•  74
    The Possibility of Special Duties
    Canadian 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
  •  6
    Reviews (review)
    with Heinz Skala and John Ferejohn
    Theory and Decision 8 (4): 395-414. 1977.
  •  22
    Whether the interpretations made by social scientists of the thoughts, utterances and actions of other people, including those from an alien culture or a ...
  •  102
    Pettit presents a selection of essays touching upon metaphysics, philosophical psychology, and the theory of rational regulation. The first part of the book discusses the rule-following character of thought. The second considers how choice can be responsive to different sorts of factors, while still being under the control of thought. The third examines the implications of this view of choice and rationality for the normative regulation of social behavior.
  •  27
    J. J. C. Smart AC
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4): 825-826. 2012.
  •  69
  •  13
    The Virtual Reality of Homo Economicus
    The Monist 78 (3): 308-329. 1995.
    The economic explanation of individual behaviour, even behaviour outside the traditional province of the market, projects a distinctively economic image on the minds of the agents involved. It suggests that, in regard to motivation and rationality, they conform to the profile of homo economicus. But this suggestion, by many lights, flies in the face of common sense; it conflicts with our ordinary assumptions about how we each feel and think in most situations, certainly most non-market situation…Read more
  • Democracia y evaluaciones compartidas
    Isonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho 23 51-58. 2005.
  •  3
    Pettit, P.-The Common Mind
    with John Christman
    Philosophical Books 37 90-101. 1996.
  •  85
    Rational choice, functional selection and empty black boxes
    Journal of Economic Methodology 7 (1): 33-57. 2000.
    In order to vindicate rational-choice theory as a mode of explaining social patterns in general - social patterns beyond the narrow range of economic behaviour - we have to recognize the legitimacy of explaining the resilience of certain patterns of behaviour: that is, explaining, not necessarily why they emerged or have been sustained, but why they are robust and reliable. And once we allow the legitimacy of explaining resilience, then we can see how functionalist theory may also serve us well …Read more
  •  19
    Inference and information
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (4): 727. 1987.
  • Backmatter
    In Philip Pettit & Christopher Hookway (eds.), Handlung Und Interpretation: Studien Zur Philosophie der Sozialwissenschaften, De Gruyter. pp. 225-226. 1982.
  •  125
    Two Construals of Scanlon’s Contractualism
    with T. M. Scanlon
    Journal of Philosophy 97 (3): 148-164. 2000.
  •  19
    Democracy’s Discontent
    Journal of Philosophy 95 (2): 73-96. 1998.
  •  39
    What price fame? Tyler Cowen, Harvard university press, 2000, 248 pages (review)
    Economics and Philosophy 17 (2): 275-294. 2001.
  •  72
    Republicanism
    Mind 109 (435): 640-644. 2000.
    The long republican tradition is characterized by a conception of freedom as non‐domination, which offers an alternative, both to the negative view of freedom as non‐interference and to the positive view of freedom as self‐mastery. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of the conception, displays its many attractions and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at the sorts of political and civil institution…Read more
  •  171
    Groups with minds of their own
    In Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press. 2003.
  •  86
    The basic liberties
    In Matthew H. Kramer (ed.), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2008.
    We have two ways of talking about liberty or freedom, one in the singular, the other in the plural. We concern ourselves in the singular mode with how far someone is free to do or not to do certain things, or with how far someone is a free person or not a free person. But, equally, we concern ourselves with the plural question as to how far the person enjoys the liberties that we take to be important or basic. What are those plural liberties, however? What does it take for something to count as …Read more
  •  19
    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..
  •  120
    Terms, things and response-dependence
    European Review of Philosophy 3 55-66. 1998.
  •  27
    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.
  •  42
    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
  •  152
    In a recent discussion of Amartya Sen's concept of the capabilities of people for functioning in their society – and the idea of targeting people's functioning capabilities in evaluating the society – G. A. Cohen accuses Sen of espousing an inappropriate, ‘athletic’ image of the person (Cohen, 1993, pp. 24–5). The idea is that if Sen's formulations are to be taken at face value, then life is valuable only so far as people actively choose most facets of their existence: if they fare well in the m…Read more
  •  18
    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