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3Naturalism and Free WillIn Kelly James Clark (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, Wiley. 2016.Most of the philosophers engaged in the free will debate accept some kind of naturalism constraint. In this chapter, I distinguish three different kinds of naturalism. Strong naturalists hold that philosophical theorizing should be actually guided by current science, whereas weak naturalists avoid postulating any entities or processes that conflict with science (but may take bets on how science will evolve). Mid‐strength naturalism is agnostic about how future science will evolve, but is not act…Read more
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3Frankfurt in Fake Barn CountryIn Duncan Pritchard & Lee John Whittington (eds.), The Philosophy of Luck, Wiley-blackwell. 2015.It is very widely held that Frankfurt‐style cases—in which a counterfactual intervener stands by to bring it about that an agent performs an action but never actually acts because the agent performs that action on her own—show that free will does not require alternative possibilities. This essay argues that that conclusion is unjustified, because merely counterfactual interven‐ers may make a difference to normative properties. It presents a modified version of a fake barn case to show how a coun…Read more
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2Neuromarketing: Ethical and Political ChallengesEtica E Politica 11 (2): 10-17. 2009.Ethicists and ordinary people are typically more worried by interventions that alter agents’ mind by directly altering their brains than interventions than are focused on the environment, and thereby indirectly change minds. I argue that the causal route to changing minds is not itself important. Moreover, some of the most powerful techniques whereby behavior is altered without the consent or knowledge of agents involve environmental manipulations: manipulations of social space, for the benefit …Read more
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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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2The presumption against direct manipulationNeuroethics: Challenges for the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. forthcoming.
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2Socializing responsibilityIn Marina Oshana, Katrina Hutchison & Catriona Mackenzie (eds.), Social Dimensions of Moral Responsibility, Oup Usa. 2018.
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1Belie the belief? Prompts and default statesReligion, Brain and Behavior. forthcoming.Sometimes agents sincerely profess to believe a claim and yet act inconsistently with it in some contexts. In this paper, I focus on mismatch cases in the domain of religion. I distinguish between two kinds of representations: prompts and default states. Prompts are representations that must be salient to agents in order for them to play their belief-appropriate roles, whereas default states play these roles automatically. The need for access characteristic of prompts is explained by their vehic…Read more
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1Fake news and free speechIn David Edmonds (ed.), Ethics and the Contemporary World, Routledge. 2019.
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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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Responsibility for ill-health and lifestyle: Drilling down into the detailsIn Ben Davies, Gabriel De Marco, Neil Levy & Julian Savulescu (eds.), Responsibility and Healthcare, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 167-183. 2024.Whether agents are morally responsible for their need for scarce resources is a difficult and fraught issue. In this chapter, I aim to explore some unappreciated difficulties for the attribution of moral responsibility for needs that arise from the fact that in typical cases, ill-health arises from lifestyle: not, that is, from one bad decision, but from a long-term pattern of actions. First, I hope to build on Brown and Savulescu’s (2019) programmatic exploration of what they call the diachroni…Read more
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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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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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Laurence Tancredi, Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals About MoralityPhilosophy in Review 27 (1): 76. 2007.
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Introduction: Responsibility and Healthcare, An OverviewIn Ben Davies, Gabriel De Marco, Neil Levy & Julian Savulescu (eds.), Responsibility and Healthcare, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 1-32. 2024.This introductory chapter offers an overview of the various ways that responsibility may be relevant to health care, in order to situate the chapters in this volume in their broader context. The chapter begins by outlining relevant concepts, and explaining why it is worth considering the role of responsibility in health care. The chapter then turns to various ways in which patients might be held responsible in a health care system, before considering objections to these practices. Finally, the c…Read more
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PrefaceIn James J. Giordano & Bert Gordijn (eds.), Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives in Neuroethics, Cambridge University Press. 2010.
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Occam's shopper : the costs of plausible reasoningIn Allan McCay & Michael Sevel (eds.), Free Will and the Law: New Perspectives, Routledge. 2019.
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Nomy Arpaly, Merit, Meaning and Human Bondage: An Essay on Free WillPhilosophy in Review 27 (2): 89. 2007.
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Stephen Cohen The Nature of Moral Reasoning (review)Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 6 (1). 2004.
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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 |