•  24
    1984 and philosophy, is resistance futile? (edited book)
    Open Court. 2018.
    Philosophers debate how Orwell's nightmare world compares to today's world of political acrimony and discontent.
  •  6
    Ethics in Healthcare: A Philosophical Introduction
    Rowman & Littlefield International. 2018.
    Increasingly, students and professionals within healthcare are faced with difficult questions and decisions: this book meet those ethical needs by providing an accessible guide to ethical theories and practices, which does not presuppose any background or training in philosophy.
  •  162
    Refuting a Frankfurtian Objection to Frankfurt-Type Counterexamples
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (2). 2010.
    In this paper I refute an apparently obvious objection to Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities according to which if in the counterfactual scenario the agent does not act, then the agent could have avoided acting in the actual scenario. And because what happens in the counterfactual scenario cannot count as the relevant agent's actions given the sort of external control that agent is under, then we can ground responsibility on that agent having been able to …Read more
  •  176
    Simply, false
    Analysis 69 (1). 2009.
    According to the Simple View of intentional action famously refuted by Bratman , φ-ing is intentional only if the agent intended to φ. In this paper I show that none of five different objections to Bratman's counter-example – McCann's , Garcia's , Sverdlik's , Stout's , and Adams's – works. Therefore Bratman's contention that SV is false still stands
  •  158
    Rational constraints and the Simple View
    Analysis 70 (3). 2010.
    According to the Simple View of intentional action, I have intentionally switched on the light only if I intended to switch on the light. The idea that intending to is necessary for intentionally -ing has been challenged by Bratman (1984, 1987) with a counter-example in which a videogame player is trying to hit either of two targets while knowing that she cannot hit both targets. When a target is hit, the game finishes. And if both targets are about to be hit simultaneously, the game shuts down…Read more
  •  266
    Frankfurt counterexample defended
    Analysis 71 (1). 2011.
    Frankfurt sets out to refute the principle according to which ‘a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise’ . Frankfurt devises a counterexample in which an agent is intuitively responsible even though she could not have done otherwise: Suppose someone – Black, let us say – wants Jones to perform a certain action. Black is prepared to go to considerable lengths to get his way, but he prefers to avoid showing his hand unnecessarily. So he waits until …Read more
  •  512
    Is the wish to be biologically related to your children legitimate? Here, I respond to an argument in support of a negative answer to this question according to which a preference towards having children one is biologically related to is analogous to a preference towards associating with members of one’s own race. I reject this analogy, mainly on the grounds that only the latter constitutes discrimination; still, I conclude that indeed a preference towards children one is biologically related to…Read more
  •  43
    Pushing the Margins of Responsibility: Lessons from Parks’ Somnambulistic Killing
    with Filippo Santoni de Sio
    Neuroethics 11 (1): 35-46. 2017.
    David Shoemaker has claimed that a binary approach to moral responsibility leaves out something important, namely instances of marginal agency, cases where agents seem to be eligible for some responsibility responses but not others. In this paper we endorse and extend Shoemaker’s approach by presenting and discussing one more case of marginal agency not yet covered by Shoemaker or in the other literature on moral responsibility. Our case is that of Kenneth Parks, a Canadian man who drove a long …Read more
  •  786
    IVF, same-sex couples and the value of biological ties
    Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (12): 784-787. 2016.
    Ought parents, in general, to value being biologically tied to their children? Is it important, in particular, that both parents be biologically tied to their children? I will address these fundamental questions by looking at a fairly new practice within IVF treatments, so-called IVF-with-ROPA ( Reception of Oocytes from Partner ), which allows lesbian couples to „share motherhood‟ with one partner providing the eggs while the other becomes pregnant. I believe that IVF-with-ROPA is, just like o…Read more
  •  917
    Broadening the future of value account of the wrongness of killing
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 18 (4): 587-590. 2015.
    On Don Marquis’s future of value account of the wrongness of killing, ‘what makes it wrong to kill those individuals we all believe it is wrong to kill, is that killing them deprives them of their future of value’. Marquis has recently argued for a narrow interpretation of his future of value account of the wrongness of killing and against the broad interpretation that I had put forward in response to Carson Strong. In this article I argue that the narrow view is problematic because it violates …Read more
  •  3461
    Priming Effects and Free Will
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 20 (5): 725-734. 2012.
