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2Truthlikeness and ValueIn Pihlstrom S. (ed.), Approaching Truth: Essays in Honour of Ilkka Niiniluoto, College Publications. pp. 225-40. 2008.
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12Is Science Progressive (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (2): 272-276. 1987.
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139Harmony, purity, truthMind 103 (412): 451-472. 1994.David Lewis has argued against the thesis he calls "Desire as Belief", claiming it is incompatible with the fundamentals of evidential decision theory. I show that the argument is unsound, and demonstrate that a version of desire as belief is compatible with a version of causal decision theory.
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A decision theoretic argument against human embryo experimentationIn M. Fricke (ed.), Essays in honor of Bob Durrant, University of Otago Press. pp. 111-27. 1986.
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478Moral uncertainty and human embryo experimentationIn K. W. M. Fulford, Grant Gillett & Janet Martin Soskice (eds.), Medicine and Moral Reasoning, Cambridge University Press. pp. 3--144. 1994.Moral dilemmas can arise from uncertainty, including uncertainty of the real values involved. One interesting example of this is that of experimentation on human embryos and foetuses, If these have a moral stauts similar to that of human persons then there will be server constraitns on what may be done to them. If embryous have a moral status similar to that of other small clusters of cells, then constraints will be motivated largely by consideration for the persons into whom the embryos may dev…Read more
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217Fitting attitudes, finkish goods, and value appearancesIn Russ Shafer Landau & Russ Shafer-Landau (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics (Volume 11), Oxford University Press. pp. 74-101. 2016.According to Fitting Attitude theorists, for something to possess a certain value it is necessary and sufficient that it be fitting (appropriate, or good, or obligatory, or something) to take a certain attitude to the bearer of that value. The idea seems obvious for thick evaluative attributes, but less obvious for the thin evaluative attributes—like goodness, betterness, and degrees of value. This paper is an extended argument for the thesis that the fitting response to the thin evaluative at…Read more
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66Act and MaximPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (1): 71-92. 1993.Suppose that the value of each act of compliance with some maxim is lower than the value of each act of non-compliance, even though maxim-compliance overall would be best for the agent. In such a case we have what I will call value-discrepancy between act and maxim. While the value of overall maxim-compliance is high, no particular act of compliance with the maxim seems to be worth it. Consequentialism is the thesis that the rightness of an option is determined by the comparative value of that o…Read more
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39Value RealismIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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51Value and DesiresIn Iwao Hirose & Jonas Olson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, Oxford University Press Usa. 2015.Are things good because we desire them or do we desire them because they are good? Theories that countenance only desire-dependent values are idealist, those that countenance desire-independent values are realist. A value can be either subject-relative or subject-neutral. Subjectivism countenances only subject-relative and desire-dependent values. Subject-neutral idealism countenances at least some subject-neutral values. Realism repudiates the dependence of value on actual desires, but endorses…Read more
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158The content, consequence and likeness approaches to verisimilitude: compatibility, trivialization, and underdeterminationSynthese 190 (9): 1647-1687. 2013.Theories of verisimilitude have routinely been classified into two rival camps—the content approach and the likeness approach—and these appear to be motivated by very different sets of data and principles. The question thus naturally arises as to whether these approaches can be fruitfully combined. Recently Zwart and Franssen (Synthese 158(1):75–92, 2007) have offered precise analyses of the content and likeness approaches, and shown that given these analyses any attempt to meld content and like…Read more
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The consequences of actionsIn J. Copeland (ed.), Logic and Reality, Oxford University Press. pp. 273-99. 1996.
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91Hume, the BAD Paradox, and Value RealismPhilo 4 (2): 109-122. 2001.A recent slew of arguments, if sound, would demonstrate that realism about value involves a kind of paradox-I call it the BAD paradox.More precisely, they show that if there are genuine propositions about the good, then one could maintain harmony between one’s desires and one’s beliefs about the good only on pain of violating fundamental principles of decision theory. I show. however, the BAD paradox turns out to be a version of Newcomb’s problem, and that the cognitivist about value can avoid t…Read more
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1On a dogma concerning realism and incommensurabilityIn R. Nola (ed.), Relativism and Realism in Science, Reidel. pp. 169-293. 1988.
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383A refutation of Peircean idealismIn Cheyne C. (ed.), Rationality and Reality, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 155-66. 2006.
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67Miller's so-called paradox of informationBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 30 (3): 253-261. 1979.
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154Verisimilitude by power relationsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (1): 129-135. 1990.A number of different theories of truthlikeness have been proposed, but most can be classified into one of two different main programmes: the probability-content programme and the likeness programme.1 In Brink and Heidema [1987] we are offered a further proposal, with the attraction of some novelty. I argue that while the heuristic path taken by the authors is rather remote from what they call ‘the well-worn paths’,2 in fact their point of arrival is rather closer to existing proposals within th…Read more
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The picture theory of truthlikenessIn Kuipers T. (ed.), What is Closer-to-the-Truth, Rodopi. pp. 25-46. 1987.
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67Supervenience, goodness, and higher-order universalsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 69 (1). 1991.Supervenience theses promise ontological economy without reducibility. The problem is that they face a dilemma: either the relation of supervenience entails reducibility or it is mysterious. Recently higher-order universals have been invoked to avoid the dilemma. This article develops a higher-order framework in which this claim can be assessed. It is shown that reducibility can be avoided, but only at the cost of a rather radical metaphysical proposal.
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Metaphysics |
Value Theory |
Philosophy of Probability |
Meta-Ethics |
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Epistemology |
Metaphysics |
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Normative Ethics |
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