•  36
    Moral issues (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 1983.
    Though this moderately-priced anthology dates back to 1983, its lively articles are as relevant as ever. Topics covered include suicide, euthanasia, war, punishment,world hunger, abortion, sexual relations, equality, affirmative action, and future generations.
  •  256
    Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today’s World
    The Journal of Ethics 8 (4): 305-348. 2004.
    This article argues that there is no sound basis for thinking that we have a general and strong duty to rectify disparities of wealth around the world, apart from the special case where some become wealthy by theft or fraud. The nearest thing we have to a rational morality for all has to be built on the interests of all, and they include substantial freedoms, but not substantial entitlements to others' assistance. It is also pointed out that the situation of the world's poor is not that of victi…Read more
  •  105
    Positive/Negative
    Tulane Studies in Philosophy 33 51-65. 1985.
  •  166
    Egalitarians hold that some good things should, in principle, be distributed equally among all people. Which good things? Why just those and not others? Why are they to be equalized only among humans and not, say, between humans and cats? And why is the equalization to be confined within the borders of the author's State, rather than practiced over the whole human race (at least)? Those are all matters for the particular egalitarian to explain, as best he can. None, I think, can be explained sat…Read more
  •  78
    The Right to be Old and the Right to Have Young
    Tulane Studies in Philosophy 31 183-217. 1982.
  •  299
    Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality is G.A. Cohens attempt to rescue something of the socialist outlook on society from the challenge of libertarianism, which Cohen identifies with the work of Robert Nozick in his famous book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Sympathizing with the leading idea that a person must belong to himself, and thus be unavailable for forced redistribution of his efforts, Cohen is at pains to reconcile the two. This cannot be done – they are flatly contrary. Moreover, equalit…Read more
  •  68
    Professor Filice’s Defense of Pacifism
    Journal of Philosophical Research 17 483-491. 1992.
  •  3
    David Gauthier, Morals By Agreement (review)
    Philosophy in Review 7 269-272. 1987.
  •  134
    Three Analysis Retributivists
    Analysis 34 (6). 1974.
  •  78
    John Stuart Mill as Philosopher
    Dialogue 32 (2): 315-. 1993.
    This critical notice of Skorupski's large work is for the most part strongly positive: "Both as a work of scholarship and as a contribution to philosophy in its own right, an outstanding work". There are careful and detailed discussions of Mill's semantics, logic, philosophy of mathematics, logic of the moral sciences, and ethical writings (but not on religion, democracy, or women). Some issue is taken with Skorupski's account of and support for Mill's utilitarianism; broad agreement is expresse…Read more
  •  211
    On honouring our parents
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 25 (1): 65-78. 1987.
  •  275
    Cohen’s Rescue
    The Journal of Ethics 14 (3): 263-334. 2009.
    G. A. Cohen’s Rescuing Justice and Equality proposes that both concepts need rescuing from the work of John Rawls. Especially, it is concerned with Rawls’ famous second principle of justice according to which social primary goods should be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution is to the benefit of the worst off. The question is why this would ever be necessary if all parties are just. Cohen and I agree that Rawls cannot really justify inequalities on the basis given. But he also thi…Read more
  •  64
    Silverstein on egoism and universalizability
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 47 (3). 1969.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  380
    Moral problems of population
    The Monist 57 (1). 1973.
  •  64
    Communication and Human Good
    Social Philosophy Today 17 91-102. 2001.
    The invention of computers, and especially their communication capabilities is revolutionary in several ways. They show the paramount importance of communication in human life, as well as facilitating revolutionary improvements in virtually all areas of social life: business, the arts, agriculture, and others. They put in perspective the erroneous outlook of "materialism" -the idea that human well-being is a matter of accumulating material objects, with a corollary that we must be using up the m…Read more
  •  136
    Reply to Dworkin
    Social Philosophy and Policy 1 (1): 41. 1983.
    My main complaint about Dworkin's papers on equality was that he had not said much by way of arguing for it. His intriguing response to this request provides a good start, and I shall confine this brief, further comment to what he says on that basic subject. Space considerations, alas, require me to ignore the other parts of his discussion. Dworkin distinguishes what he calls the “abstract egalitarian thesis” from his particular version of equalitarianism, equality of resources. His strategy is …Read more
  •  83
    Waldron on Private Property
    Dialogue 29 (1): 133-. 1990.
  •  87
    Morality and non-violence
    Philosophia 8 (2-3): 447-459. 1978.
  •  1
    Ayn Rand as Moral and Political Philosopher
    Reason Papers 23 96-100. 1998.
  •  29
    Rights and Utilitarianism
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 5 (n/a): 137-160. 1979.
    Few questions about utilitarianism have been more vexed than that of its relation to rights. It is commonplace to hold that there are nonutilitarian rights, rights not founded on considerations of utility. And it is even thought that the very notion of rights is inherently incapable of being significantly employed within the utilitarian framework. In the present paper, I wish to consider both of these matters. I propose to give reasons—mostly not really new—for rejecting the stronger, conceptual…Read more
  •  1
    God
    Reason Papers 22 109-119. 1997.
  •  772
    Brettschneider argues that the granting of property rights to all entails a right of exclusion by acquirer/owners against all others, that this exclusionary right entails a loss on their part, and that to make up for this, property owners owe any nonowners welfare rights. Against this, I argue that exclusion is not in fact a cost. Everyone is to have liberty rights, which are negative: what people are excluded from is the liberty to attack and despoil others. Everyone, whether an owner of extern…Read more