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2662Republican Freedom and Contestatory DemocratizationIn Sterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies Ian Shapiro, Ian Shapiro, Casiano Hacker-Cordón & Russell Hardin (eds.), Democracy's Value, Cambridge University Press. pp. 163-190. 1999.
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599Republican Political TheoryIn Andrew Vincent (ed.), Political Theory: Tradition and Diversity, Cambridge University Press. pp. 112-131. 1997.
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431Group agency: the possibility, design, and status of corporate agentsOxford University Press. 2011.Are companies, churches, and states genuine agents? Or are they just collections of individuals that give a misleading impression of unity? This question is important, since the answer dictates how we should explain the behaviour of these entities and whether we should treat them as responsible and accountable on the model of individual agents. Group Agency offers a new approach to that question and is relevant, therefore, to a range of fields from philosophy to law, politics, and the social sci…Read more
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227Unveiling the VoteBritish Journal of Political Science 20 (3): 311-333. 1990.The case for secrecy in voting depends on the assumption that voters reliably vote for the political outcomes they want to prevail. No such assumption is valid. Accordingly, voting procedures should be designed to provide maximal incentive for voters to vote responsibly. Secret voting fails this test because citizens are protected from public scrutiny. Under open voting, citizens are publicly answerable for their electoral choices and will be encouraged thereby to vote in a discursively defensib…Read more
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1Liberal/communitarianism : Macintyre's mesmeric dichotomyIn John P. Horton & Susan Mendus (eds.), After Macintyre: Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair Macintyre, University of Notre Dame Press. 1994.
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2Freedom in the spirit of senIn Christopher W. Morris (ed.), Amartya Sen, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
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134Winch’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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361Consciousness 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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11Theory and Understanding: A Critique of Interpretive Social SciencePhilosophical Review 98 (2): 266. 1989.
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3Penser 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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47Two 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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27Keeping Republican Freedom Simple: On a Difference with Quentin SkinnerPhilosophy Today 30 (3): 339-356. 2002.
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297Broome 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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134Substantive moral theorySocial Philosophy and Policy 25 (1): 1-27. 2008.Philosophy can serve two roles in relation to moral thinking: first, to provide a meta-ethical commentary on the nature of moral thought, as the methodology or the philosophy of science provides a commentary on the nature of scientific thought; and second, to build on the common presumptions deployed in people's moral thinking about moral issues, looking for a substantive moral theory that they might support. The present essay addresses the nature of this second role; illustrates it with substan…Read more
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232On 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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180Descriptivism, 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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10A 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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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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1ŤIntroductionŤ, u: Philip Pettit & John McDowell (ur.)In Subject, Thought, And Context, Clarendon Press. 1986.
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150Non-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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59Defining 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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64The 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.
Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |