love also creatively overcomes death by binding successive generations together.2
However, just as love cannot be conceived in purely biological terms and cannot be placed wholly in the service of procreation, it also cannot be conceived as wholly divorced from procreation. The ideality and universality of love consist in the way that lovers may face each other and may be mirrored by and united with each other, thus creating a relation in which each lover sees their ideal in the other and has their being in the other.
The objective existence of love may be revealed by examining its relation to a comprehensive ideal of universality that is also an ideal of reason and justice. Love makes it possible for us to realize that we are all interconnected, and it enables us, in our finiteness, to transcend ourselves. Love is like a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected as others and others reflected as ourselves. Indeed, a relationship between two lovers seems to function only as long as they succeed in discovering in each other the pivotal point of their own selfhood.3 Even under the conditions of modernity, love seems to be based on an experience of immemorial commonality (unvordenkliche Gemeinsamkeit), and thus it cannot be understood as merely a product of willfully controlled or calculated behavior on the part of those who supposedly want to fall in love with each other.4
According to Rohmer, love is the fundamental and driving force in the structure of human generativity.5 The question then is "Why is human reality so characterized by lovelessness, irrationality, and injustice?" Why is human reality so characterized by disunity, as manifested by brutality and fascism, crime and hatred, deception and exploitation, war and genocide?
A theory of love as a basic driving force that seeks to reconcile the real and the ideal, the individual and the universal, and the separated and the conjoined seems to also require a theory of evil as a basic driving force that causes the division, brokenness, and disintegration of humanity.6 However, Rohmer contends that from a standpoint that transcends the present, the structure of human generativity embodies in its universality the realization that whatever is subjectively experienced as love is manifested objectively as rationality, order, and justice. The chain of successive generations overcomes decay and death, and it has no definable beginning or ending.
FOOTNOTES
1Stascha Rohmer, Liebe – Zukunft einer Emotion (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 2008) p. 33.
Love may be experienced by human beings in profoundly subjective, distinctive, and intimate ways. The subjectivity of love doesn't mean that love doesn't also exist objectively as a ground for the social dimension of human existence, and as a foundation for human freedom. As a foundation for human freedom, love unites autonomy and selfhood, so that the self experiences the other not as a limit, but as a condition of the possibility of its own realization.
The question of whether love is indispensable for human existence--whether human beings are just as dependent on loving and being loved as they are on physical nourishment and sustenance--is also the question of whether love constitutes an ontological necessity. Is human existence possible without love? Is the continued existence of humanity possible without such a motivating drive or force?
Rohmer contends that love has a fundamental role in human generativity, and that it establishes a basic sphere of social mediation, which is both intergenerational and intersubjective. At the same time, love may appear in infinitely many forms, and it transcends any finite determination. Thus, it cannot truly be grasped or objectified, and its ontological necessity lies precisely in our understanding of it as a force constitutive of the continuous progress of human life.1
With the progress of modern reproductive technology, love can no longer be seen as essential to human reproduction. The biological process of procreation may be possible without the intervention of love and may be achieved through technological interventions such as in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering. However, love cannot be controlled and manipulated in the way that biological cells can be controlled and manipulated. Love has an aspect of freedom that makes possible the cohesion, harmony, and solidarity of human beings. Love also creatively overcomes death by binding successive generations together.2
However, just as love cannot be conceived in purely biological terms and cannot be placed wholly in the service of procreation, it also cannot be conceived as wholly divorced from procreation. The ideality and universality of love consist in the way that lovers may face each other and may be mirrored by and united with each other, thus creating a relation in which each lover sees their ideal in the other and has their being in the other.
The objective existence of love may be revealed by examining its relation to a comprehensive ideal of universality that is also an ideal of reason and justice. Love makes it possible for us to realize that we are all interconnected, and it enables us, in our finiteness, to transcend ourselves. Love is like a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected as others and others reflected as ourselves. Indeed, a relationship between two lovers seems to function only as long as they succeed in discovering in each other the pivotal point of their own selfhood.3 Even under the conditions of modernity, love seems to be based on an experience of immemorial commonality (unvordenkliche Gemeinsamkeit), and thus it cannot be understood as merely a product of willfully controlled or calculated behavior on the part of those who supposedly want to fall in love with each other.4
According to Rohmer, love is the fundamental and driving force in the structure of human generativity.5 The question then is "Why is human reality so characterized by lovelessness, irrationality, and injustice?" Why is human reality so characterized by disunity, as manifested by brutality and fascism, crime and hatred, deception and exploitation, war and genocide?