    I argue that the empirical literature on priming effects does not warrant nor suggest the conclusion, drawn by prominent psychologists such as J. A. Bargh, that we have no free will or less free will than we might think. I focus on a particular experiment by Bargh – the ‘elderly’ stereotype case in which subjects that have been primed with words that remind them of the stereotype of the elderly walk on average slower out of the experiment’s room than control subjects – and I show that we cannot …Read more
  •  142
    What sort of thing is the mind? And how can such a thing at the same time - belong to the natural world, - represent the world, - give rise to our subjective experience, - and ground human knowledge? Content, Consciousness and Perception is an edited collection, comprising eleven new contributions to the philosophy of mind, written by some of the most promising young philosophers in the UK and Ireland. The book is arranged into three parts. Part I, Concepts and Mental Content, which begins with …Read more
  •  2679
    Self-Sacrifice and the Trolley Problem
    Philosophical Psychology 26 (5): 662-672. 2013.
    Judith Jarvis Thomson has recently proposed a new argument for the thesis that killing the one in the Trolley Problem is not permissible. Her argument relies on the introduction of a new scenario, in which the bystander may also sacrifice herself to save the five. Thomson argues that those not willing to sacrifice themselves if they could may not kill the one to save the five. Bryce Huebner and Marc Hauser have recently put Thomson's argument to empirical test by asking people what they should d…Read more
  •  2246
    Embryo loss and double effect
    Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (8): 537-540. 2013.
    I defend the argument that if embryo loss in stem cell research is morally problematic, then embryo loss in in vivo conception is similarly morally problematic. According to a recent challenge to this argument, we can distinguish between in vivo embryo loss and the in vitro embryo loss of stem cell research by appealing to the doctrine of double effect. I argue that this challenge fails to show that in vivo embryo loss is a mere unintended side effect while in vitro embryo loss is an intended me…Read more
  •  3702
    Addiction, Compulsion, and Agency
    Neuroethics 7 (1): 105-107. 2014.
    I show that Pickard’s argument against the irresistibility of addiction fails because her proposed dilemma, according to which either drug-seeking does not count as action or addiction is resistible, is flawed; and that is the case whether or not one endorses Pickard’s controversial definition of action. Briefly, we can easily imagine cases in which drug-seeking meets Pickard’s conditions for agency without thereby implying that the addiction was not irresistible, as when the drug addict may tak…Read more
  •  684
    Who’s Afraid of Robots? Fear of Automation and the Ideal of Direct Control
    with Filippo Santoni de Sio
    In Fiorella Battaglia & Natalie Weidenfeld (eds.), Roboethics in Film, Pisa University Press. 2014.
    We argue that lack of direct and conscious control is not, in principle, a reason to be afraid of machines in general and robots in particular: in order to articulate the ethical and political risks of increasing automation one must, therefore, tackle the difficult task of precisely delineating the theoretical and practical limits of sustainable delegation to robots.
  •  1181
    Frankfurt versus Frankfurt: a new anti-causalist dawn
    Philosophical Explorations 14 (1): 117-131. 2011.
    In this paper I argue that there is an important anomaly to the causalist/compatibilist paradigm in the philosophy of action and free will. This anomaly, which to my knowledge has gone unnoticed so far, can be found in the philosophy of Harry Frankfurt. Two of his most important contributions to the field – his influential counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities and his ‘guidance’ view of action – are incompatible. The importance of this inconsistency goes far beyond the issue…Read more
  •  120
    Automatic Actions: Challenging Causalism
    Rationality Markets and Morals 2 (1): 179-200. 2011.
    I argue that so-called automatic actions – routine performances that we successfully and effortlessly complete without thinking such as turning a door handle, downshifting to 4th gear, or lighting up a cigarette – pose a challenge to causalism, because they do not appear to be preceded by the psychological states which, according to the causal theory of action, are necessary for intentional action. I argue that causalism cannot prove that agents are simply unaware of the relevant psychologic…Read more
  •  1201
    Killing fetuses and killing newborns
    Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (5): 19-20. 2013.
    The argument for the moral permissibility of killing newborns is a challenge to liberal positions on abortion because it can be considered a reductio of their defence of abortion. Here I defend the liberal stance on abortion by arguing that the argument for the moral permissibility of killing newborns on ground of the social, psychological and economic burden on the parents recently put forward by Giubilini and Minerva is not valid; this is because they fail to show that newborns cannot be harme…Read more
  •  619
    Consent ain’t anything: dissent, access and the conditions for consent
    Monash Bioethics Review 34 (1): 3-22. 2016.
    I argue against various versions of the ‘attitude’ view of consent and of the ‘action’ view of consent: I show that neither an attitude nor an action is either necessary or sufficient for consent. I then put forward a different view of consent based on the idea that, given a legitimate epistemic context, absence of dissent is sufficient for consent: what is crucial is having access to dissent. In the latter part of the paper I illustrate my view of consent by applying it to the case of consentin…Read more
  •  22
    Paper: Sexual rights and disability
    Journal of Medical Ethics 37 (3): 158-161. 2011.
    This paper argues against Appel's recent proposal—in this journal—that there is a fundamental human right to sexual pleasure, and that therefore the sexual pleasure of severely disabled people should be publicly funded—by thereby partially legalising prostitution. An alternative is proposed that does not need to pose a new positive human right; does not need public funding; does not need the legalisation of prostitution; and that would offer a better experience to the severely disabled: charitab…Read more
  •  40
    How does the use of military drones affect the legal, political, and moral responsibility of different actors involved in their deployment and design? This volume offers a fresh contribution to the ethics of drone warfare by providing, for the first time, a systematic interdisciplinary discussion of different responsibility issues raised by military drones. The book discusses four main sets of questions: First, from a legal point of view, we analyse the ways in which the use of drones makes the …Read more
  •  979
    Sexual Rights, Disability and Sex Robots
    In John Danaher & Neil McArthur (eds.), Sex Robots, Mit Press. 2017.
    I argue that the right to sexual satisfaction of severely physically and mentally disabled people and elderly people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases can be fulfilled by deploying sex robots; this would enable us to satisfy the sexual needs of many who cannot provide for their own sexual satisfaction; without at the same time violating anybody’s right to sexual self-determination. I don’t offer a full-blown moral justification of deploying sex robots in such cases, as not all morally r…Read more
  •  2228
    Fathers and Abortion
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 39 (4): 444-458. 2014.
    I argue that it is possible for prospective mothers to wrong prospective fathers by bearing their child; and that lifting paternal liability for child support does not correct the wrong inflicted to fathers. It is therefore sometimes wrong for prospective mothers to bear a child, or so I argue here. I show that my argument for considering the legitimate interests of prospective fathers is not a unique exception to an obvious right to procreate. It is, rather, part of a growing consensus that pro…Read more
  •  1498
    Action, Deviance, and Guidance
    Abstracta (2): 41-59. 2013.
    I argue that we should give up the fight to rescue causal theories of action from fundamental challenges such as the problem of deviant causal chains; and that we should rather pursue an account of action based on the basic intuition that control identifies agency. In Section 1 I introduce causalism about action explanation. In Section 2 I present an alternative, Frankfurt’s idea of guidance. In Section 3 I argue that the problem of deviant causal chains challenges causalism in two important res…Read more
  •  12
    Enhancement der Moral (edited book)
    with Raphael van Riel and Jan Schildmann
    Mentis. 2015.
  •  161
    Mind Out of Action: The Intentionality of Automatic Actions
    Dissertation, University of Edinburgh. 2008.
    We think less than we think. My thesis moves from this suspicion to show that standard accounts of intentional action can't explain the whole of agency. Causalist accounts such as Davidson's and Bratman's, according to which an action can be intentional only if it is caused by a particular mental state of the agent, don't work for every kind of action. So-called automatic actions, effortless performances over which the agent doesn't deliberate, and to which she doesn't need to pay attention, con…Read more
  •  147
    Abortion: Strong's counterexamples fail
    Journal of Medical Ethics 35 (5): 304-305. 2009.
    This paper shows that the counterexamples proposed by Strong in 2008 in the Journal of Medical Ethics to Marquis’s argument against abortion fail. Strong’s basic idea is that there are cases — for example, terminally ill patients — where killing an adult human being is prima facie seriously morally wrong even though that human being is not being deprived of a "valuable future". So Marquis would be wrong in thinking that what is essential about the wrongness of killing an adult human being is tha…Read more
  •  260
    Knowing Future Contingents
    Logos and Episteme 3 (1): 43-50. 2012.
    This paper argues that we know the future by applying a recent solution of the problem of future contingents to knowledge attributions about the future. MacFarlane has put forward a version of assessment-context relativism that enables us to assign a truth value 'true' (or 'false') to future contingents such as There Will Be A Sea Battle Tomorrow. Here I argue that the same solution can be applied to knowledge attributions about the future by dismissing three disanalogies between the case of fut…Read more