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184The Value of ConsciousnessJournal of Consciousness Studies 21 (1-2): 127-138. 2014.Consciousness, or its lack, is often invoked in debates in applied and normative ethics. Conscious beings are typically held to be significantly more morally valuable than non-consious, so that establishing whether a being is conscious becomes of critical importance. In this paper, I argue that the supposition that phenomenal consciousness explains the value of our experiences or our lives, and the moral value of beings who are conscious, is less well-grounded than is commonly thought. A great d…Read more
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236Enhancing AuthenticityJournal of Applied Philosophy 28 (3): 308-318. 2011.Some philosophers have criticized the use of psychopharmaceuticals on the grounds that even if these drugs enhance the person using them, they threaten their authenticity. Others have replied by pointing out that the conception of authenticity upon which this argument rests is contestable; on a rival conception, psychopharmaceuticals might be used to enhance our authenticity. Since, however, it is difficult to decide between these competing conceptions of authenticity, the debate seems to end in…Read more
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126Does phenomenology overflow access?Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (7): 29-38. 2008.Ned Block has influentially distinguished two kinds of consciousness, access and phenomenal consciousness. He argues that these two kinds of consciousness can dissociate, and therefore we cannot rely upon subjective report in constructing a science of consciousness. I argue that none of Block's evidence better supports his claim than the rival view, that access and phenomenal consciousness are perfectly correlated. Since Block's view is counterintuitive, and has wildly implausible implications, …Read more
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Law or Order: Reconsidering the Aims of PolicingAustralian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 2 (2). 2000.
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26Review of moral psychology, volume 1, the evolution of morality (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (3). 2009.No abstract
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19Cognitive Enhancement and Intuitive Dualism Testing a Possible LinkIn Robyn Langdon & Catriona Mackenzie (eds.), Emotions, Imagination, and Moral Reasoning, Psychology Press. pp. 171. 2012.
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485
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40Justin Garson, The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction. Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 35 (5): 259-260. 2015.
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308Virtual child pornography: The eroticization of inequalityEthics and Information Technology 4 (4): 319-323. 2002.The United States Supreme Court hasrecently ruled that virtual child pornographyis protected free speech, partly on the groundsthat virtual pornography does not harm actualchildren. I review the evidence for thecontention that virtual pornography might harmchildren, and find that it is, at best,inconclusive. Saying that virtual childpornography does not harm actual children isnot to say that it is completely harmless,however. Child pornography, actual or virtual,necessarily eroticizes inequality…Read more
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132History as struggle: Foucault's genealogy of genealogyHistory of the Human Sciences 11 (4): 159-170. 1998.
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71Peter Ulric Tse , The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 33 (4): 331-333. 2013.
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A Gresham's Law For Reporting About GeneticsAustralian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 4 (2). 2002.
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33There May Be Costs to Failing to Enhance, as Well as to EnhancingAmerican Journal of Bioethics 13 (7): 38-39. 2013.No abstract
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90Ecological Engineering: Reshaping Our Environments to Achieve Our GoalsPhilosophy and Technology 25 (4): 589-604. 2012.Human beings are subject to a range of cognitive and affective limitations which interfere with our ability to pursue our individual and social goals. I argue that shaping our environment to avoid triggering these limitations or to constrain the harms they cause is likely to be more effective than genetic or pharmaceutical modifications of our capacities because our limitations are often the flip side of beneficial dispositions and because available enhancements seem to impose significant costs.…Read more
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159Neuroethics: Challenges for the 21st CenturyCambridge University Press. 2007.Neuroscience has dramatically increased understanding of how mental states and processes are realized by the brain, thus opening doors for treating the multitude of ways in which minds become dysfunctional. This book explores questions such as when is it permissible to alter a person's memories, influence personality traits or read minds? What can neuroscience tell us about free will, self-control, self-deception and the foundations of morality? The view of neuroethics offered here argues that m…Read more
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23The best of all possible paternalisms?Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (5): 304-305. 2014.I am grateful to the commentators, for their kind words and for their probing challenges. They range in the views they express, from those who seem to think I have not gone far enough in questioning the value of autonomy to those who think I have not challenged it at all. Given this diversity, it seems best to address their remarks sequentially.J D Trout is sympathetic to my project, and highlights his own work which supports it.1 Indeed, Trout's work—together with Michael Bishop and his own sta…Read more
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117Dissolving the Puzzle of Resultant Moral LuckReview of Philosophy and Psychology 7 (1): 127-139. 2016.The puzzle of resultant moral luck arises when we are disposed to think that an agent who caused a harm deserves to be blamed more than an otherwise identical agent who did not. One popular perspective on resultant moral luck explains our dispositions to produce different judgments with regard to the agents who feature in these cases as a product not of what they genuinely deserve but of our epistemic situation. On this account, there is no genuine resultant moral luck; there is only luck in wha…Read more
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Michel FoucaultFoucault Studies 20-31. 2004.ABSTRACT: In his last two books and in the essays and interviews associated with them, Foucault develops a new mode of ethical thought he describes as an aesthetics of existence. I argue that this new ethics bears a striking resemblance to the virtue ethics that has become prominent in Anglo‐American moral philosophy over the past three decades, in its classical sources, in its opposition to rule‐based systems and its positive emphasis upon what Foucault called the care for the self. I suggest t…Read more
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University of OxfordRegular Faculty (Part-time)
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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Social Epistemology |
Philosophy of Psychology |
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Action |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |