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72Should Social Preferences Be Consistent?Economics and Philosophy 5 (1): 7. 1989.Should social preferences conform to the principles of rationality we normally expect of individuals? Should they, for instance, conform to the consistency axioms of expected utility theory? This article considers one fragment of this question
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43ResponsesPhilosophical Studies 173 (12): 3431-3448. 2016.This is a response to the comments of Boghossian, Cullity, Pettit and Southwood on my book Rationality Through Reasoning.
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370Weighing Goods: Equality, Uncertainty and TimeWiley-Blackwell. 1991.This study uses techniques from economics to illuminate fundamental questions in ethics, particularly in the foundations of utilitarianism. Topics considered include the nature of teleological ethics, the foundations of decision theory, the value of equality and the moral significance of a person's continuing identity through time.
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267Normative practical reasoning: John BroomeAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 75 (1). 2001.Practical reasoning is a process of reasoning that concludes in an intention. One example is reasoning from intending an end to intending what you believe is a necessary means: 'I will leave the next buoy to port; in order to do that I must tack; so I'll tack', where the first and third sentences express intentions and the second sentence a belief. This sort of practical reasoning is supported by a valid logical derivation, and therefore seems uncontrovertible. A more contentious example is norm…Read more
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91The Public and Private Morality of Climate ChangeThe Tanner Lectures on Human Values 32 3-20. 2013.The Tanner Lectures are a collection of educational and scientific discussions relating to human values. Conducted by leaders in their fields, the lectures are presented at prestigious educational facilities around the world
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911Is Incommensurability Vagueness?In Ruth Chang (ed.), Incommensurability, incomparability, and practical reason, Harvard. 1997.
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251Reasoning with preferences?Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 59 183-208. 2006.Rationality requires certain things of you. It requires you not to have contradictory beliefs or intentions, not to intend something you believe to be impossible, to believe what obviously follows from something you believe, and so on. Its requirements can be expressed using schemata such as
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29Reply to Jones-LeeEconomics and Philosophy 23 (3): 385-387. 2007.It is not the job of philosophy to give direct practical advice either to people or to governments. Nevertheless, moral philosophy is immensely significant in practical matters. It influences the way we think and act, but only slowly as it filters through the process of public debate. I hope Weighing Lives will have a practical influence, but it is not meant to be a directly practical guide
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61Deontology and EconomicsEconomics and Philosophy 8 (2): 269-282. 1992.In The Moral Dimension, Amitai Etzioni claims, as did Albert Hirschman in Morality and the Social Sciences, that people often act from moral motives, that economics needs to recognize this, and that it will be significantly changed by doing so. I agree, though I think the changes may be smaller than Etzioni believes – I shall be explaining why. But Etzioni goes further. He makes a specific claim about the sort of morality that motivates people: it is deontological. In this paper, I shall examine…Read more
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393General and personal good: Harsanyi’s contribution to the theory of valueIn Iwao Hirose & Jonas Olson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, Oxford University Press. 2015.
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288RequirementsHommage À Wlodek; 60 Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz. 2007.The object of this paper is to explore the intersection of two issues – both of them of considerable interest in their own right. The first concerns the role that feasibility considerations play in constraining normative claims – claims, say, about what we (individually and collectively) ought to do and to be. This issue has particular relevance for the confrontation of moral philosophy with economics (and social science more generally). The second issue concerns whether normative claims are to …Read more
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404MotivationTheoria 75 (2): 79-99. 2009.I develop a scheme for the explanation of rational action. I start from a scheme that may be attributed to Thomas Nagel in The Possibility of Altruism , and develop it step by step to arrive at a sharper and more accurate scheme. The development includes a progressive refinement of the notion of motivation. I end by explaining the role of reasoning within the scheme.
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463Does Rationality Consist in Responding Correctly to Reasons?Journal of Moral Philosophy 4 (3): 349-374. 2007.Some philosophers think that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons, or alternatively in responding correctly to beliefs about reasons. This paper considers various possible interpretations of ‘responding correctly to reasons’ and of ‘responding correctly to beliefs about reasons’, and concludes that rationality consists in neither, under any interpretation. It recognizes that, under some interpretations, rationality does entail responding correctly to beliefs about reasons. Tha…Read more
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72Responses to Setiya, Hussain, and HortyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (1): 230-242. 2015.
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382"Utility"Economics and Philosophy 7 (1): 1-12. 1991.“Utility,” in plain English, means usefulness. In Australia, a ute is a useful vehicle. Jeremy Bentham specialized the meaning to a particular sort of usefulness. “By utility,” he said, “is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered”. The “principle of utility” is the principle that actions are to be judged by their use…Read more
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141Are intentions reasons? And how should we cope with incommensurable valuesIn Christopher W. Morris & Arthur Ripstein (eds.), Practical Rationality and Preference: Essays for David Gauthier, Cambridge University Press. pp. 98--120. 2001.
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332Reasons and motivation: John BroomeAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 71 (1). 1997.Derek Parfit takes an externalist and cognitivist view about normative reasons. I shall explore this view and add some arguments that support it. But I shall also raise a doubt about it at the end.
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186Weighing livesOxford University Press. 2004.We are often faced with choices that involve the weighing of people's lives against each other, or the weighing of lives against other good things. These are choices both for individuals and for societies. A person who is terminally ill may have to choose between palliative care and more aggressive treatment, which will give her a longer life but at some cost in suffering. We have to choose between the convenience to ourselves of road and air travel, and the lives of the future people who will b…Read more
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453A world climate bankIn Iñigo González-Ricoy & Axel Gosseries (eds.), Institutions for Future Generations, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 156-169. 2016.
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865Normative requirementsRatio 12 (4). 1999.Normative requirements are often overlooked, but they are central features of the normative world. Rationality is often thought to consist in acting for reasons, but following normative requirements is also a major part of rationality. In particular, correct reasoning – both theoretical and practical – is governed by normative requirements rather than by reasons. This article explains the nature of normative requirements, and gives examples of their importance. It also describes mistakes that ph…Read more
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305Instrumental reasoningIn Julian Nida-Rümelin & Wolfgang Spohn (eds.), Rationality, Rules and Structure, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 195-207. 2000.Like all reasoning, practical reasoning is a process that takes a person from some of her existing mental states to a new mental state. Theoretical reasoning concludes in a belief; practical reasoning in an intention. This paper concentrates on instrumental reasoning, a species of practical reasoning in general. It argues that instrumental reasoning is correct if the content of the reasoning is a valid derivation, just as theoretical reasoning is correct if its content is a valid derivation. It …Read more
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91Ethics Out of EconomicsCambridge University Press. 1999.Many economic problems are also ethical problems: should we value economic equality? how much should we care about preserving the environment? how should medical resources be divided between saving life and enhancing life? This book examines some of the practical issues that lie between economics and ethics, and shows how utility theory can contribute to ethics. John Broome's work has, unusually, combined sophisticated economic and philosophical expertise, and Ethics Out of Economics brings toge…Read more
John Broome
University Of Oxford
Australian National University
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University Of OxfordFaculty of PhilosophyProfessor
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Australian National UniversityProfessor (Part-time)
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Value Theory |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |