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101Dewey and McDowell on naturalism, values, and second natureJournal of Speculative Philosophy 22 (1). 2008.
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The Development of John Dewey's Moral EpistemologyDissertation, The Johns Hopkins University. 1991.John Dewey began his career as an absolute idealist, holding that the universe is a construct of an absolute mind in which human minds participate; human ideas are true when they reproduce the absolute's ideas; and human conduct is right when it realizes the absolute's goals for human progress. Twenty years later Dewey had abandoned idealism for instrumentalism, asserting that ideas are instruments for the manipulation of human experience and that conduct is right when it generates a satisfactor…Read more
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41Kant and the Land EthicPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 2 (2): 17-22. 1995.Does Leopold’s land ethic principle represent a break with traditional We stern moral philosophies as some have argued? Or is it instead an extension of traditional Western moral ideas as Leopold believed? I argue that Leopold’s principle is compatible with an ecologically-informed Kantianism.
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Hunter Brown, William James on Radical Empiricism and Religion (review)Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 40 (3): 543-546. 2004.
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153William James's "the will to believe" and the ethics of self-experimentationTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 42 (2): 229-241. 2006.: William James's "The Will to Believe" has been criticized for offering untenable arguments in support of belief in unvalidated hypotheses. Although James is no longer accused of suggesting we can create belief ex nihilo, critics continue to charge that James's defense of belief in what he called the "religious hypothesis" confuses belief with hypothesis adoption and endorses willful persistence in unvalidated beliefs—not, as he claimed, in pursuit of truth, but merely to avoid the emotional st…Read more
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72Hume and the Prince of ThievesHume Studies 34 (1): 3-19. 2008.Hume’s readers love to hate the Sensible Knave. But hating the Knave is like hating a messenger with bad tidings. The message is that there is a gap, on Hume’s account, between our motivations and our obligations to just action. But it isn’t the Knave’s character that is to blame, for the same gap will be found if we turn our attention to alter egos, such as Robin Hood, the benevolent “Prince of Thieves.” Replacing self-interest with benevolence not only does not make the gap go away, it makes i…Read more
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40Norton and Passmore on valuing natureJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 20 (4): 353-363. 2007.Norton argues on pragmatic “Deweyan” grounds that we should cease to ask scientists for value neutral definitions of “sustainability,” developed independently of moral and social values, to guide our environmental policy making debates. “Sustainability,” like human “health,” is a normative concept from the start—one that cannot be meaningfully developed by scientists or economists without input by all the stake holders affected. While I endorse Norton’s approach, I question his apparent presumpt…Read more
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22Dewey and Moore on the Science of EthicsTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 33 (2). 1997.
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The fall and rise of Aristotelian ethics in Anglo-American moral philosophy: 19th and 20th centuryIn Jon Miller (ed.), The Reception of Aristotle's Ethics, Cambridge University Press. 2012.
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15Logic and judgments of practiceIn F. Thomas Burke, D. Micah Hester & Robert B. Talisse (eds.), Dewey's logical theory: new studies and interpretations, Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 27. 2002.
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66Hume, Callicott, and the Land Ethic: Prospects and ProblemsJournal of Value Inquiry 43 (2): 201-220. 2009.Aldo Leopold's holistic land ethic principle, ‘‘a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community … wrong when it tends otherwise,’’ has seemed to many philosophers indefensible in light of any of the traditional normative theories of character and conduct that have been central to Western moral theory since the early modern period. J. Baird Callicott has long disputed this assessment, arguing that in fact, Leopold's land ethic is best unders…Read more
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26Environmental virtue ethics - edited by Ronald Sandler & Philip Cafaro (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (1). 2008.
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91William James's "The Will to Believe" and the Ethics of Self-experimentationTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 42 (2): 229-241. 2006.William James's 'The Will to Believe" has been criticized for offering untenable arguments in support of belief in unvalidated hypotheses. Although James is no longer accused of sug gesting we can create belief ex nihilo, critics con tinue to charge that James's defense of belief in what he called the "religious hypothesis" con fuses belief with hypothesis adoption and endorses willful persistence in unvalidated beliefs-not, as he claimed, in pursuit of truth, but merely to avoid the …Read more
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76A Defence of Environmental StewardshipEnvironmental Values 21 (3): 297-316. 2012.Public recognition of the fragility of the natural systems on which present and future generations depend has prompted calls for the practice of environmental stewardship —calls widely criticised in the environmental ethics literature. Some argue that stewardship 's historical associations entail that it is inherently sexist, speciesist and/or anthropocentric. Others argue that absent belief in a creator to appoint us as stewards and hold us accountable, talk of 'environmental stewardship ' is e…Read more
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26Patient Advocacy and Professional Associations: individual and collective responsibilitiesNursing Ethics 12 (3): 296-304. 2005.Professions have traditionally treated advocacy as a collective duty, best assigned to professional associations to perform. In North American nursing, advocacy for issues affecting identifiable patients is assigned instead to their nurses. We argue that nursing associations’ withdrawal from advocacy for patient care issues is detrimental to nurses and patients alike. Most nurses work in large institutions whose internal policies they cannot influence. When these create obstacles to good care, t…Read more
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2Justin Oakley and Dean Cocking, Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 24 (3): 217-219. 2004.
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Gary A. Cook, "George Herbert Mead: The Making of a Social Pragmatist" (review)Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 30 (3): 697. 1994.
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Dewey's Ethical ThoughtTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 32 (4): 684-688. 1996.In the first book on the development of John Dewey's ethical thought, Jennifer Welchman revises the prevalent interpretation of his ethics. Her clear and engaging account traces the history of Dewey's distinctive moral philosophy from its roots in idealism during the 1890s through the pragmatist approach of his 1922 work, Human Nature and Conduct. Central to the development of Dewey's ethics was his lifelong conviction that the realms of science and morals, facts and values were reconcilable. Th…Read more
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62The Virtues of StewardshipEnvironmental Ethics 21 (4): 411-423. 1999.What virtues do good stewards typically have and can these virtues move people to be good stewards of nature? Why focus on the virtues of stewards rather than on trying to construct and defend morally obligatory rules to govern human behavior? I argue that benevolence and loyalty are crucial for good stewardship and these virtues can and do motivate people to act as good stewards of nature. Moreover,since it is a matter of dispute whether rational considerations can move us to perform a given ac…Read more
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Larry Hickman, ed., Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 20 (1): 40-42. 2000.
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35How Much Is That Mammoth in the Window?Ethics, Policy and Environment 20 (1): 41-43. 2017.T.J. Kasperbauer’s, ‘Should we Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon? The Ethics of De-extinction’ is a timely contribution to the small but growing literature on the ethical issues facing Conservation B...
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20From Absolute Idealism to Instrumentalism: The Problem of Dewey's Early PhilosophyTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 25 (4). 1989.
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18‘Attack of the Hybrid Swarm?’Ethics, Policy and Environment 18 (3): 252-255. 2015.Rohwer and Marris’s exploration of grounds for a prima facie duty to preserve the genetic integrity of wild species makes two important contributions to the environmental ethics literature. While n...
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5Social Freedom: The Responsibility ViewKristján Kristjánsson New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xi + 221 pp., $49.95 (review)Dialogue 37 (4): 858-860. 1998.
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1Justin Oakley and Dean Cocking, Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles (review)Philosophy in Review 24 217-219. 2004.
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35G. E. Moore and the Revolution in Ethics: A ReappraisalHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 6 (3). 1989.
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Areas of Specialization
History of Western Philosophy |
Other Academic Areas |
Aesthetics |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |