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198That Obscure Object, DesireProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 86 (2): 22-46. 2012.
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119Humean 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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36Darwinian 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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21Psi: Anomalous correlation or anomalous explanation?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (4): 605. 1987.
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347A 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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180Marx 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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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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257Facts, 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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3Reply to David WigginsIn John Haldane & Crispin Wright (eds.), Reality, Representation, and Projection, Oxford University Press. pp. 315--328. 1993.
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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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674Normative 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.
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93A priori rules: Wittgenstein on the normativity of logicIn Paul Artin Boghossian & Christopher Peacocke (eds.), New Essays on the A Priori, Oxford University Press. pp. 170--96. 2000.
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744Naturalism and PrescriptivitySocial Philosophy and Policy 7 (1): 151. 1989.Statements about a person's good slip into and out of our ordinary discourse about the world with nary a ripple. Such statements are objects of belief and assertion, they obey the rules of logic, and they are often defended by evidence and argument. They even participate in common-sense explanations, as when we say of some person that he has been less subject to wild swings of enthusiasm and disappointment now that, with experience, he has gained a clearer idea of what is good for him. Statement…Read more
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120Moral factualismIn James Lawrence Dreier (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, Blackwell. pp. 6--201. 2006.
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198Two cheers for virtue: or, might virtue be habit forming?Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 1 295-330. 2011.Traditional virtue-oriented approaches to ethics suppose that acquiring relatively stable character traits, such as courage and compassion, is crucial in addressing the question of how to be. However, recent psychological studies cast doubt on the idea that people develop such traits. In light of this pessimism, the paper raises the question: what is left of virtue theory? It argues that much remains once one shifts from a traditional understanding of virtues to one of cognitive/affective “if…th…Read more
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2Realism and its alternativesIn John Skorupski (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Ethics, Routledge. 2010.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |