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45The Non-arbitrariness of Reasons: Reply to LenmanUtilitas 11 (2): 178-193. 1999.James Lenman is critical of my claim that moral requirements are requirements of reason. I argue that his criticisms miss their target. More importantly, I argue that the anti-rationalism that informs Lenman's criticisms is itself implausible.
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107Reason and desireProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 88 243-58. 1988.My topic is the debate in moral psychology between the rationalist and the anti-rationalist over the proper relation between reason and desire. My aim is not to adjudicate this debate, but rather to clarify what is at stake, for, it seems to me, both parties are prone to misconceive the issues that divide them
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31Shadow and shade: The ethopoietics of enlightenmentEthics, Place and Environment 6 (2). 2003.Modern Western thought and culture have envisaged their task in terms of a metaphorics, a metaphysics and a technics of 'enlightenment'. However, the ethical and environmental implications of this determination to dispel all shadows have become increasingly pernicious as modernity both extends and alters the conceptualization and employment of (a now artificial) light as a tool of discovery and control. Drawing on the work of Foucault and Benjamin amongst others, this paper seeks to illustrate, …Read more
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77Galen Strawson and the Weather WatchersMind and WorldPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (2): 449. 1998.
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5Emotion, Place and CultureRoutledge. 2009.There has been a rapid rise in engagement with emotion and affect across a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, with geographers making a significant contribution by examining the emotional intersections between people and places. This book investigates feelings and affect in various spatial and social contexts.
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55Deontological Moral Obligations and Non‐Welfarist Agent‐Relative ValuesRatio 24 (4): 351-363. 2011.Many claim that a plausible moral theory would have to include a principle of beneficence, a principle telling us to produce goods that are both welfarist and agent‐neutral. But when we think carefully about the necessary connection between moral obligations and reasons for action, we see that agents have two reasons for action, and two moral obligations: they must not interfere with any agent's exercise of his rational capacities and they must do what they can to make sure that agents have rati…Read more
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15Global ConsequentialismIn Brad Hooker, Elinor Mason, Dale E. Miller, D. W. Haslett, Shelly Kagan, Sanford S. Levy, David Lyons, Phillip Montague, Tim Mulgan, Philip Pettit, Madison Powers, Jonathan Riley, William H. Shaw, Michael Smith & Alan Thomas (eds.), Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 121--133. 2000.
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26Manipulating Levels of Socially Evaluative Threat and the Impact on Anticipatory Stress ReactivityFrontiers in Psychology 12. 2021.Previous work suggests that relative increases in socially evaluative threat modulate the psychobiological stress response. However, few studies have compared stressors which manipulate the level of socially evaluative threat to which the participant is exposed. Here we present two studies. In the first, we assessed the integrity of an ecologically valid, laboratory stressor and its effects on acute psychobiological reactivity and ability to evoke an anticipatory response prior to participation.…Read more
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1365The moral problemBlackwell. 1994.What is the Moral Problem? NORMATIVE ETHICS VS. META-ETHICS It is a common fact of everyday life that we appraise each others' behaviour and attitudes from ...
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50Consequentialism and the nearest and dearest objectionIn Ian Ravenscroft (ed.), Minds, Ethics, and Conditionals: Themes from the Philosophy of Frank Jackson, Oxford University Press. 2009.Imagine that Bloggs is faced with a choice between giving a benefit to his child, or a slightly greater benefit to a complete stranger. The benefit is whatever the child or the stranger can buy for $100 — Bloggs has $100 to give away — and it just so happens that the stranger would buy something from which he would gain a slightly greater benefit than would Bloggs's child. Let's stipulate that Bloggs believes this to be, and let's stipulate, as well, that he believes that the consequences of his…Read more
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56A Puzzle about Internal ReasonsIn Ulrike Heuer & Gerald R. Lang (eds.), Luck, Value, and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 195. 2012.
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190Towards Interoperability of Biomedical OntologiesSchloss Dagstuhl: Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik. 2008.Report on Dagstuhl Seminar 07132, Schloss Dagstuhl, March 27-30 , 2007.
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104Kinds of consequentialismIn Ernest Sosa & Enrique Villanueva (eds.), Metaethics, Wiley Periodicals. pp. 257-272. 2009.No Abstract
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162Immodest Consequentialism and CharacterUtilitas 13 (2): 173. 2001.The fact that we place the value that we do on the traits of character constitutive of being a good friend, and the acts that good friends are disposed to perform, creates a considerable problem for what I call. The problem is, in essence, that the very best that the immodest global consequentialists can do by way of vindicating our most deeply held convictions about the value of these traits of character and actions isn't good enough, because, while vindicating our possession of those convictio…Read more
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114The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2005.Oxford Handbooks offer authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy is the definitive guide to what's going on in …Read more
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78Mind, morality, and explanation: selected collaborationsOxford University Press. 2004.Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit, and Michael Smith have been at the forefront of philosophy in Australia for much of the last two decades, and their collaborative work has had widespread influence throughout the world. Mind, Morality, and Explanation collects the best of that work in a single volume, showcasing their seminal contributions to philosophical psychology, the theory of psychological and social explanation, moral theory, and moral psychology.
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815Ethical particularism and patternsIn Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral particularism, Oxford University Press. pp. 79--99. 2000.
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21BLOM Hans, John Christian Laursen and Luisa Simonutti (eds)British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (4): 833-837. 2007.
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85How not to be muddled by a meddlesome muggletonianAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 75 (4). 1997.Holton, we acknowledge, has given a good counter-example to a theory, and that theory is interesting and worth refuting. The theory we have in mind is like Smith's, but is more reductionist in spirit. It is a theory that ties value to Reason and to processes of reasoning, or inference - not to the recognition of reasons and acting on reasons. Such a theory overestimates the importance of logic, truth, inference, and thinking things through for yourself independently of any ideas about where you …Read more
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12To Speak of Trees: Social Constructivism, Environmental Values, and the Future of Deep EcologyEnvironmental Ethics 21 (4): 359-376. 1999.The power and the promise of deep ecology is seen, by its supporters and detractors alike, to lie in its claims to speak on behalf of a natural world threatened by human excesses. Yet, to speak of trees as trees or nature as something worthy of respect in itself has appeared increasingly difficult in the light of social constructivist accounts of “nature.” Deep ecology has been loath to take constructivism’s insightsseriously, retreating into forms of biological objectivism and reductionism. Yet…Read more
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15Human Dignity and the Common Good in the Aristotelian-Thomistic TraditionEdwin Mellen Press. 1995.This volume compares the writings of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain, and Charlis De Koninck on the dignity of the individual and the common good, topics fundamental to Catholic social teaching.
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166Moral RealismIn Hugh LaFollette - (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, Blackwell. pp. 15-42. 2000.In the past twenty years or so the debate over moral realism has become a major focus of philosophical activity. Unfortunately, however, as a glance at the enormous literature the debate has generated makes clear, there is still no consensus as to what, precisely, it would take to be a moral realist (Sayre‐McCord 1988a). My aims in this essay are thus twofold: first, to clarify what is at stake in the debate over realism, and, second, to explain why, as it seems to me, the realist's stance is so…Read more
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5Valuing: Desiring or Believing?In K. Lennon & D. Charles (eds.), Reduction, Explanation, and Realism, Oxford University Press. pp. 323--60. 1992.