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60Offending by mentioningInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.1. Anderson and Lepore (2013) argue that the offensiveness of slur terms can’t consist (merely?) in their having derogatory meanings because even quotation marks fail to prevent offence being cause...
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57Book Review:Collective and Corporate Responsibility. Peter A. French (review)Ethics 96 (3): 636-. 1986.
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55Reasonable Acceptability and Democratic Legitimacy: Estlund’s Qualified Acceptability RequirementEthics 121 (2): 239-269. 2011.
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52Michael H. Robins, 1941-2002Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 76 (5). 2003.This is an obituary for Michael H. Robins.
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50Oxford Handbook of Moral Realism (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2023.Morality seems to play a special role in human life distinct from conventional norms, like those of etiquette, or simple preferences based on subjective tastes. There are various theories of the foundations of morality, some of which treat morality as 'subjective' in an important way. 'Moral realism' is however a family of theories that take morality to have an objective factual basis, such that morality is not 'up to us' and is not 'under our control'. The contributions in this handbook explore…Read more
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49Does Moral Theory Need the Concept of Society?Analyse & Kritik 19 (2): 189-212. 1997.We have the intuition that the function of morality is to make society possible. That is, the function of morality is to make possible the kind of cooperation and coordination among people that is necessary for societies to exist and to cope with their problems. This intuition is reflected in the 'society centered' moral theory I defended in my book, Morality, Normativity, and Society. The theory is a relativistic version of moral naturalism and moral realism. This paper briefly explains some of…Read more
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49Perl and Schroeder’s presuppositional error theoryPhilosophical Studies 176 (6): 1473-1493. 2019.Ronald Dworkin charges that the error theory is a position in first-order moral theory that should be judged by the standards that are appropriately used in evaluating first-order theories. Perl and Schroeder contend that a “presuppositional error theory” can avoid Dworkin’s charge. On the presuppositional view, moral sentences, such as, “It is wrong to torture babies,” have a false presupposition. Perhaps, for example, they presuppose that there are objectively prescriptive moral standards. Thi…Read more
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48On the track of reason: essays in honor of Kai Nielsen (edited book)Westview Press. 1992.This festschrift includes a dozen essays on issues that have been at the focus of Kai Nielsen's research, mainly issues in ethics and political philosophy. Among these are four essays on socialism and Marxism. There are also essays on philosophy of religion, epistemology, and meta-philosophy.
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39The right to an adequate standard of living: Justice, autonomy, and the basic needs*: David CoppSocial Philosophy and Policy 9 (1): 231-261. 1992.Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” I shall refer to the right postulated here as “the right to an adequate standard of living” or “The Right.”
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35Morality, Reason, and Management Science: The Rationale of Cost-Benefit AnalysisSocial Philosophy and Policy 2 (2): 128. 1985.The Problem Economic efficiency is naturally thought to be a virtue of social policies and decisions, and cost-benefit analysis is commonly regarded as a technique for measuring economic efficiency. It is not surprising, then, that CB analysis is so widely used in social policy analysis. However, there is a great deal of controversy about CB analysis, including controversy about its underlying philosophical rationale. The rationales that have been proposed fall into three basic, though not mutua…Read more
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35Justice and the Difference PrincipleCanadian Journal of Philosophy 4 (2). 1974.In his book, A Theory of Justice, John Rawls suggests that a theory of social justice is satisfactory only if it has both of two characteristics. First, it must be capable of serving as the “public moral basis of society”. That is, it must be reasonable to suppose that it would be strictly complied with while serving as the public conception of justice in a society which is in favourable circumstances—a society in which the people would strictly comply with any public conception of justice if th…Read more
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33Goldman on the goals of democracy (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (1). 2002.As practiced by Alvin Goldman, social epistemology addresses the epistemic consequences and requirements of social practices and institutions. Since political institutions have epistemic consequences and requirements, social epistemology has a great deal to offer to political philosophy. Goldman’s work in this area is rich and interesting, and, in his recent book, Knowledge in a Social World, he has much to say that deserves the attention of political philosophers. I highly recommend, for exampl…Read more
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32The Ontology of Putnam’s Ethics without OntologyContemporary Pragmatism 3 (2): 39-53. 2006.This symposium contribution discusses some issues of moral realism and antirealism involved in the metaethics of Hilary Putnam's book Ethics without Ontology
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32Estlund’s Promising Account of Democratic AuthorityEthics 121 (2): 301-334. 2011.David Estlund’s Democratic Authority develops a novel doctrine of “normative consent,” according to which the nonconsent of those with a duty to consent is null. This article suggests that this doctrine can be defended by confining it to contexts involving consent to an authority, which raise distinctive normative challenges, but argues that Estlund’s attempt to deploy the doctrine fails, for it does not provide convincing reasons to think that citizens have any duty to consent. In closing, the …Read more
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29Title from title page of source document
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27International Justice and the Basic Needs PrincipleProtoSociology 26 150-166. 2009.According to the basic needs principle, a state in favorable circumstances must enable its members to meet their basic needs throughout a normal life-span. Applied to the international situation, I argue, this principle implies that a global state would have a duty (ceteris paribus) to enable subordinate states to meet their members‘ needs. In the absence of a global state, existing states have a duty (ceteris paribus) to work to create a system of institutions that would enable each state to me…Read more
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26Review of David Copp and David Zimmerman: Morality, reason, and truth: new essays on the foundations of ethics (review)Ethics 96 (4): 878-880. 1986.
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25The Idea of Democracy (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 1993.In the wake of the recent expansion of democratic forms of government around the world, political theorists have begun to rethink the nature and justification of this form of government. The essays in this book address a variety of foundational questions about democracy: How effective is it? How stable can it be in a pluralist society? Does it deserve its current popularity? Can it successfully guide a socialist society?
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24Consequentialist Rights: L. W. Sumner's The Moral Foundation of RightsDialogue 28 (1): 131-. 1989.It is commonplace to criticize utilitarianism on the ground that it does not take moral rights seriously; that it cannot account for the rights we have, and for their role in constraining our pursuit of the overall good. Wayne Sumner does not directly address this criticism in The Moral Foundation of Rights. Instead he attempts to show that consequentialism can defeat nihilism about rights: the view that there are no moral rights at all.
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22Review of Peter A. French: Collective and Corporate Responsibility (review)Ethics 96 (3): 636-638. 1984.
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University of California, DavisDepartment of Philosophy
Davis, California, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |