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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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422Acts, 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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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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180Public GoodsIn Charlotte B. Becker Lawrence C. Becker (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ethics, Vol. III, Routledge. pp. 1413-16. 2001.Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.
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229International 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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214The Moral, the Personal and the PoliticalIn Igor Primoratz (ed.), Politics and morality, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 54-75. 2007.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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101Moral 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