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2The presumption against direct manipulationNeuroethics: Challenges for the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. forthcoming.
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160Embodied savoir-faire: knowledge-how requires motor representationsSynthese 194 (2). 2017.I argue that the intellectualist account of knowledge-how, according to which agents have the knowledge-how to \ in virtue of standing in an appropriate relation to a proposition, is only half right. On the composition view defended here, knowledge-how at least typically requires both propositional knowledge and motor representations. Motor representations are not mere dispositions to behavior because they have representational content, and they play a central role in realizing the intelligence …Read more
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110Open-Mindedness and the Duty to Gather EvidencePublic Affairs Quarterly 20 (1): 55-66. 2006.Most people believe that we have a duty to gather evidence on both sides of central moral and political controversies, in order to fulfil our epistemic responsibilities and come to hold justified cognitive attitudes on these matters. I argue, on the contrary, that to the extent to which these controversies require special expertise, we have no such duty. We are far more likely to worsen than to improve our epistemic situation by becoming better informed on these questions. I suggest we do better…Read more
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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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372Downshifting and meaning in lifeRatio 18 (2). 2005.So-called downshifters seek more meaningful lives by decreasing the amount of time they devote to work, leaving more time for the valuable goods of friendship, family and personal development. But though these are indeed meaning-conferring activities, they do not have the right structure to count as superlatively meaningful. Only in work – of a certain kind – can superlative meaning be found. It is by active engagements in projects, which are activities of the right structure, dedicated to the a…Read more
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2346Consciousness and moralityIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness, Oxford University Press. 2020.It is well known that the nature of consciousness is elusive, and that attempts to understand it generate problems in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, psychology, and neuroscience. Less appreciated are the important – even if still elusive – connections between consciousness and issues in ethics. In this chapter we consider three such connections. First, we consider the relevance of consciousness for questions surrounding an entity’s moral status. Second, we consider the relevance of consciousne…Read more
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128Libet's impossible demandJournal of Consciousness Studies 12 (12): 67-76. 2005.Abstract : Libet’s famous experiments, showing that apparently we become aware of our intention to act only after we have unconsciously formed it, have widely been taken to show that there is no such thing as free will. If we are not conscious of the formation of our intentions, many people think, we do not exercise the right kind of control over them. I argue that the claim this view presupposes, that only consciously initiated actions could be free, places a condition upon freedom of action wh…Read more
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140Culture by naturePhilosophical Explorations 14 (3): 237-248. 2011.One of the major conflicts in the social sciences since the Second World War has concerned whether, and to what extent, human beings have a nature. One view, traditionally associated with the political left, has rejected the notion that we have a contentful nature, and hoped thereby to underwrite the possibility that we can shape social institutions by references only to norms of justice, rather than our innate dispositions. This view has been in rapid retreat over the past three decades, in the…Read more
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190Frankfurt-style cases are widely taken to show that agents do not need alternative possibilities to be morally responsible for their actions. Many philosophers take these cases to constitute a powerful argument for compatibilism: if we do not need alternative possibilities for moral responsibility, it is hard to see what the attraction of indeterminism might be. I defend the claim that even though Frankfurt-style cases establish that agents can be responsible for their actions despite lacking al…Read more
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18John Bengson and Marc A. Moffett, eds. , Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 34 (6): 284-286. 2014.
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21Review of Franck grammont, dorothée LeGrand, Pierre Livet (eds.), Naturalizing Intention in Action (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (6). 2010.
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108Addiction and Self-Control: Perspectives From Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience (edited book)Oup Usa. 2013.This book brings cutting edge neuroscience and psychology into dialogue with philosophical reflection to illuminate the loss of control experienced by addicts, and thereby cast light on ordinary agency and the way in which it sometimes goes wrong
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51Untimely MeditationsSymposium 2 (1): 61-75. 1998.Most accounts of recent French intellectual history are organized around a fundamental rupture, which divides thought and thinkers into two eras: ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’. But the attempts to identify the features which characterise these eras seem, at best, inconclusive. In this paper, I examine this rupture, by way of a comparison of two thinkers representative of the divide. Sartre seems as uncontroversially modern (and therefore out of date) as any twentieth-century can be, while Foucault’s…Read more
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26George Graham, The Abraham Dilemma: A Divine Delusion. Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 36 (1): 11-13. 2016.
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50T. J. Mawson , Free Will: A Guide for the Perplexed . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 31 (3): 218-220. 2011.
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15Ethics and Rules: A Political Reading of Foucault's Aesthetics of ExistencePhilosophy Today 42 (1): 79-84. 1998.
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150Neuroethics and the extended mindIn Judy Illes & Barbara J. Sahakian (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 285. 2011.Neuroethics offers unprecedented opportunities as well as challenges. The challenges stem from the range of difficult ethical issues, which are confronted by neuroethicists. Issues concerning the nature of consciousness, of personal identity, free will, and so on, are all grist for the neuroethical mill. This article argues that this debate bears centrally on neuroethics and is significant for neuroethics. Whether the best interpretation of the facts to which proponents of the extended mind appe…Read more
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57Self-deception without thought experimentsIn T. Bayne & J. Fernández (eds.), Delusion and Self-Deception: Affective and Motivational Influences on Belief Formation, Psychology Press. 2008.Theories of self-deception divide into those that hold that the state is characterized by some kind of synchronic tension or conflict between propositional attitudes and those that deny this. Proponents of the latter like Al Mele claim that their theories are more parsimonious, because they do not require us to postulate any psychological mechanisms beyond those which have been independently verified. But if we can show that there are real cases of motivated believing which are characterized by …Read more
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30Defending the Consciousness Thesis: A response to Robichaud, Sripada and CarusoJournal of Consciousness Studies 22 (7-8): 61-76. 2015.16 page
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38Miller, Christian. Moral Character: An Empirical Theory.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 368. $55.00 (review)Ethics 124 (3): 641-645. 2014.
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28Respecting rights … to deathJournal of Medical Ethics 32 (10): 608-611. 2006.Ravelingien et al1 argue that, given the restrictions that must be imposed on recipients of xenotransplanted organs, we should conduct clinical trials of xenotransplantation only on patients in a persistent vegetative state. I argue that there is no ethical barrier to using terminally ill patients instead. Such patients can choose to waive their rights to the liberties that xenotransplantation would probably restrict; it is surely rational to prefer to waive your rights rather than to die, and p…Read more
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3Christine Sistare, Larry May, and Leslie Francis, eds., Groups and Group Rights Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 21 (4): 297-299. 2001.
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84Zimmerman’s The Immorality of Punishment: A Critical Essay (review)Criminal Law and Philosophy 9 (1): 103-112. 2015.In “The Immorality of Punishment”, Michael Zimmerman attempts to show that punishment is morally unjustified and therefore wrong. In this response, I focus on two main questions. First, I examine whether Zimmerman’s empirical claims—concerning our inability to identify wrongdoers who satisfy conditions on blameworthiness and who might be reformed through punishment, and the comparative efficacy of punitive and non-punitive responses to crime—stand up to scrutiny. Second, I argue that his crucial…Read more
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17John S. Callender, Free Will and Responsibility: A Guide for Practitioners. Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 30 (5): 318-319. 2010.
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25Bruce N. Waller , Against Moral Responsibility . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 32 (3): 234-236. 2012.
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162What, and where, luck is: A response to Jennifer LackeyAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (3). 2009.In 'What Luck Is Not', Lackey presents counterexamples to the two most prominent accounts of luck: the absence of control account and the modal account. I offer an account of luck that conjoins absence of control to a modal condition. I then show that Lackey's counterexamples mislocate the luck: the agents in her cases are lucky, but the luck precedes the event upon which Lackey focuses, and that event is itself only fortunate, not lucky. Finally I offer an account of fortune. Fortune is luck-in…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 |