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96The depths and shallows of psychological externalismPhilosophical Studies 138 (3). 2008.This paper examines extant ways of classifying varieties of psychological externalism and argues that they imply a hitherto unrecognized distinction between shallow and deep externalism. The difference is between starting points: shallowly externalist hypotheses begin with the attribution of psychological states to individuals, just as individualistic hypotheses do, whereas deeply externalistic hypotheses begin with agent-environment interaction as the basis of cognitive processes and attribute …Read more
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Michael Smith, Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 25 (3): 224-226. 2005.
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171A social model of moral dumbfounding: Implications for studying moral reasoning and moral judgmentPhilosophical Psychology 20 (6). 2007.Moral psychologists have recently turned their attention to a phenomenon they call 'moral dumbfounding'. Moral dumbfounding occurs when someone confidently pronounces a moral judgment, then finds that he or she has little or nothing to say in defense of it. This paper addresses recent attempts by Jonathan Haidt and Marc Hauser to make sense of moral dumbfounding in terms of their respective theories of moral judgment; Haidt in terms of a 'social intuitionist' model of moral judgment, and Hauser …Read more
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62Two Views of Emotional Perception: Some Empirical SuggestionsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (5S): 161-183. 2006.Two models of modularity are presented in analysis of perceptual theories of emotion. Empirical tests for assessing whether either model is apt for emotion are suggested. The paper concludes by standing back and assessing the stakes of the issue.
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15AutonomyBloomsbury Academic. 2013.Philosophers have various reasons to be interested in individual autonomy. Individual self-rule is widely recognized to be important. But what, exactly, is autonomy? In what ways is it important? And just how important is it? This book introduces contemporary philosophical thought about the nature and significance of individual self-rule. Andrew Sneddon divides self-rule into autonomy of choice and autonomy of persons. Unlike most philosophical treatments of autonomy, Sneddon addresses empirical…Read more
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57What's Wrong with Selling Yourself into Slavery? Paternalism and Deep AutonomyCritica 33 (98): 97-121. 2001.Such thinkers as John Stuart Mill, Gerald Dworkin, and Richard Doerflinger have appealed to the value of freedom to explain both what is wrong with slavery and what is wrong with selling oneself into slavery. Practical ethicists, including Dworkin and Doerflinger, sometimes use selling oneself into slavery in analogies intended to illustrate justifiable forms of paternalism. I argue that these thinkers have misunderstood the moral problem with slavery. Instead of being a central value in itself,…Read more
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23Prichard, Strawson, and Two Objections to Moral Sensibility TheoriesJournal of Philosophical Research 29 289-314. 2004.Stephen Darwall, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton formulate two objections to moral sensibility theories in their overview of twentieth-century moral theory, “Toward Fin de siècle Ethics: Some Trends.” Instead of using the work of sensibility theorists John McDowell and David Wiggins to address these objections, I turn to H. A. Prichard and P. F. Strawson. The reason for doing so is that the objections misunderstand the importance of the idea of the autonomy of the moral domain. Prichard and Str…Read more
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18Like-Minded: Externalism and Moral PsychologyThe MIT Press. 2011.The debate has continued in these terms to the present day. In Like-Minded, Andrew Sneddon argues that "reason" and "passion" do not satisfactorily capture all the important options for explaining the psychological foundations of morality.
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103A New Kantian Response to Maxim-FiddlingKantian Review 16 (1): 67-88. 2011.There has long been a suspicion that Kant's test for the universalizability of maxims can be easily subverted: instead of risking failing the test, design your maxim for any action whatsoever in a manner guaranteed to pass. This is the problem of maxim-fiddling. The present discussion of this problem has two theses: 1] That extant approaches to maxim-fiddling are not satisfactory;2] That a satisfactory response to maxim-fiddling can be articulated using Kantian resources, especially the first tw…Read more
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158Does Philosophy of Action Rest on a Mistake?Metaphilosophy 32 (5): 502-522. 2001.Philosophers of action tend to take for granted the concept of basic actions – actions that are done at will, or directly – as opposed to others that are performed in other ways. This concept does foundational work in action theory; many theorists, especially causalists, take part of their task to be showing that normal, complex actions necessarily stem from basic ones somehow. The case for the concept of basic actions is driven by a family of observations and a cluster of closely related anti-i…Read more
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32Empirically Minded Non-CognitivismDialogue 40 (3): 613-618. 2001.Wayne Fenske has recently offered an a posteriori interpretation and defense of the following
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234Normative ethics and the prospects of an empirical contribution to assessment of moral disagreement and moral realismJournal of Value Inquiry 43 (4): 447-455. 2009.The familiar argument from disagreement has been an important focal point of discussion in contemporary meta-ethics. Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of interdisciplinary work between philosophers and psychologists about moral psychology. Working within this trend, John Doris and Alexandra Plakias have made a tentative version of the argument from disagreement on empirical grounds. Doris and Plakias present empirical evidence in support of premise 4, that ethics is beset by fund…Read more
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4Bullshitting bulshitters and the bullshit they sayIn Jason Holt (ed.), The Daily Show and Philosophy: Moments of Zen in the Art of Fake News, Blackwell. pp. 146--159. 2007.It is fitting that The Daily Show had Harry Frankfurt as a guest: Frankfurt is the author of the popular “On Bullshit”, and one aim of The Daily Show, especially in its 1st and 2nd segments, is to call out bullshit as they see it. The assumption, both of the show and of its admirers, seems to be that identifying bullshit is always morally and politically significant (not to mention funny, but this aspect is not my focus). The aim of this paper is to show that, although this assumption is substan…Read more
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194Advertising and deep autonomyJournal of Business Ethics 33 (1). 2001.Concerns about advertising take one of two forms. Some people are worried that advertising threatens autonomous choice. Others are worried not about autonomy but about the values spread by advertising as a powerful institution. I suggest that this bifurcation stems from misunderstanding autonomy. When one turns from autonomous choice to autonomy of persons, or what is often glossed as self-rule, then one has reason to think that advertising poses a moral problem of a sort so far unrecognized. I …Read more
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23Action and ResponsibilitySpringer. 2006.What makes an event count as an action? Typical answers appeal to the way in which the event was produced: e.g., perhaps an arm movement is an action when caused by mental states (in particular ways), but not when caused in other ways. I argue that this type of answer, which I call "productionism", is methodologically and substantially mistaken. In particular, productionist answers to this question tend to be either individualistic or foundationalist, or both, without explicit defence. Instead, …Read more
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56Communitarian and Liberal Themes in Moral Agency and EducationReview of Philosophy and Psychology 2 (1): 105-120. 2011.Philosophers and psychologists have been vigorously examining the psychological capacities that realize our moral agency. Our purpose is to take some of this work and present its implications for moral education. To connect recent work with more long-standing debates in moral education, we frame this discussion with Helen Haste’s 1996 examination of liberal and communitarian positions on moral agency and education. We argue that contemporary research does not confirm the descriptive theory of mo…Read more
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134Symbolic ValueJournal of Value Inquiry 50 (2): 395-413. 2016.We are familiar with the idea of symbolic value in everyday contexts, and philosophers sometimes help themselves to it when discussing other topics. However, symbolic value itself has not been sufficiently studied. What is it for something to have symbolic value? How important is symbolic value? The present purpose is to shed some light on the nature and significance of symbolic value. Two kinds of symbolic value are distinguished, called the ‘symbolic mode of valuing’ and ‘symbolism as a ground…Read more
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39Locating HappinessProceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 49 77-81. 2008.Philosophers have long studied the nature of happiness and, as a consequence, have made recommendations about how to achieve it. The present paper argues that perhaps this has been a mistake. Empirical studies of happiness have been yielding important results in recent years, the implication of which is that happiness is more complex than philosophers have suspected. The crucial point is this: although very abstract and very individual-specific things can be said about happiness, there is nothin…Read more
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55Action: On Cause and ConstitutionDialogue 43 (1): 157-. 2004.This is a response to Andrei Buckareff and Jing Zhu, who in "Causalisms Reconsidered" criticize my argument in, primarily, "Considering Causalisms" and, secondarily, in "Does Philosophy of Action Rest on a Mistake?".
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121Feeling UtilitarianUtilitas 15 (3): 330. 2003.Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams are recent proponents of the influential objection against utilitarianism that it leads to important forms of alienation. The famous response is that such objections are mistaken. The objections picture agents being motivated by the principle of utility, but, e.g., Peter Railton argues we should see this principle as purely normative – agents can be motivated any way they like and still be ‘objective’ consequentialists. I argue that this type of position is i…Read more
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233Towards externalist psychopathologyPhilosophical Psychology 15 (3): 297-316. 2002.The "width" of the mind is an important topic in contemporary philosophical psychology. Support for active externalism derives from theoretical, engineering, and observational perspectives. Given the history of psychology, psychopathology is notable in its absence from the list of avenues of support for the idea that some cognitive processes extend beyond the physical bounds of the organism in question. The current project is to defend the possibility, plausibility, and desirability of externali…Read more
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32Prioritizing Non-Human BioengineeringEthics, Policy and Environment 15 (2). 2012.Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 15, Issue 2, Page 234-236, June 2012
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66Consent and the acquisition of organs for transplantationHEC Forum 21 (1): 55-69. 2009.The two most commonly discussed and implemented rationales for acquiring organs for transplantation give consent a central role. I argue that such centrality is a mistake. The reason is that practices of consent serve only to respect patients as autonomous beings. The primary issue in acquiring organs for transplantation, however, is how it is appropriate to treat a newly non-autonomous being. Once autonomy and consent are dislodged from their central position, considerations of utility and fair…Read more
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |