profile picture

Nick Zangwill

University College London
 More details
  •  303
    Non-Cognitivism and Consistency
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 65 (4): 465-484. 2011.
    Moral Noncognitivism
  •  213
    The concept of the aesthetic
    European Journal of Philosophy 6 (1). 1998.
    Can the contemporary concept of the ‘aesthetic’ be defended? Is it in good shape or is it sick? Should we retain it or dispense with it? The concept of the aesthetic is used to characterize a range of judgements and experiences. Let us begin with some examples of judgements which aestheticians classify as aesthetic, so that we have some idea of what we are talking about. These paradigm cases will anchor the ensuing discussion. Once we have some idea of which judgements are classified as aestheti…Read more
    Aesthetic ConceptsAesthetic Judgment
  •  320
    A way out of the Euthyphro dilemma
    Religious Studies 48 (1). 2012.
    I defend the view that morality depends on God against the Euthyphro dilemma by arguing that the reasons that God has for determining the moral-natural dependencies might be personal reasons that have non-moral content. I deflect the 'arbitrary whim' worry, but I concede that the account cannot extend to the goodness of God and His will. However, human moral-natural dependencies can be explained by God's will. So a slightly restricted version of divine commandment theory is defensible
    Philosophy of ReligionThe Number of Gods
  •  429
    Moral dependence
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics Vol. 3, Oxford University Press. pp. 109-27. 2006.
    What is the relation between moral and natural properties? And how do we conceive of this relation? By ‘moral’ properties I will mean properties such as being evil, just or virtuous or having duties or rights; and by ‘natural’ properties I will mean properties such as psychological, sociological and physical properties.1 Suppose we judge that Queen Isabella of Spain was evil in 1492, or at least that many of her actions in 1492 were evil. Then we do not think that she had various natural propert…Read more
    Moral Supervenience
  •  106
    Scepticism about Scepticism
    Philosophy 91 (1): 109-118. 2016.
    Metaphilosophical Skepticism
  •  176
    Against moral response-dependence
    Erkenntnis 59 (3). 2003.
    Response-dependent theories of morality are currently popular. I suspect that this is because they combine ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ elements in an appealing way. Such theories seem to do justice to the idea that morality is out there to be known, at the same time as connecting moral judgements with our affective and motivational states. However, I shall argue that all response-dependent theories of morality are irretrievably flawed.
    Ethics
  •  424
    Love: gloriously amoral and arational
    Philosophical Explorations 16 (3). 2013.
    I argue that an evaluational conception of love collides with the way we value love. That way allows that love has causes, but not reasons, and it recognizes and celebrates a love that refuses to justify itself. Love has unjustified selectivity, due to its arbitrary causes. That imposes a non-tradability norm. A love for reasons, rational love or evaluational love would be propositional, and it therefore allows that the people we love are tradable commodities. A moralized conception of love is n…Read more
    Philosophy of Love