A theory of love as a basic driving force that seeks to reconcile the real and the ideal, the individual and the universal, and the separated and the conjoined seems to also require a theory of evil as a basic driving force that causes the division, brokenness, and disintegration of humanity.6 However, Rohmer contends that from a standpoint that transcends the present, the structure of human generativity embodies in its universality the realization that whatever is subjectively experienced as love is manifested objectively as rationality, order, and justice. The chain of successive generations overcomes decay and death, and it has no definable beginning or ending.
FOOTNOTES
1Stascha Rohmer, Liebe – Zukunft einer Emotion (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 2008) p. 33.
2Ibid., p. 48.
3Ibid., p. 65.
4Ibid., p. 67.
5Ibid., p. 230.
6Ibid., p. 232.
Friday, July 18, 2025
Streets in Baltimore that are Named after Slaveholders
- O'Donnell St. - John O'Donnell (1749-1805) was a wealthy merchant who enslaved people on his Canton plantation.
- John St. - John Eager Howard (1752-1827) was a soldier, statesman, and slaveholder. He has three streets in Baltimore named after him (John, Eager, and Howard Streets).
- Eager St. - John Eager Howard (1752-1827) came from a wealthy family of slaveholders and was born at their "Belvidere" plantation, which he inherited, and which is now the site of the Belvedere Hotel in Baltimore. He also bought a plantation in Marriottsville, which he gave as a wedding present to his second son, George. George Howard married Prudence Ridgely, and they named the plantation "Waverly," after the famous novel, Waverley, by Sir Walter Scott. The Waverly planation relied on the labor of enslaved people.
- Howard St. - John Eager Howard (1752-1827) was an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He was also Governor of Maryland (1788-1791), a member of the Maryland Senate (1791-1795), and U.S. Senator from Maryland (1796-1803).
- Calvert St. - Cecil Calvert (1605-1675) was the second Lord Baltimore. He owned two ships, The Ark and The Dove, which he sent to establish the colony of Maryland in 1633. The ships arrived in February 1634, carrying colonists and slaves. A painting by Gerald Soest (c. 1600-1681) entitled "The Second Lord Baltimore," which is owned by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, shows Cecil Calvert with his young grandson Cecil and a young African slave.
- Baltimore St. - Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore.
- Charles St. - Charles Calvert (1699-1751) was the fifth Lord Baltimore. He was proprietary governor of the colony of Maryland from 1732-1733. A painting by John Hesselius (1728-1778) owned by The Baltimore Museum of Art shows him at the age of five with one of his family's slaves.
- Greene St. - Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) was a Major General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He was a slaveholder.
- Fayette St. - The Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) became a slaveholder when he bought a plantation in French Guiana with the intent of freeing the enslaved people there.
- Lafayette Ave. - Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834).
- McDonough St. - John McDonough (1779-1850) was a wealthy merchant and slaveholder. He supported efforts by the American Colonization Society to enable freed black slaves to return to Africa.
- Washington St. - George Washington (1732-1799) was the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army (1775-1783) and the first President of the United States (1789-1797). He enslaved people at his Mt. Vernon plantation.
- Laurens St. - John Laurens (1754-1782), although he supported the abolition of slavery, came from a family of wealthy slaveholders in South Carolina. His father owned slaves, and he would have inherited them had he lived long enough. While serving as an officer during the Revolutionary War, he unsuccessfully attempted to form a regiment of enslaved soldiers, who would have been granted freedom in exchange for their service. He was killed in a battle on the Combahee River in 1782, one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War.
- Ridgely St. - Charles Ridgely II (1702-1772) was a merchant and owner of the Hampton plantation, which relied on the labor of enslaved people.
- Eden St. - Sir Robert Eden (1741-1784) was the last colonial Governor of Maryland (1769-1776). He was married to Caroline Calvert, the daughter of Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore, and sister of Frederick Calvert, sixth Lord Baltimore. After his death, a claim was made on behalf of his widow in order to recover property, including enslaved people, that he had lost possession of when he had been forced to leave Maryland in 1776.
- Gilmor St. - The Gilmor family was a prominent Baltimore family who enslaved people on their plantation, Glen Ellen, which is now the site of the Loch Raven Reservoir. Robert Gilmor Jr. (1774-1848) was a wealthy merchant and shipowner. His brother Harry Gilmor (1838-1883) was a Confederate Cavalry officer who later became Baltimore City Police Commissioner (1874-1879).
- Gough St. - Harry Dorsey Gough (pronounced "Goff") (1745-1808) was a wealthy merchant and slaveholder who owned a plantation in Northeast Baltimore County that he called Perry Hall, after an ancestral home near Birmingham, England.
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