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62The Impossibility of Natural NecessityIn Alexander Carruth, Sophie Gibb & John Heil (eds.), Ontology, Modality, and Mind: Themes from the Metaphysics of E.J. Lowe, Oxford University Press. pp. 73-92. 2018.I build a case for the impossibility of natural necessity as anything other than a species of metaphysical necessity – the necessity obtaining in virtue of the essences of natural objects. Aristotelian necessitarianism about the laws of nature is clarified and defended. I contrast it with E.J. Lowe’s contingentism about the laws. I examine Lowe’s solution to the circularity/triviality problem besetting natural necessity understood as relative necessity. Lowe’s way out is subject to serious probl…Read more
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78The Ethics of Co-operation in WrongdoingRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 54 203-227. 2004.There are a number of ways in which a person can share the guilt of another's wrongdoing. He might advise it, command it or consent to it. He might provoke it, praise it, flatter the wrongdoer, or conceal the wrong. He might stay silent when there is a clear duty to denounce the wrong or its perpetrator; or he might positively defend the wrong done. Finally, he might actively participate or cooperate in the wrongdoing. These various activities, apart from cooperation, typically occur before or a…Read more
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213Temporal Parts and the Possibility of ChangePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (3): 686-708. 2004.Things change. If anything counts as a datum of metaphysics, that does. Change occurs in many ways: it can be accidental or substantial; essential or non-essential; intrinsic or extrinsic; subjective or objective. Changes can be physical, spatial, quantitative, qualitative, natural, artefactual, conceptual, linguistic. Events are arguably best defined as changes in an object or objects. All change is from something and into something, and hence is at least a two-term relation, involving a term f…Read more
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93Graph structuralism and its discontents: rejoinder to ShackelAnalysis 72 (1): 94-98. 2012.Nicholas Shackel (2011) has proposed a number of arguments to save the Dipert–Bird model of physical reality from the sorts of unpalatable consequence I identified in Oderberg 2011. Some consequences, he thinks, are only apparent; others are real but palatable. In neither case does he seem to me to have deflected the concerns I raised, leaving graph structuralism on Dipert–Bird lines as problematic as ever
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30As an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne in the 1980s, I recall a story that used to circulate to the effect that Australian philosophers were realists (the term prefixed by the obligatory adjective "hard-headed") because we lived in a harsh, sunlit environment where no misty meadow or morning fog obscured the objective reality of a mind-independent physical universe.
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248Morality, Religion, and Cosmic JusticePhilosophical Investigations 34 (2): 189-213. 2011.There is a famous saying, whose origin is uncertain, that no good deed goes unpunished. Although not cited by him, this was no doubt the thought that inspired George Mavrodes’s (1986) well-known article “Religion and the Queerness of Morality.” In it he argued that although not logically incoherent, a certain sort of world in which moral obligations existed would be “absurd . . . a crazy world” (Mavrodes 1986, 581). The world he had in mind was what he called “Russellian,” after a notorious pass…Read more
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66Traversal of the Infinite, the “Big Bang,” and the Kalam Cosmological ArgumentPhilosophia Christi 4 (2): 303-334. 2002.
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119Coincidence under a sortalPhilosophical Review 105 (2): 145-171. 1996.The question whether two things can be in the same place at the same time is an ambiguous one. At least three distinct questions could be meant: Can two things simpliciter be in the same place at the same time? Can two things of the same kind be in the same place at the same time? Can two substances of the same kind be in the same place at the same time? The answers to these questions vary. In what follows, all three will be discussed in the light both of recent and of classic earlier examinatio…Read more
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521The Morality of Reputation and the Judgment of OthersJournal of Practical Ethics 1 (2): 3-33. 2013.There is a tension between the reasonable desire not to be judgmental of other people’s behaviour or character, and the moral necessity of making negative judgments in some cases. I sketch a way in which we might accommodate both, via an evaluation of the good of reputation and the ethics of judgment of other people’s character and behaviour. I argue that a good reputation is a highly valuable good for its bearer, akin to a property right, and not to be damaged without serious reason deriving fr…Read more
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73There can be no doubt that the public face of contemporary philosophy is the professional who goes by the name of “bioethicist.” Since the bioethics industry—which is what it is—sprang up in the 1970s, large numbers of professional philosophers have found it a congenial and remunerative way in which to make a reputation for themselves. A few general observations can be made about bioethicists. Some of them are well-meaning. For example, they are dedicated to the laudable notion that philosophy s…Read more
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11Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and Natural Law. 1st Edition (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2004.In recent decades, the revival of natural law theory in modern moral philosophy has been an exciting and important development. Human Values brings together an international group of moral philosophers who in various respects share the aims and ideals of natural law ethics. In their diverse ways, these authors make distinctive and original contributions to the continuing project of developing natural law ethics as a comprehensive treatment of modern ethical theory and practice.
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218The Beginning of ExistenceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2): 145-157. 2003.Central to recent debate over the Kalam Cosmological Argument, and over the origin of the universe in general, has been the issue of whether the universe began to exist and, if so, how this is to be understood. Adolf Grünbaum has used two cosmological models as a basis for arguing that the universe did not begin to exist according to either of them. Concentrating in this paper on the second (“open interval”) model, I argue that he is wrong on both counts. I give metaphysical considerations for r…Read more
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138Finality revived: powers and intentionalitySynthese 194 (7): 2387-2425. 2017.Proponents of physical intentionality argue that the classic hallmarks of intentionality highlighted by Brentano are also found in purely physical powers. Critics worry that this idea is metaphysically obscure at best, and at worst leads to panpsychism or animism. I examine the debate in detail, finding both confusion and illumination in the physical intentionalist thesis. Analysing a number of the canonical features of intentionality, I show that they all point to one overarching phenomenon of …Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |