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8Chapter 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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496Group 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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45The Determinacy of Republican Policy: A Reply to McMahonPhilosophy and Public Affairs 34 (3): 275-283. 2006.
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230A 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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65Made 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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7Chapter one. Mind in natureIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 9-23. 2009.
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249Freedom 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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146The common mind: an essay on psychology, society, and politicsOxford University Press. 1993.What makes human beings intentional and thinking subjects? How does their intentionality and thought connect with their social nature and their communal experience? How do the answers to these questions shape the assumptions which it is legitimate to make in social explanation and political evaluation? These are the broad-ranging issues which Pettit addresses in this novel study. The Common Mind argues for an original way of marking off thinking subjects, in particular human beings, from other i…Read more
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45Akrasia, 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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221Legitimate International Institutions: A Neo-Republican PerspectiveIn Samantha Besson & John Tasioulas (eds.), The Philosophy of International Law, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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53Preference, 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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4FrontmatterIn Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. 1982.
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133Subject, 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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177Rawls: ‘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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168Keeping 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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1David Papineau, "For Science in the Social Sciences" (review)Theory and Decision 12 (2): 207. 1980.
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2SummaryIn Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton University Press. pp. 141-154. 2009.
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4In Elucidation of the Common Mind: A Reply To Raimo TuomelaInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (2): 322. 1994.
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74The 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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