•  384
    Reworking Sandel's republicanism
    Journal of Philosophy 95 (2): 73-96. 1998.
  • Not Just Deserts: A Republican Theory of Criminal Justice
    with John Braithwaite
    Mind 100 (3): 379-381. 1991.
  •  259
    Group agency and supervenience
    Southern 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
  •  55
    Discourse theory and republican freedom
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 6 (1): 72-95. 2003.
    This essay outlines some of the main issues that arise in the theory of freedom and, in particular, those that divide the liberal conception of freedom as non-interference from the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. It goes on to explore the idea that discourse theory provides reasons for favouring the republican conception. Discourse theory is taken for these purposes to be a theory that subsumes, but goes beyond decision theory. It accepts the decision-theoretic view that huma…Read more
  •  110
    Review: On thinking how to live: A cognitivist view (review)
    Mind 115 (460): 1083-1106. 2006.
    Allan Gibbard’s strategy in his new book is to begin by describing a psychology of thinking and planning that certain agents might instantiate, then to argue that this psychology involves an ‘expressivism’ about thought that bears on what to do, and, finally, to try to show that ascribing that same psychology to human beings would explain the way we deploy various concepts in practical and normative deliberation. The idea is to construct an imaginary normative psychology, purportedly conforming t…Read more
  •  251
    Freedom in the market
    Politics, 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
  •  35
    My thanks to the Editors of Philosophy & Public Affairs for very helpful comments on an earlier draft. I also had the benefit of an exchange with Christopher McMahon. 1. Christopher McMahon, “The Indeterminacy of Republican Policy,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 33 (2005): 67–93, at p. 89. All parenthetical references in the text are to this article.
  •  63
    Akrasia, collective and individual
    In 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
  •  76
    Keeping Republican Freedom Simple
    Political 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.
  •  17
    Wittgenstein and case for structuralism
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 3 (1): 46-57. 1972.
  •  204
    Restrictive consequentialism
    with Geoffrey Brennan
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (4). 1986.
    paper offers both explication and defence. Standard consequentialism is a theory of decision. It attempts to identify, for any set of alternative options, that which it is right that an agent should..
  •  22
    Preference, Deliberation and Satisfaction
    Royal 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.
  •  7
    Frontmatter
    In Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. 1982.
  •  37
    This book is in three sections, with two chapters in each. It begins with questions of psychology: questions to do with what it means to be an intentional agent and, in particular, what it means to be an agent with the capacity for thought. Having sketched an overall view of the intentional, thinking agent, it then goes on to explore the difference that social life makes to the mentality of such agents; in effect, it outlines a social ontology. And, having developed a picture of the mind in soci…Read more
  •  133
    1 A New Departure 'No commanding work of political theory has appeared in the 20th century.' So said Isaiah Berlin, writing in 1962 . ...
  •  40
    Physicalism without pop-out
    In David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, Bradford. 2008.
    Imagine a very fi ne grid or graph on which dots are placed at various coordinates so that, as a consequence, this or that shape materializes there. Depending on the coordinates of the dots, different shapes will appear, and for every shape there will be a pattern in the coordinates that guarantees its appearance. Take, for example, the diagonal line that slopes rightward and upward at an angle of 45 degrees from the origin. This line is bound to make an appearance so long as the coordinates sat…Read more
  •  25
    Three Aspects of Rational Explanation
    ProtoSociology 8 170-182. 1996.
    Rational explanation, as I understand it here, is the sort of explanation we practise when we try to make intentional sense of a person’s attitudes and actions. We may postulate various obstacles to rationality in the course of offering such explanations but the point of the exercise is generally to present the individual as a more or less rational subject: as a subject who, within the constraints of the obstacles postulated - and they can be quite severe - displays a rational pattern of attitud…Read more
  •  5
    The Possibility of Naturalism
    Philosophical Books 22 (1): 57-61. 1981.
  •  1
    A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency
    Philosophical Quarterly 53 (212): 473-476. 2003.
  •  56
    Desire
    Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 1998.
    If an agent is to be moved to action, then two requirements have to be fulfilled: first, the agent must possess beliefs about the way things actually are, about the actions possible given the way things are, and about the likely effects of those actions on how things are; and, second, the agent must have or form desires to change the way things are by resorting to this or that course of action. The beliefs tell the agent about how things are and about how they can be altered; the desires attract…Read more