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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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31There 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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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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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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59Conspiracy Theories (review)Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 24 (1-2): 47-48. 2004.
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35What evolves when morality evolves?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (3): 612-620. 2006.
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47Katrina Hutchison and Fiona Jenkins (eds.) , Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change? Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 34 (3-4): 132-135. 2014.
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26What evolves when morality evolves?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (3): 612-620. 2006.
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191Consciousness and Moral ResponsibilityOxford University Press. 2014.Neil Levy presents a new theory of freedom and responsibility. He defends a particular account of consciousness--the global workspace view--and argues that consciousness plays an especially important role in action. There are good reasons to think that the naïve assumption, that consciousness is needed for moral responsibility, is in fact true
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82The wisdom of the packPhilosophical Explorations 9 (1). 2006.This short article is a reply to Fine's criticisms of Haidt's social intuitionist model of moral judgement. After situating Haidt in the landscape of meta-ethical views, I examine Fine's argument, against Haidt, that the processes which give rise to moral judgements are amenable to rational control: first-order moral judgements, which are automatic, can nevertheless deliberately be brought to reflect higher-order judgements. However, Haidt's claims about the arationality of moral judgements seem…Read more
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163Foucault as Virtue EthicistFoucault Studies 1 20-31. 2004.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 that seeing…Read more
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42Psychopathy, responsibility and the moral/conventional distinctionIn Luca Malatesti & John McMillan (eds.), Responsibility and Psychopathy: Interfacing Law, Psychiatry and Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Usa. pp. 213--226. 2010.
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478The case for physician assisted suicide: how can it possibly be proven?Journal of Medical Ethics 32 (6): 335-338. 2006.In her paper, The case for physician assisted suicide: not proven, Bonnie Steinbock argues that the experience with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act fails to demonstrate that the benefits of legalising physician assisted suicide outweigh its risks. Given that her verdict is based on a small number of highly controversial cases that will most likely occur under any regime of legally implemented safeguards, she renders it virtually impossible to prove the case for physician assisted suicide. In thi…Read more
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238Epistemic Akrasia and the Subsumption of Evidence: A ReconsiderationCroatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (1): 149-156. 2004.According to one influential view, advanced by Jonathan Adler, David Owens and Susan Hurley, epistemic akrasia is impossible because when we form a full belief, any apparent evidence against that belief loses its power over us. Thus theoretical reasoning is quite unlike practical reasoning, in that in the latter our desires continue to exert a pull, even when they are outweighed by countervailing considerations. I call this argument against the possibility of epistemic akrasia the subsumption vi…Read more
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11Nomy Arpaly, Merit, Meaning and Human Bondage: An Essay on Free Will Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 27 (2): 89-91. 2007.
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52The Intrinsic Value of CulturesPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 9 (2): 49-57. 2002.Our intuitions concerning cultures show that we are committed to thinking that they are intrinsically valuable. I set out the conditions under which we attribute such value to cultures, and show that coming to possess intrinsic value is a matter of having the right kind of causal history.
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Laurence Tancredi, Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals About MoralityPhilosophy in Review 27 (1): 76. 2007.
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2Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, ed., Moral Psychology, Volume 1. The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness, Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2008, pp. xix + 583, US$30.00/£17.95 (paper) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (3): 523-525. 2009.
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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 |