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81In Praise of BlameOup Usa. 2005.Blame is an unpopular and neglected notion: it goes against the grain of a therapeutically-oriented culture and has been far less discussed by philosophers than such related notions as responsibility and punishment. This book seeks to show that neither the opposition nor the neglect is justified. The book's most important conclusion is that blame is inseperable from morality itself - that any considerations that justify us in accepting a set of moral principles must also call for the condemnatio…Read more
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39Ethics, Character, and ActionSocial Philosophy and Policy 15 (1): 1. 1998.According to one long-standing tradition, the organizing question of ethics is “What are we morally obligated to do?” However, many philosophers, inspired by an even older tradition, now urge a return to the question “What kind of person is it best to be?” According to these philosophers, the proper locus of evaluation is character rather than action, and the basic evaluative concept is virtue rather than duty. Following what has become common usage, I shall refer to the first approach as “duty …Read more
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35Causal explanation and the vocabulary of actionMind 82 (325): 22-30. 1973.It seems plausible to suppose that (a) the vocabulary of action is distinct from and irreducible to that of mere movement, And (b) the causal laws of the natural sciences are couched solely in terms of the latter vocabulary. From these two suppositions, The falsehood of determinism has sometimes been said to follow. I argue that whether this does follow depends on our conception of causal explanation; on the interpretation of this concept that seems to me the most interesting, The falsehood of d…Read more
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41Reason at Work: Introductory Readings in PhilosophyCengage Learning. 1996.REASON AT WORK is designed for Introduction to Philosophy courses where the instructor prefers to use a collection of readings to introduce the broad divisions of the discipline. This edition includes sixty-two readings organized into the six major branches of philosophical inquiry: Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Mind.
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125Who Knew?: Responsiblity Without AwarenessOxford University Press USA. 2009.To be responsible for their acts, agents must both perform those acts voluntarily and in some sense know what they are doing. Of these requirements, the voluntariness condition has been much discussed, but the epistemic condition has received far less attention. In Who Knew? George Sher seeks to rectify that imbalance. The book is divided in two halves, the first of which criticizes a popular but inadequate way of understanding the epistemic condition, while the second seeks to develop a more ad…Read more
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69DesertPrinceton University Press. 1987."--Jeffrie Murphy, The Philosophical Review (forthcoming)
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94Beyond Neutrality: Perfectionism and PoliticsCambridge University Press. 1997.Many people, including many contemporary philosophers, believe that the state has no business trying to improve people's characters, elevating their tastes, or preventing them from living degraded lives. They believe that governments should remain absolutely neutral when it comes to the consideration of competing conceptions of the good. One fundamental aim of George Sher's book is to show that this view is indefensible. A second complementary aim is to articulate a conception of the good that i…Read more
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423Justifying reverse discrimination in employmentPhilosophy and Public Affairs 4 (2): 159-170. 1975.
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63Punishment as Societal DefensePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (2): 548-550. 1999.Phillip Montague’s point of departure is a simple but illuminating way of conceptualizing the fact that creates the need for punishment—namely, that each society contains some people who will wrongfully kill or injure others unless held in check by a system of penalties. This fact, Montague argues, in effect confronts each society with a forced choice: either allow potential criminals to inflict harm on others, or else prevent them from doing so by maintaining a system of punishment that will ha…Read more
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110Blameworthy Action and CharacterPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (2): 381-392. 2002.A number of philosophers from Hume on have claimed that it does not make sense to blame people for acting badly unless their bad acts were rooted in their characters. In this paper, I distinguish a stronger and a weaker version of this claim. The claim is false, I argue, if it is taken to mean that agents can only be blamed for bad acts when those acts are manifestations of character paws. However, what is both true and important is the weaker claim that an act is not blameworthy unless it is ro…Read more
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69Subsidized abortion: Moral rights and moral compromisePhilosophy and Public Affairs 10 (4): 361-372. 1981.
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Houston, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |