•  36
    Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die. Our Illusion of Innocence (Oxford and New York Oxford University Press, 1996.
  •  24
    Morality and modality
    Philosophical Papers 20 (3): 139-153. 1991.
    No abstract
  •  12
    Ought We to Sentence People to Psychiatric Treatment?
    Bioethics 11 (3-4): 298-308. 1997.
    In principle, there seem to be three main ways in which society can react when people commit crimes under influence of mental illness. (1) The standard model. We excuse them. If they are dangerous they are detained in the interest of safety of the rest of the citizens. (2) The Swedish model. We hold them responsible for their criminal offence, we convict them, but we do not sentence them to jail. Instead, we sentence them to psychiatric treatment. (3) My model. We sentence them to jail, but offe…Read more
  •  55
    In Defence of Theory in Ethics
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25 (4). 1995.
    Particularism is in vogue in ethics today. Particularism is sometimes described as the idea that what is a sufficient moral reason in one situation need not be a sufficient moral reason in another situation. Indeed, it has been held, on particularism, what is a reason for an action in one situation might be a reason against the same type of action, or might not be a reason at all, in another situation. However, this description is insufficient. Even a generalist, such as a utilitarian, may admit…Read more
  •  1
    Visst kan vi observera det goda!
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 11 (4): 40. 1990.
  •  1
  •  35
    Doom soon? (review)
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 40 (2). 1997.
    No abstract
  •  7
    The Moral Significance of Moral Realism
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 26 (2): 247-261. 1988.
  •  26
    Moral Realism
    Philosophical Review 101 (4): 921. 1992.
  •  78
    Conservatism for our time
    Routledge. 1990.
    1 THE CONSERVATIVE ATTITUDE THE HARD CORE OF THE CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY What is conservatism? It may seem a hopeless task to characterize a timeless concept ...
  •  74
    Social psychology and the paradox of revolution
    South African Journal of Philosophy 26 (2): 228-238. 2007.
    No. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol.26 (2) 2007:228-238
  •  18
    A concrete view of intrinsic value
    In Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen & Michael J. Zimmerman (eds.), Recent Work on Intrinsic Value, Springer. pp. 207--211. 1999.
  • Recension av Knut Erik Tranøy: Medisinsk etikk i vår tid (review)
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 1. 1993.
  •  10
    Two concepts of death reconciled
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 2 (1): 41-46. 1999.
  •  5
    Moral Conflict and Moral Realism
    Journal of Philosophy 82 (3): 113-117. 1985.
  •  163
    Why should we respect the privacy of donors of biological material?
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 14 (1): 43-52. 2011.
    Why should we respect the privacy of donors of biological material? The question is answered in the present article in general philosophical terms from the point of view of an ethics of honour, a libertarian theory of rights, a view of respect for privacy based on the idea that autonomy is of value in itself, and utilitarianism respectively. For different reasons the ethics of honour and the idea of the value of autonomy are set to one side. It surfaces that the moral rights theory and utilitari…Read more
  •  5
    Moral Realism
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1989.
    '...the book is very dense with ideas...arguments concerning innumerable interesting points are always worth pondering.'-THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
  • Frihet eller demokrati?
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 1 (3): 29. 1980.
  •  67
    Understanding Through Explanation in Ethics
    Theoria 72 (3): 213-220. 2006.
    In morality, as in science, we seek understanding through explanation. While old fashioned non‐naturalistic moral realism renders such explanation available to us, neither moral irrealism nor moral naturalism does. This does not prove any of these theories wrong, of course. It does indicate, however, that, if we feel that we have to resort to them, there is a high intellectual price to be paid.
  •  19
    15 The genetic design of a new Amazon
    with Claudia Tamburrini
    In Claudio Marcello Tamburrini & Torbjörn Tännsjö (eds.), Genetic Technology and Sport: Ethical Questions, Routledge. pp. 181. 2005.
  • David Lamb: Organ transplants and ethics (review)
    Theoria 57 (1): 124. 1991.
  •  82
    The morality of clinical research – a case study
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 19 (1): 7-21. 1994.
    The paper is a record of a debate which took place between a group of clinicians and the author concerning a clinical trial of a drug supposed to postpone the time when HIV-patients develop AIDS. A problem with the trial was that on available (inconclusive) evidence it appeared that one patient out of 500 was killed by the drug. The question raised was whether, in view of this evidence, it was morally defensible to go on with the trial. The discussion came to involve general topics such as the a…Read more
  •  71
    Blameless Wrongdoing
    Ethics 106 (1): 120-127. 1995.
  • Replik till Peter Gärdenfors
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 2 (3): 42. 1981.
  •  91
    Review: Goodness and Advice (review)
    Mind 113 (452): 787-791. 2004.
  •  112
    Taking Life: Three Theories on the Ethics of Killing
    Oxford University Press USA. 2015.
    When and why is it right to kill? When and why is it wrong? Torbjörn Tännsjö examines three theories on the ethics of killing in this book: deontology, a libertarian moral rights theory, and utilitarianism. The implications of each theory are worked out for different kinds of killing: trolley-cases, murder, capital punishment, suicide, assisted death, abortion, killing in war, and the killing of animals. These implications are confronted with our intuitions in relation to them, and our moral int…Read more
  •  47
    Non-voluntary sterilization
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 31 (4). 2006.
    We cannot easily condemn in principle a policy where people are non-voluntarily sterilized with their informed consent (where they accept sterilization, if they do, in order to avoid punishment). There are conceivable circumstances where such a policy would be morally acceptable. One such conceivable circumstance is the one (incorrectly, as it were) believed by most decent advocates of eugenics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to exist: to wit, a situation where the human race …Read more
  •  6
    Moral doubts about strict materialism
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 30 (4): 451-458. 1987.
    It is argued that there are moral costs of our accepting ‘strict materialism’, the view that there is no such phenomenon as an irreducible first‐person point of view. If we accept strict materialism, then we have to give up some considered moral views, such as the principle of an agent‐relative morality and the hedonistic principle. The necessity involved is not logical, however, but pragmatic. Strict materialism does not imply that these moral views are false; it is our belief in them that is u…Read more
  •  3
    In Defence of Science
    In Dag Prawitz & Dag Westerståhl (eds.), Logic and Philosophy of Science in Uppsala, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 345--354. 1994.
  • Vad är beslutsteori?
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 2 (2): 28. 1981.