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68Non-relative reasons and Humean thought: If what is a reason for you is a reason for me, where does that leave the Humean?Metaphilosophy 38 (5): 654-668. 2007.A variety of strategies have been used to oppose the influential Humean thesis that all of an agent’s reasons for action are provided by the agent’s current wants. Among these strategies is the attempt to show that it is a conceptual truth that reasons for action are non-relative. I introduce the notion of a basic reason- giving consideration and show that the non-relativity thesis can be understood as a corollary of the more fundamental thesis that basic reason-giving considerations are general…Read more
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63Can Every Option Be Rationally Impermissible?Erkenntnis 86 (6): 1309-1317. 2019.Moving from simple to increasingly sophisticated candidate cases, I argue against the idea that there can be cases in which, due to no fault of the agent or to any ambiguity regarding how things will go depending on which option is selected, all the options available to an agent are rationally impermissible. Whether there are cases that fit this bill—qualifying as what I will label no-fault-or-ambiguity rational dilemmas—depends on the characteristics of conclusive reasons. My reasoning leads me…Read more
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62Going from Bad (Or Not so Bad) to Worse: On Harmful Addictions and HabitsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 42 (4). 2005.None
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51Rehabilitating human natureBioethics 24 (9): 461-469. 2009.I review the main models of disability and introduce a line of reasoning that has been neglected in the debate concerning disability and disadvantage. My reasoning suggests that while disablism can and should be combated, success will require more challenging transformations than those featured in the literature
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49Add to Cart: Environmental ‘Amenities’ and Cost-Benefit AnalysisIn Michael O'Rourke and Matthew H. Slater William P. Kabasenche (ed.), Topics in Contemporary Philosophy 9: The Environment, . 2012.This chapter discusses the utility of cost-benefit analysis in decision making, specifically environmental decision making. For the purposes of the discussion here, it uses a type of CBA that incorporates two controversial characteristics, namely, the assumption of comparability and the willingness-to-pay measure. The chapter aims to show that the recognition of a well motivated holistic decision-making strategy can shed light on debates regarding CBA. This strategy is concerned with patterns of…Read more
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44Snedegar, Justin. Contrastive Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. 160. $55.00Ethics 128 (3): 666-672. 2018.
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41Figuring Out How to Proceed with Evaluation After Figuring Out What MattersDialogue 55 (4): 621-637. 2016.I focus on David Gauthier’s intriguing suggestion that actions are not to be evaluated directly but via an evaluation of deliberative procedures. I argue that this suggestion is misleading, since even the most direct evaluation of (intentional) actions involves the evaluation of different ways of deliberating about what to do. Relatedly, a complete picture of what an agent is or might be (intentionally) doing cannot be disentangled from a complete picture of how s/he is or might be deliberating.…Read more
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33General assessments and attractive exceptions: temptation in Planning, Time, and Self-GovernanceTandf: Inquiry 1-9. forthcoming.One of Bratman’s aims in Planning, Time, and Self-Governance is to develop his insights regarding planning to shed light on temptation. I focus on the main case of temptation Bratman appeals to in supporting his conclusion that it can be rational for an agent facing temptation to stick to her prior plan even if she finds herself with an evaluative judgment that favors deviating. Bratman’s reasoning is meant to be consistent with the priority of present evaluation, and to be sensitive to Sm…Read more
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29Regret, Sub-optimality, and VaguenessIn Richard Dietz (ed.), Vagueness and Rationality in Language Use and Cognition, Springer Verlag. pp. 49-59. 2019.This paper concerns regret, where regretting is to be understood, roughly, as mourning the loss of a forgone good. My ultimate aim is to add a new dimension to existing debate concerning the internal logic of regret by revealing the significance of certain sorts of cases—including, most interestingly, certain down-to-earth cases involving vague goals—in relation to the possibility of regret in continued endorsement cases. Intuitively, it might seem like, in continued endorsement cases, an agent’…Read more
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27Paternalism and presumed superiorityAnalysis 83 (1): 22-28. 2022.1. It is commonly held that paternalism (invariably) involves ‘an assumption of superiority’, wherein the paternalizing agent assumes that – on top of any advan.
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18Incomparability and the huge-improvement argumentsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 58 (4): 307-318. 2021.This paper explores the possibility of incomparability. It first focuses on a challenge to the small-improvement argument for incomparability and then turns to some seemingly more promising, “huge-improvement” variations on the argument. After considering an important complication, it is argued that, whether or not options can be strictly incomparable, there is room for cases beyond not just classic cases of trichotomous comparability but even beyond cases involving options that, though not tric…Read more
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17Choosing well: the good, the bad, and the trivialOxford University Press. 2022.This book focuses on the challenges associated with effective choice over time. In particular, it considers the challenges raised by cyclic preferences and by incomplete preferences, both of which interfere with the agent's neatly ordering her options, and which make the agent susceptible to self-defeating patterns of choice in which the agent is drawn into taking each of a series of steps that collectively lead her to a result that she deems unacceptable. The book's guiding questions are the fo…Read more
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13Lessons from the History of the Concept of the Ray for Teaching Geometrical OpticsScience & Education 20 (10): 1007-1037. 2011.
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12Belief, Action and Rationality Over Time (edited book)Routledge. 2016.Action theorists and formal epistemologists often pursue parallel inquiries regarding rationality, with the former focused on practical rationality, and the latter focused on theoretical rationality. In both fields, there is currently a strong interest in exploring rationality in relation to time. This exploration raises questions about the rationality of certain patterns over time. For example, it raises questions about the rational permissibility of certain patterns of intention; similarly, it…Read more
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12Preferences, Proxies, and RationalityErkenntnis 1-11. forthcoming.This paper uses the idea of a proxy, which figures in discussions of bounded rationality, to construct an argument for a revisionary conclusion about ideal instrumental rationality. I consider how subjective responses can figure as proxies in heuristics and develop the following argument: (1) Proxies, even if relatively easy to recognize, can sometimes be messy, prompting incomplete or cyclic preferences. (2) From the point of view of ideal instrumental rationality, it is permissible for an agen…Read more
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12Incommensurability and hardnessPhilosophical Studies 1-17. forthcoming.There is growing support for the view that there can be cases of incommensurability, understood as cases in which two alternatives, X and Y, are such that X is not better than Y, Y is not better than X, and X and Y are not equally good. This paper assumes that alternatives can be incommensurable and explores the prominent idea that, insofar as choice situations that agents face qua rational agents involve options that are not rankable as one better than the other or as equally good, the choice s…Read more
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11In Defence of Marx’s Account of the Nature of Capitalist ExploitationThe Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 28 1-6. 1998.According to Marx, "at any given epoch of a given society, [there is] a quantity of necessaries [recognized as] the necessaries of life habitually required by the average worker." The variations in the type and amount of goods recognized as necessary for life between different epochs and different societies is due to the different 'physical conditions' and to the different 'degrees of civilization' and 'comfort' prevalent. In advanced capitalist societies, the necessities of life include a heate…Read more
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9Profiling for the good: Patient profile tests and informed, autonomous decision makingBioethics 35 (5): 429-437. 2021.It is commonly held that, given multiple medically permissible ways of proceeding, each with a different impact on the patient’s future, it is extremely important, and part of respecting patient autonomy, that patients not be under substantial pressure to defer to their physicians’ presumed authority. Some, however, worry that the focus on patient autonomy can be detrimental and that, at least in cases where it is hard to grasp what it is really like to live with certain outcomes without any fir…Read more
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8Empowering rationalityAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2): 105-116. 2020.This paper defends a version of the view that, sometimes, rational choice between two options can be grounded on a good reason whose justifying force does not depend on how the two options compare. The route via which this view is arrived at does not presuppose the existence of incomparable options, and so allows for common ground with skeptics about incomparability. Still, it requires that challenging cases be acknowledged and addressed, rather than abstracted from or assumed away. Ultimately, …Read more
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4General assessments and attractive exceptions: temptation in Planning, Time, and Self-GovernanceInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 64 (9): 892-900. 2021.ABSTRACT One of Bratman’s aims in Planning, Time, and Self-Governance is to develop his insights regarding planning to shed light on temptation. I focus on the main case of temptation Bratman appeals to in supporting his conclusion that it can be rational for an agent facing temptation to stick to her prior plan even if she finds herself with an evaluative judgment that favors deviating. Bratman’s reasoning is meant to be consistent with the priority of present evaluation, and to be sensitive to…Read more
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3Book Reviews (review)International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (3): 281-292. 1998.The Economics of Science: Methodology and Epistemology as if Economics Really Mattered. James R. Wible, 1998. London and New York, Routledge. xviii + 266 pp., US$75.00, £45.00. ISBN 0–415–17257–8 The Dawning of Gauge Theory. Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh, 1997. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. ix + 249 pp., $US 69.50, $US 29.95. ISBN 0–691–02978–4, 0–691–02977–6 Mathematics as a Science of Patterns. Michael D. Resnik, 1997. Oxford, Clarendon Press. ISBN 0–19–823608–5 Proof Theory and Automa…Read more
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3Coping with ProcrastinationIn Chrisoula Andreou and Mark D. White (ed.), The Thief of Time, . 2010.This paper focuses on a puzzling but familiar strategy for coping with procrastination that has not yet been analyzed in the literature on that topic. The strategy involves leveraging control. In employing the strategy, we take advantage of the possibility that poor self-control can be a local trait rather than a robust character trait.
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3Choosing Well: Value Pluralism and Patterns of ChoiceIn Thom Brooks (ed.), New Waves in Ethics, . 2011.What should I do? Philosophical reflection on this question has raised a variety of puzzles concerning the nature of ethics and of practical reasoning. In this paper, I focus on some new complications raised by current discussions concerning value pluralism, incomparability, and the nature of all-things-considered judgments. I suggest that part of the debate has proceeded in a way that obscures aspects of how we make good decisions in the face of a plurality of values (and identities) pulling…Read more
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2The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2010.When we fail to achieve our goals, procrastination is often the culprit. But how exactly is procrastination to be understood? This edited volume integrates the problem of procrastination into philosophical inquiry, exploring the relationship of procrastination to agency, rationality, and ethics--topics that philosophy is well-suited to address.
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1The Moral GripDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 2001.Implicit in common views about morality is the assumption that the grip of morality is inescapable in the sense that moral considerations give reasons for acting to everyone. On the basis of this assumption, it is claimed that there is a necessity associated with behaving morally, even when we are not compelled to do so, and that while one may reasonably dismiss certain non-moral requirements with a "So what?" one cannot reasonably offer this in response to a statement about the dictates of mora…Read more
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1There Are Preferences and Then There Are PreferencesIn Barbara Montero and Mark D. White (ed.), Economics and the Mind, . 2007.This paper draws a distinction between two closely related conceptions of 'preference' that is of great significance relative to a set of interrelated debates in rational choice theory. The distinction is particularly illuminating in relation to the idea that there is a rational defect inherent in individuals with intransitive preferences and, relatedly, in democratic collectives. I use the distinction to show that things are more complicated than they seem.
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1Joseph Heath, Communicative Action and Rational Choice Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 22 (1): 41-43. 2002.
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Commitment and Resoluteness in Rational ChoiceCambridge University Press. 2022.Drawing and building on the existing literature, this Element explores the interesting and challenging philosophical terrain where issues regarding cooperation, commitment, and control intersect. Section 1 discusses interpersonal and intrapersonal Prisoner's Dilemma situations, and the possibility of a set of unrestrained choices adding up in a way that is problematic relative to the concerns of the choosers involved. Section 2 focuses on the role of precommitment devices in rational choice. Sec…Read more
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Philosophy of Action |
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |