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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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66Recombinant valuesPhilosophical Studies 106 (3). 2001.An attractive admirer of George Bernard Shaw once wrote to him with a not-so modest proposal: ``You have the greatest brain in the world, and I have the most beautiful body; so we ought to produce the most perfect child.'' Shaw replied: ``What if the child inherits my body and your brains?''What if, indeed? Shaw's retort is interesting not because it revealsa grasp of elementary genetics, but rather because it suggests his grasp of an interesting and important principle of axiology. Since the br…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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53Likeness to TruthReidel. 1986.What does it take for one proposition to be closer to the truth than another. In this, the first published monograph on the topic, Oddie develops a comprehensive theory that takes the likeness in truthlikeness seriously.
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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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45Justice, Ethics, and New Zealand Society (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1992.What is sovereignty? Was it ceded to the Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi? If land was unjustly confiscated over a century ago, should it be returned? Is an ecosystem valuable in itself, or only because of its value to people? Does a property right entail a right to destroy? Can collectives (such as tribes) bear moral responsibility? Do they have moral rights? If so, what are the implications for the justice system? These questions are essentially philosophical, yet all thoughtful New Zealanders …Read more
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44Speech and Morality: On the Metaethical Implications of Speaking, by Cuneo, Terence: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. xiv + 259, £35 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (3): 602-605. 2016.
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39Value RealismIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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38The core of the truthmaker research program is that true propositions are made true by appropriate parts of the actual world. This idea seems to give realists their best shot at capturing a robust account of the dependence of truth on the world. For a part of the world to be a truthmaker for a particular it must suffice for, or necessitate, the truth of the proposition. There are two extreme and unsatisfactory truthmaker theories. At one extreme any part of the world (up to and including the who…Read more
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37Scrumptious FunctionsGrazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1): 137-156. 2001.The taste of this particular chunk of fresh pineapple, the one which I am just now eating, is scrumptious. That taste is something the chunk has in common with other such chunks, like the one I had a few seconds ago and the one I will have in a few seconds time. The taste of this pineapple chunk is thus a feature, a property, which this and various other chunks of pineapple share. Now, intuitively at least, no purely mathematical entity, like a function, is scrumptious. Hence a property, like th…Read more
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31Creative valueInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 33 (3). 1990.Free agents can create and destroy value, for how much value is realized may well depend on what such agents choose to do. Not only may such agents create and destroy value, but such creation and destruction seem to involve a dimension of value: I call it creative value. An explication of the twin concepts of creating value and creative value is given, motivated by two desiderata. It is then shown that creative value turns out to be equivalent to what Nozick has dubbed originative value, when hi…Read more
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26Propositional and credal accuracy in an indeterministic worldSynthese 199 (3-4): 9391-9410. 2021.It is truism that accuracy is valued. Some deem accuracy to be among the most fundamental values, perhaps the preeminent value, of inquiry. Because of this, accuracy has been the focus of two different, important programs in epistemology. The truthlikeness program pursued the notion of propositional accuracy—an ordering of propositions by closeness to the objective truth of some matter. The epistemic utility program pursued the notion of credal state accuracy—an ordering of credal states by clos…Read more
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19The Unity of TheoriesIn Fred D'Agostino & I. C. Jarvie (eds.), Freedom and Rationality, Reidel. pp. 343--368. 1989.
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16Fitting Attitudes, Finkish Goods, and Value AppearancesOxford Studies in Metaethics 11. 2016.According to Fitting Attitude theorists, for something to possess a certain value it is necessary and sufficient that it be fitting to take a certain attitude to the bearer of that value. This seems obvious for thick evaluative attributes, but less obvious for thin evaluative attributes. This chapter argues that the fitting response to the thin evaluative attributes of states is desire. The good is what it is fitting to desire, the bad what it is fitting to be averse to, and the better what it i…Read more
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12Alan Goldman. Reasons from Within: Desires and Values (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (3): 473-476. 2012.
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12Is Science Progressive (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (2): 272-276. 1987.
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3The moral case for the legalization of voluntary euthanasiaVictoria University of Wellington Law Review 28 207-24. 1998.
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2Is the Treaty of Waitangi a Social ContractIn Oddie Graham & Perrett Roy W. (eds.), Justice, Ethics and New Zealand Society, Oxford University Press. pp. 73-90. 1992.
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