•  51
    Contractualism and Consequentialism
    with T. M. Scanlon
    Theoria 66 (3): 228-236. 2000.
  •  4
    Penser en société: essais de métaphysique sociale et de méthodologie
    Presses Universitaires de France - PUF. 2004.
    À quoi servent les explications du comportement humain qui nous présentent comme des êtres rationnels animés par des motifs égoïstes, si, en réalité, nous agissons la plupart du temps conformément à des motifs qui ne le sont pas? À quoi servent les explications fonctionnalistes des institutions humaines qui les présentent comme ayant été retenues au cours de l'histoire de nos sociétés en raison de leurs avantages adaptatifs, si, en réalité, il n'existe aucune histoire documentée des mécanismes d…Read more
  •  1268
    Freedom as antipower
    Ethics 106 (3): 576-604. 1996.
  •  223
    Rationality, Reasoning and Group Agency
    Dialectica 61 (4): 495-519. 2007.
    The rationality of individual agents is secured for the most part by their make-up or design. Some agents, however – in particular, human beings – rely on the intentional exercise of thinking or reasoning in order to promote their rationality further; this is the activity that is classically exemplified in Rodin’s sculpture of Le Penseur. Do group agents have to rely on reasoning in order to maintain a rational profile? Recent results in the theory of judgment aggregation show that under a range o…Read more
  •  28
  • The doctrinal paradox
    Social Epistemology: Essential Readings. forthcoming.
  •  391
    This chapter sketches what is considered the best interpretation of physicalism, rehearses the best way of defending it, and shows that the physicalism forthcoming is still going to be less than fully satisfying; it is going to leave us short of the satisfaction that might be expected from a philosophical theory. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first section gives an interpretation of physicalism in the spirit of Frank Jackson's; this involves a rich version under which the way…Read more
  •  237
    According to republican theory, we are free persons to the extent that we are protected and secured in the same fundamental choices, on the same public basis, as one another. But there is no public protection or security without a coercive state. Does this mean that any freedom we enjoy is a superficial good that presupposes a deeper, political form of subjection? Philip Pettit addresses this crucial question in On the People's Terms. He argues that state coercion will not involve individual sub…Read more
  •  137
    Winch’s double-edged idea of a social science
    History of the Human Sciences 13 (1): 63-77. 2000.
    Peter Winch’s 1958 book The Idea of a Social Science contains two distinguishable sets of theses, one set bearing on the individual-level understanding of human beings, the other on the society-level understanding of the regularities and institutions to which human beings give rise. The first set of claims is persuasive and significant but the second is a mixed bunch: none is well established and only some are sound
  •  185
    Descriptivism, rigidified and anchored
    Philosophical Studies 118 (1-2): 323-338. 2004.
    Stalnaker argues that, while the two-dimensional framework can be used to give expression to the claims associated with rigidified descriptivism, it cannot be used to support that position. He also puts forward some objections to rigidified descriptivism. I agree that rigidified descriptivism cannot be supported by appeal to the two-dimensional framework. But I think that Stalnaker’s objections can be avoided under a descriptivism that introduces a causal as well as a descriptive element – a descri…Read more
  •  17
    Rights, constraints and trumps
    Analysis 46 (4): 8-14. 1986.
  •  12
    A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2 Volume Set (edited book)
    with Robert E. Goodin and Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2007.
    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 relatio…Read more
  •  191
    The Cunning of Trust
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 24 (3): 202-225. 1995.
  •  321
    Broome on reasoning and rule-following
    Philosophical Studies 173 (12): 3373-3384. 2016.
    John Broome’s Rationality Through Reasoning is a trail-blazing study of the nature of rationality, the nature of reasoning and the connection between the two. But it may be somewhat misleading in two respects. First, his theory of reasoning is consistent with the meta-propositional view that he rejects; it develops a broadly similar theory but in much greater detail. And while his discussion of rule-following helps to explain the role of rules in reasoning, it does not constitute a response to t…Read more
  •  160
    Non-consequentialism and universalizability
    Philosophical 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
  •  51
    Two Sources of Morality
    Social Philosophy and Policy 18 (2): 102. 2001.
    This essay emerges from consideration of a question in the epistemology of ethics or morality. This is not the common claim-centered question as to how moral claims are confirmed and whether their mode of confirmation gives us grounds to be confident about the prospects for ethical discourse. Instead, I am concerned with the less frequently posed concept-centered question of where in human experience moral terms or concepts are grounded — that is, where in experience the moral becomes salient to…Read more
  •  66
    Defining and defending social holism
    Philosophical Explorations 1 (3). 1998.
    This paper offers a definition of social holism that makes the doctrine non-trivial but possibly true. According to that definition, the social holist maintains that people depend non-causally on interaction with one another for possession of the capacity to think; the thesis is meant to be a contingent truth but one, like physicalism, that is plausible in the light of some a priori argument and some plausible empirical assumptions. The paper also sketches an argument in support of social holism…Read more
  •  2
    Review (review)
    Theory and Decision 12 (2): 207-214. 1980.
  •  72
    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.
  •  22
    How the folk understand folk psychology
    ProtoSociology 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
  •  15
  •  79
    A theory of normal and ideal conditions
    Philosophical 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
  • The power of a democratic public
    In Reiko Gotoh & Paul Dumouchel (eds.), Against Injustice: The New Economics of Amartya Sen, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
  •  57
    Corporate Responsibility Revisited
    Netherlands 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
  •  845
    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
  •  27
    Free Riding and Foul Dealing
    Journal of Philosophy 83 (7): 361. 1986.