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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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146Harmony, 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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507Moral 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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228Fitting 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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69Act 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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54Value 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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159The 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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