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73Exceptions in Nonderivative ValuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (1): 26-49. 2019.According to most substantive axiological theories – theories telling us which things are good and bad – pleasure is nonderivatively good. This seems to imply that it is always good, even when directed towards a bad object, such as another person’s suffering. This implication is accepted by the Mainstream View about misdirected pleasures: it holds that when someone takes pleasure in another person’s suffering, his being pleased is good, although his being pleased by suffering is bad. This view g…Read more
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71Particularism and moral theory: Particularism and presumptive reasons: Garrett CullityAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1). 2002.Weak particularism about reasons is the view that the normative valency of some descriptive considerations varies, while others have an invariant normative valency. A defence of this view needs to respond to arguments that a consideration cannot count in favour of any action unless it counts in favour of every action. But it cannot resort to a global holism about reasons, if it claims that there are some examples of invariant valency. This paper argues for weak particularism, and presents a fram…Read more
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70Many 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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60The 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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56Sympathy, discernment, and reasonsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (1). 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 rightness as your reason for performing it. …Read more
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51Concern, Respect, and CooperationOxford University Press. 2018.Three things often recognized as central to morality are concern for others’ welfare, respect for their self-expression, and cooperation in worthwhile collective activity. When philosophers have proposed theories of the substance of morality, they have typically looked to one of these three sources to provide a single, fundamental principle of morality – or they have tried to formulate a master-principle for morality that combines these three ideas in some way. This book views them instead as th…Read more
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48Climate HarmsThe Monist 102 (1): 22-41. 2019.How should we think of the relationship between the climate harms that people will suffer in the future and our current emissions activity? Who does the harming, and what are the moral implications? One way to address these questions appeals to facts about the expected harm associated with one’s own individual energy-consuming activity, and argues that it is morally wrong not to offset one’s own personal carbon emissions. The first half of the article questions the strength of this argument. The…Read more
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41A theory of virtue: Excellence in being for the goodAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (4). 2008.© 2008 Informa plc
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40As you were? Moral philosophy and the aetiology of moral experiencePhilosophical Explorations 9 (1). 2006.What is the significance of empirical work on moral judgement for moral philosophy? Although the more radical conclusions that some writers have attempted to draw from this work are overstated, few areas of moral philosophy can remain unaffected by it. The most important question it raises is in moral epistemology. Given the explanation of our moral experience, how far can we trust it? Responding to this, the view defended here emphasizes the interrelatedness of moral psychology and moral episte…Read more
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38Moral Disagreement, Self-Trust, and ComplacencyEthical Theory and Moral Practice 1-15. 2021.For many of the moral beliefs we hold, we know that other people hold moral beliefs that contradict them. If you think that moral beliefs can be correct or incorrect, what difference should your awareness of others’ disagreement make to your conviction that you, and not those who think otherwise, have the correct belief? Are there circumstances in which an awareness of others’ disagreement should lead you to suspend a moral belief? If so, what are they, and why? This paper argues that three prin…Read more
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36Agency and policyProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 104 (3). 2004.The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com
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34The Limits of Kindness, by Caspar Hare: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. xi + 229, £25.00 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (4): 791-794. 2014.Garrett Cullity.
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34The term ‘moral judgement’ can refer to an activity, a state, a state-content, a capacity or a virtue. The activity of moral judgement is that of thinking about whether something has a moral attribute. The thing assessed might be an action, person, institution or state of affairs, and the attribute might either be general (such as rightness or badness) or specific (such as loyalty or injustice). If I engage in this activity and make up my mind, then the result will be the formation of a psycholo…Read more
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34Describing 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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33Book Reviews:Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory (review)Ethics 119 (3): 581-585. 2009.
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33Aretaic CognitivismAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 32 (4). 1995.This paper defends the claim that there is deontic knowledge - knowledge of rightness and wrongness - which can be inferred from aretaic knowledge - knowledge of the possession of virtue-attributes. In doing so, it seeks to address two forceful objections, identified at the outset. The first is that the only way of making the claim appear plausible is by assuming a practice of virtue-ascription which actually makes the reverse inference. The second objection is that there is that "aretaic cognit…Read more
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30Demandingness, 'ought', and self-shapingIn Marcel van Ackeren & Michael Kühler (eds.), The Limits of Moral Obligation, Routledge. 2016.Garrett Cullity.
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29Mancilla, Alejandra. The Right of Necessity: Moral Cosmopolitanism and Global Poverty. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Pp. 140. $90.00 ; $29.95 (review)Ethics 128 (1): 260-264. 2017.Garrett Cullity.
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27Foundations, Derivations, Applications: Replies to Bykvist, Arpaly, Steele, and TenenbaumPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 519-533. 2022.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 519-533, March 2022.
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26Book 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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25Liberty, Security, and FairnessThe Journal of Ethics 25 (2): 141-159. 2021.What constraints should be imposed on individual liberty for the sake of protecting our collective security? A helpful approach to answering this question is offered by a theory that grounds political obligation and authority in a moral requirement of fair contribution to mutually beneficial cooperative schemes. This approach encourages us to split the opening question into two—a question of correctness and a question of legitimacy—and generates a detailed set of answers to both subsidiary quest…Read more
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23Review of Russell Hardin: One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict (review)Ethics 107 (2): 361-363. 1997.
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23As you were?Philosophical Explorations 9 (1): 117-132. 2006.What is the significance of empirical work on moral judgement for moral philosophy? Although the more radical conclusions that some writers have attempted to draw from this work are overstated, few areas of moral philosophy can remain unaffected by it. The most important question it raises is in moral epistemology. Given the explanation of our moral experience, how far can we trust it? Responding to this, the view defended here emphasizes the interrelatedness of moral psychology and moral episte…Read more