•  103
    Parmenides and Sartre
    Philosophical Studies (Dublin) 17 (n/a): 161-184. 1968.
    As the first ontologist, Parmenides has a special place in the history of philosophy, not only because of his originality, but also because of the greatness of his particular attempt in the philosophy of being. His stature is such that any later attempt in the inquiry into being must measure itself against his achievement. His famous philosophical poem, which we have in fragments, is a permanent challenge to later philosophers. Thus Plato could describe Parmenides as ‘a man to be respected and a…Read more
  •  80
    The Possibility of Special Duties
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (4). 1986.
    In common-sense morality, certain special obligations loom large. These are duties which are laid upon agents, be they individuals or groups, in virtue of their distinctive identities, relationships or histories: because of who they are, how they are linked to others or what they have done in the past. The particularistic basis of these obligations means that no one but the agent in question is engaged by such a duty. It is that agent's alone.These special obligations include duties towards ones…Read more
  •  72
    Social life In order to get our discussion going we need to develop a picture of what social life involves. Political evaluation, the central theme of our ...
  •  3
    Summary
    In Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 141-154. 2009.
  •  30
    On People’s Terms. A Reply to Four Critiques
    Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 5 (2). 2015.
    Download.
  •  723
    Deliberative Democracy and the Discursive Dilemma
    Philosophical Issues 11 (1): 268-299. 2001.
    Taken as a model for how groups should make collective judgments and decisions, the ideal of deliberative democracy is inherently ambiguous. Consider the idealised case where it is agreed on all sides that a certain conclusion should be endorsed if and only if certain premises are admitted. Does deliberative democracy recommend that members of the group debate the premises and then individually vote, in the light of that debate, on whether or not to support the conclusion? Or does it recommend t…Read more
  •  22
    The Virtual Reality of Homo Economicus
    The Monist 78 (3): 308-329. 1995.
    The economic explanation of individual behaviour, even behaviour outside the traditional province of the market, projects a distinctively economic image on the minds of the agents involved. It suggests that, in regard to motivation and rationality, they conform to the profile of homo economicus. But this suggestion, by many lights, flies in the face of common sense; it conflicts with our ordinary assumptions about how we each feel and think in most situations, certainly most non-market situation…Read more
  •  7
    Reviews (review)
    with Heinz Skala and John Ferejohn
    Theory and Decision 8 (4): 395-414. 1977.
  •  113
    Pettit presents a selection of essays touching upon metaphysics, philosophical psychology, and the theory of rational regulation. The first part of the book discusses the rule-following character of thought. The second considers how choice can be responsive to different sorts of factors, while still being under the control of thought. The third examines the implications of this view of choice and rationality for the normative regulation of social behavior.
  •  132
    Two Construals of Scanlon’s Contractualism
    with T. M. Scanlon
    Journal of Philosophy 97 (3): 148-164. 2000.
  • Not Just Deserts: A Republican Theory of Criminal Justice
    with John Braithwaite
    Law and Philosophy 10 (2): 221-234. 1991.
  •  712
    Group agents have been represented as expressive fictions by those who treat ascriptions of agency to groups as metaphorical; as pragmatic fictions by those who think that the agency ascribed to groups belongs in the first place to a distinct individual or set of individuals; and as theoretical fictions by those who think that postulating group agents serves no indispensable role in our theory of the social world. This paper identifies, criticizes and rejects each of these views, defending a str…Read more
  •  42
    What price fame? Tyler Cowen, Harvard university press, 2000, 248 pages (review)
    Economics and Philosophy 17 (2): 275-294. 2001.
  •  199
    A republican right to basic income?
    Basic Income Studies 2 (2). 2007.
    The basic income proposal provides everyone in a society, as an unconditional right, with access to a certain level of income. Introducing such a right is bound to raise questions of institutional feasibility. Would it lead too many people to opt out of the workforce, for example? And even if it did not, could a constitution that allowed some members of the society to do this – at whatever relative cost – prove acceptable in a society of mutually reciprocal, equally positioned members? I assume …Read more
  •  90
    Rational choice, functional selection and empty black boxes
    Journal of Economic Methodology 7 (1): 33-57. 2000.
    In order to vindicate rational-choice theory as a mode of explaining social patterns in general - social patterns beyond the narrow range of economic behaviour - we have to recognize the legitimacy of explaining the resilience of certain patterns of behaviour: that is, explaining, not necessarily why they emerged or have been sustained, but why they are robust and reliable. And once we allow the legitimacy of explaining resilience, then we can see how functionalist theory may also serve us well …Read more
  •  31
    5 Neuroscience and Agent-Control
    In Don Ross, David Spurrett, Harold Kincaid & G. Lynn Stephens (eds.), Distributed Cognition and the Will: Individual Volition and Social Context, Mit Press. pp. 77. 2007.
  •  47
    Collective persons and powers
    Legal Theory 8 (4): 443-470. 2002.
  •  91
    The basic liberties
    In Matthew H. Kramer (ed.), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2008.
    We have two ways of talking about liberty or freedom, one in the singular, the other in the plural. We concern ourselves in the singular mode with how far someone is free to do or not to do certain things, or with how far someone is a free person or not a free person. But, equally, we concern ourselves with the plural question as to how far the person enjoys the liberties that we take to be important or basic. What are those plural liberties, however? What does it take for something to count as …Read more
  •  2
    Freedom in the spirit of sen
    In Christopher W. Morris (ed.), Amartya Sen, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
  •  173
    Terms, things and response-dependence
    European Review of Philosophy 3 55-66. 1998.