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88Self-Interest and Self-SacrificeProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 109 (1pt3). 2009.Stephen Darwall has recently suggested (following work by Mark Overvold) that theories which identify a person’s good with her own ranking of concerns do not properly delimit the ‘scope’ of welfare, making self-sacrifice conceptually impossible. But whether a theory of welfare makes self-sacrifice impossible depends on what self-sacrifice is. I offer an alternative analysis to Overvold’s, explaining why self-interest and self-sacrifice need not be opposed, and so why the problems of delimiting t…Read more
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55Normativity and the Planning Theory of LawJurisprudence 7 (2): 307-324. 2016.In this essay, I focus on what appear to be Shapiro’s views about the normativity of law, as well as with his surprising claim that law necessarily has a moral aim. I argue that even if Shapiro offers a more compelling reply to the problem of the normativity of law than Hart offers in The Concept of Law, the moves that he makes appear to be equally available to a defender of Hart’s theory, and so in this respect, the planning theory has no particular advantage over the practice theory. As for th…Read more
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56Value, Welfare, and MoralityPhilosophical Review 104 (4): 603. 1995.This volume contains thirteen new essays covering various issues in value theory. Eight of the essays were presented at a conference by the same name at Bowling Green State University, five others were commissioned. The essays vary in quality, and some of them cover themes developed in previously published work. But overall, each essay provides a carefully argued point of view on an important issue.
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279Internalism and the good for a personEthics 106 (2): 297-326. 1996.Proponents of numerous recent theories of a person's good hold that a plausible account of the good for a person must satisfy existence internalism. Yet little direct defense has been given for this position. I argue that the principal intuition behind internalism supports a stronger version of the thesis than it might appear--one that effects a "double link" to motivation. I then identify and develop the main arguments that have been or might be given in support of internalism about a person's …Read more
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33XV-Self-Interest and Self-SacrificeProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 109 (1pt3): 311-325. 2009.
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92Mortality, agency, and regretPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 94 (1): 231-259. 2007.
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162Objectivism and relational goodSocial Philosophy and Policy 25 (1): 314-349. 2008.In his critique of egoism as a doctrine of ends, G. E. Moore famously challenges the idea that something can be someone. Donald Regan has recently revived and developed the Moorean challenge, making explicit its implications for the very idea of individual welfare. If the Moorean is right, there is no distinct, normative property good for, and so no plausible objectivism about ethics could be welfarist. In this essay, I undertake to address the Moorean challenge, clarifying our theoretical alter…Read more
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166Relational good and the multiplicity problemPhilosophical Issues 19 (1): 205-234. 2009.No Abstract
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311Moral motivationStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2006.In our everyday lives, we confront a host of moral issues. Once we have deliberated and formed judgments about what is right or wrong, good or bad, these judgments tend to have a marked hold on us. Although in the end, we do not always behave as we think we ought, our moral judgments typically motivate us, at least to some degree, to act in accordance with them. When philosophers talk about moral motivation, this is the basic phenomenon they seek to understand. Moral motivation is an instance of…Read more
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339The story of a lifeSocial Philosophy and Policy 30 (1-2): 21-50. 2013.This essay explores the nature of narrative representations of individual lives and the connection between these narratives and personal good. It poses the challenge of determining how thinking of our lives in story form contributes distinctively to our good in a way not reducible to other value-conferring features of our lives. Because we can meaningfully talk about our lives going well for us at particular moments even if they fail to go well overall or over time, the essay maintains that our …Read more
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196Personal goodIn Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons (eds.), Metaethics After Moore, Oxford University Press. pp. 107-132. 2006.
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Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Value Theory |
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Philosophy of Action |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
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