•  15
    Virtue, Narrative, and Self connects two philosophical areas of study that have long been treated as distinct: virtue theory and narrative accounts of personal identity. Chapters address several important issues and neglected themes at the intersection of these research areas. Specific examples include the role of narrative in the identification, differentiation, and cultivation of virtue, the nature of practical reasoning and moral competence, and the influence of life's narrative structure on …Read more
  •  13
    This book delves deeply into modern surrogacy arrangements, responding to both practical and ethical critiques by offering a radically new model for surrogate motherhood. Current practice distinguishes between two models of surrogacy – the altruistic model and the commercial model, both of which present social, ethical, and conceptual challenges. This book proposes a novel arrangement for surrogate motherhood – the professional model. Inspired by professions, such as nursing, teaching, and socia…Read more
  •  11
    Virtuous and Right Action: A Relaxed View
    In Christoph Halbig & Felix Timmermann (eds.), Handbuch Tugend Und Tugendethik, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 49-63. 2021.
    In this chapter I consider two questions about action evaluation: Is it the central task of normative ethics to concern itself with action evaluation?, and When it does concern itself with action evaluation, should its focus be on developing an account of right and wrong action, as opposed to, say, good and bad action? I argue that for virtue ethicists, the task of providing an account of right action is not of central importance, and that the strength of virtue ethics lies in the fact that it a…Read more
  •  11
    Does Virtue Ethics Allow Us to Make Better Judgments of the Actions of Others?
    In Elisa Grimi, John Haldane, Maria Margarita Mauri Alvarez, Michael Wladika, Marco Damonte, Michael Slote, Randall Curren, Christian B. Miller, Liezl Zyl, Christopher D. Owens, Scott J. Roniger, Michele Mangini, Nancy Snow & Christopher Toner (eds.), Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect, Springer. pp. 99-110. 2019.
    Virtue ethics encourages us to judge the actions of others, not merely as right or wrong, but as virtuous or vicious. In doing so, however, we risk acting viciously ourselves. That is, our judgments of others can be unfair, unkind, insensitive, uncharitable, or hypocritical, even while being accurate. I argue that in order to make good judgments of the actions of others we should turn to virtue ethics for action guidance. That is, our primary aim should not be to make accurate judgments but to a…Read more
  •  10
    Accidental Rightness
    Philosophia 37 (1): 91-104. 2008.
    In this paper I argue that the disagreement between modern moral philosophers and (some) virtue ethicists about whether motive affects rightness is a result of conceptual disagreement, and that when they develop a theory of ‘right action,’ the two parties respond to two very different questions. Whereas virtue ethicists tend to use ‘right’ as interchangeable with ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ and as implying moral praise, modern moral philosophers use it as roughly equivalent to ‘in accordance with moral…Read more
  •  7
    Intentional Parenthood and the Nuclear Family
    Journal of Medical Humanities 23 (2): 107-118. 2002.
    Reproductive techniques and practices, ranging from ordinary birth-control measures and artificial insemination to embryo transfer and surrogate motherhood, have greatly enhanced our range of reproductive choices. As a consequence, they pose a number of difficult moral and legal questions with regard to the formation of a family and our conception of parenthood. A view that is becoming increasingly common is that parental rights and responsibilities should not be based on genetic relationships b…Read more
  •  4
    Right action and the targets of virtue
    In S. van Hooft, N. Athanassoulis, J. Kawall, L. van Zyl & J. Oakley (eds.), The Handbook of Virtue Ethics, Acumen Publishing. 2014.
    A critical discussion of Christine Swanton's target-centred account of right action.
  •  3
    Virtue ethics and the Trolley Problem
    In Hallvard Lillehammer (ed.), The Trolley Problem, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
    Since the publication of Judith Thomson’s 1976 paper, solving the Trolley Problem has been a favourite preoccupation of utilitarians and deontologists: Is there a general moral principle that can explain or support our conflicting intuitions in the Bystander and Footbridge cases? Why is it permissible to divert a runaway trolley, thereby killing one person to save five others, but impermissible to push a big man onto a track to save five others? I briefly discuss the reasons why virtue ethicists…Read more
  • Embryo experimentation, personhood and human rights
    with Anton van Niekerk
    South African Journal of Philosophy 15 (4): 139-143. 1996.