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5IndexIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 177-183. 2009.
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143Subject, Thought, And Context (edited book)Clarendon Press. 1986.Are mental states "in the head"? Or do they intrinsically involve aspects of the subject's physical and social context? This volume presents a number of essays dealing with the compass of the mind. The contributors broach a range of issues with a commmon view that physical and social magnets do act upon mental states. The approaches that run through these papers make the volume challenging to cognitive psychologists, theorists of artificial intelligence, social theorists, and philosophers.
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9Chapter seven. The state of second, worded natureIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 98-114. 2009.
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509Group agency and supervenienceSouthern Journal of Philosophy 44 (S1): 85-105. 2006.Can groups be rational agents over and above their individual members? We argue that group agents are distinguished by their capacity to mimic the way in which individual agents act and that this capacity must “supervene” on the group members' contributions. But what is the nature of this supervenience relation? Focusing on group judgments, we argue that, for a group to be rational, its judgment on a particular proposition cannot generally be a function of the members' individual judgments on th…Read more
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235A Republican Law of PeoplesEuropean Journal of Political Theory 9 (1): 70-94. 2010.Assuming that states will remain a permanent feature of our world, what is the ideal that we should hold out for the international order? An attractive proposal is that those peoples that are already organized under non-dominating, representative states should pursue a twin goal: first, arrange things so that they each enjoy the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination in relation to one another and to other multi-national and international agencies; and second, do everything possible and p…Read more
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73Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and PoliticsPrinceton University Press. 2009.He has an astonishing range, and in this book he expands it still further. More than a mere introduction, Made with Words offers a coherent and well-argued picture of most of the main components of Hobbes's wide-ranging philosophy.
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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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10Chapter one. Mind in natureIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 9-23. 2009.
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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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251Freedom in the marketPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 5 (2): 131-149. 2006.The market is traditionally hailed as the very exemplar of a system under which people enjoy freedom, in particular the negative sort of freedom associated with liberal and libertarian thought: freedom as noninterference. But how does the market appear from the perspective of a rival conception of freedom (freedom as non-domination) that is linked with the Roman and neo-Roman tradition of republicanism? The republican conception of freedom argues for important normative constraints on property, …Read more
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56Akrasia, collective and individualIn Sarah Stroud & Christine Tappolet (eds.), Weakness of will and practical irrationality, Oxford University Press. pp. 68--97. 2003.Examines what is necessary for a group to constitute an agent that can display akrasia, and what steps such a group might take to establish self‐control. The topic has some interest in itself, and the discussion suggests some lessons about how we should think of akrasia in the individual as well as in the collective case. Under the image that the lessons support, akrasia is a sort of constitutional disorder: a failure to achieve a unity projected in the avowal of agency. This image fits well wit…Read more
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236Legitimate International Institutions: A Neo-Republican PerspectiveIn Samantha Besson & John Tasioulas (eds.), The Philosophy of International Law, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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60Preference, Deliberation and SatisfactionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 59 131-154. 2006.In his famous lecture on ‘The Concept of Preference’ Amartya Sen (1982) opened up the topic of preference and preference-satisfaction to critical, philosophical debate. He pointed out that preference in the sense in which choice reveals one’s preference need not be preference in the sense in which people are personally better off for having their preferences satisfied. And on the basis of that observation he built a powerful critique of some common assumptions in welfare economics.
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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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5FrontmatterIn Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. 1982.
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183Rawls: ‘A Theory of Justice' and its CriticsStanford University Press. 1990.1 A New Departure 'No commanding work of political theory has appeared in the 20th century.' So said Isaiah Berlin, writing in 1962 . ...
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170Keeping Republican Freedom SimplePolitical Theory 30 (3): 339-356. 2002.There has recently been a good deal of interest in the republican tradition, particularly in the political conception of freedom maintained within that tradition. I look here at the characterisation of republican liberty in a recent work of Quentin Skinner1and argue on historical and conceptual grounds for a small amendment—a simplification—that would make it equivalent to the view that freedom in political contexts should be identified with nondomination.
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111Rules, 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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1David Papineau, "For Science in the Social Sciences" (review)Theory and Decision 12 (2): 207. 1980.
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