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19Moral truth and moral tradition edited by Luke Gormally dublin: Four courts press, 1994, pp. IX + 246, £35.00Philosophy 74 (3): 446-460. 1999.
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32Metaphysical (Im)mortality and Philosophical TranscendenceRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 65 37-55. 2009.There is a lapidary saying owing to Etienne Gilson, that is often misquoted or adapted – with ‘metaphysics’ taking the place of ‘philosophy’ – and which is invariably reproduced in isolation. It is that ‘Philosophy always buries its undertakers’. Understanding this remark as Gilson intended it is relevant to the issues of the nature of philosophy, and of what conception of it may be most appropriate or fruitful for us to pursue. The question of the mortality or otherwise of philosophy in general…Read more
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39Metaphysics and the end of philosophy – by Howard O. MouncePhilosophical Investigations 32 (4): 384-389. 2009.No Abstract
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144Identifying privative causesAnalysis 71 (4): 611-619. 2011.Next SectionCausation by and of absences, omissions or privations, seems to be implied by common styles of description and explanation. Allowing that absences are actuality-dependent, one may yet maintain that they are ineliminable. Against the idea of privative causes stand the objections that there is no principled way to individuate them, or that any account of their identity is objectionally normative. Here I respond to these objections and provide an account of the conditions for identifyin…Read more
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81Is Every Action Morally Significant?Philosophy 86 (3): 375-404. 2011.One form of scepticism about the possibility ofmoral theorydoes not deny that there is something describable as ‘the conduct of life’, but it argues that there is no special ethical account to be given of this since conduct has no identifiablymoraldimension. Here I explore the possibility that the problem of identifying distinctively moral aspects of action is explained by the thesis that the moral is ubiquitous; thateveryhuman actionis– not ‘may be’ – morally significant. To say, however, that …Read more
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9Intelligence and the Philosophy of MindProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 39-55. 2006.
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44Has Philosophy Made a Difference and Could it be Expected To?Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 48 155-174. 2001.In 1989 Oxford University Press launched a new programme of monographs in moral philosophy entitled the ‘Oxford Ethics Series’. Given that the series' editor is Derek Parfit it is unsurprising that the books published to date feature rigorous analysis and argumentation regarding the nature of reasons and requirements. Perhaps by way of intended commitment to this profile, the following brief statement appears on the cover of the first volume : ‘The books in the series will contain philosophical …Read more
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18Educational Studies and the Map of PhilosophyBritish Journal of Educational Studies 60 (1): 3-15. 2012.No abstract
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7Beauty before Aesthetics, and Aesthetics after BeautyProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 94 27-44. 2020.
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24A subject of distaste; an object of judgmentSocial Philosophy and Policy 21 (1): 202-220. 2004.In recent years it has become increasingly common in the United States and in the United Kingdom for newspapers and other media to expose problematic aspects of the private lives of political figures; or, since the facts may already be in the public domain, to draw wider attention to them and to make them the subject of commentary. These “problematic aspects” may include past or continuing physical or psychological illness, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse or dependence, financial diffic…Read more
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21A Philosopher of singular style and multiple modesRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 87 31-60. 2020.Elizabeth Anscombe was one of the most gifted and productive philosophers of the decades following the Second World War. Her writings present challenges to readers: some of them are very difficult to comprehend while others seem philosophically-minded yet situated outside of philosophy as such. There are also the issues of whether she had a philosophical method and of the influence of Wittgenstein on the manner of her approach. A summary and estimate of Anscombe’s enduring contributions is prese…Read more
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2Some Questions About VirtueIn Elisa Grimi, John Haldane, Maria Margarita Mauri Alvarez, Michael Wladika, Marco Damonte, Michael Slote, Randall Curren, Christian B. Miller, Liezl Zyl, Christopher D. Owens, Scott J. Roniger, Michele Mangini, Nancy Snow & Christopher Toner (eds.), Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect, Springer. pp. 1-16. 2019.So far as Anglophone academic study is concerned, interest in the idea of virtue as a central concept in ethical theory only dates from the late 1950s beginning with Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” but getting its first specific discussion in Georg Von Wright’s 1963 book The Varieties of Goodness in which he writes: “Virtue is a neglected topic in modern ethics”. As the present essay shows, these words became a common refrain through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The rise to prominence …Read more
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7Book Reviews (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 18 (1): 91-102. 2002.Books reviewed: Stuart Hampshire, Justice is Conflict Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics Norman Bowie, Business Ethics: A Kantian Perspective Tae‐Chang Kim and Ross Harrison, Self and Future Generations: An Intercultural Conversation.
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43Recognising humanityJournal of Applied Philosophy 25 (4): 301-313. 2008.abstract Martha Nussbaum's Hiding from Humanity, links the philosophical understanding of emotion with important issues in ethics, law and political philosophy, and engages with empirical material in a manner that provides a model for open and practically oriented moral philosophy. Here I explore four areas in which I believe the discussion now needs to be carried forward. First, the connections between Nussbaum's work and other contributions to recent moral philosophy, principally that of Alas…Read more
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8Learning from Art and History: The Limits of PhilosophyProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 91 39-50. 2017.
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17La filosofia contemporanea della mente e il bisogno di tomismo analiticoIride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 17 (3): 619-630. 2004.
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5Giovanni Grandi , Thomas Reid: Selected Philosophical WritingsJournal of Scottish Philosophy 14 (2): 178-183. 2016.
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31Ethics, Aesthetics, and Practical PhilosophyThe Monist 101 (1): 1-8. 2018.The development of interest among academic philosophers in the aesthetics of everyday life is somewhat analogous to the broader development in moral philosophy of ‘applied’ or practical ethics. This fact is sometimes mentioned but rarely examined and it may be useful, therefore, to explore something of the course and causes of these two developments, in part better to understand them, but also to note blindspots and limitations in certain ways of thinking. In each case these limitations are rela…Read more
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36Being Human: Science, Knowledge and VirtueRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 45 189-202. 2000.In February 1997, following the announcement that the Roslin Institute in Scotland had successfully cloned a sheep by means of cell-nuclear transfer, US President Clinton requested the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to review legal and ethical issues of cloning and to recommend federal actions to prevent abuse. In the meantime he directed the heads of executive departments and agencies not to allocate federal funds for ‘cloning human beings’. The Commission consulted with members of rele…Read more
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61Anscombe and Geach on Mind and SoulAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2): 369-394. 2016.Anscombe and Geach were among the most interesting philosophers to have come out of Oxford in the twentieth century. Even before they encountered Wittgenstein, they had begun to distinguish themselves from their contemporaries, and in the course of their work they moved between highly abstract and often technical issues, and themes familiar to non-academics, the latter aptly illustrated by the title of Geach’s first collection of essays, God and the Soul, and by that of Anscombe’s analysis of hu…Read more
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41Anscombe and Geach on Mind and SoulAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2): 369-394. 2016.Anscombe and Geach were among the most interesting philosophers to have come out of Oxford in the twentieth century. Even before they encountered Wittgenstein, they had begun to distinguish themselves from their contemporaries, and in the course of their work they moved between highly abstract and often technical issues, and themes familiar to non-academics, the latter aptly illustrated by the title of Geach’s first collection of essays, God and the Soul, and by that of Anscombe’s analysis of hu…Read more
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76Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect (edited book)Springer. 2019.The rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objection…Read more
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19Spirituality, Philosophy and EducationBritish Journal of Educational Studies 53 (2): 227-230. 2005.
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230Reality, representation, and projection (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1993.This book is an important collection of new essays on various topics relating to realism and its rivals in metaphysics, logic, metaethics, and epistemology. The contributors include some of the leading authors in these fields and in several cases their essays constitute definitive statements of their views. In some cases authors write in response to the essays of other contributors, in other cases they proceed independently. Although not primarily historical this collection includes discussions …Read more
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4 ‘admiring the high mountains’: The aesthetics of environmentIn Timothy D. J. Chappell & Sophie Grace Chappell (eds.), Philosophy of the Environment, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 78-88. 2020.
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32Knowledge of Oneself and of Others: Aquinas, Wittgenstein and RembrandtPhilosophical Investigations 45 (4): 388-413. 2022.Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.
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22Philosophy in relation to other disciplines exploring human natureMetaphilosophy 53 (1): 3-16. 2022.Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 3-16, January 2022.
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78Intentionality and One‐Sided RelationsRatio 9 (2): 95-114. 2006.Intentional states appear to relate thinkers to objects and situations even when these latter do not exist. Given the concern to allow that thought is a mode of engagement between subject and world, many writers have presented relational theories of intentionality and introduced odd relata to account for thought of the non‐existent. However there are familiar epistemological and ontological objections to such accounts which give reason to look for other ways of accommodating the appearance of re…Read more