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78Introduction: Practical reasoning and normativityPhilosophical Explorations 12 (3): 223-225. 2009.This volume brings together previously unpublished papers by leading scholars that deal with the theme of practical reasoning and normativity. The volume includes contributions by Michael Bratman, Donald Bruckner, David Enoch, Elijah Millgram, Andrew Reisner, François and Laura Schroeter, Mark Schroeder, and William White.
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1146Does “Ought” Imply “Feasible”?Philosophy and Public Affairs 44 (1): 7-45. 2016.Many of us feel internally conflicted in the face of certain normative claims that make infeasible demands: say, normative claims that demand that agents do what, given deeply entrenched objectionable character traits, they cannot bring themselves to do. On the one hand, such claims may seem false on account of demanding the infeasible, and insisting otherwise may seem to amount to objectionable unworldliness – to chasing “pies in the sky.” On the other hand, such claims may seem true in spite o…Read more
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149Contractualism and the foundations of moralityOxford University Press. 2010.Proposes a new model of contractualism based on an interpersonal, deliberative conception of practical reason which answers the twin demands of moral accuracy and explanatory adequacy.
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142The Relevance of Human NatureJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 9 (3): 1-9. 2015.The so-called "Human Nature Constraint" holds that if an agent is unable, due to features of human nature, to bring herself to act in a certain way, then this suffices to block or negate the claim that the agent is required to act in that way. David Estlund (2011) has recently mounted a forceful objection to the Human Nature Constraint. I argue that Estlund’s objection fails – but instructively, in a way that gives Estlund resources for a different way of resisting attempts to negate normative c…Read more
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2228Constructivism About ReasonsIn Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, Oxford University Press. 2018.Given constructivism’s enduring popularity and appeal, it is perhaps something of a surprise that there remains considerable uncertainty among many philosophers about what constructivism is even supposed to be. My aim in this article is to make some progress on the question of how constructivism should be understood. I begin by saying something about what kind of theory constructivism is supposed to be. Next, I consider and reject both the standard proceduralist characterization of constructivis…Read more
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399Republican justiceCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 18 (6): 669-678. 2015.I raise three objections to Pettit’s republican account of justice: 1) that it fails to account adequately for the role of certain values such as substantive fairness; 2) that it represents an uncomfortable hybrid of egalitarianism and sufficientarianism; and 3) that it fails Pettit’s own “eyeball test”. I then conclude in a more constructive vein, speculating about the kind of account of justice it is supposed to be and suggesting that, construed a certain way, it may have resources for answeri…Read more
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491Epistemic norms without voluntary controlNoûs 43 (4): 599-632. 2009.William Alston’s argument against the deontological conception of epistemic justification is a classic—and much debated—piece of contemporary epistemology. At the heart of Alston’s argument, however, lies a very simple mistake which, surprisingly, appears to have gone unnoticed in the vast literature now devoted to the argument. After having shown why some of the standard responses to Alston’s argument don’t work, we elucidate the mistake and offer a hypothesis as to why it has escaped attention…Read more
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648Laws as Conventional NormsIn David Plunkett, Scott Shapiro & Kevin Toh (eds.), Dimensions of Normativity: New Essays on Metaethics and Jurisprudence, Oxford University Press. 2019.A persistent worry concerning conventionalist accounts of law is that such accounts are ill equipped to account for law’s special normativity. I offer a particular kind of conventionalist account that is based on the practice-dependent account of conventional norms I have offered elsewhere and consider whether it is vulnerable to the Normativity Objection. I argue that it isn’t. It can account for all the ways in which law can justly claim to be normative. While there are ways of being normative…Read more
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561Vindicating the Normativity of RationalityEthics 119 (1): 9-30. 2008.I argue that the "why be rational?" challenge raised by John Broome and Niko Kolodny rests upon a mistake that is analogous to the mistake that H.A. Pritchard famously claimed beset the “why be moral?” challenge. The failure to locate an independent justification for obeying rational requirements should do nothing whatsoever to undermine our belief in the normativity of rationality. I suggest that we should conceive of the demand for a satisfactory vindicating explanation of the normativity of r…Read more
Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Law |
Philosophy of Social Science |