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100Against Internalism About Reasons—Gert’s Rational Options (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (2). 2001.The contemporary debate about the relation between reasons and motivation is partly driven by the problem of explaining the “normativity” of reasons. Reasons are “prescriptive”. They direct us how to act. They are “apt” to guide our choices. Moreover, reasons are “action guiding”. Insofar as we are rational, we let them guide our choices, for we accept their instructions. These formulations are metaphorical, however, and the problem is to explain precisely what they mean. One strategy for explai…Read more
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18The Iterated-Utilitarianism of J. S. MillCanadian Journal of Philosophy 9 (sup1): 75-98. 1979.The interpretation of the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill has been a matter of controversy at least since J.O. Urmson published his well known paper over twenty-five years ago. Urmson attributed to Mill a form of “rule-utilitarianism”, contrasting his reading with the “received view” on which Mill held a form of “act-utilitarianism”. Since then, the interpretive problem has typically been seen to be that of determining which of these two types of theory should be attributed to Mill, or, at le…Read more
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102Morality in a Natural World: Selected Essays in MetaethicsCambridge University Press. 2007.The central philosophical challenge of metaethics is to account for the normativity of moral judgment without abandoning or seriously compromising moral realism. In Morality in a Natural World, David Copp defends a version of naturalistic moral realism that can accommodate the normativity of morality. Moral naturalism is often thought to face special metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic problems as well as the difficulty in accounting for normativity. In the ten essays included in this vo…Read more
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521Social glue and norms of socialityPhilosophical Studies 172 (12): 3387-3397. 2015.If we are going to understand morality, it is important to understand the nature of societies. What is fundamental to them? What is the glue that holds them together? What is the role of shared norm acceptance in constituting a society? Michael Bratman’s account of modest sociality in his book, Shared Agency, casts significant light on these issues. Bratman’s account focuses on small-scale interactions, but it is instructive of the kinds of factors that can enter into explaining sociality more g…Read more
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50On 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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7Do We Have Any Justified Moral Beliefs?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3): 811-819. 2008.
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1Naturalizm moralny i trzy stopnie normatywnościEtyka 42 51-83. 2009.This is a Polish translation of my essay, "Moral Naturalism and Three Grades of Normativity." This essay is published in English in my 2007 book, "Morality in a Natural World" (Cambridge University Press).
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8Comment on Lorenzo Sacconi, Marco Faillo and Stefania Ottone. Contractarian Compliance, Welfarist Justice, and Conformist UtilityAnalyse & Kritik 33 (1): 311-324. 2011.This comment addresses two issues that arise in Sacconi/faillo/ottone's essay. The first is the problem of compliance as it arises in social contract theory. The second is the problem of avoiding an incoherence that arises in the formulation of welfarist principles of distributive justice if these principles are taken to be concerned with the distribution of welfare without restriction. Sacconi, Faillo, and Ottone define an interesting class of principles that govern only the distribution of 'ma…Read more
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21The 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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79Moral Obligation and Moral MotivationCanadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (sup1): 187-219. 1995.'Internalism’ in ethics is a cluster of views according to which there is an ‘internal’ connection between moral obligations and either motivations or reasons to act morally; ‘externalism’ says that such connections are contingent. So described, the dispute between internalism and externalism may seem a technical debate of minor interest. However, the issues that motivate it include deep problems about moral truth, realism, normativity, and objectivity. Indeed, I think that some philosophers vie…Read more
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77The Collective Moral Autonomy Thesis: Reply to Ludwig and MillerJournal of Social Philosophy 43 (1): 78-95. 2012.
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664Is Society-Centered Moral Theory a Contemporary Version of Natural Law Theory?Dialogue 48 (1): 19-36. 2009.ABSTRACT: David Braybrooke argues that the core of the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas survived in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Much to my surprise, Braybrooke argues as well that David Copp’s society-centered moral theory is a secular version of this same natural law theory. Braybrooke makes a good case that there is an important idea about morality that is shared by the great philosophers in his group and that this idea is also found in Copp’s work. The idea is captured …Read more
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Gyges's Choice: Overridingness and the Unity of ReasonSocial Philosophy and Policy 14 (1): 94. 1997.
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58Book Review:Collective and Corporate Responsibility. Peter A. French (review)Ethics 96 (3): 636-. 1986.
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790Darwinian skepticism about moral realismPhilosophical Issues 18 (1): 186-206. 2008.No Abstract
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158NormativityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (1): 180-183. 2011.This Article does not have an abstract
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114The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living: Justice, Autonomy, and the Basic NeedsSocial Philosophy and Policy 9 (1): 231. 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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62A Skeptical Challenge to Moral Non-Naturalism and a Defense of Constructivist NaturalismPhilosophical Studies 126 (2): 269-283. 2005.
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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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181Morality, normativity, and societyOxford University Press. 1995.Moral claims not only purport to be true, they also purport to guide our choices. This book presents a new theory of normative judgment, the "standard-based theory," which offers a schematic account of the truth conditions of normative propositions of all kinds, including moral propositions and propositions about reasons. The heart of Copp 's approach to moral propositions is a theory of the circumstances under which corresponding moral standards qualify as justified, the " society -centered the…Read more
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78Realist-Expressivism: A Neglected Option for Moral RealismSocial Philosophy and Policy 18 (2): 1-43. 2001.Moral realismandantirealist-expressivismare of course incompatible positions. They disagree fundamentally about the nature of moral states of mind, the existence of moral states of affairs and properties, and the nature and role of moral discourse. The central realist view is that a person who has or expresses a moral thought is thereby in, or thereby expresses, acognitivestate of mind; she has or expresses abeliefthat represents a moral state of affairs in a way that might be accurate or inaccu…Read more
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110. Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization (pp. 634-638) (review)Ethics 114 (3). 2004.
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University of California, DavisDepartment of Philosophy
Davis, California, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |