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1Liberal/communitarianism : Macintyre's mesmeric dichotomyIn John Horton & Susan Mendus (eds.), After Macintyre: Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair Macintyre, University of Notre Dame Press. 1994.
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4Penser en société: essais de métaphysique sociale et de méthodologiePresses 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
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223Rationality, Reasoning and Group AgencyDialectica 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
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28Keeping Republican Freedom Simple: On a Difference with Quentin SkinnerPhilosophy Today 30 (3): 339-356. 2002.
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391Consciousness and the Frustrations of PhysicalismIn Ian Ravenscroft (ed.), Minds, Ethics, and Conditionals: Themes from the Philosophy of Frank Jackson, Oxford University Press. pp. 163. 2009.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
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237On the people's terms: a republican theory and model of democracyCambridge University Press. 2012.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
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137Winch’s double-edged idea of a social scienceHistory 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
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185Descriptivism, rigidified and anchoredPhilosophical 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
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12A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2 Volume Set (edited book)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
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1ŤIntroductionŤ, u: Philip Pettit & John McDowell (ur.)In Subject, Thought, And Context, Clarendon Press. 1986.
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321Broome on reasoning and rule-followingPhilosophical 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
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160Non-consequentialism and universalizabilityPhilosophical 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
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51Two Sources of MoralitySocial 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
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66Defining and defending social holismPhilosophical 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
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72The Economy of Esteem:An Essay on Civil and Political Society: An Essay on Civil and Political SocietyOxford University Press. 2005.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.
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22How the folk understand folk psychologyProtoSociology 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
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15Theory and Understanding: A Critique of Interpretive Social SciencePhilosophical Review 98 (2): 266. 1989.
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79A theory of normal and ideal conditionsPhilosophical 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
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The power of a democratic publicIn Reiko Gotoh & Paul Dumouchel (eds.), Against Injustice: The New Economics of Amartya Sen, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
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57Corporate Responsibility RevisitedNetherlands 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
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845Three Methods of Ethics: A DebateWiley-Blackwell. 1997.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
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Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |