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469Asking Too MuchThe Monist 86 (3). 2003.Most of us think that it can be wrong not to help someone in chronic need — someone whose life you could easily save, say. And many of us find it hard to see how the remoteness of needy people, either physical, social or psychological, should make a difference to this. Maybe it makes a difference to how wrong it is not to help, but it is hard to see how it can make a difference to whether not helping is wrong.
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320Pooled beneficenceIn Michael Almeida (ed.), Imperceptible Harms and Benefits, Kluwer. pp. 9-42. 2000.There can be situations in which, if I contribute to a pool of resources for helping a large number of people, the difference that my contribution makes to any of the people helped from the pool will be imperceptible at best, and maybe even non-existent. And this can be the case where it is also true that giving the same amount directly to one of the intended beneficiaries of the pool would have made a very large difference to her. Can non-contribution to the pool be morally justified on this gr…Read more
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19Conflicts of interest in divisions of general practiceJournal of Medical Ethics 32 (12): 715-717. 2006.Community-based healthcare organisations manage competing, and often conflicting, priorities. These conflicts can arise from the multiple roles these organisations take up, and from the diverse range of stakeholders to whom they must be responsive. Often such conflicts may be titled conflicts of interest; however, what precisely constitutes such conflicts and what should be done about them is not always clear. Clarity about the duties owed by organisations and the roles they assume can help iden…Read more
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20The Moral Demands of AffluenceTijdschrift Voor Filosofie 67 (3): 598-600. 2005.Garrett Cullity.
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260Beneficence, rights and citizenshipAustralian Journal of Human Rights 9 85-105. 2006.What are we morally required to do for strangers? To answer this question – a question about the scope of requirements to aid strangers – we must first answer a question about justification: why are we required to aid them (when we are)? The main paper focuses largely on answering the question about justification, but does so in order to arrive at an answer to the question about scope. Three main issues are discussed. First, to what extent should requirements of beneficence – requirements to be…Read more
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8Sympathy, Discernment, and ReasonsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (1): 37-62. 2004.According to “the argument from discernment”, sympathetic motivation is morally faulty, because it is morally undiscriminating. Sympathy can incline you to do the right thing, but it can also incline you to do the wrong thing. And if so, it is no better as a reason for doing something than any other morally arbitrary consideration. The only truly morally good form of motivation–because the only morally non‐arbitrary one–involves treating an action's lightness as your reason for performing it. Th…Read more
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58Agency and policyProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 104 (3). 2004.The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com
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10Practical TheoryIn Garrett Cullity & Berys Nigel Gaut (eds.), Ethics and practical reason, Oxford University Press. pp. 101--24. 1997.Garrett Cullity
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6Luck, Value, and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard WilliamsPhilosophical Quarterly 64 (256): 520-523. 2014.
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2Williams, B.-Making Sense of HumanityPhilosophical Books 39 91-104. 1998.This critical notice discusses five main themes of Williams's collection: (1) The “morality system” and blame: our ethical thought both misconceives and overemphasizes the practice of blaming. (2) The theorist’s predicament: how can a theorist of human practice coherently relate her theory to her own practice? (3) Psychological realism: a central constraint on a defensible ethical outlook is that it takes account of us as we are. (4) Culture and explanation: there is no culturally neutral fo…Read more
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36Describing rationalityPhilosophical Studies 173 (12): 3399-3411. 2016.This critical study of John Broome’s Rationality Through Reasoning raises some questions about the various requirements of rationality Broome formulates, pointing out some apparent gaps and counterexamples; proposes a general description of rationality that is broadly consistent with Broome’s requirements while providing them with a unifying justification, filling the gaps, and removing the counterexamples; and presents two objections to the book’s broader argument concerning the nature and impo…Read more
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77Many writers have followed Peter Singer in drawing an analogy between assisting needy people at a distance and saving someone’s life directly. Arguments based on this analogy can take either a subsumptive or a non-subsumptive form. Such arguments face a serious methodological challenge.
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42A theory of virtue: Excellence in being for the goodAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (4). 2008.© 2008 Informa plc
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25Review of 'What's Wrong With Benevolence: Happiness, Private Property, and the Limits of Enlightenment', by David Stove, edited by Andrew Irvine (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (1). 2013.Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-3, Ahead of Print
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414Acts, Omissions, EmissionsIn Jeremy Moss (ed.), Climate Change and Justice, Cambridge University Press. pp. 148-64. 2015.What requirements does morality impose on us in relation to climate change? This question can be asked of individuals, of the entire global population, and of groups of various sizes in between. Given the case for accepting that we all collectively ought to be causing less climate-affecting pollution than we do, what follows from that about the moral status of the actions of members of the larger group? I examine two main ways in which moral requirements on group members can derive from requirem…Read more
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176Public GoodsIn Lawrence C. Becker Charlotte B. Becker (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ethics, Vol. III, Routledge. pp. 1413-16. 2007.Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.
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297International aid and the scope of kindnessEthics 105 (1): 99-127. 1994.This paper argues that it is morally wrong for the affluent not to contribute money or time to famine relief. It begins by endorsing an important methodological line of objection against the most prominent philosophical advocate of this claim, Peter Singer. This objection attacks his strategy of invoking a principle the acceptability of which is apparently based upon its conformity with "intuitive" moral judgements in order to defend a strongly counterintuitive conclusion. However, what follows …Read more
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209The Moral, the Personal and the PoliticalIn Igor Primoratz (ed.), Politics and Morality, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 54-75. 2008.What is the relation between moral reasons and reasons of “political necessity”? Does the authority of morality extend across political decision-making; or are there “reasons of state” which somehow either stand outside the reach of morality or override it, justifying actions that are morally wrong? This chapter argues that attempts to claim a contra-moral justification for political action typically suffer from a fundamental confusion – a confusion about the nature and expression of practical …Read more
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33Book Reviews:Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory (review)Ethics 119 (3): 581-585. 2009.
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66The Context-Undermining of Practical ReasonsEthics 124 (1): 8-34. 2013.Can one fact deprive another of the status of a reason for action—a status the second fact would have had, but for the presence of the first? Claims of this kind are often made, but they face substantial obstacles. This article sets out those obstacles but then argues that there are at least three different ways in which this does happen
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2Agency and PolicyProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 104 (1): 317-327. 2004.The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.
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27Book Information Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin. Edited by Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 2000. Pp. xii + 316. Hardback, £35.
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186Moral Free RidingPhilosophy and Public Affairs 24 (1): 3-34. 1995.This paper presents a moral philosophical account of free riding, specifying the conditions under which failing to pay for nonrival goods is unfair. These conditions do not include the voluntary acceptance of the goods: this controversial claim is supported on the strength of a characterization of the kind of unfairness displayed in paradigm cases of free riding. Thus a "Principle of Fairness" can potentially serve as a foundation for political obligations. The paper also discusses the relatio…Read more