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35Response to Commentaries on Made with WordsHobbes Studies 22 (2): 208-218. 2009.This reply argues five points, in response to the commentaries on my book, “Made with Words”. First, that Hobbes's theory of language may have supported his materialism, as his materialism supported the theory of language. Second, that for Hobbes legal penalties as such do not take from freedom, only legal obligations. Third, that his emphasis on maker's knowledge explains his theory of a priori demonstrable knowledge and, in particular, the importance he gives to definitions. Fourth, that Hobbe…Read more
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451Republican Theory and Criminal PunishmentUtilitas 9 (1): 59. 1997.Suppose we embrace the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination: freedom as immunity to arbitrary interference. In that case those acts that call uncontroversially for criminalization will usually be objectionable on three grounds: the offender assumes a dominating position in relation to the victim, the offender reduces the range or ease of undominated choice on the part of the victim, and the offender raises a spectre of domination for others like the victim. And in that case, so it appea…Read more
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21Non-consequentialism and Political PhilosophyEnfoques 18 (1-2): 27-49. 2006.Robert Nozick has shown in which ways the theory of natural law (in John Locke, for instance) can be invoked to defend a libertarian theory of State. This paper suggests that Nozick does not prove that invoking natural rights may be a proof against the consequentionalist challenge. An overview of no..
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91Rawls’s political ontologyPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 4 (2): 157-174. 2005.The background thesis is that an implicit ontology of the people and the relation between the people and the state often shapes how we think in normative terms about politics. This article attempts to defend that thesis in relation to Rawls. The argument is that the rejection of an image of the people as a group agent connects with his objection to utilitarianism and the rejection of an image of the people as a mere aggregate connects with his objection to libertarianism. Rawls, it is argued, ho…Read more
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4Chapter two. Minds with wordsIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 24-41. 2009.
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30Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet1In M. J. van den Joven & J. Weckert (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 175. 2008.
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168There are three major issues which crop up in the discussion of metaphor among philosophers of language. They are: whether metaphor is cognitive, whether it is descriptive, and whether it is innovative. Those who deny that metaphor is cognitive are a group more often imagined than encountered, but if they existed they would consign the study of metaphor to affective stylistics, stressing the ornamentative and related effects which the phenomenon is likely to have.‘ Those who admit that metaphor …Read more
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180Groups with minds of their ownIn Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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20Appendix: The jury theorem and the discursive dilemmaPhilosophical Issues 11 (1): 295-299. 2001.
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6Why and how philosophy mattersIn Robert E. Goodin & Charles Tilly (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, Oxford University Press. pp. 35. 2006.
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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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129Three conceptions of democratic controlConstellations 15 (1): 46-55. 2008.The idea of control or power is central to the notion of democracy, since the ideal is one of giving kratos to the demos: giving maximal or at least significant control over government to the people. But it turns out that the notion of kratos or control is definable in various ways and that as the notion is differently understood, so the ideal of democracy is differently interpreted. In this little reflection, I distinguish between three different notions of popular control, arguing that only on…Read more
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42Free persons and freee choicesHistory of Political Thought 28 (4): 709-718. 2007.Social freedom may be taken to be primarily a property of persons, derivatively a property of choices, or the other way round. Nowadays it is standard to take it the other way round. But there is much to be said for the person-based rather than the choice- based way of thinking. And this way of thinking is characteristic of the neo-Roman, republican tradition
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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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3ReferencesIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 169-176. 2009.
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27Can Contract Theory Ground Morality?In James Lawrence Dreier (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, Blackwell. pp. 6--77. 2006.
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77democratic approach which sets it in contrast to liberal democratic theories. This is pursued by contrasting the different interpretations of the ideal of equal respect..
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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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54Two Republican TraditionsIn Andreas Niederberger & Philipp Schink (eds.), Republican democracy: liberty, law and politics, Edinburgh University Press. 2013.The early nineteenth century saw the demise of the Italian-Atlantic tradition of republicanism and the rise of classical liberalism. A distinct Franco-German tradition of republicanism emerged from the time of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, which differs from the older way of thinking associated with neo-republicanism. This chapter examines the key differences between the Italian-Atlantic and Franco-German traditions of republicanism and places them in a historical context. It first co…Read more
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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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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |