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131Questioning moral theoriesPhilosophy 85 (1): 29-46. 2010.Not a day passes but we find ourselves indignant about something or other. When is our indignation justified, and when does it count as moral indignation rather than a legitimate but non-moral gripe? You might think that we should turn to moral theories – to the varieties of utilitarian, Kantian, virtue theories, etc – to answer this question. I shall try to convince you that this is a mistake, that moral theory – as it is ordinarily presently conceived and studied – does not have a specific sub…Read more
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112The place of pleasure in Aristotle's ethicsMind 83 (332): 481-497. 1974.BACKGROUND: Although placing patients with acute respiratory failure in a prone (face down) position improves their oxygenation 60 to 70 percent of the time, the effect on survival is not known. METHODS: In a multicenter, randomized trial, we compared conventional treatment (in the supine position) of patients with acute lung injury or the acute respiratory distress syndrome with a predefined strategy of placing patients in a prone position for six or more hours daily for 10 days. We enrolled 30…Read more
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5A Plea for AmbivalenceIn Peter Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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78Plato's counsel on educationPhilosophy 73 (2): 157-178. 1998.Plato's dialogues can be read as a carefully staged exhibition and investigation of paideia, education in the broadest sense, including all that affects the formation of character and mind. The twentieth century textbook Plato — the Plato of the Myth of the Cave and the Divided Line, the ascent to the Good through Forms and Ideas — is but one of his elusive multiple authorial personae, each taking a different perspective on his investigations. As its focused problems differ, each Platonic dialog…Read more
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1The goodness of searching: good as what? good for what? good for whom?In Ruth Weissbourd Grant (ed.), In search of goodness, University of Chicago Press. 2011.
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54Moral Prejudices: Essays on EthicsPhilosophical Review 104 (4): 608. 1995.Annette Baier sets the title, the genre, and the task of her book from Hume’s essay "Of Moral Prejudices." Rather than arguing from or towards general principles, these essays call upon a wide range of reading, observation, and experience: we are not only meant to be enlightened, but also invited to adopt the reflective habits of mind they exemplify. Like Hume, Baier analyzes and evaluates our attitudes and customs; like him, she finds that our foibles and our strengths are closely linked; and l…Read more
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30Comments on Stallknecht's ThesesReview of Metaphysics 9 (3). 1956.2. The equal status mentioned in Thesis 2 need not mean, "equally concrete" or "inclusive," but only, "equally real," where "real" means having a character of its own with reference to which opinions can be true or false. But becoming or process is alone fully concrete or inclusive, since if A is without becoming, and B becomes, then the togetherness of AB also becomes. A new constituent means a new totality. In this sense, becoming is the ultimate principle.
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46Formal Traces in Cartesian Functional ExplanationCanadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (4). 1984.In the Passion of the Soul Descartes sets out to explain the origins and structure of intentional voluntary action, to give an account of physical behavior and motion that has psychological and intellectual causes.Actually of course this is not at all what he says. He announces an analysis of the passions of the soul. But why does he define his subject as he does? His correspondence had forced a concern with questions of virtue. How is he to introduce an account of virtue in his metaphysically, …Read more
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129Fearing DeathPhilosophy 58 (224). 1983.Many have said, and I think some have shown, that it is irrational to fear death. The extinction of what is essential to the self—whether it be biological death or the permanent cessation of consciousness—cannot by definition be experienced by oneself as a loss or as a harm
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123Vi. akrasia and conflictInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 23 (2). 1980.As Elster suggests in his chapter 'Contradictions of the Mind', in Logic and Society, akrasia and self-deception represent the most common psychological functions for a person in conflict and contradiction. This article develops the theme of akrasia and conflict. Section I says what akrasia is not. Section II describes the character of the akrates, analyzing the sorts of conflicts to which he is subject and describing the sources of his debilities. A brief account is then given of the attraction…Read more
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35Rorty (edited book)Univ of California Press. 1986.The essays in this volume form a commentary on Descartes' _Meditations_. Following the sequence of the meditational stages, the authors analyze the function of each stage in transforming the reader, to realize his essential nature as a rational inquirer, capable of scientific, demonstrable knowledge of the world. There are essays on the genre of meditational writing, on the implications of the opening cathartic section of the book on Descartes' theory of perception and his use of skeptical argum…Read more
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Relativism, persons, and practicesIn Michael Krausz (ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, Notre Dame University Press. 1989.
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81The Lures of AkrasiaPhilosophy 92 (2): 167-181. 2017.There is more akrasia than meets the eye: it can occur in speech and perception, cognitively and emotionally as well as between decision and action. The lures of akrasia are the same as those that are exercised in ordinary psychological and cognitive inferential contexts. But because it is over-determined and because it occurs in opaque intentional contexts, its attribution remains highly fallible.
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9Descartes on thinking with the bodyIn John Cottingham (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Descartes, Cambridge University Press. 1992.
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49The many faces of philosophy: reflections from Plato to Arendt (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2003.Philosophy is a dangerous profession, risking censorship, prison, even death. And no wonder: philosophers have questioned traditional pieties and threatened the established political order. Some claimed to know what was thought unknowable; others doubted what was believed to be certain. Some attacked religion in the name of science; others attacked science in the name of mystical poetry; some served tyrants; others were radical revolutionaries. This historically based collection of philosophers'…Read more
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4A literary postscript: Characters, persons, selves, individualsIn Amélie Rorty (ed.), The Identities of Persons, University of California Press. pp. 301--323. 1976.
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112Plato and Aristotle on Belief, Habit, and "Akrasia"American Philosophical Quarterly 7 (1). 1970.
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1131. The Deceptive Self: Liars, Layers, and LairsIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception, University of California Press. pp. 11-28. 1988.
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13Moral Complexity, Conflicted Resonance and VirtuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 55 (4). 1995.In his admirably sensible book, Scheffler shows that it is possible—but difficult—to combine a morally upright life with one that is rich and satisfying. He identifies the psychological traits that can be enlisted as allies in our attempts to act justly, arguing that the range of moral projects—and our success in fulfilling them—varies with our political conditions. Among the harms perpetrated by an unjust state is that of forming the psychology of its citizens in such a way that the tasks of mo…Read more
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120The Two Faces of CouragePhilosophy 61 (236): 151-171. 1986.Courage is dangerous. If it is defined in traditional ways, as a set of dispositions to overcome fear, to oppose obstacles, to perform difficult or dangerous actions, its claim to be a virtue is questionable. Unlike the virtue of justice, or a sense of proportion, traditional courage does not itself determine what is to be done, let alone assure that it is worth doing. If we retain the traditional conception of courage and its military connotations–overcoming and combat–we should be suspicious o…Read more
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8From Decency to Civility by Way of Economics: "First Let's Eat and Then Talk of Right and Wrong"Social Research: An International Quarterly 64. 1997.
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7Spinoza on the pathos of idolatrous love and the hilarity of true loveIn Moira Gatens (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Benedict Spinoza, Pennsylvania State University Press. 2009.
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76User-Friendly Self-DeceptionPhilosophy 69 (268). 1994.Since many varieties of self-deception are ineradicable and useful, it would be wise to be ambivalent about at least some of its forms.1 It is open-eyed ambivalence that acknowledges its own dualities rather than ordinary shifty vacillation that we need. To be sure, self-deception remains dangerous: sensible ambivalence should not relax vigilance against pretence and falsity, combating irrationality and obfuscation wherever they occur
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39Experiments in Philosophic Genre: Descartes' "Meditations"Critical Inquiry 9 (3): 545-564. 1983.It would be pretty to think that Descartes’ Meditations is itself a structured transformation of the meditational mode, starting with the dominance of an intellectual, ascensional mode, moving through the penitential form, and ending with the analytic-architectonic mode. Unfortunately the text does not sustain such an easy resolution to our problems. Instead, we see that different modes seem dominant at different stages; their subterranean connections and relations remain unclear.We could try to…Read more
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Harvard UniversityRegular Faculty
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Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |