Stanford University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1998
Los Angeles, California, United States of America
  •  52
    Desert for Wrongdoing
    The Journal of Ethics 20 (1-3): 149-171. 2016.
    Much government and personal conduct is premised on the idea that a person made thereby to suffer deserves that suffering thanks to prior wrongdoing by him. Further, it often appears that one kind of suffering is more deserved than another and, in light of that, conduct inflicting the first is superior, or closer to being justified than conduct inflicting the second. Yet desert is mysterious. It is far from obvious what, exactly, it is. This paper offers and argues for a theory of comparative de…Read more
  •  113
    Thomas Reid on consciousness and attention
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (2). 2009.
    It was common enough in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to find philosophers holding the position that for something to be ‘in the mind’ and for that mind to be conscious of it are one and the same thing. The thought is that consciousness is a relation between a mind and a mental entity playing the same role as the relation of inherence found between a substance and qualities belonging to it. What it is, on this view, for something to ‘inhere’ in the mind is for that mind to be consciou…Read more
  • Nicholas Jolley: Locke: His Philosophical Thought
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 8 (2): 384-385. 2000.
  •  30
    Conditional intent and mens Rea
    Legal Theory 10 (4): 273-310. 2004.
  •  39
    Time in the movies
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 27 (1). 2003.
  •  48
    Waldron's Locke and Locke's Waldron: A review of Jeremy Waldron's God, Locke, and equality (review)
    with Nomi M. Stolzenberg
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 49 (2). 2006.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  23
    Reid on the Perception of Visible Figure
    Journal of Scottish Philosophy 1 (2): 103-115. 2003.
  •  37
    Moore on causing, acting, and complicity
    Legal Theory 18 (4): 437-458. 2012.
    In Michael Moore's important book Causation and Responsibility, he holds that causal contribution matters to responsibility independently of its relevance to action. We are responsible for our actions, according to Moore, because where there is action, we typically also find the kind of causal contribution that is crucial for responsibility. But it is causation, and not action, that bears the normative weight. This paper assesses this claim and argues that Moore's reasons for it are unconvincing…Read more
  •  21
    Legality
    Philosophical Review 121 (3): 457-460. 2012.
  •  159
    Excusing mistakes of law
    Philosophers' Imprint 9 1-22. 2009.
    Whether we understand it descriptively or normatively, the slogan that ignorance of the law is no excuse is false. Our legal system sometimes excuses those who are ignorant of the law on those grounds and should. Still, the slogan contains a grain of truth; mistakes of law excuse less readily than mistakes of fact, and ought to. This paper explains the asymmetry by identifying a principle of excuse of the form “If defendant D has a false belief that p and _____, then D is excused”, which has the…Read more
  •  8
    Thomas Reid on Consciousness and Attention
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (2): 165-194. 2009.
    It was common enough in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to find philosophers holding the position that for something to be ‘in the mind’ and for that mind to be conscious of it are one and the same thing. The thought is that consciousness is a relation between a mind and a mental entity playing the same role as the relation of inherence found between a substance and qualities belonging to it. What it is, on this view, for something to ‘inhere’ in the mind is for that mind to be consciou…Read more
  •  87
  •  26
    Locke on Suspending, Refraining and the Freedom to Will
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 18 (4). 2001.
  •  165
    Indoctrination, coercion and freedom of will
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2). 2003.
    Manipulation by another person often undermines freedom. To explain this, a distinction is drawn between two forms of manipulation: indoctrination is defined as causing another person to respond to reasons in a pattern that serves the manipulator’s ends; coercion as supplying another person with reasons that, given the pattern in which he responds to reasons, lead him to act in ways that serve the manipulator’s ends. It is argued that both forms of manipulation undermine freedom because manipula…Read more
  •  42
    Comments on John Fischer’s My Way
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1): 251-258. 2009.
  •  43
    Gideon Yaffe presents a ground-breaking work which demonstrates the importance of philosophy of action for the law. Many people are serving sentences not for completing crimes, but for trying to. Yaffe's clear account of what it is to try to do something promises to resolve the difficulties courts face in the adjudication of attempted crimes.
  •  61
    Reconsidering Reid's geometry of visibles
    Philosophical Quarterly 52 (209): 602-620. 2002.
    In his 'Inquiry', Reid claims, against Berkeley, that there is a science of the perspectival shapes of objects ('visible figures'): they are geometrically equivalent to shapes projected onto the surfaces of spheres. This claim should be understood as asserting that for every theorem regarding visible figures there is a corresponding theorem regarding spherical projections; the proof of the theorem regarding spherical projections can be used to construct a proof of the theorem regarding visible f…Read more
  •  87
    Free will and agency at its best
    Philosopical Perspectives 14 (s14): 203-230. 2000.