•  106
    Two kinds of satisficing
    Philosophical Studies 59 (1). 1990.
    Michael Slote has defended a moral view that he calls "satisficing consequentialism." Less demanding than maximizing consequentialism, it requires only that agents bring about consequences that are "good enough." I argue that Slote's characterization of satisficing is ambiguous. His idea of consequences' being "good enough" admits of two interpretations, with different implications in (some) particular cases. One interpretation I call "absolute-level" satisficing, the other "comparative" satisfi…Read more
  •  166
    Moore in the middle
    Ethics 113 (3): 599-628. 2003.
    The rhetoric of Principia Ethica, as of not a few philosophy books, is that of the clean break. Moore claims that the vast majority of previous writing on ethics has been misguided and that an entirely new start is needed. In its time, however, the book’s claims to novelty were widely disputed. Reviews in Mind, Ethics, and The Journal of Philosophy applauded the clarity of Moore’s criticisms of Mill, Spencer, and others, but said they were “not altogether original,” had for the most part “alread…Read more
  •  40
    The consequences of war
    In N. Ann Davis, Richard Keshen & Jeff McMahan (eds.), Ethics and Humanity: Themes From the Philosophy of Jonathan Glover, Oxford University Press. 2009.
    to appear in N. Ann Davis, Richard Keshen, and Jeff McMahan, eds., Ethics and Humanity: Themes From the Writing of Jonathan Glover (New York: Oxford University Press).
  •  279
    Why Value Autonomy?
    Social Theory and Practice 13 (3): 361-382. 1987.
  •  74
    Five questions about normative ethics
    In Jesper Ryberg & Thomas S. Peterson (eds.), Normative Ethics: Five Questions, Automatic Press/vip. 2007.
    in Thomas S. Petersen and Jesper Ryberg, eds., Normative Ethics: 5 Questions.
  •  173
    Value and population size
    Ethics 93 (3): 496-507. 1982.
    Just because an angel is better than a stone, it does not follow that two angels are better than one angel and one stone. So said Aquinas (Summa contra Gentiles III, 71), and the sentiment was echoed by Leibniz. In section 118 of the Theodicy he wrote: "No substance is either absolutely precious or absolutely contemptible in the sight of God. It is certain that God attaches more importance to a man than to a lion, but I do not know that we can bc sure that he prefers one man to an entire species…Read more
  •  1
    Critical Notice
    Mind 97 (387). 1988.
  •  104
    The Three Faces of Flourishing
    Social Philosophy and Policy 16 (1): 44. 1999.
    To my knowledge, the term “flourishing” was introduced into contemporary philosophy in Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 article “Modern Moral Philosophy.” In this article and in much of the writing subsequent to it, the concept of flourishing seems to have three principal facets, or to be associated with three philosophical views
  •  8
    Book reviews (review)
    Mind 104 (413): 178-182. 1995.
  •  103
    Normative ethics: back to the future
    In Brian Leiter (ed.), The Future for Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2004.
  •  63
    The Geometry of Desert, by Shelly Kagan
    Mind 125 (498): 598-604. 2016.
  •  108
  •  32
    Though primarily focussed on philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology, Scott Soames’s Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century contains several discussions of ethics. Volume 1 contains two chapters on Moore’s ethics, one on the emotivism of Ayer and Stevenson, and one on Ross; Volume 2 adds a chapter on Hare’s prescriptivism. The bulk of the Moore chapters as well as the ones on emotivism and Hare concern metaethics, but there is also discussion of Moore’s normative views and…Read more
  •  280
    Virtue, Vice, and Value
    Oxford University Press. 2001.
    What are virtue and vice, and how do they relate to other moral properties such as goodness and rightness? This book defends a perfectionist account of virtue and vice that gives distinctive answers to these questions. The account treats the virtues as higher‐level intrinsic goods, ones that involve morally appropriate attitudes to other, independent goods and evils. Virtue by itself makes a person's life better, but in a way that depends on the goodness of other things. This account was accepte…Read more
  •  22
    This volume contains selected essays in moral and political philosophy by Thomas Hurka. The essays address a wide variety of topics, from the well-rounded life and the value of playing games to proportionality in war and the ethics of nationalism. They also share a common aim: to illuminate the surprising richness and subtlety of our everyday moral thought by revealing its underlying structure, which they often do by representing that structure on graphs. More specifically, the essays all give w…Read more
  •  86
    Underivative duty: Prichard on moral obligation: Thomas Hurka
    Social Philosophy and Policy 27 (2): 111-134. 2010.
    This paper examines H.A. Prichard's defense of the view that moral duty is underivative, as reflected in his argument that it is a mistake to ask “Why ought I to do what I morally ought?”, because the only possible answer is “Because you morally ought to.” This view was shared by other philosophers of Prichard's period, from Henry Sidgwick through A.C. Ewing, but Prichard stated it most forcefully and defended it best. The paper distinguishes three stages in Prichard's argument: one appealing to…Read more
  •  506
    Perfectionism
    Oxford University Press. 1993.
    Perfectionism is one of the leading moral views of the Western tradition, defended by Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Leibniz, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Green. Defined broadly, it holds that what is right is whatever most promotes certain objective human goods such as knowledge, achievement, and deep personal relations. Defined more narrowly, it identifies these goods by reference to human nature, so the human good consistsin developing the properties fundamental to human beings. If it is fundament…Read more
  •  129
    Asymmetries In Value
    Noûs 44 (2): 199-223. 2010.
    Values typically come in pairs. Most obviously, there are the pairs of an intrinsic good and its contrasting intrinsic evil, such as pleasure and pain, virtue and vice, and desert and undesert, or getting what one deserves and getting its opposite. But in more complex cases there can be contrasting pairs with the same value. Thus, virtue has the positive form of benevolent pleasure in another’s pleasure and the negative form of compassionate pain for his pain, while desert has the positive form …Read more
  •  72
    Moore's moral philosophy
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021.
    G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica of 1903 is often considered a revolutionary work that set a new agenda for 20 th-century ethics. This historical view is hard to sustain, however. In metaethics Moore's non naturalist position was close to that defended by Henry Sidgwick and other late..
  • Intrinsic value
    In D. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Macmillan Reference. pp. 4--719. 2006.
  •  195
    The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia
    with Bernard Suits
    Broadview Press. 1978.
    In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. "Nonsense," says the sensible Bernard Suits: "playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles." The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing ga…Read more