•  72
  •  49
    The Inescapability of Consequentialism
    In Ulrike Heuer & Gerald R. Lang (eds.), Luck, Value, and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 41. 2012.
  •  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
  •  3
    Pettit, P.-The Common Mind
    with John Christman
    Philosophical Books 37 90-101. 1996.
  •  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
  •  25
    Inference and information
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (4): 727. 1987.
  •  2
    Backmatter
    In Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. pp. 225-226. 1982.
  •  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.
  •  24
    Democracy’s Discontent
    Journal of Philosophy 95 (2): 73-96. 1998.
  •  17
    Wittgenstein and case for structuralism
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 3 (1): 46-57. 1972.
  •  35
    Esteem, Identifiability, and the Internet1
    with Geoffrey Brennan
    In M. J. van den Joven & J. Weckert (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 175. 2008.
  •  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..
  •  184
    Groups with minds of their own
    In Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press. 2011.
  •  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
  •  21
    Non-consequentialism and Political Philosophy
    Enfoques 18 (1-2): 27-49. 2006.
    Robert Nozick has shown in which ways the theory of natural law (in John Locke, for instance) can be invoked to defend a libertarian theory of State. This paper suggests that Nozick does not prove that invoking natural rights may be a proof against the consequentionalist challenge. An overview of no..
  •  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
  •  43
    Free persons and freee choices
    History of Political Thought 28 (4): 709-718. 2007.
    Social freedom may be taken to be primarily a property of persons, derivatively a property of choices, or the other way round. Nowadays it is standard to take it the other way round. But there is much to be said for the person-based rather than the choice- based way of thinking. And this way of thinking is characteristic of the neo-Roman, republican tradition
  •  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
  •  14
    Le non-conséquentialisme et l'universalisabilité
    Philosophiques 27 (2): 305-322. 2000.
    Si les non-conséquentialistes veulent adhérer à l'exigence d'universalisabilité, alors ils devront adopter une prise de position étonnamment relativiste. Non seulement vont-ils affirmer, dans une veine familière, que les prémisses invoquées dans l'argumentation morale n'ont de force que relative à l'agent, c'est-à-dire qu'elles peuvent impliquer l'usage d'un indexical — comme dans la considération que cette option-ci ou celle-là favoriserait mes engagements, me délesterait de mes devoirs ou béné…Read more
  •  70
    Freedom and probability: A comment on Goodin and Jackson
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 36 (2): 206-220. 2008.
    No Abstract
  •  21
    Social Holism and Moral Theory: A Defence of Bradley's Thesis
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 86 (1). 1986.
    Philip Pettit; X*—Social Holism and Moral Theory: A Defence of Bradley's Thesis, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages.
  •  2
    Love and its place in moral discourse
    In Roger E. Lamb (ed.), Love analyzed, Westview Press. pp. 153--163. 1997.