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3SummaryIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 141-154. 2009.
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67The Economy of Esteem:An Essay on Civil and Political Society: An Essay on Civil and Political SocietyOxford University Press. 2005.This groundbreaking book revisits the writings of classic theorists in an effort re-evaluate the importance and influence the psychology of esteem has on the economy. The authors explore ways the economy of esteem may be reshaped to improve overall social outcomes and offer new ways of thinking about how society works and may be made to work.
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21How the folk understand folk psychologyProtoSociology 14 26-38. 2000.Let folk psychology consist in the network of concepts, and associated beliefs, in terms of which we make sense of minded performance.This paper addresses the question of how we, the folk, come to understand those concepts: this, as distinct from the separate question as to how we come to apply them in the interpretation of particular minds, our own and those of others.The argument is that even though the network of concepts is akin to a set of theoretical, interdefined terms, still it is possib…Read more
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77The Possibility of Special DutiesCanadian 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
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78A theory of normal and ideal conditionsPhilosophical Studies 96 (1): 21-44. 1999.It is a priori on many accounts of colour concepts that something is red if and only if it is such that it would look red to normal observers in normal circumstances: it is such that it would look red, as we can say, under normal conditions of observation. And as this sort of formula is widely applied to colour concepts, so similar schemas are commonly defended in relation to a variety of other concepts too. Not only are colour concepts connected in such a fashion with human responses, so by man…Read more
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151Non-consequentialism and universalizabilityPhilosophical Quarterly 50 (199): 175-190. 2000.If non-consequentialists are to embrace the requirement of universalizability, then they will have to adopt a surprisingly relativistic stance. Not only will they say, in familiar vein, that the premises adduced in moral argument may be only agent-relative in force, that is, may involve the use of an indexical – as in the consideration that this or that option would advance my commitments, discharge my duty, or benefit my children – and may provide reasons only for the indexically relevant agent,…Read more
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56Corporate Responsibility RevisitedNetherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 38 (2): 159-176. 2009.This paper responds to four commentaries on “Responsibility Incorporated”, restating, revising, and expanding on existing work. In particular, it looks again at a set of issues related primarily to responsibility at the individual level; it reconsiders responsibility at the corporate level; it examines the connection of this discussion to issues of responsibility in law and politics
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112Rules, reasons, and norms: selected essaysClarendon Press. 2002.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.
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838Three Methods of Ethics: A DebateWiley-Blackwell. 1997.During the past decade ethical theory has been in a lively state of development, and three basic approaches to ethics - Kantian ethics, consequentialism, and virtue ethics - have assumed positions of particular prominence
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20The Virtual Reality of Homo EconomicusThe 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
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89A Priori Principles and Action-ExplanationAnalysis 46 (1). 1986.This paper is a defence of the view that action explanation deploys (relatively) a priori principles. The argument is that this is so because action explanation succeeds, Not just through revealing regularity, But through exhibiting the presence of an expected and privileged pattern. Its job is to 'normalise' action, Not just 'regularise' it
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331Making Up Your Mind: How Language Enables Self‐Knowledge, Self‐Knowability and PersonhoodEuropean Journal of Philosophy 24 (1): 3-26. 2016.If language is to serve the basic purpose of communicating our attitudes, we must be constructed so as to form beliefs in those propositions that we truthfully assert on the basis of careful assent. Thus, other things being equal, I can rely on believing those things to which I give my careful assent. And so my ability to assent or dissent amounts to an ability to make up my mind about what I believe. This capacity, in tandem with a similar capacity in respect of other attitudes, supports three …Read more
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90Rational choice, functional selection and empty black boxesJournal 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
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98Functional explanation and virtual selectionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (2): 291-302. 1996.Invoking its social function can explain why we find a certain functional trait or institution only if we can identify a mechanism whereby the playing of the function connects with the explanandum. That is the main claim in the missing-mechanism critique of functionalism. Is it correct? Yes, if functional explanation is meant to make sense of the actual presence of the trait or institution. No, if it is meant to make sense of why the trait or institution is resilient: why we can rely on it to su…Read more
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Liberty and LibertiesIn Matthew Kramer, Claire Grant, Ben Colburn & Antony Hatzistavrou (eds.), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political and Moral Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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42What price fame? Tyler Cowen, Harvard university press, 2000, 248 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 17 (2): 275-294. 2001.
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8Chapter five. Using words to incorporateIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 70-83. 2009.
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Philosophy and the Human Sciences an Inaugural Lecture Delivered at the University of Bradford on 23 January 1979University of Bradford. 1979.
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Democracia y evaluaciones compartidasIsonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho 23 51-58. 2005.
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90The basic libertiesIn 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
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23Action and interpretation: studies in the philosophy of the social sciences (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 1977.Whether the interpretations made by social scientists of the thoughts, utterances and actions of other people, including those from an alien culture or a ...
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82RepublicanismMind 109 (435): 640-644. 2000.The long republican tradition is characterized by a conception of freedom as non‐domination, which offers an alternative, both to the negative view of freedom as non‐interference and to the positive view of freedom as self‐mastery. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of the conception, displays its many attractions and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at the sorts of political and civil institution…Read more
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