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8Review of Joshua Gert, Brute Rationality: Normativity and Human Action (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (2): 543-546. 2011.
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21Moral functionalism and moral reductionismPhilosophical Quarterly 46 (182): 77-81. 1996.Jackson and Pettit propose a "functionalist" analysis of evaluative content in service of a naturalistic reduction of moral terms. Though a broadly functionalist account may be correct, it does not immediately lead to a naturalistic theory for two reasons. First, a naturalistic theory should make clear in what sense the properties in question are naturalistic. The paper raises some doubts that this can be done consistent with the functionalist reduction. Second, even if we can construct true Ram…Read more
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12A fork in the road for expressivismEthics 120 (2): 357-381. 2010.This is a review essay discussing Mark Schroeder's book, Being For.
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1The plausibility of satisficing and the role of good in ordinary thoughtIn Michael Byron (ed.), Satisficing and Maximizing: Moral Theorists on Practical Reason, Cambridge University Press. 2004.Satisficing without thereby maximizing is rational provided that non-consequentialism is rational and provided that the preferred characterization of non-consequentialism is not one in which right action is justified in virtue of maximizing agent-relative value. Rather, the non-consequentialism which can serve to defend satisficing should be one in which the best characterization of certain reasons to act does not involve maximization of value of any sort, whether agent-relative or agent neutral…Read more
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3Morality without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism (review)Philosophical Review 110 (2): 283-286. 2001.Over the course of the twentieth century, the logical space available to metaethics has been rather thoroughly mapped out. We now have a pretty good idea of the inhabitable terrain, and each bit of that terrain appears to be occupied by able defenders. So it comes as a surprise when Mark Timmons stakes out previously undiscovered and unclaimed territory. He defends a view that he labels “ethical contextualism,” a position that is at once naturalistic, nonreductive, nonrelativist, irrealist, nond…Read more
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12Knowing enough to disagree: A new response to the moral twin earth argumentIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 1, Oxford University Press. pp. 161-94. 2006.At the beginning of the twentieth century, G. E. Moore’s open question argument convinced many philosophers that moral statements were not equivalent to statements made using non- moral or descriptive terms. For any non- moral description of an object or object it seemed that competent speakers could without confusion doubt that the action or object was appropriately characterized using moral terms such as ‘good’ or ‘right’. The question of whether the action or object so described was good or r…Read more
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31Internalism, MotivationalIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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9Some advantages of one form of argument for the maximin principleActa Analytica 23 (4): 319-335. 2008.This paper presents a non-consequentialist defense of Rawls’s general conception of justice requiring that primary social goods be distributed so that the least share is as great as possible. It suggests that a defense of this idea can be offered within a Rossian framework of prima facie duties. The prima facie duty not to harm constrains people from supporting social institutions which do not leave their fellows with goods and resources above a certain threshold. The paper argues that societies…Read more