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241Williams' Argument against External ReasonsAnalysis 47 (1). 1987.A critical account arguing that Williams did not succeed in undermining the possibility of external reasons. Hooker takes Williams’s conception of reason to be instrumentalistic in a problematic way.
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46Griffin on Human RightsOxford Journal of Legal Studies 30 (1): 193-205. 2010.This review article considers James Griffin's book On Human Rights, which is an immensely important contribution to moral and political thought. The review article starts by explaining why Griffin thinks that the term ‘human right’ suffers from an unacceptable indeterminateness of sense, and then summarizes Griffin's objections to various prominent accounts of human rights. An outline of Griffin's own account of human rights follows. His theory grounds human rights in ‘personhood’ and practicali…Read more
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1016Rule-consequentialismMind 99 (393): 67-77. 1990.The theory of morality we can call full rule - consequentialism selects rules solely in terms of the goodness of their consequences and then claims that these rules determine which kinds of acts are morally wrong. George Berkeley was arguably the first rule -consequentialist. He wrote, “In framing the general laws of nature, it is granted we must be entirely guided by the public good of mankind, but not in the ordinary moral actions of our lives. … The rule is framed with respect to the good of …Read more
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42Up and Down with AggregationSocial Philosophy and Policy 26 (1): 126-147. 2009.This paper starts by addressing some objections to the very idea of aggregate social good. The paper goes on to review the case for letting aggregate social good be not only morally relevant but also sometimes morally decisive. Then the paper surveys objections to letting aggregate social good determine personal or political decisions. The paper goes on to argue against the idea that aggregate good is sensitive to desert and the idea that aggregate good should be construed as incorporating agent…Read more
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30Dancy on How Reasons Are Related to OughtsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 41 (S1): 114-120. 2003.
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49Parfit's arguments for the present-aim theoryAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (1). 1992.This paper has been about the question of what there is most reason to doin situations in which either there are no moral considerations to be takeninto account or the moral considerations to be taken into account are equally balanced. I have assessed all Parfit's arguments for concluding that the Present-aim Theory is right and the Self-interest Theory wrong aboutthis question. In § III, I showed how Parfit's argument from personal identity leads not to the abandonment of the Self-interest Theo…Read more
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61Mark Overvold’s Contribution to PhilosophyJournal of Philosophical Research 16 333-344. 1991.The prevailing theory of self-interest (personal utility or individual welfare) holds that one’s Iife goes well to the extent that one’s desires are fulfilled. In a couple of seminal papers, Overvold raised a devastating objection to this theory---namely that the theory (added to commonsensical beliefs about the nature of action) makes self-sacrifice logically impossible. He then proposed an appealing revision of the prevailing theory, one which provided adequate logical space for self-sacrifice…Read more
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3Scanlon's Contractualism, the Spare Wheel Objection, and Aggregation'In Matt Matravers (ed.), Scanlon and Contractualism, Frank Cass. 2003.
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151Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin (edited book)Clarendon Press. 2000.An international line-up of fourteen distinguished philosophers present new essays on topics relating to well-being and morality, prominent themes in contemporary ethics and particularly in the work of James Griffin, White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, in whose honour this volume has been produced. Professor Griffin offers a fascinating development of his own thinking on these topics in his replies to the essays.
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129Brink, Kagan, Utilitarianism and Self-SacrificeUtilitas 3 (2): 263. 1991.Act-utilitarianism claims that one is required to do nothing less than what makes the largest contribution to overall utility. Critics of this moral theory commonly charge that it is unreasonably demanding. Shelly Kagan and David Brink, however, have recently defended act-utilitarianism against this charge. Kagan argues that act-utilitarianism is right, and its critics wrong, about how demanding morality is. In contrast, Brink argues that, once we have the correct objective account of welfare an…Read more
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71When is impartiality morally appropriate?In Brian Feltham & John Cottingham (eds.), Partiality and impartiality: morality, special relationships, and the wider world, Oxford University Press. pp. 26-41. 2010.
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22FairnessEthical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (4): 329-352. 2005.The main body of this paper assesses a leading recent theory of fairness, a theory put forward by John Broome. I discuss Broome's theory partly because of its prominence and partly because I think it points us in the right direction, even if it takes some missteps. In the course of discussing Broome's theory, I aim to cast light on the relation of fairness to consistency, equality, impartiality, desert, rights, and agreements. Indeed, before I start assessing Broome's theory, I discuss two very …Read more
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19Publicity in moralityRatio 23 111-117. 2010.Consider the idea that moral rules must be suitable for public acknowledgement and acceptance, i.e., that moral rules must be suitable for being ‘widely known and explicitly recognized’, suitable for teaching as part of moral education, suitable for guiding behaviour and reactions to behaviour, and thus suitable for justifying one’s behaviour to others. This idea is now most often associated with John Rawls, who traces it back through Kurt Baier to Kant.[1] My book developing ruleconsequentialis…Read more
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46Theory vs anti-theory in ethicsIn Ulrike Heuer & Gerald Lang (eds.), Value, Luck, and Commitment, Oxford University Press. pp. 19-40. 2012.
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14Moral particularism and the real worldIn M. Lance, M. Potrc & V. Strahovnik (eds.), Challenging Moral Particularism, Routledge. pp. 12-30. 2007.
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58The demandingness objectionIn Tim Chappell (ed.), The Problem of Moral Demandingness, Palgrave. pp. 148-62. 2009.
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121Sidgwick and Common–Sense MoralityUtilitas 12 (3): 347. 2000.This paper begins by celebrating Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics. It then discusses Sidgwick's moral epistemology and in particular the coherentist element introduced by his argument from common-sense morality to utilitarianism. The paper moves on to a discussion of how common-sense morality seems more appealing if its principles are formulated as picking out pro tanto considerations rather than all-things-considered demands. Thefinal section of the paper considers the question of which version of …Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Value Theory |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Value Theory |
Meta-Ethics |