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35My thanks to the Editors of Philosophy & Public Affairs for very helpful comments on an earlier draft. I also had the benefit of an exchange with Christopher McMahon. 1. Christopher McMahon, “The Indeterminacy of Republican Policy,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (2005): 67–93, at p. 89. All parenthetical references in the text are to this article.
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19Le non-conséquentialisme et l'universalisabilitéPhilosophiques 27 (2): 305-322. 2000.Si les non-conséquentialistes veulent adhérer à l'exigence d'universalisabilité, alors ils devront adopter une prise de position étonnamment relativiste. Non seulement vont-ils affirmer, dans une veine familière, que les prémisses invoquées dans l'argumentation morale n'ont de force que relative à l'agent, c'est-à-dire qu'elles peuvent impliquer l'usage d'un indexical — comme dans la considération que cette option-ci ou celle-là favoriserait mes engagements, me délesterait de mes devoirs ou béné…Read more
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55Discourse theory and republican freedomCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 6 (1): 72-95. 2003.This essay outlines some of the main issues that arise in the theory of freedom and, in particular, those that divide the liberal conception of freedom as non-interference from the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. It goes on to explore the idea that discourse theory provides reasons for favouring the republican conception. Discourse theory is taken for these purposes to be a theory that subsumes, but goes beyond decision theory. It accepts the decision-theoretic view that huma…Read more
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192Restrictive consequentialismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (4). 1986.paper offers both explication and defence. Standard consequentialism is a theory of decision. It attempts to identify, for any set of alternative options, that which it is right that an agent should..
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70Freedom and probability: A comment on Goodin and JacksonPhilosophy and Public Affairs 36 (2): 206-220. 2008.No Abstract
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34This book is in three sections, with two chapters in each. It begins with questions of psychology: questions to do with what it means to be an intentional agent and, in particular, what it means to be an agent with the capacity for thought. Having sketched an overall view of the intentional, thinking agent, it then goes on to explore the difference that social life makes to the mentality of such agents; in effect, it outlines a social ontology. And, having developed a picture of the mind in soci…Read more
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2Love and its place in moral discourseIn Roger E. Lamb (ed.), Love Analyzed, Westview Press. pp. 153--163. 1997.
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28Can Contract Theory Ground Morality?In James Lawrence Dreier (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, Blackwell. pp. 6--77. 2006.
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17Wittgenstein and case for structuralismJournal of the British Society for Phenomenology 3 (1): 46-57. 1972.
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87A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 1996.This new edition of A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy has been extended significantly to include 55 chapters across two volumes written by some of today's most distinguished scholars. New contributors include some of today’s most distinguished scholars, among them Thomas Pogge, Charles Beitz, and Michael Doyle Provides in-depth coverage of contemporary philosophical debate in all major related disciplines, such as economics, history, law, political science, international relations…Read more
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25Three Aspects of Rational ExplanationProtoSociology 8 170-182. 1996.Rational explanation, as I understand it here, is the sort of explanation we practise when we try to make intentional sense of a person’s attitudes and actions. We may postulate various obstacles to rationality in the course of offering such explanations but the point of the exercise is generally to present the individual as a more or less rational subject: as a subject who, within the constraints of the obstacles postulated - and they can be quite severe - displays a rational pattern of attitud…Read more
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3J. Burnheim: "Is Democracy Possible"? (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 66 (n/a): 105. 1988.
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3The reality of group agentsIn Chrysostomos Mantzavinos (ed.), Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
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1PersonenverzeichnisIn Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. pp. 223-224. 1982.
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40Physicalism without pop-outIn David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, Mit Press. 2009.Imagine a very fi ne grid or graph on which dots are placed at various coordinates so that, as a consequence, this or that shape materializes there. Depending on the coordinates of the dots, different shapes will appear, and for every shape there will be a pattern in the coordinates that guarantees its appearance. Take, for example, the diagonal line that slopes rightward and upward at an angle of 45 degrees from the origin. This line is bound to make an appearance so long as the coordinates sat…Read more
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712Decision theory and folk psychologyIn Michael Bacharach & Susan Hurley (eds.), Essays in the Foundations of Decision Theory, Blackwell. pp. 147-175. 1991.
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93The feasibility issueIn Frank Jackson & Michael Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 258--279. 2005.
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21Social Holism and Moral Theory: A Defence of Bradley's ThesisProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 86 (1). 1986.Philip Pettit; X*—Social Holism and Moral Theory: A Defence of Bradley's Thesis, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages.
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8Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften (edited book)De Gruyter. 1982.Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Handlung und Interpretation" verfügbar.
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259A theory of justice?Theory and Decision 4 (3-4): 311-324. 1974.AnsrRAcr. This is a critical analysis of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. Rawls offers a theoretical justihcation of social democratic principles of justice. He argues that they are the principles which rational men would choose, under defined constraints, in an original position of social contract. The author criticises Rawls’s assumption that men of any background, of any socialisation, would choose these principles in the original position. He argues that the choice which Rawls imputes to hi…Read more
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88No testimonial route to consensusEpisteme 3 (3): 156-165. 2006.The standard image of how consensus can be achieved is by pooling evidence and reducing if not eliminating disagreements. But rather than just pooling substantive evidence on a certain question, why not also take into account the formal, testimonial evidence provided by the fact that a majority of the group adopt a particular answer? Shouldn't we be reinforced by the discovery that we are on that majority side, and undermined by the discovery that we are not? Shouldn't this be so, in particular,…Read more
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193Depoliticizing DemocracyRatio Juris 17 (1): 52-65. 2004.It is now widely accepted as an ideal that democracy should be as deliberative as possible. Democracy should not involve a tussle between different interest groups or lobbies in which the numbers matter more than the arguments. And it should not be a system in which the only arguments that matter are those that voters conduct in an attempt to determine where their private or sectional advantage lies. Democracy, it is said, should promote public deliberation among citizens and authorities as to w…Read more
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25Rules, Reasons and NormsPhilosophical Studies 124 (2): 185-197. 2005.Philip Pettit has drawn together here a series of interconnected essays on three subjects to which he has made notable contributions. 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 and the reasons that thought marshals. The third examines the implications of this view of choice and rationality for the normative regulation of social behavio…Read more
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Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |