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57Broadening the base for bringing cognitive psychology to bear on ethicsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (1): 27-28. 1994.
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242Normative force and normative freedom: Hume and Kant, but not Hume versus KantRatio 12 (4). 1999.Our notion of normativity appears to combine, in a way difficult to understand but seemingly familiar from experience, elements of force and freedom. On the one hand, a normative claim is thought to have a kind of compelling authority; on the other hand, if our respecting it is to be an appropriate species of respect, it must not be coerced, automatic, or trivially guaranteed by definition. Both Hume and Kant, I argue, looked to aesthetic experience as a convincing example exhibiting this marria…Read more
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242How Thinking about Character and Utilitarianism Might Lead to Rethinking the Character of UtilitarianismMidwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1): 398-416. 1988.
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205That Obscure Object, DesireProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 86 (2): 22-46. 2012.
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4Morality, Ideology, and ReflectionIn Edward Harcourt (ed.), Morality, reflection, and ideology, Oxford University Press. 2000.
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122Humean theory of practical rationalityIn David Copp (ed.), The Oxford handbook of ethical theory, Oxford University Press. pp. 265--81. 2006.David Hume famously criticized rationalist theories of practical reason, arguing that reason alone is incapable of yielding action, and that some passionate element must be supplied. Contemporary theories of Humean inspiration develop a causal-explanatory model of action in terms of the joint operation of two distinct mental states: beliefs and desires, one inert and representational, the other dynamic. Such neo-Humean theories claim that since desires, unlike beliefs, are not subject to direct …Read more
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37Darwinian building blocksJournal of Consciousness Studies 7 (1-2): 1-2. 2000.Although the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ and the is/ought distinction have often been invoked as definitive grounds for rejecting any attempt to bring evolutionary thought to bear on ethics, they are better interpreted as warnings than as absolute barriers. Our moral concepts themselves -- e.g. the principle that ‘ought implies can’ -- require us to ask whether human psychology is capable of impartial empathetic thought and motivation characteristic of normative systems that could count as moral. As …Read more
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22Psi: Anomalous correlation or anomalous explanation?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (4): 605. 1987.
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354A deductive-nomological model of probabilistic explanationPhilosophy of Science 45 (2): 206-226. 1978.It has been the dominant view that probabilistic explanations of particular facts must be inductive in character. I argue here that this view is mistaken, and that the aim of probabilistic explanation is not to demonstrate that the explanandum fact was nomically expectable, but to give an account of the chance mechanism(s) responsible for it. To this end, a deductive-nomological model of probabilistic explanation is developed and defended. Such a model has application only when the probabilities…Read more
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72Toward an Ethics that Inhabits the WorldIn Brian Leiter (ed.), The future for philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 265--284. 2004.
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181Marx and the Objectivity of SciencePSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984. 1984.Marx claims that his social theory is objective in the same sense as contemporary natural science. Yet his social theory appears to imply that the prevailing notion of scientific objectivity is ideological in character. Must Marx, then, either give up his claim of scientific objectivity or admit that he is engaged in a bit of ideology on behalf of his own theory? By suggesting an alternative way of understanding objectivity, an attempt is made to show that one can accept the implications of Marx…Read more
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3Reply to David WigginsIn John Haldane & Crispin Wright (eds.), Reality, representation, and projection, Oxford University Press. pp. 315--328. 1993.
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88Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays Toward a Morality of ConsequenceCambridge University Press. 2003.In our everyday lives we struggle with the notions of why we do what we do and the need to assign values to our actions. Somehow, it seems possible through experience and life to gain knowledge and understanding of such matters. Yet once we start delving deeper into the concepts that underwrite these domains of thought and actions, we face a philosophical disappointment. In contrast to the world of facts, values and morality seem insecure, uncomfortably situated, easily influenced by illusion or…Read more
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32Costs and Benefits of Cost-Benefit Analysis: A Response to Bantz and MacLeanPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982 261-271. 1982.Although the standard theory and actual practice of cost-benefit analysis are seriously defective, the general idea of making social policy in accord with an aggregative, maximizing, consequentialist criterion is a sensible one. Therefore it is argued, against Bantz, that interpersonal utility comparisons can be meaningful, and, against both Bantz and MacLean, that quantitative overall assessments of expected value provide a presumptively rational basis for social choice. However, it does not fo…Read more
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626Normative GuidanceIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 1, Oxford University Press. pp. 3-34. 2006.I’ve been told that there are two principal approaches to drawing figures from life. One begins by tracing an outline of the figure to be drawn, locating its edges and key features on an imagined grid, and then using perspective to fill in depth. The other approach proceeds from the ‘center of mass’ of the subject, seeking to build up the image by supplying contour lines, the intersections of which convey depth—as if the representation were being created in relief. The second approach need not adop…Read more
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71Made in the shade: Moral compatibilism and the aims of moral theoryCanadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (sup1): 79-106. 1995.
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40Practical competence and fluent agencyIn David Sobel & Steven Wall (eds.), Reasons for Action, Cambridge University Press. pp. 81--115. 2009.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |